HERE IT IS - The Butterfly Effect has taken over! After the first scene in this chapter, we are no longer in familiar territory. Everything from here on out will be different than the original book.

I apologize in advance for all the book/ culture references in this chapter. I didn't realize I had put in so many while I was writing. I hope I have some Pride and Prejudice fans reading this ;)

I woke up to a hand brushing hair out of my face. The first thing I noticed was sunlight streaming in from the east, casting the tent in a blue hue.

The next thing I noticed was that I was laying on top of Rose. Not completely on top of her, but I must have rolled over during my sleep and curled up next to her. My head was on her chest, moving up and down with her steady breaths, and my arm was wrapped around her body. I didn't move, afraid to burst the bubble. Of course, Rose was awake, and I couldn't just lay there pretending to be asleep for long. She was warm, like sunlight on bare skin. Her hand remained on the side of my face, even as I shifted to look down on her, one elbow holding me up and my arm still half draped across her stomach.

Her eyes were wide with a silent plea. Ever since my transformation, she had been begging me to understand that she still loved me, and that she knew I still loved her. She has this way of getting into my head, of knowing what I was feeling but not saying. And in that moment, I wasn't fighting those facts. Maybe it was that the morning was quiet and peaceful, and the tent offered a sanctuary for us. I think it was that I was finally alone with her, and no one would come bursting through the door to interrupt this time.

We had the privacy I needed for me to spill my guts.

The moment was serene, and Rose was irresistible. I leaned in and took pleasure in seeing her breathing pick up. She was getting excited by me; that and seeing her laying in front of me with her bottom lip caught between her teeth was more than enough encouragement. My forehead connected with hers, our lips only centimeters apart.

It would have been so sweet to kiss her then, but I didn't. Right before I would've brought our lips together, I pictured Adrian at Rose's neck.

I jerked back, sitting up and breaking all physical contact. I brushed a hand through my hair, frustrated with myself. Just like that, the bubble had burst.

After what felt like an hour, Rose also sat up, but I kept my eyes trained on the north side of the tent. I didn't want to look at her then. I don't know what I expected Rose to say, I was fearing she would pursue the kiss. I definitely didn't expect her to say "I'm sorry." It came as a whisper, like she was afraid that I was upset. I couldn't help it, I turned to face her, my guardian mask failing me. "Sorry for what?" I asked, confused.

Rose gave me a small smile, "For being a bitch last night. You're just being a good friend to Ivan. I shouldn't get angry at you for that. He's okay, by the way. He as a guard detail, but he's already in a suite, not a cell. Lissa hasn't met him yet, but she heard news from Eddie." Relief flooded through me. I wanted to ask more questions, but knew that Rose would've told me if she knew anything else.

"Rose," I laughed softly, "Don't apologize. You have every reason to be angry at me."

Rose shook her head. "That's what you think. I was never angry with you, Comrade. For any of it."

My heart skipped a beat at her use of my old nickname. I couldn't come up with a response, so we sat in silence for a while, both of us smiling ever so slightly. It almost felt like sneaking around, but not as nad as what we were about to do a few moments ago. It was intimate even though we didn't make any moves to touch each other.

Before long, the silence became awkward. Finally Rose said, "Can we go somewhere for a shower and food?" I nodded vigorously, happy to have an excuse to get out of the tent.

We shouldn't stay in any one place for long, so we wouldn't stay at the campground. Without having a plan in place, we packed up the tent effortlessly, our bodies in sync as we worked next to each other, not needing to speak to get tasks done. I was still reeling from the almost-kiss, but Rose seemed to have forgotten all about it. Either that or she had gotten better at containing her emotions over the last few months. Once we were all packed, Rose stepped back to survey our work with her hands on her hips. "So," she said brightly, "how are we gonna get out of here?"

"Дерьмо," I swore. Rose pursed her lips to hide a smile; no doubt she'd learned by now what shit is translated into Russian.

We couldn't take the car we'd stolen back onto the road, it had probably been reported by now, and it was too dangerous. I stuffed the camping gear into the trunk of the car and carefully replaced the branches over it to keep it hidden.

"Seems like a waste of time to even pack up the stuff if we're going to leave it here," Rose remarked as we walked up the trail to the campground's office. I may have burst the bubble from earlier, but the haze of the morning hadn't worn off, and we stayed in high spirits.

"We may be fugitives, but we're not the kind of savages to leave a campsite messy for the next person," I teased and nudged her shoulder playfully. Rose laughed, a rich, wholehearted sound. "If we were really good people," she said, "we would have left the chips and peas for the next poor suckers who have to camp." She jerked her thumb to the knapsack on her back, where we kept the food. I had no idea why she brought the peas.

I quirked an eyebrow, "'Poor suckers'? You don't like camping?" I asked jokingly. I knew she considered braving the outdoors to be a pain. She scrunched up her nose, "Not if it can be helped. Wouldn't it be nice if we could hide out in a five-star hotel?" She sighed dreamily for effect.

I laughed, "Somehow I doubt we'd stay hidden for long at the Hamptons."

Rose gave me a sly smile, "Says you! I could make us new identities right now if I wanted. I can hide anywhere, like a chameleon." What can I say? Her playful mood was contagious, so I went along with it. I scoffed at her, "Bullshit."

"No, it's true." She lifted her chin haughtily, "How do you think Lissa and I stayed off the radar for so long? She only had to compel one random Moroi in the entire two years outside the academy," she held up two fingers for emphasis. I shook my head, "So you're saying that you were the mastermind the whole time?" It wouldn't come as a surprise to me that Rose had been the one moving the chess pieces all along. It took me months to find her in Portland, and that wouldn't be the last time she'd manipulated her way out of my reach.

"Uh-huh. I'm like Gone Girl. Don't mess with me, because I'll outsmart you."

I have to give her this; the description actually fit her well. "Have you even read Gone Girl?" I asked accusingly.

"No," she said simply, "but I saw the movie several times."

"Okay then, if you're so good at being on the run, what should our aliases be?" I asked, mostly out of curiosity, but part of me revelled in this game we started.

"Hmm," Rose looked up at the canopy of trees as she thought. "You can't fake an American accent, so you would still need an Eastern European name, like Boris." I cringed at the name. Rose saw this and laughed. "No, you're right. Boris is so stereotypical that someone would figure us out…" She looked at me, studying my face, "How about Ilya? It sounds nice enough. I think there's some famous hockey player named Ilya."

"Ilya," I said, nodding, "Fair enough. What would your name be?"

A sly smile grew on Rose's lips. "I never told you that Lissa and I changed our names when we left St. Vlad's, did I?" she asked.

"No," I said, surprised it had never come up. I would expect someone as open as Rose to tell me this a long time ago.

"We didn't use fake names everywhere we went," she went on. "It was hard not to call each other by our real names in front of others, so we gave up with the fake names after Chicago. In Milwaukee she was Brenda, because she was obsessed with Brendon Urie at the time, and I was Hayley, because of Hayley Williams. But for the most part when we went to different cities, Lissa went by Jane, and I was Elizabeth, like the sisters from Pride and Prejudice." The smile on her face grew wistful, "We actually fought for a long time over who got to be Lizzy and who would be stuck with Jane. Not that Jane is bad." She laughed at the memory, and I found myself smiling at her story.

I didn't peg Rose to be an Austen type of girl, surprising me once again. She turned to me with that beautiful smile on her face, catching me off guard. I looked back at the trail. "Well, I'm glad you won that fight," I said. "You're more like Lizzy anyway. I don't think Lissa could pull off her attitude." Rose giggled, "That's what I told her!"

I had to rub my chin to keep my smile from growing, and before Rose could see it. "So, Ilya and Elizabeth it is. We would need a backstory," I pointed out. "Oh that's the best part!" She exclaimed. She touched my forearm excitedly; a simple gesture that I ended up thinking about for hours after. "We could be co-workers on a business trip," she went on, oblivious to her effect on me. I wanted so badly for her to take her hand off my arm.

Well, no. I wanted desperately for her to keep her hand where it was, and for her to come closer and hold me, to put her other hand on me. To feel her hands travel all over my body, starting with my chest and going down to my-

"No, there are too many loopholes there." She said, her mind on a completely different track than mine. She bit her lip as she pondered. "Hm, what if we were acting partners who're traveling around the country to look for roles?"

It was obvious that she was avoiding the most plausible reason for a man and woman to be travelling alone together.

"We can say we're from Improv Olympic!" I didn't say anything, and she took that as a sign to go on. "Improv Olympic is this acting club in Chicago," she explained, "and since I lived there for a couple months, I should be able to answer people's questions about the area." She dropped her hand from my arm, crossing her arms across her chest and giving me a smug smile, "Our new identities could really work!"

"Sure, as long as no one asks us to act in front of them."

"Hey! I can act!" She defended. I responded with a non-committal "Okay," which I knew would get under her skin.

We had reached the campground's office then. I held open the door for Rose, and she gave me a mirthful look as she passed. "Watch this," she muttered under her breath.

The man sitting at the desk inside the office did a double take when he saw us walk in. I had nearly forgotten the state of our clothes and hair until I saw the shock on his face. He had to be my age, maybe a little older. He was bald, and had ebony skin that shined in the light. His nametag read "Antonio". Rose honed in on her target, stepping forward with a sway in her hips. "Hey there," she said in a low voice, nothing like the giddy woman she had been outside. "I'm Liz. My boyfriend and I took our camping trip a little too far last night, if you know what I mean." She offered him a grin. I believe she called it her 'man-eating grin'.

I'll let you know this; that smile works, every time.

Antonio nodded, his mouth agape. Rose leaned on the counter, her breasts resting on her forearms. "Well, we both forgot our phone chargers and I really should be getting home now." They both laughed, but Antonio sobered up when he looked back at me. He studied me from head to toe. I wore my guardian mask, which would be intimidating to even trained dhampirs, let alone a poorly muscled human. To his credit, he looked at my defiantly, not with apprehension. Rose touched his wrist, regaining his undivided attention. "My mom will freak if I'm gone when she gets home from work. Could you maybe get us an Uber off your phone? We can give you cash for the cost of the ride."

Antonio fumbled with his khaki pocket. "Uh, yeah, no problem! Let me just… get my… here it is." He pulled out a smartphone, and after messing with it for a few moments he looked back at Rose. "What's your address?" he asked. Rose blinked, "Uh. Well, I should probably clean myself up before going home. You know… just in case." She locked eyes with me briefly. I knew she needed help coming up with a passable lie, so I stepped forward, putting my hand on Rose's waist. "You can just have the Uber take us to any hotel that's near a shopping center."

He narrowed his eyes at me, and didn't address me when he spoke. "I thought you said you were going home." he accused Rose, finding her much less attractive with me next to her. Rose smiled, not being fazed by him. "Yes, the hotel is for my boyfriend. He'll make sure I get home after I've changed my clothes." She picked at her torn shoulder strap to display the damage that had been done to her dress.

Antonio wasn't pleased, but he focused on his phone screen dutifully anyway.

"There's a motel across the street from a Walmart fifteen minutes from here. Is that good enough?" he asked.

"That would be perfect!" Rose exclaimed pleasantly, though I could see the slight wrinkle in her nose at the thought of staying in a motel. Growing up with Lissa had given Rose a taste for the finer things in life, and no doubt our escape from Court had been less than luxurious.

"Alright. Your Uber is a white Honda Accord. The trip will be $40 even."

I tossed two twenties on the counter, which made Antonio considerably happier. With my hand still on Rose's hip, steered her out of the office. Rose waved at Antonio as we walked out, "Thanks so much!"

Once outside I took my hand off of Rose and we both started laughing.

"I told you I can act!" she said, punching my arm playfully.

"I'm not sure that was really acting, or just flirting. Besides, what would you have done if it were a woman working?"

"What, you don't think I can flirt with girls, too? Girls like me." Rose flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Oh, and I had no idea your new identity was so generous," she said. "There's no way our Uber costs that much." I stared at her blankly. She doubled over, laughed again, "Ilya, I believe this is the first time you've been jipped."

I hadn't had that much fun since I helped Rose win the St. Varvaras scavenger hunt back at the academy.

I was sleeping soundly when it happened.

But before I get ahead of myself, let me tell you about the motel. As soon as we entered the cramped room, which smelled of mildew, Rose dug through the plastic bags from Walmart for a fresh pair of clothes and scurried to the bathroom for a shower. I pulled back the curtains to let in sunlight, but all that did was highlight the dust motes.

There was the standard desk and chair pushed into a corner, and two beds with a nightstand stuffed in between them. The TV could've been as old as me.

I grabbed the TV remote and sat back on one of the beds, aimlessly surfing channels and finding nothing interesting. There wasn't even gruesome news to become absorbed in. I guess Michigan is just as boring as West Virginia.

I paused on a skit of two friends trying and failing to assemble a bookshelf. They couldn't understand the manual and became more and more frustrated with each other as time passed. The skit made my mind wander to Ivan. I flipped through more channels, but the skit stuck in my head. I'm not sure why it made me think of him, but the two friends tripping over each other and yelling a lot reminded me of our high school years.

I was worried about him, even though Rose assured me he was fine. I wanted to know more details about his situation, though, like if his mother had called him yet, or how he was coping. I realized, even after seeing what Lissa and Rose go through on a daily basis, that I wanted a bond with Ivan.

I never thought I would envy Rose for the bond, but I did want a way to always know where Ivan was and if he was in danger. Of course I could do without being sucked into his head whenever he was with a girl, or having to read his dirty thoughts. And he would probably be sending me crude comments telepathically to "entertain" me during guard shifts, the same way I would receive texts from him during classes at St. Basil's.

Actually, the more I thought about it, the more certain I was that a bond with Ivan would drive me insane. That didn't make me miss him or worry any less. I might have been happy to live life on the run with Rose if it weren't for my best friend stuck at court.

The bathroom door opened, breaking my stream of consciousness. Rose walked out wearing sweatpants, a cotton T-shirt, and her hair wrapped in a towel. She glanced at the TV, the channel I landed on was airing a period piece. Girls in thick dressing gowns danced with men wearing tailcoats, speaking in British accents. "Is this something Dimitri would watch, or are you developing your Ilya character?" Rose asked, sitting on the bed across from me.

I tossed her the remote. "I wasn't really watching it, just trying not to fall asleep." I was struck by the thought that Rose was just as stunning to me in baggy sweats as she was in the sundress yesterday.

"Hmm," she hummed noncommittally, rubbing the towel on her head. "Why don't you go take a shower and I'll order us food," she said, holding out her hand for the disposable phone. I paused, unsure if I wanted to give her the phone. At this point I doubted that she would run away from me, but I was concerned that she would try to call Lissa or someone else and unwittingly give away our location to the guardians.

"There's always take-out menus stuffed in the bedside tables at these places." She leaned over to open the drawer and picked up a red and green sheet of paper as evidence. When I didn't react she roller her eyes. "Don't you trust me?" she asked with a playful smile, but there was a tightness to her lips that told me she was hurt.

I had to decide fast, because the longer I took, the longer it looked like I didn't trust Rose. And I do trust her with my life, but maybe not with my phone.

"Of course I do," I said, and tossed her the phone. Rose would prioritize food over a risky phone call, that much I had to believe.

Twenty minutes later I was still in the shower, and I heard a knock at the motel room door. The hair on the back of my neck raised, and I fought the urge to get out of the shower to check on Rose. I heard voices murmuring, and the the door closed. It took a while for my heart rate to calm down after that.

I got out of the shower and we pulled the desk in between the two beds to use as a table for our food.

We stayed like that for hours, eating slices of pizza and watching various reruns of old shows on TV, checking the news during commercial breaks. We didn't talk much, either, but it was a comfortable silence. For the first time since becoming fugitives, we were relaxed.

The sun hadn't even set when Rose started yawning. The long week and lack of sleep was catching up to us. I turned the volume down so that Rose could get some rest. She fell asleep on top of the covers, so I took my comforter over to her and laid it gingerly on top of her.

She slept for hours after the sun set. Eventually the show I was watching stopped airing for the night, and Pride and Prejudice came on, the one with Colin Firth as Darcy. I recognized it immediately. My mother owned a copy of the mini-series, and I would watch it with my sisters. My mother insisted we watch it in English, not the Russian dubbed version. She insisted that for a lot of movies, hoping that our English skills would improve at home since we only spoke Russian at school.

I considered waking Rose to see if she wanted to watch it with me, seeing as her alias is the main character, but decided she needed the sleep more.

I watched the mini-series with detached interest, but Darcy's first proposal to Elizabeth caught my attention. "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." Darcy was either brave or stupid to say that to Elizabeth, especially considering she had feelings for Mr. Wickham at the time. I wondered if Darcy did the right thing by opening up to her. On one side, he'd told the truth, so there was no misunderstanding. On the other hand, his admission of love put Lizzy in a difficult position, one where she had to hurt his pride to keep her own.

His mistake was to ask for Lizzy's hand, instead of simply telling her how he feels. He should have considered the way she felt about him, but he put his own wants first.

And in all my criticism of Darcy, I realized I was criticizing myself for something I hadn't done yet.

I know that I can't ask for Rose to come back to me. I may know that I love her and she loves me, but I don't know if she wants me more than she wants to be with Adrian. It has to be her choice, like Sydney had said across the campfire to me.

Nevertheless, the proposal remains one of my favorite scenes. Elizabeth had to turn him down the first time, because she didn't like the man he was when they met. Lizzy wouldn't be worth the pain he felt if she'd bent her will and accepted his hand then. The greatest part of their fraught relationship is that Lizzy always stuck up for herself, and everyone knew that Darcy would never be able to take advantage of her, because she was a force to be reckoned with.

Just as Lizzy opened the revealing apology letter from Darcy, Rose rolled over and blinked several times. "How long was I asleep?" she asked.

"About six hours, maybe a little more." She sat up, "Jesus, you should've woken me." I shrugged. Rose noticed that she was under my comforter, so she balled it up and tossed it at me. "Thanks, Comrade."

"That's Ilya to you."

She smiled and glanced at the TV. "Oh, hey, Pride and Prejudice! you really should have woken me." I stayed up to watch the end of the series.

As Jane and Lizzy walked down the aisle to their grooms, I peeked over at Rose to see her smiling at the TV. "Lissa and I love this part." Rose said quietly. She seemed to be in some sort of a trance. "We liked to imagine our own double wedding, even though I told her I didn't want to get married." That came as a shock to me, but it shouldn't have.

"We planned the flowers and color themes, even what kind of dresses we would wear. All that was missing was our own Bingley and Darcy," she laughed.

When the credits started, she changed the channel to a cartoon show that was clearly made for adults. I laid down and let the TV lights flash brightly behind my eyelids, lulling me to sleep.

I didn't get to stay asleep for long. I didn't even get to start dreaming. The sun hadn't risen yet when Rose shook me awake. "Dimitri!" Rose exclaimed, gripping my shoulders. There were tears welling in her eyes. I sat up in a panic and Rose climbed into the bed next to me, she sat on her knees and took my hand in hers. "I was just in Lissa's head," she started, choking up.

"Is she alright?" I asked, more worried now. I squeezed her hand to comfort her.

Rose smiled widely, "Yes! Oh, yes, I'm happy." she wiped a tear from her cheek. "Dimitri, Tatiana's killer just confessed!" she squealed. My heart sunk in my chest, and then immediately went started beating twice as fast. "Really?" I asked in disbelief.

There are few moments in my life that come close to the feeling I felt in that moment, albeit a far cry from getting Ivan back in my life.

Rose bounced forward, nodding frantically, she was basically in my lap now, her energy keeping her from staying still. She held onto me with excitement, electricity pulsing through us. "Hans has the killer in custody, Mikhail heard from another guard and he told Eddie who told Lissa!" she laughed, placing a hand over her mouth and then her chest.

"What happened?" I demanded.

Rose shook her head in wonder. "Lissa doesn't know the full story, but Eddie said that Sydney helped identify the killer… apparently the killer had gone to an Alchemist facility a while back and Sydney's friend remembered him. Sydney's been detained, but Sonya was able to dreamwalk with her and get the description of the killer. But that's not the best part."

Rose gripped my face in her hands, her eyes wide. "Dimitri," she breathed, "Hans called my father and Lissa. We've been pardoned. We're free!"

And just like that, our sacred bubble was back. Just Rose and I, euphoric over our newly found freedom. I gripped the back of her neck and pulled her in for a kiss. She stiffened initially, but relaxed into the kiss, tightening her grip on me.

After weeks of trying to put myself back together piece by piece, like a china doll filling in cracks with glue, I finally found a piece that had been missing, the part of me that completed the man.

Passion, desire, and blinding love burst through my veins. Rose straddled me, bringing our bodies as close as possible. My hands were up her shirt in an instant, craving the heat of her skin. She shivered with anticipation as my fingers trailed the skin of her belly, her tongue fighting for dominance with mine. Her hands were at the zipper of my jeans, tugging it down. I couldn't let her strip me when she still had on all her clothes, so I pulled the T-shirt up over her head.

When we broke the kiss to get her shirt off I whispered, "God, I love you." I didn't realize I had said it until Rose froze. She studied my face for a moment and broke out into a huge grin. "I love you too," she breathed.

I flipped us over and Rose gasped in surprise. I kissed her again, and her hands went straight to my zipper again.

We didn't take our time or move gently. She was being rough, digging her nails into my skin and biting my lips. Well, two can play at that game. I had her pinned down, forcing her to keep still as I fiercely traced my lips down her body.

Her hands were in my hair, pushing my head down. I didn't give her was she wanted until I heard her panting, "Dimitri… please… oh, fuck!"

I was so close to pushing her over the edge when she calmed, her body stopped writhing underneath me and her hands went slack on my head.

"Dimitri… stop," she said softly. I looked up, her pained expression sobered me. She shivered, so I pulled the blanket up around us. "What's wrong, Roza? Did… I hurt you?" She shook her head, her lips pressed in a tight line.

"Is it Adrian?" I asked. Rose flinched, but shook her head again. I was getting frustrated.

"Roza, tell me what's wrong," I pleaded, cupping her face to get her to look me in the eye.

"Lissa just sent me a message in my head," she began, regarding me with pity.

"It's Tasha. Dimitri… Tasha confessed to killing Tatiana."

We got dressed and checked out of the motel, our few possessions in a drawstring bag and duffel bag. We went across the street to Walmart's parking lot to scan the area for a good car to take. Lissa didn't know any more than we did, and I was desperate to get back to Court to sort out this mess and clear Tasha's name.

I found an unlocked Ford Focus and waved Rose over. She ditched the car she'd been discretely studying and jogged to me. "Will you teach me how to hotwire a car?" she asked.

"Why do you want to know how to hotwire a car?" I challenged. Rose crossed her arms in front of her. "Why did you want to learn?" she shot back.

"Good point." I held open the door and gestured for her to get into the driver's seat. I knelt down by her to see under the steering wheel, and directed her hands while she fished out the wires.

After a few minutes of tweaking, the car rumbled to life and Rose clapped her hands together. "Awesome!" She got out of the driver's seat and walked around to the other side of the car.

"Wait, you're not going to drive?" I asked.

Rose cut me a look. "I would love to, but I want to be able to jump into Lissa's head in case there are any updates from Court. I should probably call Abe, too. He can get us information."

And so we were on the road once again. Rose used the disposable to call her father, peppering him with questions, and based on the irritated tone in her voice, not getting good answers. I rested my hand on her knee, she placed her hand on mine, intertwining our fingers.

The sunrise was directly in front of us as we drove, annoying the hell out of me. Rose sighed in frustration, "Yeah… I know… I'll see you soon, bye dad."

She tossed the phone on the backseat. "He said Tasha didn't actually confess, that she was turned in by an 'anonymous source.'"

"The person who framed you would have the same reasons to hate Tasha," I said adamantly. "And you were both outspoken about Tatiana, so you both make good targets."

She squeezed my hand. "I'm sorry, Comrade," she said slowly.

"Don't be sorry. We'll fix this."

"Dimitri…" she hesitated. I grunted in response.

"I don't know if we can fix this."

I looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean?" I asked angrily, turning my gaze back to the road. "Well, Hans wouldn't pardon us if he thought Tasha was innocent. They must have found some evidence against her."

"Sure, but they had evidence against you, too. It's a setup." I said firmly. Rose didn't say anything. I hit the power button for the radio, found the country station and turned the music up to evade the silence. Rose didn't protest the music for once.

For several hours, I simmered in rage. I was beyond reason. I didn't want to believe any of what Rose was telling me, even if it made sense. Tasha never liked Rose, I knew it from the first time they met by the pond last winter. She was nice at face value and even bought Rose gifts, but that was all a show. Tasha was one of the most manipulative people I knew; it was a trait I had always admired as she fought her way through the royal Moroi malee. If anyone could murder Tatianna, and frame another person for it, it would be Tasha. If anyone would want to blame Rose, well, I just never thought her animosity was that strong.

After I overcame the denial, my anger turned on itself and redirected to Tasha.

That didn't make the situation hurt any less.

Rose and I stopped in Cleveland for gas. I leaned against the car as the gas gage climbed higher. Rose left to find a bathroom, when she came back she was holding two steaming styrofoam cups. "Gas station coffee," she held one out to me like an olive branch. I took the coffee, offering her a sheepish smile. "I'm sorry for…" I waved my hand dismissively. "Being a dick?" Rose offered. I sighed, "Yeah. I'm just having a hard time accepting that Tasha could do it."

Rose leaned on me, placing her hands and coffee cup on my chest. I wrapped an arm around her. "I know," she said. "I don't want it to be true either. And if there's a chance it isn't true, we'll fight to get her out."

My heart swelled for Rose. She never like Tasha too much either, so it meant the world to me that she would put those feelings aside for my sake. "Rose, I couldn't ask you to do that for her."

"Then it's a good thing you're not asking."

By now the gas tank had filled up, but neither of us moved. I brushed the hair out of her face and kissed her. She responded to the kiss, but broke it off before any tongues were involved.

"Dimitri, about what happened this morning…" I could see the shame on her face.

I took a deep breath, resisting the urge to roll my eyes at myself for ever being optimistic.

She placed her thumb under my chin and forced me to look squarely at her. "I'm not saying no," she said. "I don't regret it, but last night was a mistake. We were just caught up in the moment, you know?"

Even though it wasn't a rejection, her words stung me.

"If we were thinking clearly, we wouldn't have… you know. I have to do this the right way, Comrade. I love you, but I'm still in a relationship with Adrian. I need to come clean to him and end it before we can be together.

She got on the tips of her toes and pecked me on the cheek. "Let's go home," she said.

Despite the grim circumstances, I knew everything would turn out alright. We would find justice, whether I liked that outcome or not. I took Rose's advice from earlier, about finding the beauty in the small details.

The sun shined down on us, and we had awful coffee to keep up awake; it was picturesque, fulfilling a degenerate type of aesthetic. I couldn't help but smile. For once, we had a plan for our future that would actually work.

Please review!

While writing this chapter, I noticed that we don't know how or when Dimitri found out that Zmey is Rose's father. He didn't know in BP, then all of the sudden Rose is calling Abe her father in LS and Dimitri doesn't bat an eye. So who told him? What was his reaction? I would have really liked to read that scene, wouldn't you?

Let me know what moment or event from the VA series that you wish was written into the books. I'm curious! - thefangirldiaries