Sorry this chapter is shorter. I was working really hard to get something out to you guys...even though this is sort of another cliffie :)
Hope you guys enjoy! I'm working to keep the chapters coming ASAP!
(P.S. All the reviews are incredible! Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to write a review. I love hearing everything you have to say!)
CHAPTER 12
"Rose," she said awkwardly. "It's nice to see you again."
I could tell that she was just as nervous to see me, as I was shocked to see her. Underneath the uncertainty was her friendliness, though, and I could tell she was just barely refraining from engulfing me in a big hug.
But I couldn't join into her happiness. I was frozen in place, a million thoughts running through my head at once. I hated surprises. I always had.
I slowly began to wake up again, and, numbly, I turned to face Lissa.
Oh no, I heard her inner monologue, Rose, oh gosh, look at how upset she is, I have to fix this, I should have told her as soon as I found out—
"You knew?" My voice was low and flat. I couldn't summon the energy that was needed to fuel my rage just yet.
But as soon as those words left my lips, I understood. "Ah. That was your big news last night."
Lissa flushed in guilt. But didn't say anything. I knew she didn't want to have this conversation in front of Tasha.
But I wasn't in the mood to appease her. I turned back to the door and slowly brought my gaze to Tasha's.
"Where's Dimitri?" His name burned on my lips.
She had an uncomfortable blush in her cheeks. "As soon as we landed, he said that he needed to do something. I told him I'd be here."
Dimitri's here. He's walking around this campus as we speak. Shivers ran down my back.
I brushed past Tasha wordlessly, sliding silently out the door.
Dimitri's here. He's walking around campus. He could be walking this way right this moment.
I felt my blood run cold at the thought.
I heard Lissa calling after me both verbally and through the bond.
"Rose, please wait. Let me explain!"
I kept walking, refusing to cut her any slack this time. What she did was lousy, and I had a lot of shit on my plate now. I had to start regrouping, and I couldn't do that with her blabber. I shut her out of my head and tuned her out of my ears.
She managed to catch up with me, nearly running to keep up with my brisk pace. "Rose!" she coughed, "Please. I just found out!"
I spun around, anger finally exploding within me. My cheeks were flaming and my hands were unconsciously clenching into fists. For the first time in my life, I honestly hated Lissa. At this moment, I didn't want to see her nor speak to her nor hear her pathetic pleas for me to understand. I wanted her to stay away from me. Her and her little bitch aunt-in-law, too.
But I had to get out this piece of my mind first. "You just found out?" I cried, more loudly than I had meant to. We were in public now, and I didn't want to attract attention. Luckily, there was no one around. "Lissa, you knew since yesterday. That was why you were blocking me out, wasn't it? All of that wedding drama you spun was nothing but bullshit, wasn't it? And then this morning! For God's sake, Lissa, you told me it was nothing. You passed it off as stress over wedding issues. You're twenty-two years old now. Don't you think it's time for you to grow up?"
Lissa flinched. "Rose," she said weakly.
Disgusted with her selfishness, I shook my head and turned away again. "I have to meet Joe."
I left her standing there, trembling, and started toward the gym.
I had yet to really feel furious. I was unhappy with Lissa; disgusted, hurt, and, yes, angry, but I had yet to experience that blinding rage that I knew was on its way. I just needed a trigger.
Meanwhile, I felt panic overtaking my body. Dimitri was here. And worse, he was roaming. He could be anywhere. Where was safe anymore? Home? God forbid he was trying to find me; it would be the first place he would show up, so no. Definitely not home. Lissa's definitely wasn't safe anymore. Her house had turned into a bat cave—and not a cool bat cave, like Batman's awesome hideout—no, Lissa's house was equivalent to the bat caves with millions of gross little bats with the glowy red eyes and the nails-on-the-chalkboard squeaks. And they just so happened to be named Tasha and Dimitri.
Dimitri.
Damn, why did he have to come back? This made so many buried problems shift to the surface…like the twins.
There was a huge difference between my failed attempts at contacting him over the telephone for the past four years and seeing him now—and vice versa—him, seeing me, and the twins.
I couldn't come right out and tell him. Despite my unwavering resolve on their birthday, I couldn't immediately confront him about it now.
The rage that I hadn't found earlier was suddenly there, crashing down like a tidal wave overhead.
Besides, it's not like he's made any attempt. At least I've tried. What's a few more weeks? It's not going to kill anyone.
Suddenly very eager to hit something, I quickened my pace as I approached the gym. I was hoping that Joe was up for some good sparring, because boy, did I have some venting to do.
The guardians that were training seemed to notice my agitation when I walked in. They weren't as carefree in their greetings, and some of them even tried to blend into the shadows to avoid being seen. I didn't know I was so intimidating.
Joe was in the back, talking to Josh Holt. Great. My two favorite guys. Maybe I could talk both of them into going to the mats with me, and I could beat both of them up at the same time.
They looked up as I entered, their smiles faltering slightly as they recognized my attitude.
"Rose?" Holt asked in concern. "Are you okay?"
"You look like you want to kill someone," Joe added.
I jerked my head toward the mats. "Come on. Let's spar."
The guys exchanged distraught looks. Their pregnant pause indicated that neither of them wished to be the victim of my wrath.
Groaning, I went back out to the main area. "Who wants to spar?" I shouted. "Meet me on the mat."
I had two guardians ballsy enough to take me on. Of course, I don't think they realized that I wasn't acting normally. It was Mark Potter and Leo Adams that were stretching before me, and I grinned in anticipation. This would be a good fight.
I heard someone shout out in the crowd, jokingly, "Cocky much, Hathaway?" and then someone else, "Two at once? Jeez."
The commentary was drowned out as someone cranked up the music. Once again, it was only bass that resounded, the melody and words getting lost before my head had a chance to listen to them.
My two opponents took the offensive, both of them strategizing to overwhelm me. It was an interesting method that had a fifty-percent success rate. Half the time, the two people on the offensive were able to band together to work with each other to take out their common enemy. Then, once the enemy was done with, the two "friends" became enemies again, and the battle between those two ensued. The other half of the time, the two people couldn't get past their differences to work together. As guardians, however, I knew that their team skills were impeccable. This would be an interesting test of my abilities.
Mark came at me first, lashing out towards my face. I ducked, and then blocked his next hit, throwing a harsh kick into his side. Leo had snuck around behind me and kicked my legs out from under me after I was back in stance. I fell hard to the mat, the pain rushing hotly through the entire right side of my body. I couldn't silence the loud groan of pain that escaped my lips. I had trouble regaining my strength—my whole right side was almost numb—and during that time, Leo threw another kick into my stomach. I curled into myself, the breath whooshing out of my body in unbearable pain.
But I was trained to deal with that kind of pain.
I rolled away from him as he tried to get another kick in. Mark was waiting for me on the other side, throwing his body weight on top of me. I was able to begin to roll away before—playing dirty—he grabbed my hair and yanked me back. I splayed onto my back, Mark trying to climb atop me and Leo going towards my feet to drag me away (where he was planning on dragging me to, I had no idea. The mat was only so big).
My battle instincts were on high alert. This was a completely unfair fight.
But I was trained to deal with unfair fights.
I sent out a half-assed kick just as Leo was reaching down to grab my feet. Apparently he had forgotten common sense. The kick may not have carried classic Rose Hathaway brute force in it, but it was enough to knock Leo in the cheek. He fell to the floor, clutching his cheekbone (which may have shattered).
Mark didn't spare Leo a glance. He was focused on incapacitating me. Still battling to keep me down under his body weight, but also trying to find a way to use his arms and legs to physically stop me, he winced in frustration.
The fight had just become even.
With all of my body weight, I jerked forward, throwing Mark off of me. He was on his feet half a second and a half after I was—but that was fine. I used his delay to move to Leo, who was back on his feet, and threw a sharp right hook into the same cheekbone that was already bruising. In a wicked combination, I added in an uppercut punch, which jerked his head back harshly, and an acute, precise crescent kick directly into his stomach. He whirled to the ground, puking.
Mark was coming at me by then, trying to get his hands around my throat. If he could keep me in a chokehold for over thirty seconds, it was sparring-rules that the victim was "dead."
I ducked out of his reach, spinning behind him. Despite his several inches on me, he was a spry guy who knew how to handle his size. He was a badass guardian. He whirled around, refusing to give me the upper hand.
We danced for a moment, both of us breathing heavily. Then I launched at Mark, charging for his gut. I took him down, but he rolled my body weight under his. Keeping up the momentum, I continued to stay out from underneath him. There came a moment when we were both able to regain our footing. Not wasting any time at all, I kicked Mark in the kidney. He stumbled but didn't keel. I lashed out again, this time getting closer and using my fist to punch his directly in the nose. I heard it crack, and he let out an angry yell, but he didn't stop fighting.
I twisted my body at an angle and jerked my elbow toward his neck. That was a quick and efficient way to debilitate your opponent. However Mark's reflexes were still on high alert and he blocked the jab easily. He ducked out of my range and put some distance between us. I could tell he was trying to nurse his nose and stay away from me at the same time. He was lucky this was only training.
But I wasn't going to take it easy on him. I lunged for him again. This time I ran and then slid, taking his legs out from under him as well. He hit the mat hard, and I'm sure the force rattled his broken nose. That had to hurt like hell. My right side was still throbbing with every move I made from when Leo took me down earlier.
I scrambled on top of him but he jerked his palm up, snapping my head back. He hit my chin, which cramped my neck, but luckily missed my nose, which would have distressed me had he broken it. I would take a hurt neck over a broken nose any day.
I fell off of him, stunned by the sharp impact. He regained himself quickly, but I did too. I wasn't an easy bitch to incapacitate.
We danced for a little bit again, and then I ran forward, molding my body against him. Throwing my body weight against him, I used my legs to kick him out from under me, where I landed on top of him sharply. He grunted as my elbow landed in his stomach. I went for the punch that would render him unconscious—I hated to beat my staff up to the point of debilitation, but, hey, he was the one who chose to spar against me—but faltered.
That scent.
It hit me like a tidal wave.
I knew that scent.
It was strong and musky, yet sweet…intoxicating.
My eyes jerked up to the crowd.
And there he was.
But then Mark shifted so that he had the upper hand, and he put all of his might into a heavy punch that snapped my head to the side. And then, to make sure that he won, he slammed me into the mat.
But it wasn't necessary. I had seen stars at the first punch, and my vision swam. Being slammed into the mat sent tingles throughout my body, but only for a moment, because then everything went still and black.
