A Guardian's Promise

Chapter 12 - Hacked

"Christian!" I squeal. I have never been so happy to see him in my life, and I feel like it would be the only time. Ever.

He seems to agree. "Rose chill. Remember the time you said you didn't like me? I think it was last week, maybe earlier if I recall correctly?"

Dimitri chuckles from behind me. His amusement was only brief and disappeared as he greeted Christian's two other guardians—Guardian Funar and Guardian Sokolov. They were both ordinary guardians. No one ever heard anything bad about their service, or anything amazing either. Just hidden in the background, like all good guardians should do.

We reached my room, and I pretty much full on toss my bag across the room. Guardians didn't carry anything valuable with themselves, besides a phone and stakes, which we always kept on person while on duty, so my bag was safe to be tossed off the 32nd floor if necessary. After I threw the bag, I realise I need stuff from it, so I have to walk all the way over to the other side of the room to retrieve it, heading into the bathroom to change into some black jeans and a tight-fit t-shirt. I make sure to replace my belt to one that would also hold a small handgun.

Handguns weren't entirely necessary and could potentially make situations a hell of a lot worse if things went wrong, plus, they do shit against strigoi. But sometimes they just are needed to control a situation or create a distraction.

"I am going to talk to the other court guardians." I announce to anyone listening upon my re-entry.

But only Christian was listening. "Okay. Do whatever you have to do Rose." He looked hopeful that I could find out something useful to get Lissa back. No matter how much I hated him at times, I wanted to work things out for him. Jill and I aside, he was basically Lissa's only family, and I couldn't let him down.

The walk down to the guardian building was quiet. Usually that would be peaceful, but today it just made me worried. But I breathe a sigh of relief when I spot some of the council's major players hanging around casually. We had to get Lissa back before anyone found out she was missing. She was the one who called all the court meetings, but one of the others could if they noticed the queen 'ignoring things', then they would realise she was missing, write her off as dead, and elect another leader. It was that simple, and that made it even more important to get her back. As long as nothing happened in the meantime, there really wouldn't be a reason for anyone to suspect Lissa was gone. Either way, we could probably manage to write her disappearance off as stuff for college.

The quiet stopped when I entered the main 'operations' room. This was where off duty guardians did most of their office work, and where meetings were held. It was always occupied by several guardians, and was never quiet, but this amount of noise was not the norm. Everyone that wasn't on active guard or ward inspection seemed to be here, and everyone was buzzing around. There was a large amount of talking going on between them. I could pick out multiple conversations, and most of them were about Lissa's disappearance. A few of them noticed my arrival, and eventually the room fell eerily silent. I wasn't trying to be conceited, but I was one of the best newly graduated guardians, and many of the older and more experienced guardians respected and valued my opinions.

I stood there and waited for someone to begin explaining what was going on, and to ask for my thoughts on the information that was already found, but when no one did, I realised they were waiting for me to say something.

"Does anyone know anything useful?" I ask.

I waited for people to start all talking to me at once, but they all stayed quiet, turning their heads towards the back of the room. I craned my neck to see what—or more like who—they were looking at. It was Hans Croft. Hans was the head guardian here at court, and I initially hated him—maybe it was because of the 'community service' he got me to do when I had 'killed' Tatiana Ivashkov.