DPOV

Inside the gym was exactly what I expected from a novice class. Several students looked over as I entered but most were used to Guardians coming in and out of their classes. As I walked over to the Instructor however more eyes followed me as they realized that I was not one of the school guards. "I need to speak with Novice Ashford and Novice Castiel," I told the Instructor once I had his attention. He barked out the names after a quick glance at the folders still in my hand, he probably guessed the reason I needed to speak with them. I saw a tall gangly redhead glance at a shorter sandy blonde boy before both of them jogged over. I gestured for them to follow me out of the gym.

Once we were outside I turned to face them. They both stood at attention and looked nervous. "I'm here to find Princess Vasallissa," I informed them, they both relaxed slightly, "I have been told that the two of you were close to Rosemarie Hathaway, who she ran away with. What can you tell me about Vassalissa, Rosemarie, and their relationships?" The sandy-haired boy glanced at the redhead before looking back at me.

"I don't know much about the princess, she mostly hung out with the other royals and Rose, but Rose never did anything big without thinking it over a hundred times and knowing exactly what kind of trouble she could get into. She would have a Really good reason to not only endanger her chance of Guarding but also to endanger the princess' life." The sandy-haired boy stated, I nodded at him.

"Thank you Novice…" I trailed off.

"Castiel" he filled in. So the redhead is Novice Ashford.

"Do you have anything to add Novice Ashford?"

"Rose has been dreaming of guarding Vassalissa since we were 6. Nothing was more important to her than Vassalissa's safety."

I nodded and dismissed them to return to class. I stood there for another 5 minutes, just thinking things over in my head before starting a walk around the campus. I had a feeling that I would not be leaving for a while and I needed to familiarize myself with my surroundings. After finding all the main buildings I headed to the room allocated to me. Guardian Petrov had been kind enough to include my room information, schedule, and a campus map in between the two teens' folders.

I dropped the duffle that I had collected from the admin building onto the floor and settled at the desk. I first opened the folder for Princess Dragomir, there was a school picture taken a few weeks before she had left the campus, next to it her birthdate, family relations, and last known address were listed. I saw that she had no living family and her last known address was a room number in the mori dorms. Looking at her academic records she seemed to be an outgoing straight-A student that liked to get involved in the Royal events, up until a month or two before she ran away when her parents and brother died in a car crash. That was an understandable decline in her academics though, I could understand falling grades while grieving such great loss. Still, nothing pointed towards a reason to run away from the school.

I closed her file and opened the one for Rosemarie Hathaway. There was also a picture in this folder, the novice had long deep brown locks and dark brown eyes with a tan and a smile on her face. I studied the girl's picture longer than I probably should have, but something intrigued me about the girl. Her birthday was listed as March 21st, 1997, her father was listed Unknown, and her mother listed as Janine Hathaway. The father wasn't surprising, most mori fathers were listed as unknown, but her mother startled me. Guardian Hathaway was a stickler for the rules and didn't seem the type to raise a wild child daughter. I went to the next page and was surprised even more.

The sheet of paper signed all parental rights over to the academy from Janine Hathaway. Despite Rosemarie having a living working mother it seemed she was still treated as an orphan at the academy. It seemed wrong to me that any mother would give up their daughter, but I pushed through to look at the rest of the records. There was an incident report about Rosemarie throwing a book at a teacher that Guardian Petrov mentioned, a fistfight dated 3 days later with 2 7-year-olds. The second report mentioned Castile and Ashford as witnesses and as the original victims of the older kids. The incident reports continued with Rosemarie noted as a protector in most of them.

RPOV

I stayed awake the entire night while the bus drove. Lissa fell asleep within 20 minutes of the bus leaving the depot. Once the sun came up I relaxed a bit into my seat and was able to douse. The bus continued to rumble along the interstate, around 8 and it stopped for gas and a driver change. Lissa and I got off to stretch our legs. Inside the station's bathroom, I pulled off my overshirt. "We were due a feed last night, let's not starve you" I joked. The juncture between my neck and shoulder was free for her fangs. Surprisingly she barely hesitated before sinking her fangs in and taking a long drag.

Through the drugged haze my hand found its way to the Poppy on my hip. Since I first felt those tingles yesterday I had wanted to feel them again. While the high from Lissa's bite was still an all-consuming drug, it didn't fill my brain with the same blanket euphoria. After a few pulls, Lissa pulled away and held me steady as I swayed a little. "Sorry I took so much, you'll be okay right?" She looked nervous as she asked this, reading her serious thoughts I knew that she was afraid that she had taken me out of commission. "I'll be fine, I just need like 3 Gaterades and a couple of bags of beef jerky. She nodded and left the restroom while I cleaned up my neck and pulled my shirt on.

I met her as she was checking out, still feeling a bit woozy from the blood loss, but not all that high surprisingly. Lissa's bite normally took at least 3 hours to burn off in my system. We got back on the bus and sat in the farthest seat again. Once we were settled and I had downed a large bottle of Gatorade and was halfway through the first bag of jerky, the bus took off continuing our journey towards portland.

My hand found my hip again, tracing the lines through my clothes. Before yesterday I had not thought too much about the mark, I was on the run, the connection would just be a distraction. But not that I had felt my other halves touch I couldn't stop myself from wanting more. I kept thinking to myself that I would probably be viewed in a bad light in the world if or rather when I met my soul mate, other moroi would view me as just a blood whore there for amusement and sex. I prayed to a God I barely believed in that my fated isn't a stuck-up royal prick. My train of thought kept on the soulmate track, but still, I kept my guard up on the bus, Lissa wouldn't be safe for a while.

The bus stopped 5 more times for gas and driver changes, finally, on Monday morning the bus pulled into the Portland Greyhound stop. We got off and immediately started walking. I had gotten a map at the last gas station and knew just about how to find the college town that I would ask Lissa to compel us into. Tomorrow we would enroll in a new high school, but we needed to find a house with an empty room first. After wandering around the college and checking the notification boards, there was a request for a roommate willing to pay 400 a month for rent. While it wasn't Ideal with her trust fund Lissa and I would be able to stay there. We found the address and paid the 400 for the month, with a little compulsion the other residents didn't question why 2 high school girls were staying on a college campus.

Settling into the room that we were going to share was rather easy. Neither of us had much to start with, in Chicago, but now we had nothing but our school books and the single change of clothes that I had insisted that we needed to keep on us at all times. I was glad for that now. Pulling out my old school-issued computer I searched for a high school close to the college. I found one that was a 30-minute walk away, after that was settled I looked for thrift stores where we could get some new clothes.