Vampire Academy Part 11

"Be quiet," he snapped, leaning down so that we were at eye level. "A janitor saw you and reported it. Do you have any idea how stupid this was?"

"I know, I know, the whole probation thing, right?"

"Not just that. I'm talking about the stupidity of getting in that kind of situation in the first place."

"I get in that kind of situation all the time, Comrade. It's not a big deal." Anger replaced my fear. I didn't like being treated like a child.

"Stop calling me that. You don't know even know what you're talking about."

"Sure I do. I had to do a report on Russia and the R.S.S.R. last year."

"U.S.S.R. And it is a big deal for a Moroi to be with a dhampir girl. They like to brag."

"So?"

"So?" he looked disgusted. "So don't you have any respect? Think about Lissa. You make yourself look cheap. You live up to what a lot of people already think about dhampir girls, and it reflects back on her. And me."

"Oh, I see. Is that what this is about? Am I hurting your big, bad male pride? Are you afraid I'll ruin your reputation?"

"My reputation is already made, Rose. I set my standards and lived up to them long ago. What you do with yours remains to be seen." His voice hardened again. "Now get back to your room-if you can manage it without throwing yourself at someone else." "Is that your subtle way of calling me a s.l.u.t?"

"I hear the stories you guys tell. I've heard stories about you."

Ouch. I wanted to yell back that it was none of his business what I did with my body, but something about the anger and disappointment on his face made me falter. I didn't know what it was. "Disappointing" someone like Kirova was a non-event, but Dimitri?...I remembered how proud I'd felt when he praised me the last few times in our practices. Seeing that disappear from him...well, it suddenly made me feel as cheap as he'd implied I was.

Something broke inside of me. Blinking back tears, I said, "Why is it wrong to...I don't know, have fun? I'm seventeen, you know. I should be able to enjoy it."

"You're seventeen, and in less than a year, someone's life and death will be in your hands." His voice still sounded firm, but there was a gentleness there too. "If you were human or Moroi, you could have fun. You could do things other girls could."

"But you're saying I can't."

He glanced away, and his dark eyes went unfocused. He was thinking about something far away from here. "When I was seventeen, I met Ivan Zeklos. We weren't like you and Lissa, but we became friends, and he requested me as his guardian when I graduated. I was the top student in my school. I paid attention to everything in my cla.s.ses, but in the end, it wasn't enough.

That's how it is in this life. One slip, one distraction..." He sighed. "And it's too late."

A lump formed in my throat as I thought about one slip or one distraction costing Lissa her life.

"Jesse's a Zeklos," I said, suddenly realizing Dimitri had just thrown around a relative of his former friend and charge.

"I know."

"Does it bother you? Does he remind you of Ivan?"

"It doesn't matter how I feel. It doesn't matter how any of us feel." "But it does bother you." It suddenly became very obvious to me. I could read his pain, though he clearly worked hard to hide it. "You hurt. Every day. Don't you? You miss him."

Dimitri looked surprised, like he didn't want me to know that, like I'd uncovered some secret part of him. I'd been thinking he was some aloof, antisocial tough guy, but maybe he kept himself apart from other people so he wouldn't get hurt if he lost them. Ivan's death had clearly left a permanent mark.

I wondered if Dimitri was lonely.

The surprised look vanished, and his standard serious one returned. "It doesn't matter how I feel. They come first. Protecting them."

I thought about Lissa again. "Yeah. They do."

A long silence fell before he spoke again.

"You told me you want to fight, to really fight. Is that still true?"

"Yes. Absolutely."

"Rose...I can teach you, but I have to believe you're dedicated. Really dedicated. I can't have you distracted by things like this." He gestured around the lounge. "Can I trust you?"

Again, I felt like crying under that gaze, under the seriousness of what he asked. I didn't get how he could have such a powerful effect on me. I'd never cared so much about what one person thought. "Yes. I promise."

"All right. I'll teach you, but I need you strong. I know you hate the running, but it really is necessary. You have no idea what Strigoi are like. The school tries to prepare you, but until you've seen how strong they are and how fast...well, you can't even imagine. So I can't stop the running and the conditioning. If you want to learn more about fighting, we need to add more trainings. It'll take up more of your time. You won't have much left for your homework or anything else. You'll be tired. A lot."

I thought about it, about him, and about Lissa. "It doesn't matter. If you tell me to do it, I'll do it." He studied me hard, like he was still trying to decide if he could believe me. Finally satisfied, he gave me a sharp nod. "We'll start tomorrow"

Ten

"EXCUSE ME, MR NAGY? I CANT really concentrate with Lissa and Rose pa.s.sing notes over there."

Mia was attempting to distract attention from herself-as well as from her inability to answer Mr. Nagy's question-and it was ruining what had otherwise been a promising day. A few of the fox rumors still circulated, but most people wanted to talk about Christian attacking Ralf. I still hadn't cleared Christian of the fox incident-I was pretty sure he was psycho enough to have done it as some crazy sign of affection for Lissa-but whatever his motives, he had s.h.i.+fted the attention off her, just as he'd said.

Mr. Nagy legendary for his ability to humiliate students by reading notes aloud, homed in on us like a missile. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the note away, and the excited cla.s.s settled in for a full reading. I swallowed my groan, trying to look as blank and unconcerned as possible. Beside me, Lissa looked like she wanted to die.

"My, my," he said, looking the note over. "If only students would write this much in their essays. One of you has considerably worse writing than the other, so forgive me if I get anything wrong here." He cleared his throat. "'So, I saw J last night,' begins the person with bad handwriting, to which the response is, 'What happened,' followed by no fewer than five question marks. Understandable, since sometimes one-let alone four-just won't get the point across, eh?" The cla.s.s laughed, and I noticed Mia throwing me a particularly mean smile. "The first speaker responds: 'What do you think happened? We hooked up in one of the empty lounges.'"

Mr. Nagy glanced up after hearing some more giggles in the room. His British accent only added to the hilarity.

"May I a.s.sume by this reaction that the use of 'hook up' pertains to the more recent, shall we say, carnal application of the term than the tamer one I grew up with?" More snickers ensued. Straightening up, I said boldly, "Yes, sir, Mr. Nagy. That would be correct, sir." A number of people in the cla.s.s laughed outright.

"Thank you for that confirmation, Miss Hathaway. Now, where was I? Ah yes, the other speaker then asks, 'How was it?' The response is, 'Good,' punctuated with a smiley face to confirm said adjective. Well. I suppose kudos are in order for the mysterious J, hmmm? 'So, like, how far did you guys go?' Uh, ladies," said Mr. Nagy, "I do hope this doesn't surpa.s.s a PG rating. 'Not very. We got caught.' And again, we are shown the severity of the situation, this time through the use of a not-smiling face. 'What happened?' 'Dimitri showed up. He threw Jesse out and then b.i.t.c.hed me out.'"

The cla.s.s lost it, both from hearing Mr. Nagy say "b.i.t.c.hed" and from finally getting some partic.i.p.ants named.

"Why, Mr. Zeklos, are you the aforementioned J? The one who earned a smiley face from the sloppy writer?" Jesse's face turned beet red, but he didn't look entirely displeased at having his exploits made known in front of his friends. He'd kept what had happened a secret thus far- including the blood talk-because I suspected Dimitri had scared the h.e.l.l out of him. "Well, while I applaud a good misadventure as much as the next teacher whose time is utterly wasted, do remind your 'friends' in the future that my cla.s.s is not a chat room." He tossed the paper back on to Lissa's desk. "Miss Hathaway, it seems there's no feasible way to punish you, since you're already maxed out on penalties around here. Ergo, you, Miss Dragomir, will serve two detentions instead of one on behalf of your friend. Stay here when the bell rings, please."

After cla.s.s, Jesse found me, an uneasy look on his face. "Hey, um, about that note...you know I didn't have anything to do with that. If Belikov finds out about it...you'll tell him? I mean, you'll let him know I didn't-"

"Yeah, yeah," I interrupted him. "Don't worry, you're safe." Standing with me, Lissa watched him walk out of the room. Thinking of how easily Dimitri had thrown him around-and of his apparent cowardice-I couldn't help but remark, "You know, Jesse's suddenly not as hot as I used to think."

She only laughed. "You'd better go. I've got desks to wash."

I left her, heading back for my dorm. As I did, I pa.s.sed a number of students gathered in small cl.u.s.ters outside the building. I regarded them wistfully, wis.h.i.+ng I had the free time to socialize.

"No, it's true," I heard a confident voice say. Camille Conta. Beautiful and popular, from one of the most prestigious families in the Conta clan. She and Lissa had sort of been friends before we left, in the uneasy way two powerful forces keep an eye on each other. "They, like, clean toilets or something."

"Oh my G.o.d," her friend said. "I'd die if I was Mia."

I smiled. Apparently Jesse had spread some of the stories I'd told him last night. Unfortunately, the next overheard conversation shattered my victory.

"-heard it was still alive. Like, twitching on her bed."

"That is so gross. Why would they just leave it there?"

"I don't know. Why kill it in the first place?"

"You think Ralf was right? That she and Rose did it to get kicked-"

They saw me and shut up.

Scowling, I skulked off across the quadrangle. Still alive, still alive.

I'd refused to let Lissa talk about the similarities between the fox and what had happened two years ago. I didn't want to believe they were connected, and I certainly didn't want her to either.

But I hadn't been able to stop thinking about that incident, not only because it was chilling, but because it really did remind me of what had just happened in her room. We had been out in the woods near campus one evening, having skipped out on our last cla.s.s.

I'd traded a pair of cute, rhinestone-studded sandals to Abby Badica for a bottle of peach schnapps-desperate, yes, but you did what you had to in Montana-which she'd somehow gotten hold of. Lissa had shaken her head in disapproval when I suggested cutting cla.s.s to go put the bottle out of its misery, but she'd come along anyway. Like always.

We found an old log to sit on near a sc.u.mmy green marsh. A half-moon cast a tiny sliver of light on us, but it was more than enough for vampires and half-vampires to see by. Pa.s.sing the bottle back and forth, I grilled her on Aaron. She'd fessed up that the two of them had had s.e.x the weekend before, and I felt a surge of jealousy that she'd been the one to have s.e.x first.

"So what was it like?"

She shrugged and took another drink. "I don't know. It wasn't anything."

"What do you mean it wasn't anything? Didn't the earth move or the planets align or something?"

"No," she said, smothering a laugh. "Of course not."

I didn't really get why that should be funny, but I could tell she didn't want to talk about it. This was around the time the bond had begun forming, and her emotions were starting to creep into me now and then. I held up the bottle and glared at it.

"I don't think this stuff is working."

"That's because there's barely any alcohol in-"

The sound of something moving in the brush came from nearby. I immediately shot up, putting my body between her and the noise.

"It's some animal," she said when a minute went by in silence.

That didn't mean it wasn't dangerous. The school's wards kept out Strigoi, but wild animals often wandered into the outskirts of campus, posing their own threats. Bears. Cougars.

"Come on," I told her. "Let's head back." We hadn't gone very far when I heard something moving again, and someone stepped out into our path. "Ladies."

Ms. Karp.

We froze, and whatever quick reactions I'd shown back by the marsh disappeared as I delayed a few moments in hiding the bottle behind my back.

A half-smile crossed her face, and she held out her hand.

Sheepishly, I gave the bottle to her, and she tucked it under her arm. She turned without another word, and we followed, knowing there would be consequences to deal with.

"You think no one notices when half a cla.s.s is gone?" she asked after a little while.

"Half a cla.s.s?"

"A few of you apparently chose today to skip. Must be the nice weather. Spring fever."

Lissa and I trudged along. I'd never been comfortable around Ms. Karp since the time she'd healed my hands. Her weird, paranoid behavior had taken on a strange quality to me-a lot stranger than before. Scary, even. And lately I couldn't look at her without seeing those marks by her forehead. Her deep red hair usually covered them but not always. Sometimes there were new marks; sometimes the old ones faded to nothing.

A weird fluttering noise sounded to my right. We all stopped.

"One of your cla.s.smates, I imagine," murmured Ms. Karp, turning toward the sound.

But when we reached the spot, we found a large black bird lying on the on the ground. Birds- and most animals-didn't do anything for me, but even I had to admire its sleek feathers and fierce beak. It could probably peck someone's eyes out in thirty seconds-if it weren't obviously dying. With a last, halfhearted shake, the bird finally went still.

"What is that? Is it a crow?" I asked.

"Too big," said Ms. Karp. "It's a raven." "Is it dead?" asked Lissa.

I peered at it. "Yeah. Definitely dead. Don't touch it."

"Probably attacked by another bird," observed Ms. Karp. "They fight over territory and resources sometimes."

Lissa knelt down, compa.s.sion on her face. I wasn't surprised, since she'd always had a thing for animals. She'd lectured me for days after I'd instigated the infamous hamster-and-hermit-crab fight. I'd viewed the fight as a testing of worthy opponents. She'd seen it as animal cruelty.

Transfixed, she reached toward the raven.

"Liss!" I exclaimed, horrified. "It's probably got a disease."

But her hand moved out like she hadn't even heard me. Ms. Karp stood there like a statue, her white face looking like a ghost's. Lissa's fingers stroked the raven's wings.

"Liss," I repeated, starting to move toward her, to pull her back. Suddenly, a strange sensation flooded through my head, a sweetness that was beautiful and full of life. The feeling was so intense, it stopped me in my tracks.

Then the raven moved.

Lissa gave a small scream and s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand back. We both stared wide-eyed.