Rosemarie Hathaway

I rushed passed the stunned dorm matron and stormed my way into Lissa's bathroom. The scene before me made me want to vomit. Blood covered Lissa and there was a puddle of it on the floor. She had promised to come and talk to me before she ever let it get this bad again.

"Lissa?" my voice was weakened with worry. She reached her hand up towards me and I saw that her wrist was unharmed but her hand was smeared with blood. "Liss, what did you do?"

"I-I, Rose it was so horrible. There was nothing I could do. It was worse than the fox." She cried as she pulled me down to her. "I tried to clean it up b-bu-but"

"Shh, it's okay. It's okay. Where is it? I'll take care of it."

"I put it in the trash can. It was the only thing I could think of at the time." Her body shook with another round of sobs. I leaned over and looked into the bin, feeling the vomit rise in my throat. Whatever was in there was unidentifiable. It was nothing but a blob of bloody fur and smashed bones. I looked back towards the door where my mother stood.

"Let's get you out of here and go get you cleaned up. This will all be gone by the time you're done." I told Lissa as I helped her off the floor and into her bedroom. Sitting her down in her desk chair I returned to the bathroom for a clean cloth.

As gently as I could, I began cleaning the blood off her hands and arms, watching for any wounds. I had just finished cleaning her up when I saw my mother move from her post in the doorway to let Kirova and Dr. Olendzki inside. Stan and Alberta were right behind them.

"Do you still think this is some high school bullying? Look at this place. Look at Lissa, Kirova. Look really good because this is the last time you will ever see"

"Guardian Alto, please remove Miss Hathaway." Kirova snapped. Stan's eye slightly twitched as he looked in my direction. He took the few steps to reach me and I gave him my best 'I dare you' glare. With a sigh, he grabbed my arm and began pulling me from the room.

"Mom, don't let them do this." I yelled as I saw Dr. Olendzki give Lissa a sedative. "I need to stay with her." I was struggling to break free of Stan's hold.

"Guardian Hathaway, calm your daughter before I have her removed from more than this room." Kirova said coolly. The meaning behind the threat was like ice water and I gave up my fight allowing Stan to lead me from the room. My mother stepped out in the hall behind us and told me she would meet me back at the apartment.

Stan's grip on my arm never loosened as pulled me down the hall. When we reached the door leading to the commons I tried to break free. "Please Guardian Alto, you don't understand. Let me go back, please?"

"Lissa is safe now. They're moving her to another room while they sort things out. Your presence isn't needed Miss Hathaway. For once will you just do what you're told?" He said as he slightly jerked me forward giving me no choice but to exit out the door. "Novice Belikov," I heard Stan question in surprise. "Hell, I don't think it makes a difference right now." He mumbled to himself. Then speaking to Dimitri began barking orders again. "Come on, you need to get back to your room. I hope you don't make it a habit to be out during curfew, Hathaway is enough trouble as it is."

"Hey, is that a compliment, Stan?" I smirked at Guardian Alto. With a seething gaze, he tightened his grip and began to walk faster. "I think it was. Aww, you actually like me. It's okay Stanley, I promise not to tell."

"That's enough Hathaway." He growled at me. We had reached the Dhampir dorms and Dimitri disappeared inside after extending a quiet goodnight. "Cooperation is in your best interest right now Miss Hathaway. No more jokes and no trying to escape, okay?" Stan said as he began pulling me towards guest housing.

"Is Lissa going to be left alone because she really shouldn't be?"

"No, your mother will be staying with her tonight at the infirmary."

"Why are they taking her there?"

"It's not really your concern" Stan began again.

"She's my best friend, and she is scared. I am her Guardian, or at least I will be, so it is my concern."

"They just want to observe her overnight. Now will you stop stalling and go inside?" He was growing tired of me.

"Fine," I said. "But if anything else happens to her"

"Nothing else will happen. Go inside, now." He told me as he pointed towards the door. I turned and stomped into the building and up to my room. Plopping face first onto my bed I cried into the blankets until sleep overtook me. Lissa and my emotions were riding high and they were taking their toll on me.

Lissa seemed to all smiles and happiness the next day, but I could feel the anger still boiling inside her. Her use of compulsion grew tenfold over the next few days. It was making me irritable. By the third day I felt as if I was going to crawl out of my skin. Lissa wouldn't listen and was back to nearly ignoring me again. By the time classes dismissed, I was ready for the extra practice session.

Today my mom had us working on offensive exercises. She had tossed a bunch of different items onto the field telling us we could use anything within reach as makeshift weapons. I struck out at Dimitri as soon as she yelled go and relentlessly attacked him with a padded shoto knife. My aim was tacky at best and I was only able to land a handful of blows to him. Each one would cause me to bounce back and become more aggressive. He never said anything, probably thinking that I needed to work through whatever had been bothering me. It didn't seem like I was doing much damage to him anyhow.

Dimitri just stood his ground, blocking my swings as much as possible, and allowed me to attack him over and over again. Each swing brought a new mental image to me: Ralf, Jesse, Mia. Each of them had been cruel towards Lissa and me since we had returned. Mia was the mastermind, I was sure, but Ralf and Jesse were acting as her evil minions.

I wasn't sure how long I kept battering him with the padded weapon, but when my mother stormed over and kicked it from my hands, I was soaked in sweat and gasping for breath. Dimitri was just as worn out, but he still stood in nearly the same spot that he had begun in, looking at me with concern.

"Put everything away. We're done for today." She said sternly. I bent down and grabbed what I could in my arms and stomped off the field without giving anyone a second glance. Dimitri's long legs allowed him to easily keep pace with me, but still I refused to look at him.

We had made it to the supply room and was stowing the items away when he grabbed my wrist, swearing in Russian. I could recognize the words as such, but everyone refused to tell me what they meant, claiming I already had enough vulgarity in my vocabulary.

"Your hands, don't you have gloves?" He asked softly. Taking a glance at my hands I was surprised at what I found. The cold weather had made them dry and cracked, but I wasn't expecting to find them blistered and bleeding.

"No, I never needed them in Portland and I forgot to get new ones once we got back."

"Forgot to get what?" I heard my mother behind me. I tried to pull my wrist from Dimitri's hold, but he was able to overpower me and pull my arm up so she could see my damaged hands. She let her own swears fall and pulled a first aid kit from one of the shelves. She cleaned away the blood and applied salve to the blisters. "We'll get you some gloves." She said as she bandaged them and sent me off to get dinner.

"Where's Vika?" I asked Dimitri as we walked towards the cafeteria. She had a way of disappearing when I wasn't in my better moods.

"I told her we would meet her after you got patched up."

"I guess this is how it starts, huh?"

"How what starts?"

"Me, turning into my mother and Alberta, they- all female Guardians- they're all leathery looking. All the fighting and training took its toll on them. It robbed them of being pretty. This life, it destroys us."

He took my arm in his hand and turned me to face him. His brown eyes warmed and I felt my heart begin to do little flips in my chest. I cursed my crush on him. I wished I could fight against it, but every time he looked at me like that, it made it harder to push the feelings away.

"That will never happen to you. You're too beautiful for anything like that to happen."

He looked back at my hands. He thought I was beautiful. I knew a lot of the boys thought so, but surely after a few years of being weather and battle beaten their opinions would change.

"Except for my hair and my eyes, I look just like my mom. She use to be really pretty, a lot prettier than she is now. This life has slowly robbed her of it." Sourly, I added, "It's already robbed us both of things."

"You haven't always liked your mother have you?" I forgot how observant he could be.

"Yeah, she wasn't around much before now."

"But, you're getting to know her now?"

"Still, she had to abandon me to be raised by the academy."

"Was there anything else she could have done? You want to be a Guardian yourself. Graduating and guarding Lissa means a lot to you. It means just as much to you as getting to guard Ivan means to me. Do you think your mother feels any different than we do? Should she have given up her dreams for you and played Susie Homemaker when you were going to be at the academy anyways?"

"You're too reasonable sometimes. You make me sound like a hypocrite."

"I'm just saying you shouldn't hold a grudge against her. She is very respected by our kind and she has put you on a path to become just as respected."

"I guess you're right. She did raise me for my first four years, even if it was amongst the blood whores."

"It's not all bad, you know. I grew up in a Dhampir community."

"Oh, I didn't mean anything bad by it. I'm sorry if I offended you." I broke eye contact with him, but he cupped my chin bringing my gaze back.

"It's okay. Really, it's fine. Vika and I both were raised there, along with our other two sisters. I didn't get to see them much, other than Vika, once we started school but we still talked. Dhampir communities are more about family than they are blood whoring."

I felt a little jealous at that point. He was loved and cherished by his disgraced mother, when my respectable mother never had time for me. "Wasn't it weird though when the Moroi men came around? Were there a bunch of them?"

"Not always, but at times." His brown eyes began to harden and I knew that I had unintentionally struck a nerve.

"I'm sorry, I said something that brought up bad memories didn't I?"

"Yeah," He smiled tightly at me, and then the corner of his lips twitched. "You'll probably enjoy the story. Do you know your father?"

"No. My mother has told me some things about him, but I've never met him. I could walk right by him and not know who he is. Of course he has to have really awesome hair." I chuckled as I gently ran a hand over my pony tail. It did its trick and brought a full smile to Dimitri's lips.

I knew my father." He said hesitantly.

"Really," I asked.

"Yeah, he liked my mom very much and would visit often. He is the father to all of my siblings too. But when he came, he did some very cruel things to my mother." His words seemed guarded and were spoken between clenched teeth.

"Oh. Did he make her do blood whore things?" I spoke softly, hesitant to offend him again.

He smile turned sad and he shook his head. "More like beating her up type things."

"That's horrible! She let him do that? Did he hurt you too?" I gripped his hands tighter.

"He never hurt me, but I did him." He said flatly. I grew excited though.

"You hurt your dad?"

"Yes. When I was fourteen"

"You beat up your dad when you were fourteen? You really are a Russian God, aren't you?"

"What?" He looked slightly shocked.

"That's what everyone is calling you. I'm sorry that had to happen."

"It's okay. He was just a Royal Moroi that needed to learn he couldn't take advantage of women."

"Is that why you stood up for me that day? I heard about what you said."

"I said what I did to those jerks for many reasons, but yeah that was one of them."

"The things they are saying, that I let"

"I know they're lying. At first I wasn't sure, but even still" His words cut off and he gave me a confident smile. "I got to know you and I know you wouldn't do that."

"I'm surprised. Everyone else think I have. They all think I am just a big failure."

"I don't. I think you have great character, you're going to be a great Guardian."

"You really have that much faith in me?" I asked meekly. He nodded his head, his smile expanding even more. "I don't think I can follow all of the rules though."

Dimitri began to laugh aloud at my words. "When have you ever followed all of the rules?" Then raising one eyebrow asked, "Which rule do you think you can't follow?"

"I don't want to cut my hair off." I said. My mother told me I wouldn't but she may have been placating me.

"You don't have too. I've seen Guardians with long hair before."

"Then I won't be able to show off my markings." I said slightly frowning. He reached up and began twirling a lock of my hair around his finger, then dropped it looking embarrassed.

"Don't cut it, just wear it up." He said huskily. His voice robbed me of speech as my eyes locked onto his. He turned away from me and began leading me to the cafeteria again, as a small smile played over both of our lips.

We made our way to the line and I found myself directly behind Natalie and Lissa. Natalie was asking Lissa if she wanted to join in a movie night with her and her friends. Lissa explained that she had already made plans with Camille Conta.

"They seem to be liking you more these days." Natalie said with a hint of suspicion. Lissa couldn't risk Natalie's errant thoughts to turn into actual accusations of compulsion so she offered to join them after she was done with Camille.

Lissa still kept up her compulsion though and I was getting fed up with the shaky and itchy feelings that it left behind. I cornered her in church her a few days later. I warned her that if she kept it up, it was going to come back to bite her in the ass. Being Lissa, she played it off, but when a couple of guys further down the pew started staring at me and laughing, she stared them down.

"Apologize to her and make it believable." She told them, never taking her eyes off them. Less than a second later they were tripping over themselves begging me to forgive them. Deciding they weren't doing a well enough job she started to compel them again.

I could feel the strain that compelling two people at the same time was taking on her and touching her arm I told her that it was okay. She not only had the boys scared of her, but the amount of compulsion she could weld had me nearly terrified. "I accept their apologies. Let it go, please?" I told her as the priest began the services.

I saw Christian standing beside the door waiting for Lissa when the services ended. "I need to talk to you." I whispered to him when Lissa turned to hug Mason hello. Mason then skidded around Lissa to stand beside me, tossing an arm around my shoulder. I felt a hand on my ass, and thinking it was Mason, turned to punch him in the arm. Instead I found Miles and Anthony, two other novices, standing close by.

"I don't have fangs, but there is something else I can give you." Anthony laughed suggestively.

Mason glared at him, and then pulled me out the door. Miles blocked the path though and grabbed my waist, sliding his hand to my butt. "Take your hand off my ass before I break it." I said through my teeth. Mason jerked me away from his hold.

"Come on Ashford, share. She likes taking on more than one guy at a time."

"Shut up and leave her alone. Say one thing more and I am going to rip your head from your neck." Mason snapped at him.

"Oh, feeling protective of the Blood" Anthony said but his words were cut short by Mason's fist meeting his nose. Anthony's eyes went wide and he lunged towards Mason, but Dimitri grabbed his collar and tossed him to the ground. Miles started to step up to defend his friend but the clearing of a throat stopped everyone in their tracks.

My mother was standing behind me now, a small smile on her face. "I didn't realize you young people where so enthusiastic over sermons. I hope I'm not interrupting." Anthony and Miles just looked at one another and told Mason they would catch up to him later. When they were out of sight, I turned on Mason and Dimitri.

Dimitri swallowed and found something interesting to ask my mom suddenly. Mason tossed his hands up and shrugged. "You're welcome." He said with a slight grin.

"I can defend myself you know."

"I know, but I was just trying to help." He said, looking a bit wounded.

"Aw, Ducky, I'm not the usual Damsel in Distress. You don't have to treat me like-well like a girl."

"But you are a girl." Mason said looking at me as if I had lost a marble or two. He started looking a little deflated and I knew he had meant well.

"Fine, your hero thing might be a little hot in principal, but I don't really approve. I know you probably get off on it though."

"Hey, you don't know what gets me off!" He wagged his eyebrows at his double entendre. "Saving damsels is more about honor anyhow."

"And you're honorable?"

"Of course," He scoffed at me.

"Are you willing to prove it?" I asked him.

"Sure."

"I need a huge favor."

"Anything, ask and I will deliver."

"Can you ask Christian to get me some books from the church attic?"

"Christian Ozera?" He questioned uneasily.

"Don't be put off. I really need the help. I would ask myself, but I can't ever catch him when Lissa isn't around. Plus he has sat with us at lunch every day for the last couple months. You aren't still afraid of him, are you?"

"How does Christian Ozera help to prove my honor?" He asked. Seeing that he was completely against the idea, I sighed and started to walk away.

"Wait- What books do you need. I'll talk to him."

"Anything on St Vladimir, the actual Saint, Tell him it's to help Lissa and he will do it. I need him to smuggle them out to me as soon as he can, without Lissa knowing." I explained. Mason nodded and after assuring me he would do it, headed off to get lunch.