Chapter 10
As soon as I was in my room I sat on the floor, closing my eyes and focusing on Lissa's mind, and my own. Our bond and the darkness surrounding Lissa's mind. It took me quite a few minutes to figure it out. I figured out how to go in and out of Lissa's mind now, but I actually could read her mind, memories, and such too, using Leglimency. I wondered if I could actually use her magic through our bond too. Would that be possible, my soul that was transferred into this body came with my ability to turn into 3 animagus forms and cast magic since my core was with me and I was still the Mistress of Death. But could I wield Spirit? Did I want to? No, I didn't, I could heal without that madness, I was already thinking of drawing the darkness out and dealing with it somehow.
I just didn't know how, as much as I tried it was still in Lissa, and I wondered if I needed another approach. I was also exhausted and promised myself to try again tomorrow. Christian could not stay with Lissa for too long and I struggled to fall asleep in my worry. Lissa was scared, upset, and unstable. The night’s events suddenly came rushing back to me as I went through what could be bothering her. The queen humiliated her, Mia, and the whispers and gossip. Buried within her there was something else. Something terribly wrong, I climbed out of bed dressed hastily, and considered my options. I had a third-floor room and sure I could fly down, not that I have tried that in my Rose body yet, I need to do some testing first. But not here, not with Guardians patrolling the grounds. No one can know. I will not be a freak of nature in this world.
I had to go through appropriate channels this time. "Where do you think you are going?" One of the matrons who supervised my hall looked up from her chair. She sat stationed at the end of the hall, near the stairs going down. During the day, that stairwell had loose supervision. At night, we might have been in jail. "I need to see Guardian Belikov." "It's late." "It's an emergency." She looked me up and down. "You seem okay to me." "It's not me that I'm worried about. You are going to be in so much trouble tomorrow when everyone finds out you stopped me from reporting what I know." "Tell me." "It is a private matter." I gave her a hard stare. She stood up and pulled out a cell phone. She called someone but murmured too low for me to hear. We waited several minutes, and then the door leading to the stairs opened. Dimitri appeared, fully dressed and alert, though I felt pretty sure we'd pulled him out of bed. He took one look at me. "Lissa." I nodded. Without another word, he turned around and started back down the stairs. I followed. We walked across the quad in silence, toward the imposing Moroi dorm. It was "night" for the vampires, which meant it was daytime for the rest of the world.
Mid-afternoon sun shone with a cold, golden light on us. The human genes in me welcomed it, missed it I never used to have to worry about staying in the dark, Klaus and his siblings had daylight rings. The Cullens sparkled in the sun this was all new to me. Lissa's hall matron gaped when we appeared, but Dimitri was too intimidating to oppose. "She's in the bathroom," I told them. When the matron started to follow me inside, I wouldn't let her. "She's too upset. Let me talk to her alone first." Dimitri considered. "Yes. Give them a minute." I pushed the door open. "Liss?" A soft sound, like a sob, came from within. I walked down five stalls and found the only one closed. I knocked softly. "Let me in," I said hoping I sounded calm and strong. I heard a sniffle, and a few moments later, the door unlatched. I wasn't prepared for what I saw. Lissa stood before me... covered in blood. Horrified, the doctor in me took over and I examined her immediately to find out where the blood was coming from.
"Are you okay?" I whispered. "What happened?" She only shook her head but I saw her face crumple as more tears spilled from her eyes. I took her hands. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned --" I stopped. She was bleeding, she started cutting again, I quickly checked her wrists, not near any crucial veins but enough to leave wet, red tracks across her skin. She hadn't hit her veins when she did this, death hadn't been her goal. She met my eyes. "I'm sorry ... I didn't mean ... Please don't let them know...." she sobbed. "When I saw it I freaked out." She nodded towards her wrists. "This just happened before I could stop. I was upset ...." "You'll be ok." "Come on." I heard a knock on the door. "Rose?" "Just a sec," I called back. I took her to the sink and washed off the blood on her wrists, grabbing the first aid kit, I hastily put some band-aids on the cuts. The bleeding already slowed. "We're coming in," the matron called. I jerked off my hoodie sweatshirt and quickly handed it to Lissa. She had just pulled it on when Dimitri and the matron entered. He raced to our sides in an instant and I realized that in hiding Lissa's wrists, I'd forgotten the blood on her face. "It's not mine," she said quickly, seeing his expression. "It.... it's the rabbit ...." Oh right another dead animal. I thought disgusted. Dimitri assessed her, and I hoped that he would not look at her wrists. I could not risk healing her, that would be a disaster in the making in this world.
"What rabbit?" Dimitri asked and with shaking hands, she pointed at the trash can. "I cleaned it up. So Natalie wouldn't see." Dimitri and I both walked over and peered into the can, all I could see was blood and soaked paper towels. Globs of gore I couldn't identify. The smell was horrible. Dimitri shifted closer to Lissa, bending down until they were at eye level. "Tell me what happened." He handed her several tissues. "I came back about an hour ago. And it was there. Right there in the middle of the floor. Torn apart. It was like it had .... exploded" She sniffed. "I didn't want Natalie to find it, didn't want to scare her .... so I -- I cleaned it up. Then I just couldn't ... I couldn't go back ...." She began to cry and her shoulders shook. I could figure out the rest, the part she didn't tell Dimitri. She'd found the rabbit, cleaned up, and freaked out. Then she'd cut herself, but I knew why, the pain and darkness were so much that she needed to let it out. The hall matron was moaning about people not being able to come in. "Do you know who did it?" Dimitri's voice was gentle. Lissa reached into her pajama pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. It had so much blood soaked into it that I could barely read it.
I know what you are. You won't survive being here. I'll make sure of it. Leave now. It's the only way you might live through this.
The matron's shock transformed into something more determined, and she headed for the door. "I'm getting Ellen." "Tell her we'll be at the clinic," Dimitri said. When she left, he turned to Lissa. "You should lie down." When she didn't move, I linked my arm through hers. "Come on, Liss. Let's get you out of here." Slowly, she put one foot in front of the other and let us lead her to the Academy's medical clinic. It was normally staffed by a couple of doctors, but at this time of night, only a nurse stayed on duty. She offered to wake one of the doctors, but Dimitri declined. "She just needs to rest." Lissa had no sooner stretched out on a narrow bed than Kirova and a few others showed up and started questioning her. I thrust myself in front of them, blocking her. "Please let her sleep, she doesn't need to relive everything now." "Miss Hathaway. I don't even know what you're doing here." Dimitri asked if he could speak with her privately and led her into the hall. I heard angry whispers from her and calm and firm ones from him. When they returned, she said stiffly. "You may stay with her for a little while. We'll have janitors do further cleaning and investigation in the bathroom and your room, Miss Dragomir, and then discuss the situation in detail in the morning."
"Don't wake Natalie," Lissa whispered. "I don't want to scare her. I cleaned everything in the room anyway." Kirova looked doubtful. The group retreated but not before the nurse asked if Lissa wanted anything to eat or drink. She declined. Once we were alone, I lay down beside her and put my arm around her. "I won't let them find out," I told her, sensing her worry about her wrists. "But I wish you'd told me before I left the reception. You said you'd always come to me first." "I wasn't going to do it then," she said, her eyes staring blankly off. "I swear; I wasn't going to. I mean I was upset ... but I thought .... I thought I could handle it. I was trying so hard .... really, Rose I was. But then I got back to my room, and I saw it, and I ... just lost it. It was like the last straw; you know? And then I knew I had to clean it up. Had to clean it up before they saw, before they found out, but there was so much blood ...and afterward, after it was done, it was too much, and I felt like I was going to .... I don't know .... explode, and it was just too much, I had to let it out, you know? I had to --" I interrupted her hysteria. "It's okay, I understand." I was feeling very guilty; I should have tried harder to pull the darkness from her.
But now I focused on the darkness, focused on pulling it inside me, and I felt it working, I felt her relax and I felt her mind clear and become peaceful again. But mine was swirling with the need to punch something or someone. Natalie or Victor, but it would not feel right to hurt someone so defenseless. I only gritted my teeth. "You're going to be fine, I will make sure of it. You should sleep." She was relaxed and I turned my body so I could rest on my elbow and started playing with her hair. Going in some sort of meditation trance to get rid of the darkness or at the very least shove it aside to deal with later. I ended up taking a page from Elijah's book. Creating a red door in my mindscape, to put the darkness in there for now, I could deal with it later. Not now. There was no time now. Lissa needed rest and she needed to feel safe. The anxiety and fear started ebbing out of her as I pulled on the darkness and moved it to the red door I would deal with it later, it was not healthy but it was the best I could do. "You will be ok Lissa, I will make sure of it. You are not alone." I whispered to my now sleeping friend, she became a friend to me in the short time that we spent together, but I knew some of the old Rose remained when I took possession. The feelings of protection, love, and friendship were left behind and it only strengthened when I started getting to know her.
Once I was sure she was sleeping, I healed her wrists and removed the bandages. I kept playing with my hands through her hair, kept whispering that she was safe, that I would take care of her. I think we were like that for an hour before the nurse returned and told me that I needed to leave. "I promised her that I would stay with her, that she wouldn't be alone."
The nurse was tall, even for Moroi with kind brown eyes. "She won't be alone, I will stay with her." I regarded her skeptically and for the first time in this world, I dived into her mind to make sure her intentions were pure. I needed to start protecting her the best way I could. She answered. "I promise." She was ok and she meant it and I nodded. Then I walked towards my dorm.
Back in my room, I had my own crash. The fear and excitement had worn me out too, and for an instant, I wished that I was normal. I slept heavily until morning. I went to my first class feeling weighed down and heavy, from the darkness I now carried, I needed to find my own outlet now. Some way to release it. Whispers still followed me, me being with both Ralph and Jesse, the Queen's insults to Lissa, but so far no one knew about the Rabbit. That was good. Lissa had enough to deal with. I tracked Lissa down, she was just finishing up with a feeder. "You okay?" I asked her later on our way to class. "Rose my wrists, the bandages were gone. Does someone know?" I shook my head. "I think I can channel your powers through the bond, it was weird..." I felt bad about the lie, but it was better than the alternative.
"So you did this, and took off the bandages?" I nodded. She looked relieved that no one knew but also worried about what that would mean for us. "Listen, Lissa, no one should know, this should be only kept between us. It's bad enough that someone knows about you." She nodded worried about me. "It is strange, I feel great, but I cannot stop thinking about that rabbit .... it was just so horrible. I keep seeing it in my head. And then what I did, but I don't feel that way anymore, I feel different...." "light?" "Yes, light. Did you do that too?" She smiled at me. "I think so, I just don't know how, there is so much we don't know about Spirit." She looked around and saw the whisperers. "People are talking about us." "I hate it," she said angrily. A surge of darkness shot up into her and through the bond. It made me cringe. I could not take anymore. "I hate all the gossip. It's so stupid. How can they all be so shallow?" "Ignore them," I repeated soothingly. "You were smart not to hang out with them anymore." The dark thoughts kept swirling in her through the day and I decided that I would summon death before bed for advice, if I found a way to get rid of it, I could take in more. I also came to the conclusion that they found out about me feeding Lissa, and now the stories were that I slept with Jesse and Ralph and they drank from me during all that too. The darkness surged up in me like a snake rearing to strike and I had to take a couple of deep breaths to control my murderous thoughts.
Lissa came to me with wide eyes after Slavic art. "They know about us, how you fed me your blood." I knew that this was actually Mia's way of getting back at me. Being called a bloodwhore did not bother me. I have been called plenty of things through the years, that really did not ring near the worst. So I shrugged it off. "Don't worry about it Lissa, everything will blow over eventually." I needed to get rid of the darkness before I snapped. My anger was hanging by a thread as is. The rest of the day was miserable, I had to pull more from Lissa because she was feeling murderous too. But that added to the dark and angry feeling inside me. I was afraid that I would snap at any given moment. And then I would be kicked out. If I was kicked out, Lissa would be alone and I couldn't leave her alone, she needed me too much. But what about the time I would go to Russia, could I leave her alone then? I needed a way to push through the bond so that I could still talk to her no matter where I ended up. Bridge the gap somehow. Something else death could assist with.
Lissa kept trying to console me, thinking that it bothered me. I was quiet for the rest of the day, but that was not because of the rumors. I was making plans, plans for our future. I needed to find a way to cross the gap between me and Lissa and plan my finances, I would not be hurting Adrian as Rose did, I had a lot of money in my possession and I could be using that instead. What if Lissa can use the spirit through me, would that work?" I headed to practice with Dimitri as fast as I could because I needed to vent some of the darkness somehow. Dimitri gave me a puzzled look but did not ask any questions.
Alone in my room finally I sat cross-legged on the floor and closed my eyes. Summoning death to talk to him. I could release the darkness through fire, it would be black fire but it was possible. For that, I would need to go into the trunk. I did release the fire scorching the entire dueling room. But it worked and I felt better. Quickly going to the vault room I checked on my finances, it had a tally spell on the vault that immediately added up the money and I still had over a million dollars in the dollar vault, I must admit that I haven't been quite as good as putting money away, having left behind quite a few billion in the other worlds I left, I needed to start remembering to put money back when I take it out. But that would be enough to last me in this world at least. I bumped into a shelf on my way out and a few photographs fell off. Me, Klaus, and our kids. Steve and our kids and Jake and our kids, with my sisters and brother. Picking it up in shaky hands from the overuse of magic in this body I felt the tears fall over my cheeks. I never even had time to mourn the loss of yet another family. I kept losing people and I never really got the time to properly mourn, I just suppressed and moved on. Putting the photos away I went back to my dorm room before anyone looked for me. I just stepped out from my trunk and turned it into a locket when I heard a knock at my door.
Quickly fastening the locket around my neck I opened the door. Dimitri stood there, he studied my face and then glanced away, obviously aware I'd been crying, I had but not for the reasons he thought. "Are you okay?" "It doesn’t matter if I am, remember?" I told him throwing his own words back at him. I looked at his face. "Is Lissa okay? This'll be hard on her." A funny look crossed his face, I think it astonished him that I'd still be worried about her at a time like this. He beckoned me to follow and led me out to a back stairwell. One that usually stayed locked to students. But it was open tonight and he gestured me outside. "Five minutes," he warned. I was confused since I hadn't had a chance to check the book yet. Curiously I stepped outside. Lissa stood there, I should have sensed she was close but I was so caught up in my grief that I did not notice her feelings. Without a word, she put her arms around me and held me for several moments. I had to hold back more tears. When we broke apart she looked at me with calm, level eyes. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's not your fault. It will pass." I said that about the rumors and about the grief for my lost family. "It's my own fault, she did it to get back at me." "She?" "Mia. She's doing this as retaliation for me talking about her parents." I sighed. "Rose --" "Forget it, Liss, It's done, okay?" She studied me quietly for a few seconds.
"I haven't seen you cry in a long time," "I wasn't crying," I told her stubbornly although I was not for the reasons she thought. A feeling of heartache and sympathy beat through to me from the bond. "She can't do this to you," she argued. I laughed bitterly, Mia was the least of my problems. "You shouldn't have to keep protecting me," she said. I laughed. "That's my job. I'm going to be your guardian." "I know, but I mean like this. You shouldn't suffer because of me. You shouldn't always have to look after me. And yet you always do. You got me out of here. You took care of everything when we were on our own. Even since coming back ... you've always been the one who does all the work. Every time I break down -- like last night -- you're always there. Me, I'm weak, I'm not like you." I shook my head. "That doesn't matter. It's what I do. I don't mind."
"Yeah, but look what happened. I'm the one she really has a grudge against -- even though I still don't know why. Whatever. It's going to stop. I'm going to protect you from now on." There was a determination in her expression, a wonderful confidence radiating off of her that reminded me of Rebekah in some ways. At the same time, I could feel something else in her -- something darker, a sense of deeply buried anger. I thought I took it all but apparently, I didn't understand this bond half as well as I would like to. "Lissa you can't protect me against this." "I can," she said fiercely. "There is one thing Mia wants more than to destroy you and me. She wants to be accepted. She wants to hang out with the royals and feel like she's one of them. I can take that away from her." She smiled. "I can turn them against her." "How?" I asked but the sinking in my stomach already keyed me into the how. She was going to use her powers. "By telling them." Her eyes flashed. "Liss -- no. You can't use compulsion. Not around here." "I might as well get some use out of these stupid powers." "Lissa no, if you are caught --" Dimitri stuck his head out. "You've got to get back inside, Rose, before someone finds you." I shot a panicked look at Lissa but she was already retreating. "I'll take care of everything this time Rose. Everything."