TWELVE

SLEEP CAME RELUCTANTLY THAT NIGHT and I tossed and turned for a long time before finally going under.

An hour or so later, I sat up in bed, trying to relax and sort out the emotions coming to me. Lissa. Scared and upset. Unstable. The night's events suddenly came rushing back to me as I went through what could be bothering her. The queen humiliating her. Mia. Maybe even Christian - he could have found her for all I knew.

Yet...none of those was the problem right now. 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 now - way too high to climb down from, particularly since I had no Ms. Karp to patch me up this time. I would never be able to sneak out of the main hall. That only left going through the "appropriate" channels.

"Where do you think you're 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 as well have been in jail.

I crossed my arms. "I need to see Dim - Guardian Belikov."

"It's late."

"It's an emergency."

She looked me up and down. "You seem okay to me."

"You're going to be in so much trouble tomorrow when everyone finds out you stopped me from reporting what I know."

"Tell me."

"It's private guardian stuff."

I gave her as hard a stare as I could manage. It must have worked, because she finally stood up and pulled out a cell phone. She called someone - Dimitri, I hoped - 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 and always sort of regretted how Moroi light sensitivity forced us to live in darkness most of the time.

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, I squelched a scream and almost called for help. Looking more closely, I saw that a lot of the blood wasn't actually coming from her. It was smeared on her, like it had been on her hands and she'd rubbed her face. She sank to the floor, and I followed, kneeling before her.

"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 after all. Perfect lines crossed 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 toward her wrists. "This just happened before I could stop. I was upset..."

"It's okay," I said automatically, wondering what "it" was. "Come on."

I heard a knock on the door. "Rose?"

"Just a sec," I called back.

I took her to the sink and rinsed the blood off her wrists. Grabbing the first-aid kit, I hastily put some Band-Aids on the cuts. The bleeding had 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..."

Dimitri assessed her, and I hoped he wouldn't look at her wrists. When he seemed satisfied she had no gaping wounds, he asked, "What rabbit?" I was wondering the same thing.

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. I pulled myself away immediately, swallowing back my stomach's need to throw up. I don't know how Lissa knew it was a rabbit. All I could see was blood. Blood and blood-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 it was the weird way she coped with things that upset her.

"No one should be able to get into those rooms!" exclaimed the matron. "How is this happening?"

"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, I could barely read it as he held it and smoothed it out.

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." It took me a second to remember that was Kirova's first name.

"Tell her we'll be at the clinic," said Dimitri. 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. "Leave her alone! Can't you see she doesn't want to talk about it? Let her get some sleep first!"

"Miss Hathaway," declared Kirova, "you're out of line as usual. 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, 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," whispered Lissa. "I don't want to scare her. I cleaned up 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'd 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 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."

That was a lie. I didn't get her cutting at all. She'd done it sporadically, ever since the accident, and it scared me each time. She'd try to explain it to me, how she didn't want to die - she just needed to get it out somehow. She felt so much emotionally, she would say that a physical outlet - physical pain - was the only way to make the internal pain go away. It was the only way she could control it.

"Why is this happening?" she cried into her pillow. "Why am I a freak?"

"You aren't a freak."

"No one else has this happen to them. No one else does magic like I can."

"Did you try to do magic?" No answer. "Liss? Did you try to heal the rabbit?"

"I reached out, just to see if I could maybe fix it, but there was just too much blood...I couldn't."

The more she uses it, the worse it'll get. Stop her, Rose.

Lissa was right. Moroi magic could conjure fire and water, move rocks and other pieces of earth. But no one could heal or bring animals back from the dead. No one except Ms. Karp.

Stop her before they notice, before they notice and take her away too. Get her out of here.

I hated carrying this secret, mostly because I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't like feeling powerless. I needed to protect her from this - and from herself. And yet, at the same time, I needed to protect her from them, too.

"We should go," I said abruptly. "We're going to leave."

"Rose - "

"It's happening again. And it's worse. Worse than last time."

"You're afraid of the note."

"I'm not afraid of any note. But this place isn't safe."

I suddenly longed for Portland again. It might be dirtier and more crowded than the rugged Montana landscape, but at least you knew what to expect - not like here. Here at the Academy, past and present warred with each other. It might have its beautiful old walls and gardens, but inside, modern things were creeping in. People didn't know how to handle that. It was just like the Moroi themselves. Their archaic royal families still held the power on the surface, but people were growing discontent. Dhampirs who wanted more to their lives. Moroi like Christian who wanted to fight the Strigoi. The royals still clung to their traditions, still touted their power over everyone else, just as the Academy's elaborate iron gates put on a show of tradition and invincibility.

And, oh, the lies and secrets. They ran through the halls and hid in the corners. Someone here hated Lissa, someone who was probably smiling right to her face and pretending to be her friend. I couldn't let them destroy her.

"You need to get some sleep," I told her.

"I can't sleep."

"Yes, you can. I'm right here. You won't be alone."

Anxiety and fear and other troubled emotions coursed through her. But in the end, her body's needs won out. After a while, I saw her eyes close. Her breathing became even, and the bond grew quiet.

I watched her sleep, too keyed up with adrenaline to allow myself any rest. I think maybe an hour had passed when the nurse returned and told me I had to leave.

"I can't go," I said. "I promised her she wouldn't be alone."

The nurse was tall, even for a Moroi, with kind brown eyes. "She won't be. I'll stay with her."

I regarded her skeptically.

"I promise."

Back in my room, I had my own crash. The fear and excitement had worn me out too, and for an instant, I wished I could have a normal life and a normal best friend. Immediately, I cast that thought out. No one was normal, not really. And I'd never have a better friend than Lissa...but man, it was so hard sometimes.

I slept heavily until morning. I went to my first class tentatively, nervous that word about last night had gotten around. As it turned out, people were talking about last night, but their attention was still focused on the queen and the reception. They knew nothing about the rabbit. As hard as it was to believe, I'd nearly forgotten about that other stuff. Still, it suddenly seemed like a small thing compared to someone causing a bloody explosion in Lissa's room.

Yet, as the day went on, I noticed something weird. People stopped looking at Lissa so much. The started looking at me. Whatever. Ignoring them, I hunted around and found Lissa finishing up with a feeder. That funny feeling I always got came over me as I watched her mouth work against the feeder's neck, drinking his blood. A trickle of it ran down his throat, standing out against his pale skin. Feeders, though human, were nearly as pale as Moroi from all the blood loss. He didn't seem to notice; he was long gone on the high of the bite. Drowning in jealousy, I decided I needed therapy.

"You okay?" I asked her later, on our way to class. She wore long sleeves, purposefully obscuring her wrists.

"Yeah...I still can't stop thinking about that rabbit...It was so horrible. I keep seeing it in my head. And then what I did." She squeezed her eyes shut, just for a moment, and then opened them again. "People are talking about us."

"I know. Ignore them."

"I hate it," she said angrily. A surge of darkness shot up into her and through the bond. It made me cringe. My best friend was lighthearted and kind. She didn't have feelings like that. "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."

Ignoring them grew harder and harder, though. The whispers and looks increased. In animal behavior, it became so bad, I couldn't even concentrate on my now-favorite subject. Ms. Meissner had started talking about evolution and survival of the fittest and how animals sought mates with good genes. It fascinated me, but even she had a hard time staying on task, since she had to keep yelling at people to quiet down and pay attention.

"Something's going on," I told Lissa between classes. "I don't know what, but they're all over something new."

"Something else? Other than the queen hating me? What more could there be?"

"Wish I knew."

Things finally came to a head in our last class of the day, Slavic art. It started when a guy I barely knew made a very explicit and nearly obscene suggestion to me while we all worked on individual projects. I replied in kind, letting him know exactly what he could do with his request.

He only laughed. "Come on, Rose. I bleed for you."

Loud giggles ensued, and Mia cut us a taunting look. "Wait, it's Rose who does the bleeding, right?"

More laughter. Understanding slapped me in the face. I jerked Lissa away. "They know."

"Know what?"

"About us. About how you...you know, how I fed you while we were gone."

She gaped. "How?"

"How do you think? Your ¡®friend' Christian."

"No," she said adamantly. "He wouldn't have."

"Who else knew?"

Faith in Christian flashed in her eyes and in our bond. But she didn't know what I knew. She didn't know how I'd bitched him out last night, how I'd made him think she hated him. The guy was unstable. Spreading our biggest secret - well, one of them - would be an adequate revenge. Maybe he'd killed the rabbit, too. After all, it had died only a couple hours after I'd told him off.

Not waiting around to hear her protests, I stalked off to the other side of the room where Christian was working by himself, as usual. Lissa followed in my wake. Not caring if people saw us, I leaned across the table toward him, putting my face inches from his.

"I'm going to kill you."

His eyes darted to Lissa, the faintest glimmer of longing in them, and then a scowl spread over his face. "Why? Is it like guardian extra credit?"

"Stop with the attitude," I warned, pitching my voice low. "You told. You told how Lissa had to feed off me."

"Tell her," said Lissa desperately. "Tell her she's wrong."

Christian dragged his eyes from me to her, and as they regarded each other, I felt such a powerful wave of attraction, it was a wonder it didn't knock me over. Her heart was in her eyes. It was obvious to me he felt the same way about her, but she couldn't see it, particularly since he was still glaring at her.

"You can stop it, you know," he said. "You don't have to pretend anymore."

Lissa's giddy attraction vanished, replaced by hurt and shock over his tone. "I...what? Pretend what?..."

"You know what. Just stop. Stop with the act."

Lissa stared at him, her eyes wide and wounded. She had no clue I'd gone off on him last night. She had no clue that he believed she hated him.

"Get over feeling sorry for yourself, and tell us what's going on," I snapped at him. "Did you or didn't you tell them?"

He fixed me with a defiant look. "No. I didn't."

"I don't believe you."

"I do," said Lissa.

"I know it's impossible to believe a freak like me could keep his mouth shut - especially since neither of you can - but I have better things to do than spread stupid rumors. You want someone to blame? Blame your golden boy over there."

I followed his gaze to where Jesse was laughing about something with that idiot Ralf.

"Jesse doesn't know," said Lissa defiantly.

Christian's eyes were glued to me. "He does, though. Doesn't he, Rose? He knows."

My stomach sank out of me. Yes. Jesse did know. He'd figured it out that night in the lounge. "I didn't think...I didn't think he'd tell. He was too afraid of Dimitri."

"You told him?" exclaimed Lissa.

"No, he guessed." I was starting to feel sick.

"He apparently did more than guess," muttered Christian.

I turned on him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh. You don't know."

"I swear to God, Christian, I'm going to break your neck after class."

"Man, you really are unstable." He said it almost happily, but his next words were more serious. He still wore that sneer, still glowed with anger, but when he spoke, I could hear the faintest uneasiness in his voice. "He sort of elaborated on what was in your note. Got into a little more detail."

"Oh, I get it. He said we had sex." I didn't need to mince words. Christian nodded. So. Jesse was trying to boost his own reputation. Okay. That I could deal with. Not like my reputation was that stellar to begin with. Everyone already believed I had sex all the time.

"And uh, Ralf too. That you and he - "

Ralf? No amount of alcohol or any illegal substance would make me touch him. "I - what? That I had sex with Ralf too?"

Christian nodded.

"That asshole! I'm going to - "

"There's more."

"How? Did I sleep with the basketball team?"

"He said - they both said - you let them...well, you let them drink your blood."

That stopped even me. Drinking blood during sex. The dirtiest of the dirty. Sleazy. Beyond being easy or a slut. A gazillion times worse than Lissa drinking from me for survival. Blood-whore territory.

"That's crazy!" Lissa cried. "Rose would never - Rose?"

But I wasn't listening anymore. I was in my own world, a world that took me across the classroom to where Jesse and Ralf sat. They both looked up, faces half smug and half...nervous, if I had to guess. Not unexpected, since they were both lying through their teeth.

The entire class came to a standstill. Apparently they'd been expecting some type of showdown. My unstable reputation in action.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I asked in a low, dangerous voice.

Jesse's nervous look turned to one of terror. He might have been taller than me, but we both knew who would win if I turned violent. Ralf, however, gave me a cocky smile.

"We didn't do anything you didn't want us to do." His smiled turned cruel. "And don't even think about laying a hand on us. You start a fight, and Kirova'll kick you out to go live with the other blood whores."

The rest of the students were holding their breaths, waiting to see what we'd do. I don't know how Mr. Nagy could have been oblivious to the drama occurring in his class.

I wanted to punch both of them, hit them so hard that it'd make Dimitri's brawl with Jesse look like a pat on the back. I wanted to wipe that smirk off Ralf's face.

But asshole or not, he was right. If I touched them, Kirova would expel me in the blink of an eye. And if I got kicked out, Lissa would be alone. Taking a deep breath, I made one of the hardest decisions of my life.

I walked away.

The rest of the day was miserable. In backing down from the fight, I opened myself up to mockery from everyone else. The rumors and whispers grew louder. People stared at me openly. People laughed. Lissa kept trying to talk to me, to console me, but I ignored even her. I went through the rest of my classes like a zombie, and then I headed off to practice with Dimitri as fast I could. He gave me a puzzled look but didn't ask any questions.

Alone in my room later on, I cried for the first time in years.

Once I got that out of my system, I was about to put on my pajamas when I heard a knock at my door. Dimitri. He studied my face and then glanced away, obviously aware I'd been crying. I could tell, too, that the rumors had finally reached him. He knew.

"Are you okay?"

"It doesn't matter if I am, remember?" I looked up at him. "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.

More curious than ever, I stepped outside. Lissa stood there. I should have sensed she was close, but my own out-of-control feelings had obscured hers. 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.

"Not your fault. It'll pass."

She clearly doubted that. So did I.

"It is my fault," she said. "She did it to get back at me."

"She?"

"Mia. Jesse and Ralf aren't smart enough to think of something like that on their own. You said it yourself: Jesse was too scared of Dimitri to talk much about what happened. And why wait until now? It happened a while ago. If he'd wanted to spread stuff around, he would have done it back then. Mia's doing this as retaliation for you talking about her parents. I don't know how she managed it, but she's the one who got them to say those things."

In my gut, I realized Lissa was right. Jesse and Ralf were the tools; Mia had been the mastermind.

"Nothing to be done now," 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."

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, half surprised at my own hopelessness. "She already did. She said she'd get back at me, that I wouldn't be able to protect you. She did it. When I go back to classes..." A sickening feeling settled in my stomach. I thought about the friends and respect I'd managed to eke out, despite our low profile. That would be gone. You couldn't come back from something like this. Not among the Moroi. Once a blood whore, always a blood whore. What made it worse was that some dark, secret part of me did like being bitten.

"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 meant 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 the Lissa I'd known before the accident. At the same time, I could feel something else in her - something darker, a sense of deeply buried anger. I'd seen this side of her before too, and I didn't like it. I didn't want her tapping into it. I just wanted her to be safe.

"Lissa, you can't protect me."

"I can," she said fiercely. "There's 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?"

"By telling them." Her eyes flashed.

My mind was moving too slowly tonight. It took me a while to catch on. "Liss - no. You can't use compulsion. Not around here."

"I might as well get some use out of these stupid powers."

The more she uses it, the worse it'll get. Stop her, Rose. Stop her before they notice, before they notice and take her away too. Get her out of here.

"Liss, if you get 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."