Anna's heart-rate accelerated, it was his mother out there? She bit her lip, the woman was a powerful stigoi... powerful enough to have torn her way through Guardian ranks trying to get to Gunner once before. However, despite her desire to worry for him her Guardian training took the lead. This is what she'd trained for, these are the decisions she had to make. One of them would have to be a distraction and since it was Gunner that Abigail wanted, Gunner was the best suited for the job. That left her with only one choice, protect their friends. Gunner was a Guardian, so was she... They knew the costs when they signed up.... So, despite her fears she nodded at Serena. She was about to tell her she needed to stay in the rear, that Anna needed to be ahead to see the danger coming but the Dhampir girl took off before she had a chance.

Both she and Seb cursed and pelted after her. Anna yanked Seb behind her and ducked under a Strigoi arm to shove a stake into it's chest before shoving her ahead of him again. Serena was safe, obviously the Strigoi had been a little late on their arrival and Serena was fast for a Dhampir anyway. As they reached the car Anna shoved Sebastian inside and staked another Strigoi coming up behind her. "Serena! Behind you!"

Anna practically leapt over the hood of the car and the two Dhampir women faced off with the Strigoi male in front of them. "Serena, get in the car... Get Seb out of here. I'm not leaving Gunner alone but I'm not leaving you two in danger either... Get out of here and if you don't hear from us in an hour send help."

The Strigoi sneered as it paced back and forth in front of them, "How sweet, worried about your boyfriend? Don't he's going to be one of us soon, more powerful than you'll ever be."

Seb, never one to be pushed around, opened the door. "We have to go Serena, Gunner can't hold them off forever and Anna can't be focusing on us all at once."

The strigoi, finally choosing a target, lunged for the pregnant Dhampir. Anna shouted and leaped between them but the strigoi had been ready for that. He caught her arms and hurled her aside like a doll, Anna was back on her feet in an instant.

She leaped on the Strigoi's back, locking her arms under it's arms and around behind it's head, effectively subduing him. "Kill him and get out of here!"