Getting Out While You Can

You're All Mine, And I'm All Yours

Even though Abe visited me, I still felt out of sorts. I hated being in this cell and I hated the situation I was in.

I looked guilty in every way possible.

Abe told me that nobody was allowed to visit me because I was deemed a danger. Only my lawyer could visit me. It just so happened after 'Mr. Rossi' visited me, Abe took over the responsibility of my case. I thought he was joking when he said he was a lawyer a year ago. Guess you need to know the law to skirt around it as he did.

Abe said that he would try to bring me something to do, whether it be a book or a set of cards, but I was going stir crazy. I hated being cooped up, and I could guarantee that the Guardians watching me enjoyed watching my restlessness.

I was the only one locked in this area and after the first night it occurred to me that I was locked in the exact cell that Dimitri had been locked in. It seemed like sick irony, or maybe just karma of sorts.

I tried to stretch out on the mattress and loosen the tightness in my body, but the clang of the doors made me sit up. I winced when the fast movement shot pain through the back of my shoulder. I took a deep breath and waited for the next Guardian to come and gawk at me.

That seemed to be the new thing. I wasn't allowed visitors, but Guardians liked to come and sneer at me through the bars.

Instead, I found someone I didn't expect to see. Ambrose.

"You keep surprising me," I said quietly, twisting my fingers together.

Ambrose nodded and looked to the side, waiting for the Guardian to move down the hall so we could talk in private. He held a silk pouch in his hands and he lifted it to hold it between both his hands.

"How's Tatiana?" I asked.

His face twisted a little bit. "She's in and out of consciousness. A few millimetres to the right and the stake would have killed her."

"But she's alive?" I asked.

"What does it matter to you?!" he snapped looking up from the pouch. I sank back a bit and frowned. I had hoped that he would know that I didn't do this since he helped me meet with Tatiana the first time. But I guess that wasn't the case anymore.

"It does. I didn't do this," I said quietly. My face felt swollen and tender so even talking made it ache even more.

"Right," Ambrose said with a grimace. "Why would Tatiana ask me to give this to you?"

"The pouch?"

Ambrose nodded and turned it in his hands so I could see the crowns emblem on it. "The Diplomatic Pouch. Do you know what this is?"

I shook my head.

"Anything inside this pouch is secret, nobody can look inside of it unless the intended person. It's a crime to look. Why would she ask me to deliver this to you after she put something in it?"

I shook my head again. "I have no idea."

Ambrose tossed it through the cell at me and I caught, lowering it into my lap. I toyed with the purse strings between my fingers. I looked up at him and he stared back at me.

"Open it."

I wiggled my fingers between the ropes and pulled it open, reaching into the bag. My fingers wrapped around something cool and I pulled it out. It was a pendant on a chain. The pendant was beautiful and blue as ever. At a first glance, the colour reminded me of Christian's eyes with how pale it was.

There was a piece of paper in the bottom of the pouch and I pulled it out.

Rose is innocent.

I glanced at the bottom and noticed Tatiana's flourishing signature there.