Secret War

Chapter 11

11

Everything was still in chaos, everyone was trying to get help, people were injured and required severe medical attention. Children were crying and many of the houses were destroyed. "Oh my Roza." Dimitri whispered into my hair as we held each other amidst all the chaos.

"You're finally back, you're real." I cried.

"Good to see you again pal." Aleksandr smacked his shoulder playfully.

"It's a good thing I chose this time to come back. I don't want to know what would've happened if I didn't get back in time." Dimitri shook his head gazing into my eyes.

"We had it all under control." Cain scoffed.

"Glad to see that everyone's fine." I smiled. "What are we going to do with all this damage? Where's everyone going to stay and if we have any deaths at all, how many?"

"We have no deaths and you know the underground tunnels Riya mentioned before? They have accommodations. She'd prepared the entire town you know? She had everything ready in case there was a raid. There's even food and things down there. There're quite a lot of houses still standing too." Zana listed.

"You are becoming quite the leader there Roza." Luka teased and I felt a blush forming.

"Whatever. Has anyone been taken hostage or anything?" I flipped him and all of a sudden everyone tensed.

"K, I can't feel her." Aleksandr growled.

"Who was she fighting?" Konstantin asked.

"Who was who - " then I understood the price of all the Strigoi leaving. It was Riya... "She was fighting Misha. Did anyone else notice how little blood she was taking from the feeders? She knew this was going to happen. She knew she was going to get caught. What does Misha want with her?"

"Damn it! We have to get her back!" Cain howled and was about to take off into the forest but Luka held him, or tried to. Konstantin had to help.

"Cain calm down. Riya is stronger than all of us, she'll be fine." Dimitri reasoned.

"Don't give me that shit Belikov! You don't know what he wants from her!" Cain shouted glaring at Dimitri with such fury I flinched. Cain's eyes were filling with red and he looked ready to hunt down anything and I knew that he was prepared to take down anything in his way.

"Then tell us." Dimitri kept his calm façade but I knew that he was ready to fight if he needed to.

"Misha is a monster." Zana whispered with a shaken voice. "He wanted her entirely. He wanted her as a toy. He wanted to make her his slave. His greatest challenge was to break her entirely. He is only like us because he doesn't feed off humans, but he is the worst monster I had ever seen in my life. He hunts his own kind and gains power from Strigoi blood. Riya knew this; that was why she didn't want to take too much blood. Just enough to help in the fight."

"Damn it she saw this and didn't say anything to anyone!" Konstantin smashed his fist in a nearby wall.

"What do you mean by saw?" I asked curiously.

"It doesn't matter now," Dimitri shook his head. "What matters is that we have to try and get her back. But first we have to deal with this town and restore it."

"What are we going to tell them? If we tell them Riya's gone, everything will fall apart. She was the one who held everything together. She was the one to bring everyone together in the first place. Without her, we don't even know whether the town will still trust us." Luka threw his hands up.

"Have more faith in them." I whispered.

"What?" everyone turned to me.

"I said, 'Have more faith in them.' Have more faith in the town's people. How long have you guys been staying here? Surely some kind of trust has been built. Sure Riya was the one to bring it all together, but it wasn't her alone who brought the trust. It was you guys too, you guys not feeding on them reassured the town that it was possible for Strigoi and others to live in harmony. There is a great family here, have faith in that." I explained. "I agree, some people may feel a little uneasy, but they'll trust you."