Her horrific revelation caused my heart to sink to the bottom of my chest with a deep thud.It felt like I couldn't properly breathe. It felt like someone had their hands tightly wrapped around my throat like harsh, metal chains, choking me. I stared and I stared, her words hitting me hard. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. It was insanity. It was nothing but plain, cruel murder.
They would die. They would die in the most macabre way possible. They would end up being a mangled mess on the floor, their crimson blood tainting the earth as it dripped painfully out of their lifeless bodies. I could easily imagine it; a vivid painting full of red and blue and black and death. In one blur – in one simple, swift movement – their young lives would be ended. They would be ended.
I shuddered, trying to rid myself of the awful mental pictures taunting my mind. "They can't do that," Tasha replied harshly, being the first one out of our small group to recover. I snuck a look at her, glad that her anger was now aimed at the repulsive moroi who had come up with this inane idea rather than it being aimed at me. I could understand her disappointed in me, don't get me wrong; she probably thought that I had told Dimitri that I loved him or something along those lines. She probably thought that after everything I had overcome I had rather foolishly screwed everything up in one stupid act of stupidity. And maybe she was right. Maybe that was exactly what I had done, but that didn't mean that Tasha's wrath didn't scare me. Her glower was enough to make even me, a kick-ass guardian, to cower in the corner with fright.
Lissa shrugged, her shoulders sagging as if it were a massive defeat to her. And maybe it was. After all, the thought of sixteen year olds being forced to fight – being forced to die – was sickening to anyone with morals. But Lissa's sadness and Tasha's anger meant nothing to me because it had nothing to do with them, not really. They were safe. This ruling didn't affect them. This ruling didn't mean anything to them. It wasn't about moroi. It was about dhampirs.
It was about Dimitri and me. We were the only two people in the room who should have been affected by this news because it was our race in danger. We were the ones who should be sad. We should be the ones who were angry. And by the dark look Dimitri currently wore, he was most definitely angry. It was the first time in a long time that I had actually seen any sort of emotion outline his usually stony face.
"Well, they are," he muttered harshly in reply to Tasha's comment, speaking for the first time in my presence. I quirked my head towards him, surprised that he had dared to speak. I had figured that since the whole strigoi fiasco, he was choosing to keep a low profile, not that he actually voiced his opinions before he was turned.
His voice was cold and callous, and I stared at him, not expecting him to take that tone with Tasha. Sure, he could speak that way to me seeing as I was nothing to him, but Tasha was his friend and she deserved to be treated better. "There's no need to take it out on Tasha," I told him crossly, "it's not her fault."
"Really? Because I thought she was supposed to be on the committee that made the decision," he snapped back, entering into his first conversation with me – well, the first I could actually remember – since he told me he no longer loved me.
I was about to open my mouth and defend Tasha a bit more, but she beat me to it. "I was. But, I didn't know about this," she admitted, clenching her fists and muttering something about wanting to strangle Lord Svelsky for not including her on this major decision.
"Then maybe you should get your priorities sorted out," Dimitri said, giving Akim a pointed look. Throughout the exchange, both Taros brothers sat silently and sullenly. Again, I was about to defend Tasha and tell Dimitri to mind his own business – because after all, it had nothing to do with him what Tasha did with her time or who she dated – but Lissa, ever the peace-maker, decided to speak and try to restore some calm.
"There's going to be a debate about it tomorrow," she said calmly, quickly changing the subject.
"Can anyone go?" I asked quickly. She nodded and I sighed in relief. If anyone could go, that meant so could I. It meant that I could go and voice my opinions and inform the moroi in charge how stupid and callous they were being. They were murderers. They were sick and perverted and someone – mainly me – had to tell them that.
But me calling them names, no matter how true they were, wasn't going to help matters. To the moroi in charge, I was a stupid, reckless girl who wasn't important. They wouldn't listen to me. Yes, I had a reputation – some of it good, some of it bad – but I wasn't a respected guardian. Not like Dimitri was. I stared at him. Sure, he wasn't as respected as he used to be. And sure, he wasn't technically a guardian anymore. But it had been a couple of months since he had been turned back into a dhampir and he hadn't gone all crazy insane. He hadn't turned into an evil monster. So maybe it was possible that people would listen to what he had to say. After all, they used to trust him. They used to believe in him.
"Can I talk to you?" I asked him directly. Noticing who I was aiming my question at, everyone stopped whatever they had been discussing quietly between themselves and stared at the scene that was unfolding. "In private," I added as an afterthought, fully aware of our audience straining their ears.
He frowned, obviously not expecting me to want a quiet word with me, but nodded nonetheless. I stood up and walked out of the room, not bothering to wait for him as I headed outside, though with his long strides it didn't take him long to catch up with me.
His body was tense and terse, his face stoic and lacking expression. Obviously, the idea of having to spend his precious time in my company did not agree with him. To be completely honest, spending my time with him wasn't to my taste either. But we needed to have this conversation. It was probably the most important conversation we were ever going to have, because the future of our race depended on it, and so we were just going to have to swallow our pride and get on with it, because there were bigger things to worry about.
"You need to go to the debate tomorrow," I informed him, getting straight to the point. The night was chilly, and the wind was howling. I shuddered and wrapped my arms around me, trying to generate some sort of heat to keep me warm. Yet again I had foolishly thought I could outwit the weather by not wearing a jacket and now I was suffering.
Dimitri stared at me, his jaw set and his teeth grinding together as he took in my words. "Why should I?" he asked. Dimitri wasn't stupid; he knew exactly what I was asking without having to say it. I was asking him to voice his opinions tomorrow. I was asking him to speak out against the moroi. I was asking him to risk his entire future; he would be risking his chances of being a guardian again and his chances of leading a normal life.
"Because if you don't, sixteen year old dhampirs will end up dying," I told him bluntly. Again, I shivered, this time partially to do with the cold weather and partially to do with the fact that dhampir children would end up dying because of this inane decree. And that's what they were; children. Dimitri must have noticed how cold I was, because he shrugged off his duster and passed it to me.
I stared at it, unsure whether to take it or not, but as another gust of wind blew furiously around me, tangling my hair into knots, I reluctantly took it from his hands, careful not to actually touch him. "Thanks," I muttered awkwardly, slowly putting it on. A part of me wanted to wrap it around my body to keep the cold out, but I knew if I did that, then I wouldn't get any sleep tonight. Instead, I would be haunting by Dimitri's delicious scent that clung to his coat.
Dimitri nodded, but sighed. "They won't listen to anything I have to say. I'm nothing. I'm no one."
What he said wasn't true, though. He was someone. He was Dimitri freaking Belikov. He was practically a god. Apparently I said the last bit out loud, because Dimitri shook his head sadly. "Precisely, the key word in that statement being was."
I stared at him in disbelief. Sure, what happened to him sucked, but this wasn't the guy I used to know. This wasn't the guy I had stupidly fallen in love with once upon a time. He was being pathetic. He was being pitiable and he needed to stop. He needed to get over what had happened and move on, because if he carried on moping around like this then no one was going to give him the second chance he deserved because they simply wouldn't think he was capable of being a guardian anymore.
"Get over yourself, Dimitri," I shrieked in frustration, clenching my fists together. This wasn't about him. This wasn't about me. It was about the sixteen year olds who were about to be sent onto the frontline without proper training. This was about sixteen year olds being forced to kill. This was about sixteen year olds dying brutal deaths themselves. "This isn't about you or me. This is about the fact that innocent novices are going to end up dead. And you may think of yourself as an evil monster, but you're not. I know you, Dimitri. I know that you aren't going to let sixteen year old dhampirs become guardians without a fight. So you are going to turn up tomorrow. You are going to speak up against the moroi. You're going to call up all you're guardian friends – Alberta, Emil, hell, even Stan – and get them to come to the debate. Okay?"
Dimitri studied me cautiously, before sighing in defeat. "Okay," he stated dutifully, and although I was pretty sure he was doing all he could to fight the emotion; he actually looked quite impressed with me. Not that I cared, or anything, seeing as Dimitri was nothing to me. Sure, back at the academy I would have done anything to get him to look at me with admiration, but that was in the past. I was a different person. I didn't need his seal of approval anymore, although, and it pained me to admit it, it did feel good.
An awkward silence wrapped itself tightly around us. I shuffled slightly, not sure what to do or say now. Dimitri looked ready to walk off, but before I could stop myself, I started to address him again. "Can I ask you a question? Well, two questions?"
He nodded, but said nothing, waiting for me to continue. I didn't know why I had even bothered. I didn't want to know, not really. But there was a sick urge of curiosity that I couldn't control. I decided to start with the easier of the two. I decided to start with the less painful of the two. "When you found out about me leaving Court..." I trailed, off, unsure how to word my question. I looked down at the ground, concentrating profoundly, refusing to meet Dimitri's eye. I didn't want to sound conceited, but I knew that was how my question was going to come out as because of my assumptions. "Why were you in my apartment building?"
I dared to look up at Dimitri as I waited for his answer. Without missing a beat he answered without falter. "I was going to congratulate you on your first assignment," he said smoothly. I nodded, but eyed him suspiciously. His answer didn't ring true. It sounded faultless. It sounded well rehearsed. It sounded like a lie, but I nodded and said no more on the matter.
"Okay," I said, shifting slightly towards the door up to Tasha's apartment. During our earlier conversation we had somehow huddled together, but now I was aware of the space – or lack of space – between us and it was making me uncomfortable. I took another step back. "This one isn't quite a question," I admitted, procrastinating slightly. I brushed my hand through my hair, silently noting to myself that I seemed to do this every time I was nervous or unsure.
"Okay," Dimitri said slowly, also taking a step backwards so that there was a massive gap between the two of us. Again, he waited patiently whilst I tried to figure out how to string my sentence together.
A part of me felt like telling him that it was nothing. That it didn't matter. That I didn't want to know. But I was a sucker for causing myself pain. I was a masochist. I enjoyed to humiliation. I enjoyed the heartache. And I did need to know. I needed to know what I had said to him on the night of the engagement party, because it would haunt me and taunt me if I didn't find out. "At the engagement party, I was pretty drunk," I started off. Dimitri nodded, as if to confirm what I already knew. "We talked..."
Again, I trailed off, and again Dimitri nodded in affirmation. If I hadn't been watching him carefully, I wouldn't have seen it. I wouldn't have seen his guardian mask slip onto his face. Before, he had been pretty expressionless, but now his eyes had a hard glint to them. And although I hadn't actually asked the question, his response was the answer I needed. It was the answer that I didn't want. It was the answer I had dreaded.
Whatever I had said to him, it was bad, and not just 'Rose said something stupid' bad. Although my actual words were still a complete mystery to me, I knew I had messed up. Big time. "What I said, I didn't mean it. I didn't mean any of it," I told him earnestly. I hoped he realised that I was being sincere. I was being truthful. I had been a drunken mess. I had been off my head. I wasn't in my right mind so there was no way I would have been making any sense. There was no one that I could have actually been telling the truth, whatever I had apparently said.
"It was nothing," Dimitri stated simply. But yet again, something was off. Something wasn't right. His words were said with a forced nonchalance, that I had never heard him use before. I frowned, but what could I do? What could I say? I had asked him if I could ask him two questions. I hadn't asked him to answer them truthfully.
I just wished he had lied to me a little bit more convincingly because that way I could pretend to be ignorant of the fact he wasn't telling me the truth. But he hadn't and I couldn't make myself oblivious to the fact that I had well and truly screwed up, whatever I said. "Okay, thanks," I muttered, looking back at the apartment building that was currently looking very inviting. I shrugged of his duster, feeling cold the moment it left contact with my skin, and passed it back to him. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow," I mumbled awkwardly, and without waiting for a reply, I headed back in, forcing my way through the arctic-like weather battling down onto Court.
The wind howled furiously, echoing around. I opened the door and stepped into the warmth of the building, but before the door had shut completely, I heard Dimitri speak. His words were mangled in the wind but it sounded like "everything you said was true." I turned to face him, opening my mouth to ask him to repeat what he had said. But as I turned around, I noticed Dimitri was already heading in the opposite direction and out of my sight. I sagged against the wall, feeling completely exhausted, having forgotten how stifling and how suffocating it was being in Dimitri's company.
AN: So...good? Bad? Hopefully you guys enjoyed the Rose/Dimitri interaction, although I do apologise for the fact that there was no speckle of romance in there. But there will be...at some point in the not so near future =] This story is well and truly getting out of control though. Usually my average word count per chapter is 2,500 words. This one's nearly 3000. The next chapter is over 4000 words long and counting. As you can tell, other than the who Rose/Dimitri story line, the lack of guardian issue is an important part of the story. In fact, without giving too much away, it is the entire story. Everything that happens will revolve around that issue, so I hope you guys like what I'm planning to do with it. Erm, there's not much else to say, other than there's only a couple more chapters based at Court and then we're switching back to Tasha's house. But believe me, Rose and co. (ie. Tasha and the Taros brothers) will be arriving back at Court in a pretty explosive manner =]
Thanks to all the support, the messages and the reviews! We're over 200 now, so all I can say is THANK YOU and I love you...I may even want to marry you all =D
Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN VA!