EXILED

A/N: This is the sequel to my story Saving Roza. I highly recommend that you read that story first so that this one makes more sense! It is a twist on the ending of Shadow Kiss where Rose gets turned into a Strigoi instead of Dimitri.

Chapter 1

[ROSE]

"Get your goddamned hands off me!" I struggled against two sets of arms belonging to two guardians. But there was no use. I no longer had enough strength to fight them—physical or otherwise. They hauled me out of my prison cell, across the court, to the medical building where I would have my daily re-evaluation.

This had been my daily routine for the past two weeks. I didn't mind the prison part. Locked up, at least, I couldn't hurt anyone I cared about. I'd done enough of that already. I had done things that were unforgivable; things that a lifetime in prison couldn't make up for. I had killed—violently. I had tortured countless people, including my best friend. For that, even death wouldn't be a cruel enough fate. So, yes, I deserved prison. But what I could not deal with were my daily medical appointments.

While heavily guarded, I was poked, prodded, scanned and examined by Moroi doctors who tried to figure out what I was, and what had happened to me. The answer to this 'great mystery' was a simple one—except that most people didn't believe it.

See, I was born a dhampir—a half-vampire—and existed that way for nearly eighteen years. However, a little over a month ago, I didn't survive an attack on my school, St. Vladimir's Academy. I was captured by evil, undead vampires called Strigoi, and they turned me into one of them. I drank the blood of humans. I killed some of them, and turned others of them into Strigoi too. I would have lived forever that way—not that you can call it living—unless someone destroyed me.

My ex-mentor and ex-love interest Dimitri Belikov had tried to do just that. We had had a discussion a long time ago where we both said that we would rather be dead than exist as Strigoi. He took that very seriously, and hunted me down to kill me. He nearly succeeded too. But that's where Lissa came in. Vasilisa Dragomir is a Moroi princess. Moroi are good, living vampires who only drink enough blood from willing donators to sustain themselves. Lissa is the only living member of her royal family, and she has amazing magical powers because she is a spirit user. All Moroi can use magic in some form, but they always specialize in a specific area. Lissa's spirit powers include some very cool things, such as being able to heal and bring people back from the dead.

Lissa was my best friend, which is why she brought me back. Twice. The first time was when we were in a car accident that killed the rest of her family. After that, we had a psychic bond. I was shadow-kissed, which meant that I could tell what was going on in Lissa's head, and even see through her eyes if I concentrated on it. I could also absorb the darkness from her aura that would form whenever she used her spirit magic.

When I was turned into a Strigoi, the bond didn't break. Instead, it morphed into something pernicious for Lissa, because, instead of taking her darkness away from her, I was able to steal the powers of spirit away from her. And to replace it, I had forced my own dark energy into her, leaving her weakened and ill. It was every bit as horrible as it sounded. If it had continued much longer, I believe she would have died. I deserved worse than prison. I deserved worse than death.

Yet Lissa had saved me yet again. I had captured her, along with her boyfriend, Christian Ozera, and another spirit-using friend of theirs, Adrian Ivashkov. I was holding them hostage to lure Dimitri to me. I was planning to turn Dimitri into a Strigoi so that we could be together. We fought, and at the last minute, Dimitri had defeated me. I had died—again—but Lissa jumped in and healed me. When she did, I became a dhampir again, although I was far from my old self.

Today, at my evaluation, I was having blood drawn. Again. What was it with vampires and blood, anyway? As I watched the tubes fill up with crimson liquid, nausea made me feel light-headed. How much of that had I drunk as a Strigoi? I wanted to throw up. Since I hadn't been eating, I had to be given a sack of IV fluids as well. For being so convinced that I belonged to the evil undead, these people sure were hell-bent on keeping me alive. I couldn't eat since I'd been restored. Everyone took it as a sign that I wasn't myself. But honestly, I'd like to see how much any of them would eat if they opened their mouth to bite into a cheeseburger and had flashbacks of chomping into someone's neck. Every single time. I shuddered at the thought.

Finally, a doctor showed up—one I hadn't seen before. His examination was brief. He shined some ungodly bright lights in my eyes, made some notes on a clipboard, and told the nurses that I was free to go.

The 'free to go' part soon became ironic, as guardians took ahold of my arms on either side to escort me back to my prison cell. I didn't resist them this time. I was heading back to safety, where I couldn't accidentally hurt anyone.

As I was dragged across court, sunlight was just starting to appear in the sky, marking the end of the Moroi day. Glancing to my right, I saw two people walking. They were on a different stretch of sidewalk than I was, but they were coming in my direction.

One was tall—so tall that I couldn't mistake him for anyone else. Not that I wouldn't recognize him anywhere. My heart skipped a beat. Dimitri. He was far enough away that I couldn't see the details of his face. The other person with him was female, small and slender with dark hair. Tasha. It had to be Tasha. I felt anger well up inside of me. It must've translated to physical action, because I felt both guardians tighten their grips on me in unison.

I knew I had no right to be upset with Dimitri. He'd shown up three different times to try to see me, and each time I had screamed at him to go away. I didn't love him anymore. I couldn't love him. The way I'd treated him as a Strigoi—that wasn't love. That was unforgivable cruelty. And he deserved so much better. I just hoped that better didn't end up being Tasha Ozera.

We continued walking as Dimitri and Tasha did. We grew closer to them, but we'd be out of their paths before they reached us. I realized that I'd been staring, and I tore my eyes away from them. But I looked back. When I did, I felt Dimitri's eyes on me. I didn't want him to look at me! How dare he look at me! But for a second our gazes locked. They were close enough now that I could make out their faces. Tasha was talking, oblivious. Dimitri, I could tell, had stopped listening. His eyes followed me, his expression blank. But I knew there was pain under that mask—pain that I had inflicted.

A second later, we moved farther along, and I he was no longer within my eyesight. I immediately felt myself go numb. It was the reaction I'd grown to have to him since I'd been restored—like an automatic safety net, to save myself from feeling any more pain.

Shortly thereafter, I was deposited back into my cell. Home sweet home. I stretched out on my sparse bed. It was too late for anyone to visit me anymore today, for which I was grateful. My old friends liked to turn up and try to talk to me sometimes. I was frustrated that they would expose themselves to such danger. I usually scared them off with my shouting. It wasn't doing much to clear my name, but it kept them off my back. Sometimes.

I rarely ever slept. I struggled to even fall asleep. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the faces of the ones I had murdered—the Strigoi I had created. When I actually did sink into sleep, I had nightmares. They were mostly memories of the inexcusable things I had done. I would wake, sweating and shaking, wishing that Lissa would have just let me die.

In the old days, I would've slipped into Lissa's mind to distract myself in order to fall asleep. But now, I barely ever did so. The bond had harmed her so much when I'd been a Strigoi. Who was to say that it couldn't still hurt her now? I wasn't taking that risk. I'd only check in, ever so briefly, once in a while, to make sure she was safe.

However, I hadn't really slept in about three days, so sleep found me relatively quickly that night. And I instantly felt myself being pulled into a dream. Not a nightmare—but a spirit dream.

We were in a beautiful field full of flowers. The sun's rays fell brightly from overhead. And there was Adrian before me, just the same as ever, green eyes shining, lips curved into a smile. I think he was trying to overcompensate by making everything so bright and happy looking. It was a little disgusting.

"Hi, little dhampir," he greeted me the same as usual.

"Or am I?" I commented sarcastically.

"Of course you are," he replied. "People are just being paranoid and ridiculous. They'll come around soon enough."

"I don't even know what I am anymore." There was an awkward silence for a moment.

"Your aura looks just like normal again," Adrian offered, hoping that would make me feel better. I shook my head.

"Why are you here, Adrian?" I asked, feeling irritated.

"Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but you're a little difficult to talk to you when you're awake." I recalled how I'd ripped off my shoe and flung it at him the last time he'd come to visit. "Plus, I know you're having trouble sleeping. I thought that if you were here, at least you wouldn't be having nightmares." Well, that was nice of him I guessed.

"Thanks," I said tentatively, after a moment. We stood in silence. Something about Adrian had changed. I couldn't quite place it. But something was off. Of course, I was different too. No wonder he wasn't still acting ridiculously attracted to me. I was glad of that for a number of reasons.

"I think you should talk to Belikov," Adrian said hesitantly, after a moment. I shook my head.

"Adrian, there's no way to fix this."

"Rose, you haven't even tried."

"Because I don't want to hurt any of you more than I already have."

"But you are hurting everyone more. Rose, when you were restored they were all so excited. They couldn't wait to have you back. And now. Well, you don't have to see the look in Lissa's eyes every day after she leaves from her visit with you. You don't have to see her cry."

"I almost killed her, Adrian."

"You're killing her now."

"I'm protecting her. I'm protecting all of you."

"From what, Rose?"

"From me." My voice broke. "Please, just let me out of here."

"No, don't start that again. You can't run away forever."

"Why not?" I snapped. "Besides, it's obvious that Dimitri's already moved on. I saw him chatting it up with Tasha Ozera earlier. And since when do you encourage me to talk to Dimitri, anyway?"

"A lot of things have changed, Rose. Maybe you would know that if you ever made any sort of effort to get out of your jail cell." He raised his voice slightly and I could tell he was trying to hold back from getting angry. "And Dimitri isn't interested in Tasha. Believe me. If there's one thing that I learned while you were… gone… it's that that man loves you more than life itself. He gave up everything, Rose. Literally everything. He has no job, no place to live, they took away his guardianship…"

"Stop!" I demanded.

"You need to face reality, Rose. You're being selfish."

"How am I selfish? I'm staying out of everyone's way and that's selfish?"

"We miss you! Lissa risked her life to save you. She would have done anything if there was even the slightest chance that it might bring you back. And you repay her by treating her like shit?" Adrian was yelling now. I couldn't take this.

"And I never asked to be saved!" I screamed. "She should have let me die!" I wanted to escape this dream, but apparently Adrian wanted out just as badly. I saw his green eyes glaring at me as they dissolved away. He was beyond pissed. So was I. Everyone couldn't just sit around and act like the last two months had never happened. I'd spent that time hunting them—trying to kill them, or awaken them. And now they all wanted me around 24/7? They were dumber than I'd ever expected any of them to be. Keeping them protected was going to be hard work.