Chapter 6
Burning with anger at Natalie and Victor Dashkov I fought harder that day, not caring that I was more skilled thanks to years of fighting. And now that my body muscle and stamina improved, I could move faster, hit harder, and take a punch better. I surprised quite a few people because I had been taking it easy on them. But no more, they will just have to give me better opponents. "How's Lissa?" Mason asked me softly. "Coping," I told him. "I asked him about Mia and he told me about her parents, and that he knows she would not do something like this. She won't even do dissections in biology. I nodded in thought and went to Lunch.
Lissa was still shaken up, her mood made worse when Natalie and her crew wouldn't shut up about the fox. Apparently, Natalie had overcome her disgust enough to enjoy the attention, which is hypocritical since she actually did it. I did pull Lissa away from Natalie opting to sit at Christian's table instead. He was sitting alone. Apparently, people think that Strigoi has cooties or something and were scared of catching it from him because of his parents or whatever. "Liss, I think you were right, someone must have seen that day. This might be a test." Christian looked curious but the shock and fear on Lissa's face made him uneasy. I looked at Christian now. "Keep an eye on her and everyone else, would you?" He nodded for once looking serious and Lissa frowned. "Rose --" "No Lissa, Christian is the perfect person to look at the people around you, no one notices him, so they would not think to hide anything in front of him. It sucks, but it is the truth. We need to sift out the fakes and in this school..." I trailed off. I did not need to finish that, everyone here was fake.
I gave Lissa the book about Shadow kissed Anna and showed her the passage, "I uh ... might have gotten my hands on my file and uh --" "ROSE!" Christian looked amused. Lissa exasperated. "Wait I have a point, the accident, they said I should have died, what if I did, what if I was really near. Lissa you brought me back, I pointed to the book where it said that about Anna. I am shadow kissed like, Anna, I know your heart and emotions like her and you, you have his powers. The reason you haven't specialized is because your powers are too rare, no one knows about it. Or if they did they forgot about it." Lissa and Christian looked at me wide-eyed. "Spirit, Lissa, that is your element, Ms. Karp had it too, she healed me when I fell out of my window uh --" The amusement was back. I was glad that I cast a privacy ward around us, this was not exactly something I wanted people to know. I told them to keep it quiet, I told Christian and Lissa to look into St. Vladimir the books in the attic. I saw Jesse walking towards us and I dispelled the ward.
"Hey, Rose." I smiled at him and waited for him to say what he wanted to say. He nodded cordially to Lissa and then jerkily to Christian. Looking confused at us. Then turned his attention back to me. "So hey, I'm going to be in your dorm tonight for a study group. You think maybe...." "Sorry, I have training." I smiled at him and hoped that he would get the message that I was not interested. I did not want to make any enemies here. Mia was bad enough. I went with Lissa and Christian to my afternoon classes, barring Calculus, and started handing in my homework to some of the classes. I was getting things done now. Caught up with Animal Behavior for this year and Moroi Culture. Stan's class was the next one I was working on and I already read all the books on it and was currently doing the homework from September. I could not wait to see his face when I handed it in next week. Mia wanted to be bitchslapped because she asked about Foxes.
Mia was chastised and we were paired off to work on the assignment, I worked with Christian and Lissa. Mia's giggling was irritating the hell out of me and I was thinking of hexing her, no one would know it was me, would they? Through the bond, I could feel Lissa growing more and more upset as images of the fox kept flashing through her mind. "Don't worry Lissa --" "Hey Lissa," Someone interrupted. I did not know who he was. "So admit it," he said. "You killed the fox. You're trying to convince Kirova you're crazy so that you can get out of here again." "Fuck you," I told him in a low voice, wishing I could punch him. "Are you offering?" I looked at him disgusted. "Not if you are the last man on earth." "Wow, you have changed. Last I remembered, you weren't too picky about who you got naked with."
"Some of us evolve into better human beings, you, I am afraid are still the same jackass loser as last time." I shot back furious and I had to take a deep breath to get control of my emotions, it was time for this Rose to start meditating again because this anger could not be a good thing. "Hey, I just got it: It was you, wasn't it?" He looked back at Lissa and then at me. "She got you to kill the fox, didn't she? Some weird kind of lesbian voo ---- ahhhh!" The guy burst into flames before I could punch him in the face, I jumped and put my body between the guy on fire and Christian and Lissa. Not easy to do since we were still sitting at our desks. All three of us ended up on the floor as screams -- Ralf's in particular -- filled the classroom and Mrs. Meissner sprinted for the fire extinguisher. And then just like that the flames disappeared.
Ralf was still screaming and patting himself down, but he didn't have a single singe mark on him. I looked at Christian and grinned as I helped Lissa up from the floor. "Thanks for saving me from expulsion." Lissa looked at me shocked and then at Christian. "Mr. Ozera!" Ms. Meissner screamed turning from red to purple. "How dare you -- do you have any idea -- report to Headmistress Kirova's office now!" Christian, completely unfazed stood up, and slung his backpack over one shoulder. That smirk stayed on his face. "Sure thing, Ms. Meissner." He went out of his way to walk past Ralf, who quickly backed away as he passed. The rest of the class stared, open-mouthed. I would have aimed way lower and used real fire, what do you know, being married to a psychopath for years might have rubbed off on me after all.
I was sitting in my room doing my homework when I felt a trickle of sneakiness through the bond. Deciding I was going to try and understand the bond better now and slip into her mind on purpose. I focused on her now and tried to remove the mental wall, it was so much like Occlumency but instead of one mind, I had two. I forced myself into the relaxed pose and dove into the mind next to my own.