Hokies, guys. I'm headed to camp in like 2 hours, so I won't be updating again until Saturday or so. Maybe Friday, but I dunno... camp is the land of no sleep and no A/C, so I'll probably be sleeping and lounging around for all of Friday. :3
Anyways. This chapter is pretty lame at first. Sorry 'bout that. And also, it switches to 3rd person POV to follow Lissa in the middle. Oh, and Lissa's OOC-ness? Totally intentional. They're all acting weird for a reason. Don't freak about it, 'kay?
Mucho luff to my reviewers – taha01, Twilight-on-the-brain, and Dark.
Chapter 4: Shattered
I found myself in the dark forest again. The air was heavy and still. The moss-covered trees bent over me, like a protective canopy. Or claws. I shuddered from that mental image. I looked around, but saw no Strigoi lurking.
Instead, Mason glared at me balefully from under a tree. Soon, other figures joined him. They filled the area around me. Dimitri. Lissa. Christian. Mia. My mom. Guardians. Royals. All of them wore the same expression – distrust, wariness, and poorly disguised anger.
They all spoke at once, shattering the stillness. "It's your fault. You brought them here. How could you, Rose?" My heart wrenched, seeing the sadness in their eyes. I had betrayed them.
Wait. I had? What?
I shook myself, trying to clear my head, and then suddenly found myself awake, staring into Dimitri's concerned, bottomless brown eyes. The complete opposite of my dream. I forced those images from my mind and focused on the present.
"Where am I?" I croaked, way too out of it to focus. Bleh.
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As it turned out, I had been in and out of consciousness for two days. I was never lucid – the best they could do was get me to drink water. As such, I was absolutely starving when I left the clinic.
"Mff mm mooo meirmf!" I said through a mouthful of chicken. I was trying to shovel as much food down as possible to keep my stomach from eating itself. Lissa glared at me for my table manners. I swallowed and repeated myself. "It was so weird!" I was in the midst of spilling everything to Lissa. I explained the dream, the recording, and the song, and then watched with dismay as her expression went from disbelief to annoyance.
"Rose, you know you don't have to lie to me, right?" she asked gently. I blinked, stunned.
"Um... but... it's not -"
"Did you really expect me to believe such a thing? Honestly, who would do all that?
"I don't -"
"I'm stunned the guardians bought it. And I thought you could trust me. Guess not." At this, she got up and walked away briskly, and then attached herself to Christian. I just sat there, utterly bewildered at her behavior. She wasn't even PMS'ing! I got that it was a bit far-fetched, but geez, why couldn't she trust me?
That same distrust was mirrored by the rest of the students. By the end of the day, the laughs and whispers and stares all revolved around me. I didn't get it. What had happened? What made everyone look at me like a liar and a traitor?
I walked into after-school practice utterly dejected. I could tell from Dimitri's pitying look that he, too, had heard how Princess Lissa ditched Rose. As we fought, I put as much of my frustration and confusion into my punches as possible. Before long, I had pinned Dimitri down on the floor. I had a sneaking suspicion that he let me win a bit, but all rational thought left me as he pulled me down on top of him.
The kiss was tender at first, then deepened as I pressed myself closer. His hands trailed lightly down my sides, coming to a stop at me waist. I entwined my hands in that silky brown hair of his, and when I came up for air, the smell of his cologne mingled with sweat made me melt. I was in heaven.
The, abruptly, he stopped. He gently rolled me off of him, then stood up. As he looked down at me, his eyes showed an interesting mixture of emotions: concern, love, and was that some distrust I saw? I groaned internally, still trying to figure out what the hell was going on to make everyone look at me like that.
"Be careful, Rose," he said quietly. With that, he slipped out gym, leaving me exhausted, confused, and maybe just a little high from his kiss and his scent.
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Lissa sat listlessly on he bed, silently wondering at her behavior all day. What had gotten into her? Eventually, she got up, intending to apologize to Rose, when she heard a cacophony rising from the first floor. Glass breaking, people screaming, wood splintering... and beneath it all, a strange singing that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. It pressed in on her, making her freeze. Faintly, beneath the haunting melody, she could make out the lyrics.
"The darkness comforts
Draws you closer
Makes you want more
The darkness, the shadows
They pull you nearer
Entice you, body and mind
We are thirsty!"
The last line a shout from below her, and she shuddered in terror. The music faded, but the screams continued. Acting on instinct, she tore out of her room and down the stairs to the dorm lobby. Her mind raced as she tried to locate the source of the commotions. There – the feeder room door was off its hinges on the ground, and broken in half. Across from it, a window was shattered, and broken glass covered the ground outside it. She ran to the feeder room, only to see an extraordinarily gruesome scene. In the middle of the room, two Moroi she knew lay on the floor in puddles of blood, with knives protruding from their back.
Camille Conta and Carly lay dead, murdered by the ones who had been keeping them alive.
Lissa's high-pitched shriek rose above the rest, and a bolt of terror passed through the bond between her and Rose right before she passed out.
Jacob, watching through the eyes of one of his 'seeds' surveyed the scene of destruction. The Academy was falling apart. He grinned maliciously, then turned to face the horde of Strigoi he now commanded.
(A/N: Reviews, pretty pretty please? Big cliffie, sorry about that. Dead royals, oh noes. I'll be writing a LOT at camp, so expect more! But in the meantime... review for Kira, please!)