Shadow Kiss (Vampire Academy #3)(109)

It was a long walk to the front of the school, and the western sky was red as the sun slipped over the horizon. The weather had warmed up, even at night. Spring had finally come. It made for good walking weather since I had a ways to go before I made it to the highway. From there, I'd hitchhike to Missoula. Hitchhiking wasn't safe, but the silver stake in my coat pocket made me feel pretty secure about anything I'd face. No one had taken it away from me after the raid, and it would work just as well against creepy humans as it did with Strigoi.

I could just make out the gates when I sensed her. Lissa. I stopped walking and turned toward a cluster of bud-covered trees. She'd been standing in them, perfectly still, and had managed to hide her thoughts so well that I hadn't realized she was practically right next to me. Her hair and eyes glowed in the sunset, and she seemed too beautiful and too ethereal to be part of this dreary landscape.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey." She wrapped her arms around herself, cold even in her coat. Moroi didn't have the same resistance to temperature changes that dhampirs did. What I found warm and springlike was still chilly to her. "I knew it," she said. "Ever since that day they said his body was gone. Something told me you'd do this. I was just waiting."

"Can you read my mind now?" I asked ruefully.

"No, I can just read you. Finally. I can't believe how blind I was. I can't believe I never noticed. Victor's comment... he was right." She glanced off at the sunset, then turned her gaze back on me. A flash of anger, both in her feelings and her eyes, hit me. "Why didn't you tell me?" she cried. "Why didn't you tell me you loved Dimitri?"

I stared. I couldn't remember the last time Lissa had yelled at anyone. Maybe last fall, when all the Victor insanity had gone down. Loud outbursts were my thing, not hers. Even when torturing Jesse, her voice had been deadly quiet.

"I couldn't tell anyone," I said.

"I'm your best friend, Rose. We've been through everything together. Do you really think I would have told? I would have kept it secret."

I looked at the ground. "I know you would have. I just... I don't know. I couldn't talk about it. Not even to you. I can't explain it."

"How..." She groped for the question her mind had already formed. "How serious was it? Was it just you or - ?"

"It was both of us," I told her. "He felt the same. But we knew we couldn't be together, not with our age...and, well, not when we were supposed to be protecting you."

Lissa frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Dimitri always said that if we were involved, we'd worry more about protecting each other than you. We couldn't do that."

Guilt coursed through her at the thought that she'd been responsible for keeping us apart.

"It's not your fault," I said quickly.

"Surely...there must have been a way. ... It wouldn't have been a problem...."

I shrugged, unwilling to think about or mention our last kiss in the forest, back when Dimitri and I had thought we'd figured out a solution to all of our problems.

"I don't know," I said. "We just tried to stay apart. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't."

Her mind was a tumble of emotions. She felt sorry for me, but at the same time, she was mad. "You should have told me," she repeated. "I feel like you don't trust me."

"Of course I trust you."

"Is that why you're sneaking off?"

"That has nothing to do with trust," I admitted. "It's me...well, I didn't want to tell you. I couldn't bear to tell you I was leaving or explain why."

"I already know," she said. "I figured it out."

"How?" I asked. Lissa was full of surprises today.

"I was there. Last fall when we took that van into Missoula. The shopping trip? You and Dimitri were talking about Strigoi, about how becoming one makes you something twisted and evil...how it destroys the person you used to be and makes you do horrible things. And I heard ..." She had trouble saying it. I had trouble hearing it, and my eyes grew wet. The memory was too harsh, thinking of sitting with him that day, back when we were first falling in love. Lissa swallowed and continued. "I heard you both say you'd rather die than become a monster like that."

Silence fell between us. The wind picked up and blew our hair around, dark and light.

"I have to do this, Liss. I have to do it for him."

"No," she said firmly. "You don't have to. You didn't promise him anything."

"Not in words, no. But you ... you don't understand."

"I understand that you're trying to cope and that this is as good a way as any. You need to find another way to let him go."

I shook my head. "I have to do this."

"Even if it means leaving me?"

The way she said it, the way she looked at me ... oh God. A flood of memories flitted through my mind. We'd been together since childhood. Inseparable. Bound. And yet...Dimitri and I had been connected too. Damn it. I'd never wanted to have to choose between them.

"I have to do this," I said yet again. "I'm sorry."

"You're supposed to be my guardian and go with me to college," she argued. "You're shadow-kissed. We're supposed to be together. If you leave me ..."