~ Chapter Twenty Four. ~

"Can I hold your hand?"

I look up to stare into viridian green eyes. I can't help but smile shyly. It's been two days. Two days of flirtatious exchanges, shy glances, and the inevitable: There's no going back. I suppose it is nice, this little something we have. I can't describe it as more than puppy love. Not even that, considering he can't even hold my hand without asking. What do you call something like this?

"Are you asking or stating?" I ask. My hands are wide in the open, on opposite sides of my body. Julius sits beside me, looking painstakingly nervous. It's cute in a way, I guess.

We are sitting on the front library steps. I'm bundled up in a white cashmere sweater Lissa loaned me and my combat boots. I sadly had to abandon my black leather jacket for warmer apparel.

"Umm, whatever you prefer, Darling," he says, a smile tugging on the corners of his face.

I roll my eyes and pretend to choke myself. "Enough with the couple names. They're so. . . stupid. Besides, I haven't even officially announced us a couple, yet."

Julius runs a hand through his raven's hair. Soft as a raven's. I have to remind myself not to reach out and touch it.

"Well, how about something else, then, Sweet Pea?" I scowl at him. "Or Angel cake? Honeysuckle? Boo? Oh, how about Muffin-Patty?"

"Muffin-Patty?" I laugh and shove him playfully, and when I see that irresistible smirk of his, I grab his cheek and plant a quick kiss on it. "You. Are. An. Idiot."

"I thought you said I was intelligent?" he asks playfully.

I kiss him on the cheek again. "I lied."

I settle back down and flip the next page of War of the Worlds, another book Julius recommended to me. He sits beside me, but his eyes aren't on his book, which is Einstein's Theory on Relativity. They're on me. I want our eyes to connect, but I don't want to look at him. I can't get so crazy or so serious with him, yet. I might never be able to.

"Have you told your friends yet?" Julius asks me. I look up from my book and bite my bottom lip. The skin there is tender, from where I have bitten it so many times in the earlier days.

I sigh and say, "No. Not yet. I want to know this will work out before I tell anyone." When I see his face, I backtrack. "I don't mean it that way. I just. . . I want to know this is serious. That it will all work out."

Julius nods. "Would there be any reason for it not to?"

I sigh again and I brush away a strand of chocolate hair. "The chase might be better than the catch."

"Possibly," he says, nodding gently.

"I just. . . don't want to fall in love, or anything like that, and then things not work out because we aren't compatible." I pick at a loose thread on my sweater. "I don't want to get my heart-broken again."

"Again?" Julius' eyebrows perk up. Oh, crap. I realize what I just said. He doesn't know about Dimitri, or anything about me in particular.

"It's nothing. . ." I exhale deeply. I haven't told him about Dimitri. Or Lissa. Or anything about my life. He doesn't even know me. "Julius?"

"Hm?" He asks, his hand trailing from my neck to the small of my back. I sustain a shudder, but only because it feels good. Comforting. Warm.

"Why do you like me so much?" I ask. "I mean, you barely know anything about me. What makes you find me so interesting? You could do a lot better. What made you choose me?"

I feel Julius scoot closer and put his hand under my chin. He raises my head so I'm forced to look at him. He smiles, not a smirk, but a smile, and that's strange. I have only ever seen him with that witty grin or a sly smirk on his face. Never a sincere smile. It's strange. I like it.

"Rosemarie," he whispers so low I barely pick up on it. "I didn't choose you. Well, at first I didn't. I knew you were scared of me." He glances down at the orange and yellow leaves plastered to his boots. "You didn't like me, or the way I hid in the library, stowed away with books. But you came back anyway. You came back."

I watch him carefully.

"Whether you came back for the book, or for me, I don't know," says Julius. "That's up to you, Rosemarie."

I smile at his smile, a cat's smile, his is. And then I slide my hand into his and grip it firmly.

"Yes." I speak softly, lowly. Such a public place seems like such a private place. "You can hold my hand."

I won't let go.

I don't dream that night. It is like I am floating around in forever darkness. But then the darkness starts to materialize like silk blowing in the wind, and I'm in a little suburb. A small neighborhood.

Leaves stick to anything they touch, yellow and red and orange and brown. There are carved pumpkins staring at me from the porches, and the air smells crisp. I almost forget it's late October.

"This will get some getting used to." I freeze, thinking it's Julius, but then I hear hard footsteps, and the voice recognizes me before I recognize it. I turn to face Adrian.

"Why?" I ask, cautiously. He seems a little wobbly, and the scene around us fills with static for a second before going back to normal. It does it a few more times before it stops completely. At least for the time being.

"I'm not used to letting you pick out the dreams." He walks until his back is to me and stares out at the long row of matching houses, some of the streets curving off to more same houses. "This landscape is. . . interesting." His voice drags on the 'ing'.

"Adrian?" I take a step forward, the crunching of leaves beneath my feet making me wince each time. It sounds like I'm breaking bones, femurs. "Adrian." I say his name again. "Are you drunk?"

"Of course not!" Adrian laughs hysterically like it's just a big joke. Which it's not. "I'm just a little. . . tipsy."

Alcohol mutes the Spirit inside of Spirt-users. So he can't be too drunk if he can still reach me through my dreams. But, again, the scene around us frizzes for a moment too long, and I lose sight of Adrian. Then he reappears. This time we're in an empty warehouse, old boxes stacked high above us like towers.

"Adrian," I say his name carefully. "You should really leave. Get some rest. And. . . stop drinking."

"Aw," he says. "But the party was just starting."

"Adrian!" I grab his arms and force him to look at me. "Get out of here! You're wasting my time! You're drunk!" I release him and step back. "You're so drunk."

"When were you planning on telling me?" Adrian asks, gesturing to himself. "Or Lissa, for that fact?"

"What are you talking about?" I ask, my face scrunching up in confusion.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about!" Adrian says, pointing a dramatic, drunk, accusing finger at me. "Kissing on what-is-his-face."

I stare at him.

"You know!" He shouts without reason. Too loud. Too senseless. "The Conta boy. I hate Contas'." Adrian grunts and raises his hand, then realizes there is nothing in it. "Did you know that?" he asks. "The Ivashkovs' and the Contas' hate each other."

His face contort until he's scowling.

"What are you talking about, Adrian?"

"You left us, Rose!" He never says my real name. It's always Little Dhampir, or nothing. "You abandoned Lissa and Christian and. . . you left me, too, Rose. I don't know if you realize that, you left me." His bottom lip is poking out. He runs a hand through his mess of a hair. "You left me, too, you know."

"Adrian." I tread on light grounds, on eggshells. He's upset, angry even. Is that my fault. "Now is not the time to face me about this. You're drunk, tired, and you've probably had too much to smoke. We can talk about this tomorrow, when you're sober."

Adrian scoffs. "When I'm sober," he says, "it won't matter anymore." He shakes his head. "I'll be back to normal. This here will be gone." He gestures between the two of us.

There is only one light in the abandoned warehouse. And it is right above us, a fluorescent blue light dangling from an old wire.

I raise my hand in a gentle way. "Adrian, please, we can talk-"

"I can control it, Rose!" he screams, slamming his foot down on the hard concrete. If this weren't a dream, that would have hurt, probably. The smacking sound echoes in the warehouse. "I want to talk! Now!"

I close my eyes. "Adrian, why are you so mad?"

Adrian laughs again, this time with no humor. "Because you left us, Rose. And you haven't talked to us since. Maybe I have. But everyone else, no. You never sent them letters. You were in such a hurry to leave, that you left us without caring!" He puts one hand to his blushing cheek. "And then I see you smooching on some Conta boy."

"Adrian, I-"

"You left us, Rose! The moment you took that offer to be guardian." He exhales roughly. "And for what? For what? And why? What was the point?"

He's gone before I can answer him.

He'll be sober tomorrow, I think when I wake up, sweating from the stressful situation I just came out of. I look at the alarm clock on my nightstand. There will be a meeting in two hours.

Good, I think. That is plenty of time to grab a coffee, go see Julius, and make it to the meeting on time. Afterwards, I'll go see Lissa.

And I'll tell her everything.

"Rose?" Lissa's voice asks when I knock on her door a few hours later. She opens the door wider to allow my inside, and I slip through the doorway.

"Hey," I say when she shuts the door and takes a seat on the corner of her bed. I sit on the desk chair and scoot it closer to her. "I need to tell you something, Liss. Well, a few things, actually."

"Okay," Lissa says, nodding slowly. She looks nervous, she should be, but I want to comfort her that it isn't that bad.

"So," I say, scratching the back of my neck, "there's some things that have gone on since I left."

"Oh," Lissa breathes, almost relieved about something. Was she expecting me to talk to her about something else?

I nod and continue. "I haven't kept in touch all that much. Everyone else have, but I haven't. Anyway," I say, looking Lissa straight in the eyes, through thick black eyelashes. "I've had this. . . thing with. . . Julius Conta."

Lissa's eyes narrow curiously. "Like. . . do you like him or something?"

"You could say that." I bite my lip. "Anyway, for weeks I have stayed away from him, but. . . I don't know. We're kind of something, I guess. I can't say we are officially a couple, but we are. . . something."

Lissa nods, then smiles brightly. "That's nice, Rose." She leans forward and places a manicured hand on my knee. "I'm happy for you."

I smile, too. "That's not all." Lissa drops her hand and tilts her head. "I wanted to tell you, if something happened." I bite my bottom lip and taste blood. "I left because of someone," I confess. Lissa's head tilts further and her brows magnetize together.

"Who?" is all she asks.

I shake my head. "It's not you, or anyone you really know." That's a lie. She knows Dimitri and Tasha. Dimitri is her guardian. Tasha is her boyfriend's aunt and caregiver. She knows them, but she doesn't have to know they're the reason I took this job. "But I left because of them."

"Do I know them?" Lissa asks.

This is the question I wanted to avoid. Oh, well, no going back now. "Not exactly," I say, which is half the truth. She doesn't know Dimitri. All she knows is that he's a dhampir, her guardian, his last name is Belikov, and he was my former trainer. But, what about Tasha? "You might have seen them around, maybe talked to them. But you don't know them."

"Them?" She picked up on that. "As in more than one person."

"Yes." I sigh. "But that doesn't matter."

Lissa nods. "I'm just glad you told me. . . Is it Mia?"

"What?" I look at her. "No! It's not Mia, or Christian, or Adrian, or Eddie, or any of you. I promise. It's not. . ." Who else can I name other than Tasha and Dimitri? I shake my head. "It's not any of them, I can promise you that."

The blonde Moroi purses her lips and then nods with understanding. I release a breath of relief and stand to hug her. "I'm glad you understand why I left," I say when we hug.

"Yeah," says Lissa, "as long as you aren't hiding anything else, right?"

"Right," I agree. We let go of each other. At least I'm not holding anything back. Well, except for Dimitri and Tasha and all that drama. But that's behind me. I can say without doubt that that is the past. Dimitri and Tasha are obviously not the future.

Dimitri is not the future.

That feels like a punch in the gut.

I go to the same coffee shop I went to a few days ago and order a pumpkin spice latte. It is that time of the year again. Pumpkin spice everything, falling leaves, and the anticipation of Halloween. I reminiscence about when Lissa and I dressed up for Halloween back when we were on the run from the academy. I forgot to pack the picture of us, dressed in cheap fairy costumes. I assume it is still in my dorm room, waiting until I return. If I do, in fact, return.

I get the pumpkin spice latter, throw a bundle of cash on the counter and make my way toward the Contas' Court mansion. I knock on the door and a maid answers, dressed in a blue dress with a white apron. Huh. Fancy.

"Can I help you?" she asks grudgingly.

"Is Jack Chang here?" I ask, taking a sip of the hot latte. Snow sticks to my leather boots and I stand there, huddled with my coffee, trying not to freeze to death!

"Who?" the maid asks with a raised eyebrow. I sigh, frustrated. Jack promised me he would be here and that we could talk business on the way to his shift at the gate. I never knew I would get stood up by another guardian. I shake out my hands, which are freezing, and think of what to do. I can wait here for Jack, but there is no one hundred percent that he will come, or I can go find him elsewhere.

"Uh, never mind," I say to the maid. "Thanks, anyway." The maid mutters something to me and shuts the door. I start to climb down the stairs, but there is an ice patch, and I start to tumble down, but two strong arms catch me halfway down.

"Careful," Jack says as he lifts me off the one step and places me on another. I laugh without humor and thank him. "Shall we?" I look up from dusting off my jeans and see Jack with his arm out. I take it and we start to walk in the frozen snow.

"So," I say, "what's the plan?" I like Jack. He is a no-crap-or-I-will-kill-you-with-my-bare-hands kind of guy. He doesn't hover, or press for questions. He gets straight to the point. There is no fooling around with Jack. In a way, he reminds me of Dimitri. They both take their jobs so seriously. Which they should, and Jack has this way of being intimidating yet clever at the same time. He is a great guardian to work beside.

"I'm going to see if I can convince the head guardian here to let me pull some of the others from their jobs around the gate, and into the neighborhoods. The gates around them, they are unprotected, an easy target for offensive threats," says Jack. I nod along with what he says. What Jack says, goes. Or at least that's what I think. I would rather him be the head guardian in the Contas' house then me.

"I also want you to do some extra work, also," Jack's voice cuts into my thoughts.

"Why?" I ask. I won't refuse or deny my job, but I am curious about why he wants to put some more heavy labor on to my shoulders.

"Vivian is still on your back," he explains. "I don't want her to fire you for lacking in one class, whereas you excel in others." I smile at the compliment. "You know how to do your job, Rose," Jack continues, "but do you think there is a possibility you are slacking off to do other things?"

I sigh. "Possibly."

"We'll work on that," Jack says. "Maybe we can throw in some training sessions here and there. After all, you are still a novice. You are still very young." Jack squints ahead as we walk. "I understand there are other things you want to do, but all Vivian can see. . ." He pauses. "She sees that as a careless effort. That you aren't taking your job serious. That you are too busy with some things that you aren't taking her children's safety into question.

"I want to prove Vivian otherwise," says Jack. "The only way we can do that is if we start taking the safety of her family into account." Jack stops walking and I turn to him. We are in sight of the gates, where Jack has volunteered to work a few hours while I take patrol of the house and our charges'. "You have great potential, Rose. Let's prove to Vivian that what you have, what you are doing, is paying off."

I nod. "That's a deal."

"No," says Jack. "That's a plan."

Jack puts a hand on my shoulder and gives me a reassuring smile. He drops his hand and starts to jog toward the gates in a fast, but graceful way. I grin from ear to ear. I have a plan. Maybe things are working out after all.