Chapter 3

A horn blasted the air. With a start, Rose rolled out of bed, barely having gotten an hour of sleep. Ivan had made them scrub the bathroom 3 times before he declared it complete and sent them to bed. She peeked out the window and groaned. Adrian started at the noises across the room and mumbled.

"What time is it?" Each word was spoken around a yawn.

"Before sunrise. I sure hope this isn't normal." Rose spoke while tugging her shirt into place. Since Adrian knew her secret, she tried to maintain a sense of modesty. As Adrian moved to pull the blanket back over his head, Rose stepped up beside it and pushed him off the bed. He crashed to the floor and moaned.

"What was that for Hathaway?" He shouted.

"You need to get up. I bet Belikov will get mad at us if we are late." Rose made sure her ring was securely in place and opened the door. She wasn't expecting the 6'7 man that was standing there, glaring down at her.

"Ivashkov, Hathaway. You are late. Get out on that field and give me 5 laps. NOW!" Dimitri Belikov snarled at them.

"How can we be late when it hasn't even been 5 minutes since that asinine horn made us get up? I don't know about you, but there is no way I am running before I eat breakfast. Especially since you made us get up before dawn." Out of the corner of her eye, Rose could see Adrian frantically trying to get her to stop talking.

Dimitri was stunned for a beat then retorted, "And now you have earned yourself and Ivashkov here an extra 3 laps. If you'd like to make it an extra 5, please keep talking."

Rose glared at him, "You know Comrade, perhaps you should try to be a little nicer. After all, it isn't your fault that Ivan kept us up all night. Or maybe it is, you know since you are large and in charge." Adrian was now hitting his forehead into his palm.

"Ok Hathaway, time to go." He said pushing her past Dimitri. Under his breathe he muttered, "You are going to get us both killed by the Russian if you don't stop!"

Dimitri followed them out onto the field. Everyone else was already gathered and standing at attention before Ivan.

"Ivashkov, Hathaway! You are late. That's an extra 5 laps for your whole group." Ivan barked.

"In case your small minds can't comprehend basic math, that means the 2 of you now owe us an extra 10 laps, since you insisted on talking back to me." Dimitri said before addressing the whole group.

"All right Groups A, B, and D, give us 10 laps. Group C, you owe us 15. Get going." Dimitri stared at the groups as they started running. Ivan walked over to him and chuckled.

"You know; they were only late because of you. How is your aunt going to take it if you abuse your command just because of one boy? I think you need to just forget your notion that something is up and just leave him be. Yes, he's a little crazy but I don't think that it's worth your time to get him to leave."

Dimitri glared at his best friend. "He is more than a little crazy, he is wild, insubordinate, dangerous and if he doesn't leave camp, he is going to get us all killed. Jamie Hathaway is a menace."

"How can you possibly know that? You've spent, what 10 minutes in the man's presence and suddenly you're an expert in all things Jamie Hathaway? Give the kid a chance. You never know. One guy could make all the difference in this fight." Ivan wanted to say more, but at that moment a fight broke out.

Rose was running as best she could. She'd completed the first 5 laps without issue. After that however she started to suffer. Her muscles were burning. At home, the most she ran was a mile. It wasn't proper for a girl to go running, and so she'd only ever ran in secret. She told herself that she could do this, all she needed was a point to run to. She picked the bench on the other side of the track. Her pace increased as she focused.

She closed her eyes for just a moment before she went flying. She hit the ground with a thud and the air whooshed out of her lungs. A weight was pressing into her. Frantically she wiggled out from underneath the man, before he could feel something he shouldn't. Standing, she turned to see who she had ran into. Just her luck, it was Christian Ozera, the fire-user assigned to her group. He started shouting at her.

"You clumsy oaf! You're lucky I wasn't hurt. Are you such a princess that you think everyone will move out of your way? Learn to watch where you are going!" His hands held flames in them.

"Perhaps you should watch where you are going Ozera. I didn't see you in front of me, and I know I passed you which means you purposefully tripped me. I didn't know that you wanted to touch me that badly. Sorry to tell you this, but you're not my type."

"What are you implying?" Christian snarled, then lunged. Reaching out with his longer arms he punched Rose. Or at least tried to. She dodged away and started circling, looking for an opening. Before she could counter attack, a voice spoke from behind.

"Men. Stop fighting and continue running. You each have 15 more laps to go." Dimitri was towering over them, his hands held loosely at his side, but one could tell he was ready to jump into the action if needed.

Christian glared at Dimitri, muttering under his breathe. The words Aunt Tasha, hear about this, and crazy kid is gonna kill me were heard, but ignored as he followed instructions. Rose however didn't move. She gazed up at Dimitri with a vacant look on her face. He moved towards her, wondering what was going through the young boy's mind when suddenly the light came back into her eyes and she started to run again.

Dimitri stared after him, trying to figure out what just happened. It was like the kid had been having a conversation inside his head. He shook his head and stepped back outside the track to see how everyone was doing.

Rose ran. Slowly the others who hadn't been assigned extra laps finished theirs and went to stand on the sides. Soon it was just her group left. After the fight with Christian, she had slowly been losing stamina. By the time Eddie and Mason had finished their 15th round, Rose was still on her 12th. A few minutes later and it was just her left. She still had 4 rounds to go. Her vison was tunneling. She couldn't see anything outside of what was straight ahead of her. Distantly she heard voices shouting at her, but she couldn't comprehend what was being said. Suddenly, the ground tilted up and her legs gave out from under her.

"Hathaway! Get up. You still have 2 rounds to go. Don't make me drag you around the track." The voice was harsh in tone, but smooth as velvet.

Rose struggled to get to her feet. When she did, she swayed back and forth. It took her a minute to find her voice but when she did, she snorted.

"In case you didn't notice, comrade, I can't walk right now. Let alone run. Perhaps you could find a wheel barrel and I could sit in it and let someone push me around the rest of the laps. I already did more than anyone else. I don't think running is going to help me beat Strigoi."

Adrian was standing off to the side and was trying frantically to get Rose's attention. When he caught her eye, he mouthed, "Knock it off! He will break you."

She rolled her eyes. Dimitri caught it and thought it was aimed at him.

"Alright Hathaway. You win. No more running today. Instead, you are going to spar. With me. I will give you 5 minutes to compose yourself. I will not go easy on you." He stormed away.

Rose looked over at Adrian, "Well, that went well, don't you think?" Her tone was flippant, but Adrian could see the touch of fear in her aura.

"You really need to stop tormenting the Russian. He isn't known for his patience. Trust me, I grew up with him. He isn't someone you want to mess with. Plus, he is really protective. If he finds out the truth about you, he will send you home faster than you can say "Strigoi" Hathaway." Adrian cautioned her.

Slowly they walked away from the track and towards the sparring circle. Already most of the other novices were gathered around. Rose took a few sips of water from a cup that Mason had pushed at her as he walked by. She knew that she was about to get her butt handed to her, but she was going to put up a fight first. She ran through everything she knew from watching the guardians back home. She was tired, but as long as she could keep out of his reach, she should be fine. Granted, his reach was huge compared to hers. I wish Lissa were here. She would have helped me see reason and to not have gotten into this mess. Before long, Dimitri called her into the ring.

"We go until the other cannot get up. This shouldn't take long." He cast Rose a disparaging glance. "Ivan will keep us in check. No head shots. Everything else is fair game."

Rose glanced at Adrian who gave her a thumbs up. Eddie and Mason seemed to be betting on how long she would last and Christian was smirking. She would show them. She had too.

Ivan shouted, "Begin!"

Rose immediately lashed out at Dimitri, trying to land a punch. He nimbly jumped to the side and kicked her legs out from under her. She fell.

The fight hadn't lasted 30 seconds. Dimitri straightened up and turned his back to her. He started to address the group before there was a banshee like scream behind him and he felt something collide with his back. Quickly using his weight as the advantage, he flipped them over and pinned Rose to the ground.

She panted, glaring up at him. "I had you."

He smirked, "The battle cry gave it away." He noticed that he was still pinning the boy down and quickly got up. His smirk faded into a frown. The boy was very slim, but he'd noticed something was different. He couldn't figure it out though. Turning to the group he began making assignments.

"Novices! Split into partners and spar. I need to see how far along you are."

Rose was partnered with Mason. After the 6th time of getting knocked to her butt, Eddie stepped in and did the same. She was beaten by everyone who approached her. Even Adrian was able to knock her off her feet in less than 3 minutes.

At long last Dimitri called a halt and told everyone to go get dinner. "Hathaway!" He barked as she walked past him.

"Yes captain?" She was so tired; she didn't have the energy to be snarky with him.

He sneered down at her from his considerable height, "I've made a decision about you. You don't belong here. Go home. You are nothing but a boy pretending to be a man and failing miserably. You will only bring pain and death to those around you as you are so hopeless. Get out of my sight."

He stalked off in the other direction, his leather duster floating behind him.

AN: Thank you everyone for continuing to read this story, it really means a lot to me. Like I said last time, I don't have a set update schedule. I was out of town for the last 3 weeks as my sister graduated high school, and my daughter had never been to her grandparents place! Now I'm back, so things will be uploaded faster… hopefully! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this story. I have lots of fun planned for it in the future.