I wanted to mention this on my latest post, but thank you to the people who kept commenting on the chapters and following my story on the year and a half (yikes) I kept this on hiatus. Thank you very much for your support!

Chapter 16

RPOV

After we come out of the house, I noticed that Lissa, Christian and Lila are already in the car waiting for us. The mood is serious for the first hour of travelling, all of us lost in our own thoughts. Once we are near the prison, we make a quick stop where Lila hides in the back of the car so she is not seen as we go through the front door of the prison. She will stay in the car so she's ready to drive us out in case we need to make a fast exit. Plus, it is easier to get 4 people into a prison than 5.

"Show time" – Cristian said as they neared the prison.

After approaching the main gate, Dimitri hands in newly forged documents detailing how we are very important lawyers requested by Viktor to help him prepare an appeal for his case. I guess that even in Moroi society convicted felons have the right to an appeal. The guard looks at the documents for a few moments, but a few words from Lissa lazed with compulsion and he has no problem on letting us in.

The walk into the office is reltively easy. Tasarov also has elected to have wards around the perimeter, and though I am not thrown out of catch on fire, the same heavy, walking trough fog sensation I had at the Royal Court comes back. As we make it to the office, I notice the Guardians inside are a little nervous. They ask us to seat and wait and I notice one of them goes into the back office and appears to call the Warden. I keep my face neutral as I try to calm down, breath in, breath out.

After a few minutes, the warden, a dhampir that appears to be in his mid-forties, comes out and gives us once over before approaching our group. Dimitri and Christian are posted on either side of me and Lissa, appearing to survey the area like trained guardians sworn to protect us.

"Miss May, we did not know that you and your associate would be coming today." The warden says shaking hands with Lissa and then me. "I'm Guardian Grey, the Warden here. Unfortunately, Mr. Dashkov has been placed in solitary confinement and is not able to receive visitors."

"A pleasure to meet you Guardian Grey. I am sorry this is short notice, but it is imperative we talk to our client. His appeal date has been moved and we need to talk to him regarding some important matters". Lissa said. "Surely you can make an exception?"

"I am afraid rules are rules, and we are not able to by pass them for just anyone." Guardian Grey responded. All he said seemed reasonable enough, but there was something that seemed off. Like how he kept looking towards the door, like he could not wait to be rid of us, or how one of the guardians by the reception kept fidgeting and looking out way.

"Well I am sure we can work something out. What if we talked in your office, perhaps we could work something out?" I said stepping in. If this guy was not going to help us, then I was going to need to use some persuasion, and the least amount of witnesses to my abilities, the better.

"Sure, right this way" the warden said, ushering us to his office, which was past the main building. We had to be pat down before going past the main reception. As Dimitri and Chistian left their stakes at the entrance, I thought it funny how the most dangerous weapon was myself, yet the guardian focused on the bigger more dangerous looking guardians instead.

As we got into his office, Guardian Grey just turns and says. "Look, as I said before, we are not able to get you access to Mr. Dashkov, so you will just have to come back at a later date."

"When do you suppose he will be able to get visitors again?" I said, loosing my patience by the second.

"Well that depends really, I would think it would be better for you to call ahead next time…" Guardian Grey trails off, clearly uncomfortable. And at this point I've had enough of his non-answers.

"Okay look guardian Grey," I say, grabbing him by the collar of his dress shirt. He looks surprised by the strength behind my grip, and does not immediately tries to break free. "We do not have time to waste here, so either take us to him or tell us what the hell has you so nervous that you won't let us see him. Now." I put in a good deal of compulsion for good measure to my words, my eyes not wavering from his gaze. He gulps, seeming to be having an internal fight with himself before my power wins out and he starts talking.

"Okay, okay, look" the warden finally speaks. "He escaped okay?, but we would have lost our jobs, you need to understand, Tarasov is supposed to be the safest prison, no one has ever escaped. And no one can figure out how he did it. So we decided to continue the search for him quietly, without letting anyone know that he had escaped. We said he was in solitary confinement and switched feeder schedules around so no feeder was ever scheduled to pay him a visit."

"Well unless you want this dirty secret of yours out in the open you'll tell us what you know about his current whereabouts." – Christian says menacingly, getting close to him.

The warden seemed conflicted as to what to do, so I decided to chip in.

"Look, we don't really care about him, heck, after we find him we'll make sure he is returned to this place, but we do care about another person he is probably with, or at least in contact with up until recently. So if you give us the information it will be in both of our benefits. – I laced my words with a little compulsion to persuade him further. We would have to use force if they still didn't cooperate but I would rather not hurt anyone else if I could help it.

"Okay" Guardian Grey says. "I can give you his latest whereabouts. We were actually close to catching him about a week ago, but somehow he escaped the guardians that were chasing him." He turned to his desk and pulled a surveillance video from his laptop.

"We were able to get this security footage from a store opposite to where the guardians saw Viktor. It seemed he was hiding out in an old apartment building in New York." In the video Viktor and another person appeared to be caught between the guardians and the alleyway of a store in downtown Manhattan. And suddenly, the person next to Viktor seems to say something to the guardians, and Viktor and his companion just walk past the guardians while they just stand there.

"We interrogated the guardians afterwards, tried to figure out if they were paid to let Viktor go, but were not able to find any money trails or other incentives for them to do such a thing." Guardian Grey continued.

I had a pretty good idea of what had happened, and moreover, now we had confirmation that, as of a week ago at least, Robert Doru and Viktor Dashkov were together, and in New York City.

Finally, it seems like we were making some progress in the hunt for this cure.