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~~~333RoseHathaway-Belikov333~~~

I don't own VA, but I wish I did!!!


I walked around the campus, greeting guardians as they arrived. They all knew me, and I knew them. I watched as the guardians interacted with each other, and talked about what they had done since they had last met. Many had killed strigoi, and some hadn't. The strigoi seemed to be more and more active lately. I decided to go to the class Rose was in, which happened to be where her mother was. I slipped in silently, without getting noticed, and I slid to the back of the room.

Janine Hathaway was at the front of the class speaking about some of her strigoi kills. Rose looked like she was ready to kill someone.

"I had just staked a strigoi when two more attacked," she explained to the class of novices. They all looked amazed and completely riveted in Janine's story. "I didn't have time to pull the stake out when the others jumped me. Fortunately, there was an open fireplace nearby, and I pushed one of the strigoi into it. The last one chased me outside, into an old shed. There was an axe inside and I used that to cut off her head. I then took a can of gasoline, and returned to the house. The one I'd thrown into the fireplace hadn't completely burned, but once I doused him in gasoline, he went up pretty quickly." I watched the novice's mouths drop open. The room was completely, entirely silent for Janine. Rose was the only one who looked unimpressed with Janine's tale.

Novices raised their hands and asked questions. After the tenth question, Rose raised her hand, to my surprise. It took Janine a while to notice her daughter's hand, and when she saw, she looked mildly surprised.

"So, Guardian Hathaway, why didn't you guys just secure the place?" Rose asked her mother. Oh, boy, this would be interesting.

Janine frowned. "What do you mean?"

Rose shrugged and slouched back into her chair. She attempted to look casual, and to some she may have, but she wasn't. "I don't know. It seems to me like you guys messed up. Why didn't you scope out the place and make sure it was clear of strigoi in the first place? Seems like you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble."

Everyone turned towards Rose. Janine froze, temporarily at a loss for words. She quickly gathered herself and spoke again. "If we hadn't gone through all that 'trouble,' there'd be seven more strigoi walking the world, and those other captured moroi would be dead or turned by now." She told Rose sharply.

"Yeah, yeah, I get how you guys saved the day and all that, but I'm going back to the principles here. I mean, this is a theory class, right?" Rose glanced at Stan who was glaring at her. "So I just want to figure out what went wrong in the beginning."

There was a small tightness in the set of Janine's lips, but that was the only sign of what I presumed to be her immense frustration with Rose.

"It's not that simple. The venue had an extremely complex layout. We went through it initially and found nothing. It's believed the strigoi came in after the festivities had started—or that there might have been passages and hidden rooms we hadn't been aware of." She replied calmly and coolly.

The class ooh'ed and ahh'ed at Janine's statement of possible hidden rooms and passages. Rose, on the other hand, looked like she was going to hit someone when she got the chance. I knew that she was going to cause more problems from the way this was going.

"So what you're saying is that you guys either failed to detect them during your first sweep, or they broke through the 'security' you set up during the party. Seems like someone messed up either way." Rose stated.

The tightness in Janine's lips grew, and her voice grew cold. "We did the best we could with an unusual situation. I can see how someone at your level might not be able to grasp the intricacies of what I'm describing, but once you've actually learned enough to go beyond theory, you'll see how different it is when you're actually out there and lives are in your hands."

"No doubt," Rose agreed. "Who am I to question your methods? I mean, whatever gets you the molnija marks, right?" Oh, Rose.

"Miss Hathaway." Stan's voice rumbled. "Please take your things and go wait outside for the remainder of class," he commanded her. Her face turned from 'mad' to 'furious'.

"Are you serious? Since when is there anything wrong with asking questions?" She shrieked at him, looking as if she was about to lunge after him.

"Your attitude is what's wrong." He pointed at the classroom door. "Go." He commanded her. The room went even quieter if possible. She gathered her things, and walked out of the classroom with her head held high. That's Rose. It wasn't the first time she'd been kicked out of this class in front of me and all other amounts of guardians. She'd been kicked out multiple times.

Five minutes before class let out, Janine slipped out of the classroom, to talk to Rose, I assumed. I heard Rose and Janine arguing in the hall. When the bell rang, the other guardians and I slithered out.

I waited for the day's classes to end, so that Rose and I would have our practice. I wondered if she figured out where the heart was yet. I hoped she knew, so that I could work with her stake skills. She needed to learn.

I hoped her mood wouldn't be too fowl. I loved seeing her happy. Finally, she arrived for her after school practice. She didn't look at me, but went straight up to the dummy, and slapped the center of the chest, slightly to the left.

"There. The heart is there, and the sternum and ribs are in the way. Can I have the stake now?" she asked. She was having a bad day, and I felt bad for her.

She crossed her arms, and glanced at me triumphantly. I nodded in acknowledgement.

"And how do you get through the sternum and the ribs?" I fired the question at her. She should have been expecting that.

She sighed. We spent a large part of the lesson with me teaching her techniques that would yield the quickest kill. When I finally thought she was ready, I extended my hand to her, offering her the stake.

"You're giving it to me?" she asked, holding back. The fact that she was holding back surprised me, and made me wonder what she was thinking. Rose was ready.

"I can't believe you're holding back. I figured you'd have taken it and run by now." I told her. I almost laughed.

"Aren't you always teaching me to hold back?" she asked.

"Not on everything."

"But on some things."

I heard the double meaning in her voice and instantly felt bad. I wished we could be together, as I had only how many times before, but it did us no good. God, I loved her, but it wouldn't work. I couldn't let myself love her.

"Of course." I said, not indicating that we'd been talking about anything other than class. I didn't let on that I had picked up the message. "It's like everything else. Balance. Know which things to run forward with—and know which to leave alone." I put emphasis on the last phrase for her.

Our eyes met. She had picked up that I knew what she'd meant before. She knew I picked up on it. But I said nothing more.

Hesitantly, she reached out and curled her hand around the hilt. She studied the stake, and got used to it. Finally she looked up at me and spoke. "What should I do first?" she asked.

We covered the basics, honing the way she held and moved with the stake. I let her attack one of the dummies later on. She discovered it was not as effortless as she thought it was. I never stopped giving her patience and diligence. I guided her through every step, correcting every tiny detail.

"Slide up through the ribs." I explained to her, watching her try to fit the stake through a small gap in the bones. "It'll be easier since you're shorter than most of your attackers. Plus, you can slide along the lower rib's edge."

Practice ended and I took the stake back. I nodded to her, showing my approval.

"Good. Very good." I told her.

She glanced at me, and looked surprised.

"Really?"

"You do it like you've been doing it for years." I told her. She grinned. We both began leaving the practice room. When we neared the door, she stopped and scowled.

"Can I stake that one next time?" she asked.

I picked up my coat, and put it on. I studied the dummy, and I got why she wanted to stake it. It was because it looked like her mother.

"I don't think that'd be happy." I said to her.

"It'd be better than me actually doing it to her." She grumbled, slinging her backpack over her shoulder, looking angry. I hated when she was angry, because I wanted to fix whatever had made her angry.

We headed out to the gym.

"Violence isn't the answer to your problems." I told her calmly.

"She's the one with the problem. And I thought the whole point of my education was that violence is the answer."

"Only to those who bring it to you first. Your mother isn't assaulting you. You two are just too much alike, that's all." They really were very much alike.

She stopped walking.

"I'm not anything like her! I mean… we kind of have the same eyes. But I'm a lot taller. And my hair's completely different." She pointed to her ponytail, pointing out to me that there were differences. I knew they were different, but they were very much the same.

I hid a smile. "I'm not talking about your appearances, and you know it." I told her, matter-of-factly. She was so stubborn.

She looked away from my gaze.

"You think I'm jealous?" she asked me incredulously.

"Are you?" I asked her. If so, what are you jealous of exactly?"

She glanced at me. "I don't know. Maybe I'm jealous of her reputation. Maybe I'm jealous because she's put more time into her reputation than into me. I don't know." She confessed to me.

"You don't think what she did was great?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. It just sounded like such a… I don't know… like she was bragging. Like she just did it for the glory." She grimaced. "For the marks."

"You think facing down strigoi is worth a few marks? I thought you'd learned something from the Badica house." I told her.

"That's not what I—"

"Come on." I told her.

She froze.

"What?"

"I want to show you something." I informed her.

"What is it?" she asked me, looking confused.

"That not all marks are badges of honor."

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~~~333RoseHathaway-Belikov333~~~