Time seems to have a funny way of warping around us all. It moves fast when you want it to last forever, and slows to a crawl when all you want to do is get away. Then there are those strange in-between times when you honestly don't know if you want time to move fast, or slow, or stop altogether. At the moment, I seemed to be stuck in that odd limbo where time just seemed to twist around me in a never ending cycle – bringing future fears, horrifying memories, and the anxious waiting of the present all together into one swirling mass of nausea.

Rose's face smiled up at me from the newspaper, looking almost eager, and completely disconnected from the bolded headline above her picture:

Rosemarie Hathaway Charged With High Treason And Manslaughter

I had been staring at her for hours now. Perhaps it wasn't the smartest thing to do. A slow but steady trickle of anxiety grew every time I glanced over the article, and while it hadn't sent me into a downward spiral quite yet, I was feeling hot and restless. That hardly mattered, though. Since Rose wasn't allowed visitors besides her legal counsel, this was the best way to learn how she was doing. I knew it wouldn't tell me anything I truly wanted to hear, but I clutched at it anyway. This paper, and any speculation inside, was the closest I would come to seeing her.

The picture was recent and staged. It was probably the headshot taken for her Guardian ID badge. She wore her hair down, with one side tucked behind her ear. I could see a small stray lock that must have fallen forward just before the shot was taken. Without really realizing what I was doing, my fingers touched the spot as if I could reach through the photo and make it right again. It had become almost habitual at one time, fending off that stubborn lock of hair that always seemed to tease me; if she wasn't constantly pulling it back into place, then I was gently doing it for her. Now, all that was just an image in my mind – a screenshot of the past just like this photo in the paper. None of it was real, at least not anymore. Rose wasn't smiling now, and she certainly wouldn't want me touching her, even if it was to do something as innocent as fix her hair.

A solid knock tore me away from starting yet another read-through of the article that I practically had memorized by now. As I moved quickly towards the door, I hesitated just a moment to pray that he wasn't on the other side. Thus far, I had been lucky enough to not be caught alone with Mr. Mazur. I knew that luck couldn't last forever, but I was willing to hold on to it for as long as possible. Thankfully, there were two people when I opened the door.

"Any news?"

Vasilisa shook her head, but Christian provided the voice for them both. "Nothing yet. Apparently, the Council is being surprisingly quiet on anything really significant about her…" her name was like an unspoken dread over us all that we could somehow hold off if we never said it. "But Aunt Tasha did hear some things about your case."

Honestly, at this point, I was hardly concerned about myself. And the government seemed to agree.

"I guess they're leaning towards writing the whole thing off and calling it a sudden urge, as her former mentor, to protect Rose. Basically, you jumped in before you realized what was happening. Aunt Tash thinks they just don't want to deal with another thing, considering it all. Between the funeral, finding a new monarch and their coronation, and of course, the trial, your case was the easiest to just to ignore."

Sure, getting off easy was probably a blessing. I was still essentially under house arrest, but it was much better than that tiny cell again. At least the guards gave me privacy here and stayed out in the hall most of the time. Especially if I had visitors, like I did right now. Considering I had gone on a rampage less than a week before trying to defend Rose against the Royal Guard, this was much more than anyone could reasonably expect. I had my head guard, Adams, and his avocation for me to thank for that. Still, I would gladly trade that if it meant taking pressure away from Rose's situation.

"Tatiana and I met before she died." Vasilisa looked up at me, eyes watery but still managing to hold back any tears. "That day you sent me to look for Rose. She wanted to talk to me about you. She was ready to publicly announce you as fully Dhampir."

I shrugged. The announcement might have changed some people's minds, but I still would have faced speculation from most. I doubted I would ever completely shed the title of "former Strigoi" in people's minds, especially here in Court. There would always be some who saw me as a monster. There was a small desire to just start my life over without the stigma, but that would mean giving up my oath to Vasilisa for saving me from that horrific state.

Mr. Mazur blew past us and into the room like a tornado. He had that habit. One second all was fine, and then the next, there was a storm. And depending on his mood, he could destroy you completely, or shift his focus just a little and leave you and your life completely untouched. The only way to be safe from his wrath was to hide deep underground...and sometimes even that wasn't enough to protect you.

"We need to get started. They moved up the trial date." He was moving before the rest of us had the chance to process the words.

"Moved it up?" I tried to grasp what he had said. They had already fast-tracked it, giving him (and the rest of us) only about three months to get any evidence we needed. "How long do we have now?"

"Two weeks? Maybe three if we're lucky." Everyone stilled at his words. It was as if the air had been sucked out of the room. "We need to act quickly. I was able to speak to her today and get a little more information, but it's time to make a plan. Vasilisa, can you block her out? It'd be better if Rose doesn't hear any of this. We can't take the chance that she tips off her guards, even unintentionally."

She hesitated. "I can try. I'm getting better, but it's much harder than you'd think. I can't guarantee how long it holds."

I was just about to ask how Rose was doing when Mazur locked eyes on me. "By the way, she does not like you right now."

"I can't imagine why." Adrian slipped into the room and immediately helped himself to my coffee maker. He looked much better today than he had in the past few days, but it was still easy to see exhaustion weighing him down. As he leaned against the counter, waiting for the pot to fill, he rolled his shoulders and closed his eyes for a moment. With how dark the circles under his eyes were, that might have been the most rest he had gotten all day. I doubt I looked much better though, so I didn't comment on it, nor did anyone else in the group.

Mr. Mazur continued, "I gave her one little reminder that you had been in that exact same cell just a week or so ago, and she gave me a glare that would turn Medusa to stone." He almost looked amused by the fact. "She's getting a little antsy in there, that's for sure."

"It's probably driving her crazy." It had nearly driven me insane, being stuck in that small space. I could practically see her pacing as I had, wearing down the same path back and forth across the room, and the thought made me sick. Rose being caged was beyond cruel.

"She agrees. I brought her some things to read while she waits, but she wasn't exactly thrilled to hear she wasn't being released."

I looked at him questioningly. I could imagine Rose screaming at the guards for hours, but I couldn't imagine her actually passing the time with a book. She just didn't read much, at least not for fun. She was just too active to sit and do something like that.

"Did you tell her…" I trailed off, but there was no doubt as to what I was asking.

"Yes." His earlier cockiness drained away immediately. "She didn't take it well."

"I can't believe this is happening," whispered Vasilisa, her arms crossed protectively over her chest. "Poor Rose." Christian pulled his girlfriend in a little tighter. Over his shoulder, I watched Adrian as he stared down at his cup as if it might hold some answers for him. Apparently finding nothing there, he shook his head slowly and took a sip.

"She's strong," he whispered, almost as if he was speaking to himself more than anyone else. "She'll get out of there."

"She will." Mr. Mazur's words seemed to solidify us all. "We're going to make sure of it. It's time for us to move and get ready for plan B."

"Tomorrow is the day."

We were all scattered around the tiny living room as Mazur laid out the final plans.

"Tomorrow?" protested Adrian. "That's my aunt's funeral."

"That will also be the perfect opportunity for us," assured Mr. Mazur. "Guardians are already in short supply with all the extra security needed with so many people flying in for the event, and they expect even more to come in tomorrow. That, coupled with the additional security needed for the actual procession into the church, will mean that they will be spread thin over the entire Court. It's almost a guarantee that they'll be reducing the numbers over at the prison."

"He's right," I confirmed. "Adams told me this morning that I'd be sequestered here tomorrow since most of my detail will be needed for the event. I don't know how many they'll keep on me, but I'm sure the majority will be needed down for the parade."

Mazur looked exceptionally pleased with what I said, and I had an itching sensation at the back of my neck telling me that it was due to more than me simply confirming a theory. He settled back in his chair, staring at me far longer than was necessary, while the others debated just how many guardians would be needed for tomorrow's funeral. I could practically see him plotting right in front of my eyes. The baser part of me wanted to run, but I held his stare until he decided to return to the topic at hand.

"Tatiana's funeral will only provide a small distraction, however. We will need something larger to create the chaos needed to pull this off."

"We could always blow something up." Christian laughed at his own joke but stopped the moment Mazur didn't laugh. Instead, he gave Christian the same terrifyingly calculating gaze he had given me just a moment ago. Christian didn't take it as stoically as I had, however. The moment he realized that nobody was contradicting him, he pulled back and looked towards the rest of us for support.

"I wouldn't be opposed to that," Mazur smiled, making everyone shift uncomfortably.

Lissa jumped in her seat, gripping the edge of the armrest. "There'll be too many people! You can't put them in danger!"

Mazur brushed off Vasilisa's concern with a wave of his hand. "Don't worry, my dear. It'll be a controlled blast. We'll make sure nobody gets hurt."

"They'll be able to tell that Christian was the one that blew it up. It'll be easy to tell if fire magic was used, and they'll immediately pin it on Christian," I interjected. "He's the first one I'd look to. He's too close to Rose for them to overlook the obvious link."

"Don't worry, Belikov. I wasn't planning on using Christian's specialty to do this. I was thinking a few blocks of C-4 would be sufficient. It'd also be much harder to link to anyone here."

I sighed. "And how do you propose we get our hands on some C-4?" The entire conversation was pointless. We were wasting time on things we couldn't pull off without the supplies to do it. It wasn't like we had a few spare bombs hanging around. I doubted any of us could even find something like that before tomorrow. Well, except for…

The realization seemed to hit everyone at once as we all eyed Mazur suspiciously.

"Don't worry," he said, shrugging at everyone's concern as if we all just wanted a cup of coffee and not several pounds of dangerous, not to mention illegal, explosives. "Just leave that to me."

I didn't want to ask any more questions on the matter, and everyone else seemed satisfied as well. Maybe not satisfied. Maybe silenced by the thought of what he was capable of. I caught Vasilisa eyeing him, fiddling her hands as if she was slightly worried about the whole matter. Christian seemed more impressed than anything else.

"So, say you can get the firepower. You haven't mentioned what we'll be destroying." Adrian looked much more blasé about the whole matter, which was odd, considering the fact that he probably had the most investment in this plan. Not only were we trying to break out his girlfriend, we were also trying to find his aunt's real murderer. I was starting to realize that was all just a front for him, though. Just like Rose fell back on her sarcasm in difficult situations, Adrian feigned nonchalance.

Mazur rubbed at his jaw, stroking his beard as he considered the obvious roadblock. "Well, it needs to be very visible, but even I'm not so bold as to blow up the actual church." Several pairs of eyes bulged but returned to normal quickly. Perhaps some of the others thought he was being facetious, but I had no doubt that he would, in fact, destroy the church if he felt it was necessary. He continued after a moment. "How about one of the statues next to it?"

Vasilisa gasped at the very thought and narrowed her eyes. "You can't destroy one of the statues! They're centuries old! They're part of our history!"

He leveled his stare, giving off a dangerous look towards the Princess. I knew that he wouldn't touch Vasilisa, but that still didn't keep me from tensing, preparing to intercept any attack towards her.

"Listen here, my dear." She lifted her chin in defiance, bravely not backing down from his threatening tone. "Yes, those statues are 'precious artifacts,' but in the end, all they really are is stone chipped into a pretty shape to remind us of the past. Rose is flesh and blood, alive and relatively well...for now. Now, does that piece of rock mean more to you than saving your best friend?"

"No." Her admittance was quick, easy, and sure. I knew she meant it wholeheartedly, but I could still sense her wavering at the idea of destroying such a relic. I wasn't thrilled with the idea either, but nobody could contradict Mazur - Rose's life was vastly more important than a statue.

"Then it's settled." The topic officially closed with his declaration, and he resumed his deceivingly carefree attitude. "Now onto other things."

We quickly discussed the strategy of when to create the diversion, as well as how to physically get Rose out of the cell. Mazur noted that the cell seemed to have no real weak points (at least that he could see from his earlier visit) and it was something that I confirmed when he asked if I had noticed anything that would help us there. In the end, we agreed that we'd need the actual key to unlock the door, rather than some other trick.

"We'll need a few more people to help us," I said, still looking over the scraps of paper that had become our blueprint for the jailbreak. "Even if I get to her before people realize what's happening, there could still be enough guards there to make things difficult. You're right, it won't be nearly as packed as it is most days, but there will still be more than one or two men to keep Rose under lockdown."

"The more people who know about this, the more possibilities for it all to go awry," Mazur warned.

"I understand, but I can't take them on alone."

"Why not? You took out half the Queen's Guard, remember?"

I paused, annoyed at his flippancy. "Someone had my back, remember? I wasn't doing it alone." I gritted my teeth, frustrated again that, in the end, Rose had still been taken. "I don't want to take the chance that this goes wrong because I'm not able to subdue them quickly enough. I need backup."

"Fine, but who do you propose? We'll have to trust them implicitly to make sure this all goes according to plan."

"Eddie Castile and Mikhail Tanner." Nobody questioned my choice of Guardian Castile, but they did give a little resistance to Tanner.

"We hardly know him," protested Adrian, with Christian nodding next to him. "How do you know he won't immediately turn us in?"

Again, I was brought back to that lonely jail cell after Mikhail had brought Rose in to see me against my wishes. 'If she were in that cell, wouldn't you move heaven and earth to make sure she was okay?' His question had become a prophecy, and I knew now as I did then, that I would do anything it took to make sure she escaped her sentence. He understood that sometimes we had to sacrifice the 'correct thing' to make sure the 'right thing' happened. I had no doubt that he would help us, despite the illegality of it all.

"I trust him," I said, simply.

"I do too," replied Vasilisa. "He's helped Rose in the past, and he'll help her now."

"They'll be considered accomplices," Mazur noted. "It's hard to create an alibi when you attack Guardians in the very prison someone breaks out of."

Adrian raised his hand a little. "Maybe I can help with that. Some simple compulsion, perhaps, to make them hard to identify."

"You're going to compulse them to just forget that we all broke Rose out?"

"No," Mazur answered me. "Just the two others. You and Rose need to be seen clearly."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry, Dimitri." He didn't look sorry at all. In fact, Mazur looked almost delighted. "We need someone to be our fall guy. That'll be you."

"You can't -" Vasilisa's protest was cut off sharply again.

"We need someone, Princess. He's the obvious choice. He's already considered dangerous and is fairly outcast by the Court. Plus, with his little stunt the other day in the cafe, nobody will question the idea that he'd come to break her out." He grinned menacingly towards me, and I bit my tongue in an effort to keep from reacting. "What are they calling it? A protective urge to keep his student safe? Nobody would think twice about them running away together."

Adrian scoffed at my 'official' motivation for defending Rose, but we ignored him. I knew that my former relationship with Rose wasn't quite a secret here anymore, at least between her friends, but the idea that her father knew wasn't exactly the most reassuring thing in the world.

But there was more to it than Mazur's suggestion of our rather unorthodox relationship. There was something hidden under the surface. Running away with Rose meant staying with Rose.

The thought of being with Rose for so long terrified me. I had just worked up the courage to finally have a private conversation with her. And even then, I was only comfortable being with her the few minutes it took to offer an apology. Honestly, I still wasn't sure I could manage more than that without being thrown into an instant panic attack.

However, I knew that Mazur was right. I had the training to protect her. I had the motive to break her out. Perhaps most importantly, I had the desire to. Even if it terrified me, I wanted to help Rose. Whatever sacrifice that entailed, I wanted to help her.

"You're right. I'm the obvious choice," I admitted. "I'll do it."

Author's Note

Every single thing I have written has been leading up to this.

I've been waiting for this moment for four long years. I've been waiting for this since Vampire Academy: Dimitri's Point of View. Last Sacrifice is, by far, my favorite book in the Vampire Academy series. I once considered writing LS DPOV first due to how much I loved it, but I knew I couldn't. I knew I needed to start at the beginning. I needed to give Dimitri his own journey, independent from Rose's. I needed to develop everything that made him Dimitri – his personality, his emotions, his sense of self – from the moment he saw Rose from that window all the way to those very last moments. He deserved his own story and I've tried my best to give it to him.

So thank you for being here with me as we start the first chapter of this last book because I'm so excited to share it with you.

For newbies, welcome. I have written all the VA books 1-5 and they can be found in my bio. You can also find my facebook page and tumblr there.

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(Small shout-out to Naflower05 for some inspiration concerning Abe and the C-4! Thanks Love!)