Vampire Academy: Last Sacrifice (Dimitri's POV)

Chapter 19

I knew I would get to drive. It was pretty obvious, really. Rose was annoyed at me, but it was better than her ignoring me. She was even more annoyed than Sydney, though, who we'd stuffed in the boot for the need of an extra seat. I'd tried to make the safest seating plan possible: I drove with Robert next to me. Rose was between Victor and Sonya behind us.

"We've got to get rid of Victor and Robert now," Rose murmured to me as we piled our small amounts of necessities in the car, hoping not to squish Sydney. "They've done what we needed. Keeping them is dangerous. It's time to turn them over to the guardians." That was a given.

"Agreed. But there's no good way to do it," I mused. "Not yet. We can't leave them tied up beside the road; I wouldn't put it past them to escape and hitchhike. We also can't turn them in ourselves, for obvious reasons."

"Sydney could turn them in."

"That's probably our best bet-but I don't want to put with her until we get to...well, wherever we're going," I had no idea. "We might need her help."

"And so, we drag them along." How wonderful.

"Afraid so." My mind drifted to how much I hated Victor Dashkov. Turning his daughter Strigoi and trying to kill Roza, putting that lust spell on us... "You know, when they're in custody, there's a very good chance they'll have quite a story to tell the authorities about us."

"Yeah. I guess that's a problem for later. Gotta deal with the immediate problems first." Like telling her the truth, I thought to myself, wondering if that time would ever come. I hid my unease by smiling at her.

"Well, that's always been our strategy, hasn't it?" Strategy being a loose term.

We set off with Sonya giving me some vague directions. I knew she still felt extremely guilty about all this, on top of the Strigoi mess, but I was getting frustrated with the lack of co-operation. The rest of the drive was pretty silence. Robert had fallen asleep beside me. A quick glance behind showed that Rose was in Lissa's head, Victor was probably evil planning and Sonya was staring wistfully out of the window. Sydney was hidden from sight. So that left me alone with my thoughts. Great. I was feeling particularly restless today and found myself absentmindedly tapping the steering wheel or humming along to the music playing quietly on the radio. It wasn't even good music. I didn't even know the words, yet I found myself humming. My mind automatically acknowledged it as something Rose would do, and I sighed again. Why were my thoughts always consumed about her? I bet she didn't think of me this way. She could even be having sex with Adrian in a spirit dream right this moment. Oh God, what if she enjoyed it? What if he was better than me? UGH. I shuddered at the thought of her with him. In fact, I wouldn't like her with anyone else but me. Selfish, I know, but I'm a truthful man. Or, at least, I was. Until I met Rose.

I sighed again. What was wrong with me? I glanced back at Sonya, who seemed to be handing things okay for somebody who was an evil vampire just 24 hours ago. I wondered how she had the mind-strength not to break down and cry. I suddenly started seeing myself as weak. I had these stupid dreams and I'd cried so often, and been so completely inaccessible after being a Strigoi, yet this Moroi woman was handling it better than me. No wonder Rose doesn't want to be with me. I shook of the thought. Noble, Dimitri. Stay noble. Don't steal her away. Don't do anything she doesn't want you to. But I didn't know how long I would be able to keep that promise.