Vampire Academy: Last Sacrifice (Dimitri's POV)

Chapter 7

Rose filled me in on the issue back at Court as we jogged to the motel.

"They what?" I shrieked, as she told me they'd revealed about us. I tried to regain my calm, guardian mask, as she was staring at me in shock. "Sorry. Just got caught off guard."

"They had no other choice. Unless you want to be labelled Strigoi for the rest of your life," she told me slyly. I shook my head and sighed. I was in for even more trouble when we got back, if that was even possible. The motel soon came into sight through the trees, more so because of the flashing red and blue lights in the parking lot. Plenty of people, more than I thought lived in this town, were standing outside, waiting to see the non-existent crime.

"The whole town turned out," Rose said, surprised.

"You just had to say something to the desk clerk, didn't you?" I sighed. Typical Rose.

"I thought it would slow you down." We peered around the side of the building we were hidden behind to see what was going on.

"It's going to slow us down now." As I took in my surroundings, I noticed something useful. "Sydney's car is gone. That's something, at least."

"Is it? We just lost our ride!"

"She wouldn't leave us, but she was smart enough to get out before the police came knocking on her door." At least there was someone we could rely on. I turned and checked out the road. Where would she go? "Come on. She has to be close, and there's a good chance that the police might actually start searching around if they thought some defenceless girl was being chased down." She smirked at my use of defenceless. She wasn't defenceless and everybody knew it.

We started walking out of town, keeping to the shadows so we wouldn't attract attention. Rose was silent the whole journey, which was only half a mile. About ten minutes or so. The air was cool and I relished it. Eventually we saw a CR-V pulled off the road. Rose stalked up and rapped on the window, with me on her heels. Sydney jumped inside the car. The window rolled down and she managed to look very angry, for a human.

"What did you do?" she exclaimed. "Never mind. Don't bother. Just get in." Obviously, she knew Rose. We slipped inside the car and travelled a few miles down a dimly lit road before anybody spoke again. Sydney turned off the engine and twisted around to face Rose.

"You ran, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but I got this-" Rose began, already making excuses for herself. That was probably why she was so silent. Planning something, no doubt. Sydney held up a hand and interrupted her.

"No, don't. Not yet. I wish you could've pulled off your daring escape without attracting the authorities."

"Me too," I butted in, trying to prove how annoyed I really was. Rose scowled.

"Hey, I came back, didn't I?" she defended herself. I raised an eyebrow. I wouldn't say 'came back' would be my choice of words. I was thinking more along the lines of 'dragged back'. "And now I know what we have to do to help Lissa."

"What we have to do," Sydney said, "is find a safe place to stay."

"Just go back to civilisation and pick a hotel. One with room service. We can make that our base of operation while we work on the next plan."

"We researched that town specifically! We can't go to some random place-at least not nearby. I doubt they took down my plates, but they could put out a call to look for this type of car. If they've got that and our descriptions, and it gets to the state police, it'll get to the Alchemists and it'll-" she was getting worked up. I knew how anxious she was, because I was worried too. What if we couldn't survive this? Killed on sight. I also knew just how frustrating Rose could be when she didn't take anything seriously. I put my hand on her arm.