"Faster,Sienna! That strigoi's catching up!" I pushed my aching legs harder and harder, faster and faster. "FASTER!" Dimitri held out his arm everytime I passed him and yelled "One!" or "Five!" or "Fifteen!" depending on how many times I ran a lap.

I passed the finishing cone for the twentieth time, and Dimitri looked at his watch. "Time!" Dimitri said. "Ten minutes." I was panting and breathing like a pig by the time I was finished. I was poorly rested,-and I just ran 10 miles in 10 minutes, beat that-so my body just wanted to lay down and relax for a while. I fell on the floor, panting and wheezing while Dimitri hung over me, disappointed. Dimitri was my personal trainer on his days off from guarding Lissa. And apparently, I had sweated my make-up off. He stared at the bags under my eyes, clicking his tongue.

"Sienna, when's the last time you've had any sleep?" He pursed his lips, guessing in his head.

"Ahh, I had two hours." I said with a sheepish smile. I wiped my sweaty hair to the side of my face, but it just fell back again.

He shook his head with disapproval. "Why? You know you have training. If you hadn't have runoff, you wouldn't have to train everyday."

He was so sexy when he was disappointed.
His arms were crossed, showing off the muscles that lined his arms, and his eyes were worried and all sparkly. His lower lip pouted a bit, and his hair hung in his face, making him look like a gigantic puppy dog. A sexy one.

God, Rose is so frikkin' lucky. She's three years older than my age, which makes her 19, but still, she's married. Lucky. When my sister Rose left the Vampire Academy, she took her moroi best friend, Lissa Dragomir with her, and when she was captured, high on a vampire bite (like a bloodwhore), she had to endure the same training as I am right now, except she got the benefit of a super hot teacher-slash-lover-slash-bestfriend sexy dude, Dimitri. Why couldn't I have a hot teacher that was not taken by my sister? It's not that I don't love my sister. It's just that I want to be better than her. I want her to be compared to me, not the other way around. I want to be the famous strigoi hunter.

When Dad and Janine Hathaway got remarried a year ago, they told me and Rose that we were sisters and not just step sisters, but real sisters. And they were still in love. I have no clue why they got a divorce, anyways. But I fell in love with my sister's face, reputation, personality, her everything. She became my role model and my bestfriend.

But anyways, people kept reminding me that I ran away, thinking that I did it because Rose did it when she was my age. She ran away for good reason. Lissa had specialized in a new element-spirit-and Rose didn't want anyone to use Lissa and her healy majigger powers. I, on the other hand, ran away to escape the vampire environment. I just wanted to escape the atmosphere of assholes and dicks that filled myschool, and go to a "normal" human school. A school where I came first, not the moroi. Of course everyone thought I ran away because my sister did it when she was 16. But seriously, dude. I'm not that obsessive.

Yeah, no one was too happy with my explaination.

When I looked up, Dimitri was scrutinizing my face, with his head tilted. "Hey, do you admire your sister?"

He pulled me out of my reverie. "Huh? Yeah. I do."

He ran his fingers through his hair, standing straight and looking me in the eyes. I looked down. "How much?"

Ilooked up and spoke the truth. "More than I admire my dad, and that's something." It really was something. Our dad was rich as hell, and everyone feared him. He was a badass motherfucker. Excuse my language.

Dimitri simply nodded and continued his questioning. "Why do you admire her?" He asked bending a little, sweeping a brush of his chestnut hair behind his head. I noticed a scatter of freckles against his handsome brown face. I answered truthfully again.

"Rose, she's braver than me, stronger than me, and smarter than me. She has a huge reputation not for only being the best strigoi hunter, but also the best guardian. She's prettier than me." I repeated my thoughts from earlier: " It's not that I don't love my sister. It's just that I want to be better than her. One day, I want her to be compared to me, not the other way around. I want to be the famous strigoi hunter."

Dimitri said "Hold out your hand, Sienna."

I obeyed, like the student I was. He placed his stake in my hand, and it glittered in the moonlight above my head. "What? What are you doing?" This was seriously my first time holding a stake, and Dimitri could tell I was excited. He smirked at my expression.

"Follow me."

He led me to the practice dummies, seriously having to duck to get through the entrance. Dimitri must seriously be tall, or I'm short. But I don't think I'm short. 5'4 isn't that short. Right?

"Where's the heart, Sienna?" He bobbed his chin to a dummy with red hair.

I pointed to the middle of the dummie's chest. He nodded. "Correct." He seemed to be remembering something, maybe something about Rose, but then he snapped out of it with a smile. He took off his jacket, and his shirt was tight, showing off his muscular everything. His six-pack...biceps... pecks... I could even make out his belly button. His cheeks were red and scattered with a bunch of freckles. He looked much younger than his age, which was 26. But I guess that makes sense, because he was a strigoi for almost two years, so technically, his body is onlytwenty four years old. That's much better than before. He used to be seven years older than Rose, but now, technically, he's only five. His hair barely brushed his shoulders. His brown eyes glimmered in the moonlight, but in his eyes, I could see he loved Rose. And I now knew he was thinking of her when I did something just now. His smooth, yet muscular hands raised to his face and my eyes followed.

Then his wedding ring shimmered, making me look down at the floor. God, what's wrong with me? This is my sister's boyfriend. No, not boyfriend. Husband. I can't fall for him. I won't let myself.

"Okay. How do you get to the heart?" He asked, scratching his chin, like he didn't know the answer. But knowing Dimka, he did.

I opened my mouth and said something I heard on Buffy the VampireSlayer. "You strike the middle of the chest, and glide the stake underthe ribs with your hand. Twist it into there, and then slam the back of your hand onto the butt of your stake to get it all the way in."

"Well, that's different," he said "but that would definately work. It actually sounded easier than what I would have said."

"Show me how." He pointed to the dummy.

I striked the dummy, and without warning, the dummy screamed, the little voice recorder they put in the dummies scaring me to death. I twisted the stake into the ribs, and then the dummy stopped screaming, meaning that I had crushed the voice recorder/heart. Good. "I could totally kill a strigoi, dude." I said, cocky.

"Good job." He came over and took the stake back, putting it in his pocket. "Get out your practice stake."

I took out my shiny, black, plastic stake and showed it to him.

"Stake me." He took a step forward and got into a hunter's crouch. "If you can." He smiled, and he was gone. Okay, fine. We'll play strigoi and hunter. I clenched my stake tightly. I looked around the room, and I couldn't see him anywhere. Stupid freaking Dhampir-strigoi. The only thing I could hear were the sounds of footsteps, but I couldn't be sure where they were coming from. I seriously looked up at the gym ceiling. You never know, Dimitri could totally find a way to get up there. And then I felt a warmth on the back of my neck, and I had a feeling he was standing right behind me. Before I had the chance to spin around, something like the force of a huge truck collided with the backs of my legs, sending me flying in the air. Thanks for adding to my collection of cuts and bruises, Dimka. I really needed that. I heard the deafening crack, before I felt the pain. But I stood up immediately. My head throbbed, and I was pretty freaking sure I had a concussion. I jumped on Dimitri, and he tried to shake me off, but I kept holding on. He yanked at my hair, then I grabbed his neck with one hand to keep him from "biting". He threw me off, and landed on me again.

"See, if I were a strigoi, you'd be dead." He wasn't even breathless. I was. How pitiful.

"I don't see why you had to beat the crap out of me to make that statement, Dimka." I gasped. (Couldn't help but notice that he was still on top of me.) My heart pounded a fierce beat in my chest.

He laughed, his breath on my face. He pulled me up and told me to hit the showers.

"I'm telling Rose on you." I said jokingly, throwing him one of my evil glares, (he called it my angry kitten look) while running out of the room. He laughed harder, and I heard his voice echo throughout the gym as I left. My footsteps fell harder as I stepped my way to the showers, and my body grew tireder and tireder with every step.

Ugh. Does anyone else ever sweat this much? I mean, I'm practically drenched in it. It looks and smells like I dived in a stinking swimming pool. I was hotter than a mofo and as tired as...a person who just ran 10 miles in 10 minutes, without even walking, AND didn't have much sleep the night before, plus just fought the god of fighting, who is an ex-strigoi. I moved like a zombie, sweat pouring down the side of my face, and pooling between my boobs and growing cold. My hair stuck to my forehead, and my head hung low. I was so tired. My head felt like a bowling ball on top of a q-tip, and I was afraid I'd tip over and pass out any minute. I decided to skip the shower and headed the other direction, to my dorm.

I opened my door, my eyes closed and I was pretty much asleep. Everything I did, I did without thinking. Every part of my body felt like it weighed 600 pounds.

I saw someone sitting on my bed, but I was way too tired to check who. And, too stupid in my tired state to realize how dumb this might be. I plopped onto it and went under the covers, drifting off.
Later, I felt the person snuggle under the covers with me.
But I couldn't care less.