Shadow Kiss (Vampire Academy #3)(89)

"Rose. Listen to me. Run. Run as fast and as hard as you can back to your dorm. Tell the guardians."

I nodded. There was no questioning here.

Reaching out, he gripped my upper arm, gaze locked on me to make sure I understood his next words. "Do not stop," he said. "No matter what you hear, no matter what you see, do not stop. Not until you've warned the others. Don't stop unless you're directly confronted. Do you understand?"

I nodded again. He released his hold.

"Tell them buria."

I nodded again.

"Run."

I ran. I didn't look back. I didn't ask what he was going to do because I already knew. He was going to stop as many Strigoi as he could so that I could get help. And a moment later, I heard grunts and hits that told me he'd found another. For only a heartbeat, I let myself worry about him. If he died, I was certain I would too. But then I let it go. I couldn't just think about one person, not when hundreds of lives were depending on me. There were Strigoi at our school. It was impossible. It couldn't happen.

My feet hit the ground hard, splashing through the slush and mud. Around me, I thought I could hear voices and shapes - not the ghosts from the airport, but the monsters I'd been dreading for so long. But nothing stopped me. When Dimitri and I had first begun training together, he'd made me run laps every day. I'd complained, but he'd stated over and over again that it was essential. It would make me stronger, he had said. And, he'd added, a day could come when I couldn't fight and would have to flee. This was it.

The dhampir dorm appeared before me, about half its windows lit. It was near curfew; people were going to bed. I burst in through the doors, feeling like my heart was going to explode from the exertion. The first person I saw was Stan, and I nearly knocked him over. He caught my wrists to steady me.

"Rose, wh - "

"Strigoi," I gasped out. "There are Strigoi on campus."

He stared at me, and for the first time I'd ever seen, his mouth seriously dropped open. Then, he recovered himself, and I could immediately see what he was thinking. More ghost stories. "Rose, I don't know what you're - "

"I'm not crazy!" I screamed. Everyone in the dorm's lobby was staring at us. "They're out there! They're out there, and Dimitri is fighting them alone. You have to help him." What had Dimitri told me? What was that word? "Buria. He said to tell you buria."

And like that, Stan was gone.

I had never seen any drills for Strigoi attacks, yet the guardians must have conducted them. Things moved too fast for them not to have. Every guardian in the dorm, whether they'd been awake or not, was in the lobby in a matter of minutes. Calls were made. I stood in a semicircle with other novices, who watched our elders organize themselves with amazing efficiency. Glancing around, I realized something. There were no other seniors with me. Since it was Sunday night, all of them had returned to the field experience to protect their Moroi. It was oddly relieving. The Moroi dorms had an extra line of defense.

At least, the teenage Moroi did. The elementary campus did not. It had its normal guardian protection, as well as a lot of the same defenses our dorm did, like gratings on all the first-floor windows. Things like that wouldn't keep Strigoi out, but they would slow them down. No one had ever done too much more than that. There'd been no need, not with the wards.

Alberta had joined the group and was sending out parties throughout campus. Some were sent to secure buildings. Some were hunting parties, specifically seeking out Strigoi and trying to figure out how many were around. As the guardians thinned out, I stepped forward.

"What should we do?" I asked.

Alberta turned to me. Her eyes swept over me and the others standing behind me, ages ranging from fourteen to just a little younger than me. Something flashed across her face. Sadness, I thought.

"You stay here in the dorm," she said. "No one can leave -  the whole campus is under lockdown. Go up to the floors you live on. There are guardians there organizing you into groups. The Strigoi are less likely to get up there from the outside. If they get in on this floor..." She scanned around us, at the door and windows being monitored. She shook her head. "Well, we'll deal with that."

"I can help," I told her. "You know I can."

I could tell she was about to disagree, but then she changed her mind. To my surprise, she nodded. "Take them upstairs. Watch them."

I started to protest being a babysitter, but then she did something really astonishing. She reached inside her coat and handed me a silver stake. A real one.

"Go on," she said. "We need them out of the way here."

I started to turn away but then paused. "What does buria mean?"

"Storm," she said softly. "It's Russian for 'storm.'"

I led the other novices up the stairs, directing them to their floors. Most were terrified, which was perfectly understandable. A few of them - the older ones in particular - looked like I felt. They wanted to do something, anything to help. And I knew that even though they were a year from graduation, they were still deadly in their way. I pulled a couple of them aside.

"Keep them from panicking," I said in a low voice. "And stay on watch. If something happens to the older guardians, it'll be up to you."

Their faces were sober, and they nodded at my directions. They understood perfectly. There were some novices, like Dean, who didn't always grasp the seriousness of our lives. But most did. We grew up fast.