"I'm a survivor. I ain't gonna give up" - Destiny Child, Survivor
Calm Before The Storm
That night, I dreamed of everything that wasn't.
A hellish heaven where kissing under the mistletoe was bad luck, and a broom would fly without a witch; where vampires drank strawberry juice and dolphins had opposable thumbs.
I just couldn't grasp reality anymore, what was real and what wasn't.
It all blurred together in a giant pile that I fell head first into, like I didn't need saving. I swam through the mixed memories and dug up the good ones. The ones of me and Lissa on Halloween. The ones with me and Dimitri, after he said no to Tasha. The ones with me and Christan bantering over dinner. It didn't clear the air, but it gave me something to hold onto.
It let me wake up.
During the next week, when people would usually be rustling around campus, trying to get the latest dresses for prom, or laughing and talking about what they were going to do after high school, it was dead. No life, no laughter, or even smiling. Friends didn't wave in the halls, or talk at lunch. They just sat next to each other and copied off of the homework. People stayed locked in their dorms studying for SATs, or reading...
Not that we couldn't...
Nobody said that our lives had to end when her's did.
The guardians didn't lock us away for our protection. They simply trusted us not to get into trouble, not to leave campus for parties and getting drunk.
After the truth about Meredith's murder had come out, it effected people more then you would think. People were scared to even open their lockers, afraid that a murderer would pop out. It was depressing. The guardians were positive that a student was the one that killed Meredith. Someone would have had to get past the wards without disrupting the guardians at the gates, and then disconnect the security cameras all around campus, get Meredith without being noticed, and then break into the dorms without the alarm going off. That was generally impossible without having access from the inside. So even if there was a person who got in, a student or teacher still would have had to help.
Of course, I knew that to be otherwise. A ghost had gotten in, they just didn't know it.
"Rose?" Avery was standing in the doorway of my room, looking at me while I added A+B+C on my math homework.
"Hey,"
Correction. Avery knew. Avery was the one person who understood completely what was going on. Even though Eddie knew, he could help, not in the way she could. And Dimitri...well, the only time he had talk to me this week was at training. We hadn't gotten any free time in between yet to talk.
The first thing I saw when I put my pencil down and closed my math book was the bathroom door, like always. Every time I looked up from anything - my phone, computer, book, anything - it was the first thing I saw. I just couldn't divert my eyes from it. I could never look away. It was instinct to look there. I had to know if something - someone - was in there.
Kirova had, of course, offered me another room after the body was gone and the tile was replaced - it was too stained with the blood to keep in use - but I had declined. I knew if I was going to face the ghost, I would have to be able to still with the place of death. Just like Spokane. Like Mason.
Mason...
It hit me like a ton of bricks. Hope filled me.
I torn off my bed, rolling to the floor. I scampered up and pushed past Avery. She gasped when her back hit the metal door frame.
"Sorry! I swear we'll talk later!" I shouted down the hall.
I stood just outside the cabin where I lost my virginity. It had been a whole lot of new for me. New feelings, new experiences, new love. But most of all, it was a new hope. It was the place that whenever I saw, I would bubble up inside and get happy for no reason. I felt happy for the sweat, for heat, for that tingle that flew through me when me and Dimitri kissed.
It also was a new dread. Just outside this cabin, where I stood now, was the last place I saw my best friend.
Mason had warned me about what was to come. About the pain and suffering that I would go through. I just hadn't listened to him.
"They're coming."
I thought he meant the Strigoi, we all did. But he meant the ghosts and I knew it.
"Mason?" I called, my voice echoing off the trees, dissolving into the empty woods.
I knew Mason had passed on, but was that really true? After 40 days did dead spirits really pass on to the other side? I mean, Anna and Adelina had been here for centuries... I called out again
" 'Ring around the Rosie, pocket full of posy, ashes, ashes, we all fall dead',"
I would have laughed at the old lullaby if he hadn't change 'down' to 'dead'. I guess the word was more fitting anyways.
Mason, like I had predicted, was here, leaning against an oak tree, faded at the fingertips.
He looked...less dead, then when I saw him before. He could really talk now. And sing, apparently.
His hair looked twice as red as it use to be, and his freckles seemed to glow. His skin was bright and full of color. In fact, he looked more alive than ever. He was smiling and the sun reflected off his perfect white teeth. His eyes sparkled, a new-found feature. Whereas before, they were dull. That old home feeling filled me. The familiarity of it hurt.
"Mason," I whispered. I ran up to him and flung my arms around him. Unfortunately for me I bashed right into the tree.
"Woah! I'm not solid, Rosie. You can't touch me, remember?"
"Ah..." I groaned and stumbled backwards. His hands brushed past my shoulders, as if to settle me. "Ow," I tasted blood in my mouth where it was dripping from my nose.
"You okay?"
I forgot my nose. "Mason!" I felt my eyes tearing. I ran a hand through his arm, coming back empty.
After a minute, he smiled even more and pushed off the tree. "Hey Rose."
I gasped for air as I choked on a laugh, the first and a single tear falling. "I miss you!" I cried.
"Please don't cry," He said. "I hate when you cry."
I swallowed and breathed in, clearing my tears. "I'm happy, not sad," I smiled. "I didn't think I'd be able to find you."
"You'll always find me, Rose. We're besties, 'Member? We're connected for life..." He raised an eyebrow. "And death,"
I slid down to the ground and leaned my head against the tree.
"I suppose you wanted to find me for a reason, huh?" He sat down next to me, but the leaves didn't crack under his weight. He had none.
I giggled, suppressed on happiness. "You know, if you're suppose to be transparent and stuff, why don't you just go right through the center of the earth?" I asked, leaning my head up and over to look at him. With a faint smile, he looked at me. Like, looked looked at me. Like, as in a What-The-Hell-Do-You-Want kind of look. After a pause of silence, I turned away and stared at the sky with my eyes close. "I know, I know. I just..." I sighed and opened my eyes. "You're here...and I just want to focus on the happy, instead of the sad. I just want to ignore life, oh, excuse me,hell, for one second, and let the sun shine on me."
Of course, he wasn't having that.
"Rose...you know that I'm not - I'm not really here. I may be smiling, and talking, but I am, and always will be, dead." I looked down at my hands and nodded.
"I know..."
But he let it go then, for just a few minutes. And that few minutes became a few hours, and then night fell, and we talked about everything.
I told him about the field experience, and how I visited the queen - and about how Victor tried to out me and Dimitri. I told him about the lust charm and about Lissa and Christan always supporting me. I told him about everything that had happened since the beginning of the year, even though he'd been there through half of it.
I thought he'd know about the ghosts, about Anna...but he didn't, so I told him about how I passed out on the plane ride to Court, and how I saw Lissa's parents, and Victor's guards...
I told him about the attacks, and how bad it was. I told him that I really did love Dimitri, but we were complex. I told him about Adelina's story, and seeing a Strigoi-eating-Strigoi, and falling through the docks, and seeing Anna, and going to Malta, and talking to Vladamir, and how Anna wanted me dead, so she was killing other people.
I ended in sobs, racked against the tree, hugging it through Mason's reflection. He pretended to hold me and tell me that things would work out, but we both knew that he was lying.
"I swear, if there is anything, and I mean anything, I can do...then ask me. If you need a double agent, I'm here. I promise." He said, staring at me. I nodded.
Then I remembered seeing Avery this morning...
"Actually...there might be something..." I trailed off, thinking.
"What is it?"
"There's this girl...her name is Avery."
"Uh huh?"
"And she's not completely...alive," His eyebrows creased. "You see, she was killed in a car accident last year, but her body sort of...came back. She can talk and walk and all that, but she doesn't need to eat, or breathe, or drink, or sleep...It's like she's just a body. She has a personality, but no soul..."
"So she's...like a zombie?" I laughed.
"That's what I said. But yeah, pretty much. I have so much stuff going now, I've sort of forgotten about it. But if she's like me, then I know that we wants answers, she just won't press it."
"Well, I've got some connections over in the dead world." He said, moving to shove my should with his, but stopped. "I'll make some calls...well, not literally, but you know what I mean."
"Do you have to go now?" I asked staring off into the dark trees. A brush shifted in the wind. Or...?
He nodded.
I'd just have to remember that nothing lasts forever.
Anna's POV
I was tired of games. I was tired of playing the good guy. I was so tired, in fact, that it was getting harder and harder to fool her. I listened to them talk. She knew everything. She knew about me and the war. I had lost. No matter what I did, she didn't tear apart. She always had a solution, or a plan.
I had failed. Vladamir. I snared at the word in my mind. We'd been the best of friends, family, lovers...but now he'd betrayed me in the afterlife. He broke my heart, ripped it in two. He told her that I was crazy, insane, mental, and while that might have been true, at least I had a reason to be.
I wasn't the only crazy one around here and we all knew it. Well, I did.
This wasn't about war, or revenge on the guardians for not saving my kind. Maybe it was for the others, but they didn't know my motive. They didn't know what he did...
I stared in distaste. The friend, the red-head, he was key. He was her soft spot. Killing a million of her closest enemies would break her...but killing someone whose already dead...?
And if that didn't work, then I could always move to the blonde...
I guess nobody liked the last chapter? I don't blame you, it wasn't my piece of cake either - D: Like I said, Writer's Block. No inspiration.
I really need to get back on my update schedule...
I've done it, though! I've finally dug myself out that hole I made. I have an ending to this story and every chapter in between! :D 35 chapters straight...and an epilogue :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
-Elisabeth
EXTRA: the very short never finished/published Christmas special that has nothing to do with this story...
A Christmas Special: "This isn't a Christmas special! This is my life. In the real world, miracles and goodness just don't happen.", "In the real world, you can make your own miracles." -Frostbite
"What?" I asked stupidly after a second.
"Serious, though! It would explain why children tend to go missing during the holidays," Christian offered from across the room. We - Christian, Lissa, Eddie, Dimitri, and me - sat next to each other around the tiny white living room at Lissa's apartment in court. The Christmas tree was placed in the corner, glowing with multicolored ornaments and lights. Tiny decorations lined shelves and tables, and a bright fire was lit in the fire place.
After things went down with Tasha, and me and Dimitri regained our guardian status, we went our separate ways when Lissa starting attending Leigh. But now, it was Christmas Eve and we'd all met again for the holidays.
"So you think..." I paused for emphasis. "That kids go missing because of Santa?"
Christian scowled at my disbelief. "C'mon Lis, you believe me, right?"
"Well..." She hesitated, searching for the right words so she wouldn't hurt his feelings. "Sure, on a...smaller level then you seem to be." Mental facepalm.
I sighed. "What she means is that there is no way in hell that Santa Claus is real, and even if he was, he wouldn't be an evil vamp that steals children when he goes down their chimneys so he could turn them into vampire helper elves. Kay'?" I stated bluntly.
"You, Hathaway, have no Christmas spirit," He spat, tossing an M&M at me. I caught it and stuck it in my mouth.
I smiled. "Actually, I think it's quite the opposite,"
. . . .
I laid in bed twirling the sheets around my fingers waiting for Dimitri to get out of the shower.
It was Christmas morning now and after I got ready we'd be heading back to Lissa's for lunch and presents. Of course, last night me and Dimitri gave each other our own presents, mostly consisting of a full night in bed, naked, and tangled up in each other, having to change the sheets multiple times.
I heard the shower door click open as the water shut off, and a few minutes later, Dimitri appeared with the steam from the water filling the room.
"Did I wake you up?" He asked, realizing that I was staring at him.
"No." I answered simply. "Merry Christmas," I said, snuggling down into the pillows.
"Mm, Merry Christmas, Roza," He climbed onto the bed still in only jeans and kissed me gently.
right then... :\