Okay so I know that I haven't updated in a while and I'm sorry. I've just been really busy. I guess I'll always be really busy. But I'll try to update as often as possible.

Here's the next chapter.

Chapter 28

The rest of April was, for the most part, calm. But knowing my life, there were a few rough patches.

Mia was even bitchier now that Dimitri had stopped flirting with her. She knew that it was because he had chosen me. Her bitchy nature drove her to tell everyone in the school a ridiculous story about finding us in an empty tool shed after practice, getting down and dirty (for the record, we had only been kissing. I would not get it on in a tool shed. How disgusting). We made sure that no one would believe her by fighting every now and then and keeping distance at all times when in public. People probably thought we hated each other.

She was a fighter, however, which gave cause for a social beat down. After all, the best defense is a good offense. Lissa found out an embarrassing truth about her. Her father had been a Judge at an English institute. The scandal was that he had left his wife, given up the honor of being a Judge and of helping to fight the war, to run off with his mistress. It was the second most disgraceful thing a Stridjer could do, right behind asking to be turned into a Dami. This was big, too big to pass up.

I had Kylie, Jean, and Lissa spreading the secret the next day. It was too obvious for me to be doing it, and Abby was too nice. The guys couldn't gossip to save their lives, but I did ask them to confirm the story to anyone who asked.

I knew the rumor had fully circulated when I heard Mia defending herself to her friends. "I told you guys, he's not my father. My mother remarried after that disgraceful son of a bitch. My real father is a successful Guardian." She added a bitchy hair flip before continuing, "Why don't you guys just believe me?"

Her 'friends' looked at each other as if for reassurance before the lead one said, "Um, we just don't know how smart it is to associate ourselves with someone, um, under so much speculation." The others nodded. Ouch. I felt like someone should have been saying 'It's not you, it's me'. They looked at each other once more before the girl who talked lead the others away.

With her friends gone, Mia was broken, at least for a little while. No one listened to her anymore, so that danger was gone, at least for now.

Andre visited once, but Lissa kept him occupied so that I, thankfully, didn't have to deal with him. He was so fucking annoying. Even after months of me ignoring him, he still kept hitting on me. One day I really was going to hurt the boy. That day was not the day though, and he left without seeing me.

In other news, Mr. Fargh was still the dick I knew him to be. I now had him for my third period Tactical Theory 2 H class. He was so 'impressed' with my performance that he sometimes made me 'teach the class'. He said that it was too better the class' understanding of a successful strategist's thought process. Bullshit. He really just wanted to try and embarrass me as often as possible, calling me out on everything I did to the point where most of the time I ended up saying, "It worked, didn't it?"

He always sneered and replied, "This time. But there will come a time when it won't, and your callous use of teammates will lead to their actual deaths." I knew he was right, but the fact that he wanted to embarrass me in front of the class kind of cancelled out the life lesson part.

As the days, and battles, slipped away, I started to realize something. I was running out of ideas. This normally wouldn't have been such a problem. I could have just recycled old plans for the same situations. My situation, however, was different. Since I'd had so much success, people had begun studying my battles. Like, all of them. And my practices, and my tests. It was ridiculous, and made me certain that I wouldn't get away with reusing an idea. I had to find some way to switch up the teams, the dynamic, something.

The stress kept weighing me down, and my Pack noticed. They tried to cheer me up, and for the most part, it worked. I would come back to the dorm laughing and feeling good, and then go to bed worrying about the next battle, the next test, the next meeting. I spent hours at night thinking up new plans and, I'll admit it, snarky comebacks. I couldn't come up with all of my smart ass lines on the spot anymore. It was too much work to try and think up everything on the spot while also trying to think two steps ahead and focus on my classes.

One of my late nights, Dimitri came out onto the patio, stumbling and rubbing his eyes. "What are you still doing up? It's- " he checked his watch, "tomorrow. You should be getting sleep the big battle." I looked at him questioningly. "You know we have the start of the monthly tournament." I felt stupid for forgetting, but that was the way I my thoughts were working those days. I focused on the next battle, one step at a time.

"I am preparing," I replied instead. "I'm trying to come up with a couple of new strategies. Fargh has, once again, pointed out a few faults in my old ones."

He rolled his eyes. "You know that those strategies were near perfect, and only a few people have caught on to what you've been doing. I really can't think of any improvements."

"Well I can," I snapped. "I have a lot of pressure on me to be the best. To stay the best. And people telling me that I can and can't improve are not helping. Anyway, Fargh's right. I have to fix my mistakes."

He held up his hands in a defensive motion and said, "Jeez, just trying to help. Anyways, you're driving yourself crazy stressing about this. Your plans work just fine."

"My plans kill people," I said sharply. "I can't take these deaths easily, and neither can you. I mean, in the real world, our friends, our family, could die because of my plans. They need to be perfect."

He studied me for a moment, then shook his head and went back inside with a mumbled, "Whatever."

I felt bad about being such a bitch, but needed to finish my work. I'd apologize in the morning.

I woke with a major headache, and for the fourth time that week, to the sounds of birdsong. I picked my head off the desk and scraped the papers off of my cheek. I groaned as I thought of what Coach Dargan would say about me missing conditioning again.

I quickly showered and dressed, got breakfast and advil, then set off for second period. I was late for a presentation on a strategy assignment. Despite my tardiness, I gave an A-grade presentation and managed to get excused from Fargh's class to do research in the library. I sent a quick text to Dimirti, hoping he could get out too. I smiled when I saw him at the entrance to the library, and after apologizing profusely, we snuck off to a deserted corner.

The library was huge, so the chance of being spotted was slim. Things started slow, but then got going fast. We got to some pretty heavy romance (like half-naked, get you suspended or fired for us Guardians Romance) before the bell interrupted us.

He swept me a gallant bow after we had both put on our clothes again and asked in his husky voice, "May I walk you to class?" He offered me his arm. I rolled my eyes to keep from showing him how close I was to melting and then took his arm. As soon as we got back to public space, we scooted a little bit apart, keeping the image. But there were still side long glances and suggestive gestures that few others saw.

The rest of the day, including the big battle, went smoothly.

I personally took down four of the ten opponents, including a Dief, Guardian, Heks, and Jaeger. Our assignment was to capture their fort while killing all of them; theirs was to capture me and kill the rest. Fair enough. I gave the groups and assignments and then headed out, deliberately putting myself in my own group. I didn't want any of them messing with my team. The whole team loss lesson had really hit home with me, and I had made it a personal goal to keep all of my Pack safe.

I targeted the range first, taking down the Heks and then Jaeger. Ranged opponents were always a bitch when coupled with the massive strength of, say, a six foot two Guardian. The guy had me pinned down as soon as I reported the deaths to my Pack. He told the Dief that was with him to take off and help the others, since he had me captured.

Fortunately for me, he was pinning me wrong. His knee was too low on my legs, which allowed for my next move. I waited until the Dief had left and he was focused on the hand restraints before I jerked to my right, kneeing him in the crotch in the process. Dusting myself off, I watched as he writhed in pain on the floor. I thought to myself again how lucky I was to be a girl before running him through with Psyche.

I then had my team report back to me through the hidden bracelet communicators Abby had given us for Christmas. I learned that the two Genezers, a Jaeger, and the Dief remained. The Dief was still out looking for my teammates, but the other three had banded together in a last ditch effort to keep the fort. I gave out new groups and their assignments before setting off to kill the Dief. They could handle the fort.

It didn't take me long to provoke her, I was sitting on a tree branch, in plain sight when I heard the knife. It was coming from the front, so I let myself fall backward into a hanging position (jungle-gym style). I knew another knife would be coming soon and did a graceful back flip onto the forest floor, walking to the bush where the knife had come from.

She wasn't there. I looked around, getting frustrated by the fact that I now really was a sitting duck, in danger. My point was proved when a knife sank into my sword arm. I sucked it up and rolled forward, just in time to avoid two other knifes that would have gone through my stomach and heart. Bitch. I came out of my roll and threw the knife that was still dripping with my blood into the direction it had come from. I missed, but heard enough movement in the dodge to find and kill her. Finally.

I asked for a report just in time to hear the whistle. They didn't respond, but they didn't need to. It was obvious that we had won. We celebrated a little, but to be honest, we were all too tired to muster the energy for a party. Besides, it was only the quarterfinals. We would party when we won the Championship.

I was just walking back from the now-mandatory post battle debriefing when I noticed something was wrong. I had gotten an inkling when Dargan had been the one debriefing me instead of Harks, who always did it. But I had just figured that he was too busy to listen to a teenager talk about how she won. Again.

Then there was the fact that the usual post-battle party music was nonexistent. Couple that with the fact that the grounds were empty and you had yourself a situation. I started jogging, wanting the safety of my Pack. It was then that I heard the caw of a large bird, sounding almost like laughter. I remembered the cliff incident and broke into a sprint, reaching the dorms in less than a minute.

I walked into a room full of scared and shocked people. "What's wrong?" I asked, still slightly out of breath.

Dimitri walked over and answered, in a hollow voice, "It's Judge Harks, Rose. He's been captured by the Dami. And well, they're making demands."

Duh Duh Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Anyways, sorry for the long wait, but I tried to make this chapter longer to make up for it. Also, I realized that there were some issues with chapters 5 and 6, and fixed those. I will try to update Fallen tomorrow, if I get the chance. But it'll probably be more like Wednesday. Anyways, thanks for Reading, please take the time to review. See you next time