Chapter Four
Compulsion or Impulse?
I woke up to be greeted by an anxious face. An anxious face belonging to Brianna Lazar. Last night had been disastrous. Jill hadn't graduated and Cass and Christian tried to knock me out. And Brianna had been…Brianna. Need I go further?
"How's your jaw?" Brianna inquired as she fetched me a glass of water, "Cass punched you pretty hard."
I shot her a glare and downed the glass of water. Probably everyone knew about Cass punching me. Moroi tended to gossip more than drinking or eating or breathing.
"I'm fine," I snapped as I reached for a throw cushion.
"Sure you are…" She muttered as she expertly dodged the pillow, "You're not disturbed by the fact that she loves Blake?"
I stared at her as she smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle from her oversized olive tee-shirt. Cass and Blake. Now that was a totally disgusting relationship even though it was every bit true.
I shook my head in disgust.
"Aren't you at all worried that she might steal your precious Blake?" I asked her with a playful smile. Brianna raised her eyebrows.
"Cass loves Blake but Blake loves Brianna," She said as she stuffed her lace clad legs into a pair of black leather flats, "Too bad for Cass."
I shot her another glare as she grabbed her metallic bag. She walked over to me and gave me a light peck on the cheek.
"Seeing your awake now I better get going," Brianna whispered into my ear, "stay away from the liquor cabin." She shot me a meaningful look.
I frowned at her disappearing figure. My whole mind felt muddled up. The sequence of events that had happened last night felt like a horror movie. The worst part was that it kept reoccurring again and again.
I felt my stomach rumble. Instinctively, I got up and raced to the kitchen: all I could find was whiskey and tonic and a 1973 rum bottle. Too bad it was empty. I scrunched my nose in disgust. This kitchen needed cleaning.
I charged out of my room and hurried to the next best room: the feeder's room. As I walked into the pristine room I noticed that there was no sign of feeding or feeders. I walked to the adjacent room and found myself facing an empty room. An empty room with a dead girl tied onto a chair.
I couldn't force myself to turn around; it was like a car accident. Gruesome yet mysteriously intriguing. As I advanced toward the girl I realised there was something wrong with her. Her face was lit up with flames. Literally. The confusing thing about the flames was that they stayed on her face; they licked her cheeks and mouth until they were nothing more than a pile of ashes.
"She looks dead to me, wouldn't you agree?"
I whipped around to be greeted by the speaker: Cass. I stared at her in wonder and horror. And a bit of fascination. A dark flame lingered on the fingertip of her long finger. Though it quickly disappeared when she blew on it.
"That's one hot death."
"No, it's a cruel death."
"I'm not Strigoi, I'm still part of your race you can't just classify me with evil masterminds-"
"We are not the same! You are a manipulative bitch and I'm a crazy guy who has been thinking for the past few days that he's the crazy psycho beneath all the compulsion that has been used on all his friends but to be honest that was all just you!"
Suddenly, her lithe body collapsed onto the floor and I felt my whole body collapse beneath my feet, the last thing I saw was Cass' body disappear in the long corridor.
When I woke up all I saw was white: white curtains, carpet and furniture. At first I thought I was in heaven, being a damned creature I didn't believe I was capable of going to heaven. Actually, I did but still. But soon I realised that I was in a bedroom.
"I figured you'd be awake now, you've been sleeping for hours." A voice muttered disturbing the eerie silence. I faced the voice.
It was Rose. I smiled at her despite my currant condition: Seeing dying people etc. Even though Rose had broken my heart on many occasions I still loved her.
"I thought you'd take longer to wake; the person who knocked you out knocked you pretty hard."
"Cass was also there at the time." I cried remembering what had happened then, "She killed a girl."
"What dead girl? You're probably just hallucinating." Rose replied as she shot me a quizzical look.
"No there was definitely a dead girl. Cass turned out to be Moroi that's how she burned the girl's face." I cried
"Adrian, relax, right now isn't the time to hallucinate, the guardian's want to question you."
I scrunched my nose in disgust.
"Whatever. Who cares about the guardians? Right now I'm on the brink of death and all these people care about is getting answers from me. How selfish of them!" I spat
"Actually, I wanted to question you."
"Yeah, well, right now I don't really want to be questioned."
"Fine. Well you can go now then. At first I though you'd be over the whole cheating thing. But you aren't. And you have a right to be angry but it's so long ago."
"Rose. I'm over everything but I will remember the time you lied to me. If you had told me everything would have changed. Rose I love you and I always will."
I clambered to my feet and readied to go out.
"Oh, Rose can you tell me what happened to Dimitri? No one's telling me it's like he went to space and he never existed."
The frown on her face deepened.
"He's dead."
At that she got up and walked out the door.
I followed her, but she walked too fast, so I ended up at the bar.
"A bloody mary without the blood." I muttered to the bartender as I stuffed an olive between my lips.
"I told you to stay away from the liquid cabin." Cried an exasperated voice
"Hi Brianna did you have a nice day? Well I didn't, I started seeing dead people and it turns out my guardian: Cass is an evil mastermind determined to kill off the Moroi population. Do you think I could survive without a drink? Probably not."
She sat down on the seat next to me.
"Actually I think you could." She motioned for the bartender, "A Tom Collins."
I shot her a glare which quickly changed to a look of mortification.
"Have you been giving Blake dances? You are disgusting do you know that?"
"Relax. It is a lace dress. No slutty things involved. Chill."
"Sure. I totally believe you." I muttered sarcastically shooting her a pointed look.
"Anyway my day was great because I found some really important information,"
"Let me guess you found out Blake loves girls dressed in slutty dresses and you decided to give him a lap dance. Hey, do you mind if I join?"
"No the reason I'm wearing this dress is because we're going to a party-"
"A party? At this moment of the month? The freaking queen is missing-"
"The guy who kidnapped the queen will be at this party."
