Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy #1)(25)

With all the excitement, no one seemed to remember that I wasn't supposed to be in there. Outside in the hall, other Moroi girls crowded together, trying to figure out what was going on. Natalie pushed her way through them, wondering what the commotion in her room was. When she discovered it, she came to a screeching halt.

Shock and disgust showed on almost everyone's faces as we stared at Lissa's bed. There was a fox on the pillow. Its coat was reddish-orange, tinged in white. It looked so soft and cuddly that it could have been a pet, perhaps a cat, something you'd hold in your arms and snuggle with.

Aside from the fact that its throat had been slit.

The inside of the throat looked pink and jellylike. Blood stained that soft coat and had run down onto the yellow bedspread, forming a dark pool that spread across the fabric. The fox's eyes stared upward, glazed, over with a sort of shocked look about them, like the fox couldn't believe this was happening.

Nausea built up in my stomach, but I forced myself to keep looking. I couldn't afford to be squeamish. I'd be killing Strigoi someday. If I couldn't handle a fox, I'd never survive major kills.

What had happened to the fox was sick and twisted, obviously done by someone too f**ked up for words. Lissa stared at it, her face death-pale, and took a few steps toward it, hand involuntarily reaching out. This gross act hit her hard, I knew, digging at her love of animals. She loved them, they loved her. While on our own, she'd often begged me for a pet, but I'd always refused and reminded her we couldn't take care of one when we might have to flee at a moment's notice. Plus, they hated me. So she'd contented herself with helping and patching up strays she found and making friends with other people's pets, like Oscar the cat.

She couldn't patch this fox up, though. There was no coming back for it, but I saw in her face she wanted to help it, like she helped everything. I took her hand and steered her away, suddenly recalling a conversation from two years ago.

"What is that? Is it a crow?"

"Too big. It's a raven."

"Is it dead?"

"Yeah. Definitely dead. Don't touch it."

She hadn't listened to me back then. I hoped she would now.

"It was still alive when I got back," Lissa whispered to me, clutching my arm. "Barely. Oh God, it was twitching. It must have suffered so much."

I felt bile rise in my throat now. Under no circumstances would I throw up. "Did you - ?"

"No. I wanted to...I started to..."

"Then forget about it," I said sharply. "It's stupid. Somebody's stupid joke. They'll clean it up. Probably even give you a new room if you want."

She turned to me, eyes almost wild. "Rose...do you remember...that one time..."

"Stop it," I said. "Forget about it. This isn't the same thing."

"What if someone saw? What if someone knows?..."

I tightened my grip on her arm, digging my nails in to get her attention. She flinched. "No. It's not the same. It has nothing to do with that. Do you hear me?" I could feel both Natalie and Dimitri's eyes on us. "It's going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay."

Not looking like she believed me at all, Lissa nodded.

"Get this cleaned up," Kirova snapped to the matron. "And find out if anyone saw anything."

Someone finally realized I was there and ordered Dimitri to take me away, no matter how much I begged them to let me stay with Lissa. He walked me back to the novices' dorm. He didn't speak until we were almost there. "You know something. Something about what happened. Is this what you meant when you told Headmistress Kirova that Lissa was in danger?"

"I don't know anything. It's just some sick joke."

"Do you have any idea who'd do it? Or why?"

I considered this. Before we'd left, it could have been any number of people. That was the way it was when you were popular. People loved you, people hated you. But now? Lissa had faded off to a certain extent. The only person who really and truly despised her was Mia, but Mia seemed to fight her battles with words, not actions. And even if she did decide to do something more aggressive, why do this? She didn't seem like the type. There were a million other ways to get back at a person. "No," I told him. "No clue."

"Rose, if you know something, tell me. We're on the same side. We both want to protect her. This is serious."

I spun around, taking my anger over the fox out on him. "Yeah, it is serious. It's all serious. And you have me doing laps every day when I should be learning to fight and defend her! If you want to help her, then teach me something! Teach me how to fight. I already know how to run away."

I didn't realize until that moment how badly I did want to learn, how I wanted to prove myself to him, to Lissa, and to everyone else. The fox incident had made me feel powerless, and I didn't like that. I wanted to do something, anything.

Dimitri watched my outburst calmly, with no change in his expression. When I finished, he simply beckoned me forward like I hadn't said anything. "Come on. You're late for practice."

EIGHT

BURNING WITH ANGER, I FOUGHT harder and better that day than I ever had in any of my classes with the novices. So much so that I finally won my first hand-to-hand pairing, annihilating Shane Reyes. We'd always gotten along, and he took it good-naturedly, applauding my performance, as did a few others.