"What for?" I waited for an answer, but Dimitri had already taken off, leaving me to hurry off behind him. I wanted to try and make conversation with him but he really didn't appear to be the talking type. We crossed through another field, I guess as a shortcut, and entered another identical building. If I didn't get lost during my stay here then it would surely be a miracle. Dimitri walked up to the front desk, murmured a few words, then like magic a short woman came out of the room behind and marched right up to us.

"Would you like to take a seat, Miss. Dragomir." It sounded like a question, but at her tone I knew it wasn't. This woman was a little unusual; looking at her white blond hair that was pulled into a stylish knot, wisps straying (it took me a second to realise it was her hair and not a wedding fascinator) and her fuchsia pink matching suit, I would have thought she would have been a little calmer. But I could tell she was getting ready to belt out something negative.

"Headmistress Kirova has been called into a meeting which has enabled her from being here." She glared down at me. I took a seat and noticeable shrunk down into it. Whatever this was could not be good. "I assume you understand about the levels here at St. Vladimir's."

"Yes." I stammered a bit. Levels were sort of like a reward and punishment system here. You had to have a certain number to get into the levels and the higher the level you were, the more leisure time you could have. I read it in the pamphlet I had been given in the car journey here.

"Then why you would abuse the system before you had even started baffles me." She revealed a plastic bag from behind her back. "It would lead you into the negative numbers."

"Abuse the system?" I asked innocently.

"This." She pulled out from the plastic bag a silky indigo bra with lace trimmings. My bra. It had been my only fancy bra I had bought with me. Dimitri cleared his throat and looked away. "This clearly defies the rules here."

My cheeks burned up. "How did you get that?"

"Students' bags have to be checked for things like this." I let out an angry splutter, which she must have thought was a laugh. "You think this is funny?" The woman's eyes practically popped out her eye sockets. "Miss. Dragomir, this is an underwire bra. Underwire bras are not allowed here. I will be keeping this until you depart. I do hope you have enough sports bras to last; if not we'll lend you some to borrow."

I almost did laugh out loud. The pamphlet had said, no mention of no underwire bras, that you were only allowed to bring three pairs of underwear and bras. That was barely enough anyways.

"I hope you take this as seriously as we are; whether it was purposely taken or by mere incident. This object has been banned for the risk of self mutualisation attempts, which does happen in the department you have been sectioned to." She stuffed my bra back into the bag. "You may go."

"Why do you think you're here then?" Deidre, my counsellor, asked for the third time. I looked out the window, sighing. It was a beautiful morning. No clouds, just the shining sun. Too bad I was in a stuffy room being interrogated.

"I don't know."

"Are you sure?" She leaned forward towards me and I leaned back even further into my chair.

"My parents thought something was wrong with me but there's not. I'm being an average teenage girl."

"What did they say to make you feel they thought something was 'wrong' with you?"

"They didn't say anything to make me think that."

"Then why would you think that?" The endless questioning never stopped and I turned robotic with my answers, hoping to sway her off but it didn't. After my session I looked over my timetable to see I had English next. My whole timetable had so much stuff packed into it that didn't leave me to do much by myself. I think that was the school's way of trying to tire us out so much we couldn't think about going back to the 'dark side'.

I perked up a bit when I saw Rose sitting at one of the tables in my English class. I pulled up a chair next to her and she grinned when she saw me.

"So you survived last night." She turned, still slouched over the desk, to face me.

"Guess so." I grabbed some paper and a pen on the side of the desk and wrote the date on a clean sheet. "No one tried to murder me at least."

"Just wait until it's a full moon; that's when things get wild." She joked but it filled me with unease.

"You better be kidding."

"Don't tell me you believe in that crap." Her brown eyes widened with surprise and she waved a hand. I looked away hoping Rose couldn't see the answer 'yes' in my eyes when I saw a black blur behind me. It was a boy dressed all in black with black hair and all. It was as if there was no colour allowed within a 2 mile radius of him. He looked up, catching my gaze. He had the most beautiful eyes; ice blue and shining, though they were held with a cruel look that didn't match the beauty of them. There was something familiar about them that I couldn't put my finger on.

I suddenly realised that I was staring and I quickly turned back to my desk, blushing.

"Um. No. Lissa. Just no." Rose whisper shouted to me, she huddled closer to me. "That was a second too long for a normal glance. You don't know who that is!"

"Calm down, I just looked at him." I whispered back.

"That's Christian Ozera. He is the creepiest guy in here, Lissa. Seriously, stay the hell away from him or everyone will think you've joined his crazy ass cult."

"His cult?"

"Yeah. It got around what he's in here for. I mean, the guardians aren't allowed to tell students about other people's problems but somehow it got out. No one went near him before that, but then after it got out…it's like everyone's scared of even mentioning him. So they don't. They pretend he doesn't exist."

I began to get a sick feeling in my stomach. It was like the nightmares in St. Vladimir's were truly unravelling.

"He set fire to his parents."

"What?" I said a little too loud. We both turned to see if he was looked but he was scratching something into the desk.

"I know it's mad, even for this place. Apparently he was always a quiet kid, then one day he just set fire to his house with everyone in it. His aunt turned up and went in to save whoever she could but she only managed to get him."

"Are his parents…" I couldn't finish the sentence.

"Dead? Yeah, they are." Rose's pretty face was crumpled with grimness. "That's why you need to keep away from him."

"Class!" A bald man appeared and clapped his hands for attention. "Ah, the only student who bothered to prepared for this lesson." He pointed at the paper in front of me. "And what's your name?"

"Lissa, sir."

"Welcome Lissa, 5 points for excellent preparation." It was like Hogwarts, except the points were going towards my level 1. Only 95 more points to go…

I didn't learn much from that English lesson; only Romeo was not a tragic hero, Rose sure did like to argue with teachers and that I had a potential murderer a few feet behind me.

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