So this chapter is only about 100 words longer…all I can do is ask for your forgiveness.
And now presenting…Chapter 12!
~Angeliqa
RPOV
Guilt.
No matter how many times she did this, there was always an underlying feeling of guilt. Guilt for the life lost as her silver stake sank through flesh. Guilt for their past life, the one where they hadn't been an immortal being stalking the earth. The glinting stake darted through the last strigoi's chest and she stood, panting and dripping from her effort, as a thick quilt of silence fell upon the battlefield.
She closed her eyes and tilted her head towards the many twinkling eyes of heaven above, taking a moment to collect and gather herself together. When she opened them and slowly turned around, she was met with the awed gazes of her audience. She knew she was a very skilled guardian; however the piercing stares she was receiving were really putting her on edge. Finally having had enough, she snapped.
"Well, get on with the cleaning up! Have I somehow skipped that lesson?" she exclaimed in fury at her students who scurried away to collect the dead bodies. The guardians seemed to have come back from their frozen states at the sound of her voice and were methodically taking care of the rest of the business.
She felt their presence before she saw them.
Spinning around, she was met by the bodies of two guardians and a moroi.
"Excuse me Marie, but I just have one question." Eddie approached cautiously.
"Go on."
"How did you know there was strigoi on the school grounds when we were um…outside earlier? I-I've only met one person who could tell there was strigoi before she actually saw the thing herself…and…that was Rose, but that was because she was shadow-kissed."
Oh shit. In the heat of the attack and the breakdown beforehand, she hadn't stopped to think about that small problem. Oh, I just love thinking on the spot.
"I, uh…well, I don't really know. Ever since I could remember, I've always had some unnatural sense of strigoi's being close by. It sort of just like a nervous tingling and uneasiness at the back of my brain." She explained, hoping and praying that the fact that she didn't know either, would be enough to put them off.
"Oh…ok. Well, Dimitri and I should be helping out everyone else. Thanks for your time headmistress." With that, they walked away leaving her with Christian. Rose wasn't entirely certain that he had bought her flimsy explanation, however, before she could do anything about it, she felt herself being pulled into the depths of Lissa's mind.
She was sprinting. Feet trashing through the grass towards the small she had had made for the students pleasure only a few months ago. Her mind was a mess, she could not grab hold of a single thought, she ––
Suddenly, she was jolted back by a fierce hand shaking her shoulder. However, not before she felt the sharp blade of a razor being sliced across skin…
It was Christian.
She had completely forgotten his presence. Blinking furiously, she hurriedly excused herself and ran away; away towards the pond where Lissa was laying unconscious, in a pool of her own blood.
The sight was almost more than she could bear and a wave of déjà vu swept through her as she recalled their days back at the academy just after their return. Her expensive clothes as well as her platinum blonde hair were drenched in blood. She forced her legs to move and her arms, heavy with horror, to pick up her best friend. She crashed through the front doors and in through to the infirmary, where she shouted strict orders and demands for the doctor and for the patient's friends to be notified about her current state.
She reminded herself that she needed to play dumb as all the figures from her past came rushing through the doors.
"What the hell happened?" Christian roared, mild concern and worry etched across every surface of his body.
"I found her outside near the pond while I was doing a check up on the wards." She lied smoothly. Well, partially lied.
As the doctor finished bandaging Lissa up, Rose quietly made sure that she was going to be alright and silently slipped out the door.
Yes. She thought as she jogged around the tracks, attempting to clear her mind.
Lissa needed her too much right now and no, she didn't need "Marie", the headmistress of a renowned guardian training school, not red-headed Marie who was quiet and observing, who held the respect of everyone for her outstanding teaching methods. Not Marie who was merely a host, only someone who provided them with accommodation while they went on the search for their beloved missing friend.
No, most definitely not. What Lissa needed was Rose, she needed Rose to be there for her and comfort her, she needed the Rose who was reckless and fierce, who was respected for those qualities, but most of all, she needed to know that Rose was safe and well. That she was alive and breathing, that her heart was beating and not in some cold, immortal state between life and death.
Yes. I will tell her. Some secrets need to be told.
And so it was, after almost three long years of hiding and disguise, she slowly made her way to the bright lights of the infirmary. Towards the now conscious Lissa, towards the revealing of her most covert secrets of the past two years, towards the drama of hurt, anger and forgiveness that was bound to occur in the near future.
Alright, that's all I have time for and I know I'm getting slower and slower here, but I'm aiming at dragging this out because then the revealing will be more enjoyable! Would love to know what you thought of this chapter! xo
~Angeliqa
