Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy #1)(18)

My soreness made it all that much worse, but I survived the before-school practice with Dimitri and my subsequent classes without passing out or fainting.

At lunch, I dragged Lissa away from Natalie's table early and gave her a Kirova-worthy lecture about Christian - particularly chastising her for letting him know about our blood arrangement. If that got out, it'd kill both of us socially and I didn't trust him not to tell.

Lissa had other concerns.

"You were in my head again?" she exclaimed. "For that long?"

"I didn't do it on purpose," I argued. "It just happened. And that's not the point. How long did you hang out with him afterward?"

"Not that long. It was kind of...fun."

"Well, you can't do it again. If people find out you're hanging out with him, they'll crucify you." I eyed her warily. "You aren't, like, into him, are you?"

She scoffed. "No. Of course not.

"Good. Because if you're going to go after a guy, steal Aaron back." He was boring, yes, but safe. Just like Natalie. How come all the harmless people were so lame? Maybe that was the definition of safe.

She laughed. "Mia would claw my eyes out."

"We can take her. Besides, he deserves someone who doesn't shop at Gap Kids."

"Rose, you've got to stop saying things like that."

"I'm just saying what you won't."

"She's only a year younger," said Lissa. She laughed. "I can't believe you think I'm the one who's going to get us in trouble."

Smiling as we strolled toward class, I gave her a sidelong glance. "Aaron does look pretty good though, huh?"

She smiled back and avoided my eyes. "Yeah. Pretty good."

"Ooh. You see? You should go after him."

"Whatever. I'm fine being friends now."

"Friends who used to stick their tongues down each other's throats."

She rolled her eyes.

"Fine." I let my teasing go. "Let Aaron stay in the nursery school. Just so long as you stay away from Christian. He's dangerous."

"You're overreacting. He's not going Strigoi."

"He's a bad influence."

She laughed. "You think I'm in danger of going Strigoi?"

She didn't wait for my answer, instead pushing ahead to open the door to our science class. Standing there, I uneasily replayed her words and then followed a moment later. When I did, I got to see royal power in action. A few guys - with giggling, watching girls - were messing with a gangly-looking Moroi. I didn't know him very well, but I knew he was poor and certainly not royal. A couple of his tormentors were air-magic users, and they'd blown the papers off his desk and were pushing them around the room on currents of air while the guy tried to catch them.

My instincts urged me to do something, maybe go smack one of the air users. But I couldn't pick a fight with everyone who annoyed me, and certainly not a group of royals - especially when Lissa needed to stay off their radar. So I could only give them a look of disgust as I walked to my desk. As I did, a hand caught my arm. Jesse.

"Hey," I said jokingly. Fortunately, he didn't appear to be participating in the torture session. "Hands off the merchandise."

He flashed me a smile but kept his hand on me. "Rose, tell Paul about the time you started the fight in Ms. Karp's class."

I cocked my head toward him, giving him a playful smile. "I started a lot of fights in her class."

"The one with the hermit crab. And the gerbil."

I laughed, recalling it. "Oh yeah. It was a hamster, I think. I just dropped it into the crab's tank, and they were both worked up from being so close to me, so they went at it."

Paul, a guy sitting nearby whom I didn't really know, chuckled too. He'd transferred last year, apparently, and hadn't heard of this. "Who won?"

I looked at Jesse quizzically. "I don't remember. Do you?"

"No. I just remember Karp freaking out." He turned toward Paul. "Man, you should have seen this messed-up teacher we used to have. Used to think people were after her and would go off on stuff that didn't make any sense. She was nuts. Used to wander campus while everyone was asleep."

I smiled tightly, like I thought it was funny. Instead, I thought back to Ms. Karp again, surprised to be thinking about her for the second time in two days. Jesse was right - she had wandered campus a lot when she still worked here. It was pretty creepy. I'd run into her once - unexpectedly.

I'd been climbing out of my dorm window to go hang out with some people. It was after hours, and we were all supposed to be in our rooms, fast asleep. Such escape tactics were a regular practice for me. I was good at them.

But I fell that time. I had a second-floor room, and I lost my grip about halfway down. Sensing the ground rush up toward me, I tried desperately to grab hold of something and slow my fall. The building's rough stone tore into my skin, causing cuts I was too preoccupied to feel. I slammed into the grassy earth, back first, getting the wind knocked out of me.

"Bad form, Rosemarie. You should be more careful. Your instructors would be disappointed."

Peering through the tangle of my hair, I saw Ms. Karp looking down at me, a bemused look on her face. Pain, in the meantime, shot through every part of my body.