Distance
Disclaimer: This all belongs to Richelle Mead except for the plot, that's mine.
Chapter 2
Someone was shaking me awake. Bad move. I lashed out kicking and punching the intruder as best I could, I only got a few in before he restrained me and I realized it was Belikov. He told me
"Kirova has ordered you to be at every class today, hangover or not."
"What the hell? Its 7:55 in the morning class does start till eight."
He let go of me and stared, and slowly I realized what the time was.
"What's my punishment if I don't go?" I asked slyly.
"Another month like this."
I started getting ready slowly he said I had to go that didn't mean I couldn't be late.
I got to first period 10 minutes late; our instructor only response was "It's not my fault if you fail to become a guardian." He paired us up and let us go for it, teaching us pointers and better way to kill each other. I was paired with my best friend Mason. And we instantly got into a routine of talking and killing each other.
"So I heard you had a pretty wild time last night?"
" Nothing I can't handle, of course."
"Yeah of course you would be able to handle it that's why you have Guardian Belikov following you're every move."
"He is not!"
"Really?"
I glanced around the room quickly to see Mase was right he was watching me like a hawk.
"Shut up."
He laughed at me before asking,
"What did you do this time, Hathaway?"
"Nothing" I said innocently
He just raised an eyebrow at me.
"Fine! I trashed a room, it's not like the room was of importance anyway!"
"Nice, what's your punishment?"
"I don't know I'm just going with it for now, unfortunately there is no way I'm missing anything my kidnapper make sure of that."
"Bit dramatic don't you think?"
The teacher came over and gave us some pointers before moving on to another group.
"So did you hear about Sam?"
"Who?"
"She's a moroi about 14 years old,"
"Oh, what about her?"
"She got attacked last night."
"Does anybody know what attacked her," I mentally listed of the possibilities, Animal, Strigoi, Moroi . . .
"Everyone is assuming it was an animal, the wards weren't broken and she wasn't drained of blood but was damn close." I became distracted by his comment, he landed a huge blow to my chest making me fall onto my back before pressing his knee into my stomach pinning me there with a fist over my heart.
"Dead" he said with a smile, proud that he bet me for a change.
The bell rang making my day 10 times worse I had Bodyguard Theory and Personal Protection, a lot of teachers talking, and A LOT of students not listening, I was thinking about Sam, something didn't add up. Somewhere through that lesson my guardian changed all though it didn't make a difference I still hated them.
The day dragged on until lunch when they finally freed us, well they freed the rest of the school. I'm apparently not trustworthy so I had to eat in the staff room surrounded by guardians. Yeah THAT was fun. They seemed to have an unspoken rule to completely ignore me well that had to change. I evilly thought to myself. I had 10 months of lunchtimes in here I may as well have some fun right? All though I didn't have anything with me this time. . . I settle for good old pointless chatter although they were supposed to be ignoring me the pain on their faces continued to intensify, I might just find a upside to all this.
The day dragged on as the lessons slowly got worse and worse until the end of the day were I was free . . . to go back to my "cell" I had the unsettling feeling my life was becoming a boring routine. Back in my room someone had delivered an extra bed for Dimitri to use, he had been awake for more than 24 hours and it was taking a toile on him, shadows began to appear under his eyes, slowly growing worse and worse, I decided to send myself to bed early for his sake.
Later
Guardians. Toothpaste. Lunch. Me. Freetime. Do not mix us together without serious side effects. I went around and "accidentally" dropped toothpaste in pretty much every place I could. Apparently saying you were saving toothpaste was not a good reason. I still don't know why though. What if the world ends and your breath stinks so you really need to brush your teeth but from where? Well my secret deposits of toothpaste of cause, I had finally been able to do one of my pranks!
But it still landed me in the worse place possible, almost. I have an entire Sunday to pull out all the weeds around the campus with Belikov watching to make sure I don't "find something shiny and wonder off". After an hour of me silently pretending to work he said
"Stop staring and actually weed something."
"But I am. Have you not notice all my hard work?"
"I have noticed you haven't pulled anything out of the ground in the last 40 minutes."
"I'll make a deal with you. You let me pretend to work and I'll never pull a prank on you."
"Really?" He raised an eyebrow at me. Damn! I wish I could do that.
"Yes!"
"No."
"Aww, why not? It is not like this is actually doing anything. After I've finish they will have all grown back and I still will be pulling pranks only difference is if you take my deal you won't be the butt end of them."
"No."
I gave up it's not like I was actually going to do any work and it just meant I have another person to hit. I smiled to myself and saw him take a tiny step away from me. He should be scared . . . when I was free I would get my revenge, sweet sweet revenge.
The next day I actually got to class on time which was a first, especially since it was a Monday, although when I got there I wished I was back in bed, Stan was in charge of the lesson.
"Alright, class, today I'm taking today's class. Everyone pair up, I'm setting a challenge for you, everyone will spar against their partner until they can fake stake their opponent, the "alive" person will spar against another "alive" person and the "dead" will have the chose to spar one another or watch."
Pretty much everyone had paired up by the time he had finished and all he had to say was "Go!"
I was paired up with Meredith, a female novice like me but not as smoken' hot. We got into fighting stances and started to spar she got a few punches in before I got bored of dodging and kicked her feet out from under her a make a fist over her heart "Dead." She is a really easy first opponent. I defeated opponent after opponent until I got to Eddie, my third best friend, he won because he, of cause, spends all his free time in the Gym or with his head stuck in a theory book. Well that wasn't completely true but eh, close enough.
I sat amongst the "Dead" people and watch Belikov, and made a mental note to find out his first name, because what better to do then stare at someone that hot right? The competition progress until the last fight, Anthony and Miles were left, which was the ultimate fight so I decide I could spend some time not staring at him. They were evenly matched the eventually Anthony slipped slightly and Miles used that as best he could, which means Anthony joined the living dead novices. Stan who had been stand silently watching the whole lesson congratulated Miles then said
"Now try something harder."
Stan said just as he started attacking Miles, reflexes kicked in for Miles just as Stan was about to stake him. The bell went but we all stayed waiting to see the winner, they were locked into another fight that lasted only a few minutes but man was it good! But Stan was a trained Guardian and so Miles ended up dead. Everyone left just after no point hanging around.
Compared to my first lesson the rest of the day was dead boring, politics stilled played around the school and every day someone got burned, today the news was that Aaron, an ex-boyfriend of Lissa's, had a new girl friend, and the huge thing was she wasn't royal. Shock horror! The guardians were talking about it at lunch only briefly, why? That's what I would like to know but everyone except Belikov wasn't talking to me for some reason, I don't know why . . . so I decided to talk to him he was sitting by himself silently eating the last of his lunch and reading, damn him another thing I can't do but, that also reading something I haven't done in the last year, but that's beside the point.
"Hey, Comrade." I said as I sat down across from him.
"Don't call me that." Was his only response, this was going to be interesting.
"Okay, then what's your real name?"
He glanced up at me "Dimitri."
"Okay then Dimitri, guessing from your tiny accent you're from Russia right?"
"Siberia, but it's almost the same thing."
"How many siblings do you have?"
"What's with all the questions?"
"Boredom. Answer the question, or you can convince Kirova to release me for my torture."
He just looked at me.
"Fine, when do we start training?"
"In a few days."
"Why not now?"
Before Comrade could reply the bell rang, signaling more torture, he ignored my question, getting up and signaling for me to follow to my next lesson.