I Never Told You I Love You - Complete

Chapter 93 - Are you OK?

The Strigoi spun, facing their enemy standing in the doorway. Light was spilling in through the opening, and Rose could see the Strigoi didn't want to come any closer to her, bathed as she was in sunlight.

"Jesse, Camille walk to the door," Rose ordered, moving forwards just a little so the Moroi could walk behind her and exit the cabin. Shoving Camille out of the way, and back almost directly into the arms of a Strigoi, Jesse made it out. Overcoming their surprise at seeing their prey escape, one of the Strigoi grabbed Camille by the arm, hauling her back into a rear corner deep in the darkness of the cabin.

"Not so fast, Dhampir. One step further and this one dies," it snarled.

Rose had a stake out and was looking around the cabin. The windows had been covered with blankets nailed to the corners of the frame, blocking all light from outside. Not moving outside of the protective sunshine from the doorway, her mind was working overtime trying to work out what was going on. Eventually, she realized the Strigoi must be using the cabin as a hideout of sorts, and the chances were Jesse and Camille had stumbled on them accidentally.

"Camping so close to a heavily guarded campus. Not clever," Rose said calmly, trying to keep them talking to play for time. With any luck, Jesse would be back behind the wards and raising the alarm.

"I don't know," one of the Strigoi replied. "Lots of food close by. We've only been here hours and already caught ourselves a couple," it snarled. Rose was assessing them. One was male, the other female. The male had been human. Unfortunately, the female had been a Guardian. She was going to be hard to fight.

If it hadn't been for Camille, she would have stepped back out of the cabin and called for backup. With the Strigoi unable to exit into the sunshine, she would have advocated for pouring accelerants onto the timber building and incinerating the Strigoi within. If they did kill Camille, that would still be her game plan. But in the interim, she was biding her time, trying to come up with another option.

Looking at Camille, Rose could see she was going into shock. She was crouched in the back left corner of the cabin, watching the interaction between the Strigoi and Rose in terror.

"Are you ok Camille?" Rose asked, trying to get her to make eye contact. Rose had the start of a plan, but she needed Camille calm and thinking in order to carry it out. Camille raised her eyes to Rose's. Rose tried to give her a 'stay calm I've got this' look, but she wasn't sure how successful she'd been. The male Strigoi tightened his grip on Camille's arm, determined not to let her get away.

Rose was trying to think of ways to separate the two Strigoi. If she could dispose of one, she'd have a decent chance of taking down the second. The problem is there was no way she'd be able to do that without leaving the relative safety of the sunlight. Thinking about the light, she looked around the cabin again, noticing through her periphery that the female Strigoi was moving stealthily towards her from the right. If the Strigoi jumped forward and pushed Rose sideways into the darkness of the cabin, Rose would be done for as they'd both be on her.

Appreciating this was the Strigoi's intention, Rose kept pretending not to notice the Strigoi's approach, but in reality, she was poised and waiting. She didn't see the Strigoi's takeoff, but jumped forward as it was mid-air, grabbing the blanket covering a window on the left and yanking it as hard as she could. As Rose had hoped, the blanket gave way, and light spilled through the uncovered window. The cabin was now effectively divided into two halves; the back half still in shadow and the front part also shaded, other than the light from the doorway. However, now there was a wide dividing line of direct light running across the center of the cabin offering Rose a modicum of protection as she stood within it. Neither Strigoi would willingly approach it.