Chapter 6

I woke up in my hotel room. In bed. In pain. Everything hurt. Having a shower and getting changed was torture. The water kept hitting the bruise on my back from last night when someone took a baseball bat to it.

With a sigh I joined Matt in the cafe area of the inn drinking coffee and studying a map. Zoe and Ali were still in bed

"Coffee?" A pleasant voice asked me.

"Caffeinated please." I answered. I was in no mood to be nice.

"Hey Matt." I greeted. He looked up and smiled.

"Hi Rose. Want to hear a joke?" He asked.

"No." He was going to tell me anyway.

"There are 3 friends named Somebody, Nobody and Crazy. One day Somebody killed Nobody. Crazy is going to the police to report the incident.

Crazy: Hey! Hey! I saw Somebody killed Nobody!

Police: Huh? Are you Crazy?

Crazy: Yes! How did you know?" He smiled at the joke. As did I.

"Thanks for that." I said before putting my head on the table. You know that you are tired when the table feels like your bed.

I sat up and leaned back on my chair. Then I shivered as I felt ice slowly make its way down my back. I crossed my arms. The fine hairs on the back of my neck and arms stood up.

"Rose?" Matt asked with a look of worry on his face. "What's wrong."

"Someone has just walked over my grave." I said. That is what my grandmother used to say whenever we got shivers like this. Matt looked around. I took a long drink of my coffee.

I saw a dark shadow outside.

I walked Rose back to her room so that she could get some more sleep. I had just entered my room when I heard footsteps. And breathing. A little too close for comfort. Like someone was in the room with me.

I turned and rushed to the door. Then I found that I could not leave. A man was in the was a big guy. A huge was covered in tattoos and bald with huge muscles! I am so dead! I opened my mouth to call for help but he put a gun to my head.

"Now, you are going to go nextdoor, tell everyone that you will be going out for a while and walk back in here. Now!" He growled.

"No." I said. I sounded way more confident than I felt. He smirked as he reached for something on his belt. A whip. Oh god. He struck me with it and I fell. As I fell he hit me a second time. He stood above me. Once more and I would die...

He held his arm up high, ready to finish me off. It came down but in slow motion. The pain and my surroundings disappeared. I knew that my life was great because I was prepared to cry and beg to keep it.

"Yes you will!" He growled. Not if he killed me!

Instead of hitting me, it wrapped around a slender, female wrist. The wrist tugged at the whip and the handle came into her hand. As I watched the whip left her wrist leaving some blood behind. Both hers and mine. Looking down at myself I could see that I was bleeding. A lot. I was going to kiss this insane woman.

"Is he now?" Rose was leaning against the wall looking like she could stand there all day. Or she would if she didn't lose her temper first. Her eyes stared unblinking and were staring straight at man. How did she get in here?!

She looked scary. Though not as scary as the guy with a gun. But she did lean over to stop a whip from hurting me and did not seem to feel it so... It was time for me to wet my pants.

"I warned you." She said softly as she sounded like she was purring. Somehow I just knew for a fact that she was just growling softly.

"I told you that if you ever hurt any of them again that you wold have nowhere to run." Her voice was deadly calm but her grey coloured eyes had sparks of black in them. One wrong move and there would be chaos. Who did he hurt?

"I have not hurt them you little...!" The started to yell but never finished. That was the one wrong move.

Before I could blink, he was on the ground. Rose had one hand on his chest. I couldn't see her face bad it must have been bad because the man looked terrified. Then he looked angry.

All I knew was that he threw Rose off of him, there were a whole lot of punches and fight movements that just looked like hollywood effects. Only this was real. Then there was a bang.

Rose was in a pool of blood struggling to get up. The man was dead.

I ran over to Rose to help her up. Picking her up I placed her on the couch. Before I could run for help she took my hand.

"I'm fine." She said before I could ask. She was not fine. She was pale, bleeding, cut, bruised and most surely not fine.

"Liar." I said softly as I wrapped her in my arms protectively.

It was not long before Ali came through. She took Rose through to her room and ushered her into the shower before coming back and cleaning up. The blood came out of the blue carpet just fine. Athough some spots did look darker than others.

I washed up and got changed. The marks from the whip were not deep and Ali bandaged them up well enough. Rose's blood was on my top. I threw it into the bin. I did not want a constant reminder of Rose being hurt. Leaving the bathroom I looked around. Nothing looked out of place. I had no idea what happened to the body.

I walked through to cheak on Rose. She was walking around in a top and shorts as she brushed her long, wet hair. If I did not know any better I would say that she was younger than me.

"Hey Matt, are you okay?" She asked as she came over to hug me.

"I am not the one who took a beating." I said as I took her hand into mine. I lifted it to my face and inspected the wound. The whip had left a perfect circle on her. It was read an inflamed but not infected. It was probibly the shower that did that. I kissed it softly. Rose smiled gently at me but the smile did not reach her eyes. She was in pain. I felt terrible. I should have let him kill me and spared her the pain.

"God I'm so tired." Rose sighed. She sat down on a chair and closed her eyes. She was really pale with bags under her eyes. I sat down beside her and we both fell asleep. It had been a long day and it was barley the afternoon.

We were all lined up outside the nightclub. None of us wanted to be here since we kept being attacked but Ali insisted. Tomorrow we would go and see Harry and start our new case. I could not wait. The bouncer outside looked for the name 'Blossom' but came up blank. That was when Rose stepped forward and asked for 'Moon'. He found it a second later.

To say that we were all confused was an understatement. The music was too loud. The bass made the floor vibrate. The flashing lights gave me a headache. Ali danced onto the dancefloor. She was not the best dancer - or even a good dancer - but she was having fun so it did not matter as people went to dance beside her.

I made a bee line for the bar.

"Hard night?" Zoe asked me.

"More like hard morning." I answered.

"Rose took one look at the place then left. She said something about feeling sick." Zoe informed me.

"She faces Ali's wrath alone." I told her.

"Are you going after her?"

"Yes."

"Because you love her or because you really don't want to be here?" That shocked me.

"Both?" It depended on what Zoe meant by 'love'.

Zoe walked away. Then she paused, turned and walked back to me.

"Look at the dance floor." She sounded shocked.

I turned to see Rose with about five people dancing. For someone who hated dance clubs - she had moves. The rest of us looked off as we danced but after some drinks - or a lot - we loosened up.

"Having fun?" Rose had danced into our group and yet again we stood out. Her movements were so fluid and graceful.

"Do you want to leave?" I asked. She nodded. We all left. It was a good night and would leave us all refreshed for our work tomorrow. At least no one had tried to kill us.