Getting Out While You Can

Epilogue

Seventeen Years Later

"Alyona! You're still awake?!" I sighed exasperatedly, knocking and pushing on the open door. She should have been asleep a while ago, but you know how teenagers are, they never go to sleep when they should.

I huffed as I came through the door but cut if off, finding her sprawled over her duvet asleep, book still in hand. I smiled to myself as I crept into the room, carefully pulling the book from her hands. I looked at the cover and snickered, tucking a piece of paper between the pages to keep her spot. I set the book on the nightstand and carefully maneuvered her body around the bed, draping the throw blanket over her. Even at sixteen, she was still my baby.

I brushed her curly blonde hair away from her face and kissed her forehead softly so I didn't wake her. She was a light sleeper like Dimitri. I flicked the light out and left the room, closing it just enough to have it ajar. I sighed tiredly and poked my head into Mason's room and found him asleep as well, star fished out in bed. I did my final round on Yevette and found her asleep too, cuddling the stuffed bear Olena sent her for Christmas last year.

I made sure the door was locked even though I knew Dimitri had done it and turned off all the lights as I made my way to our bedroom. Dimitri was already in bed, eyes closed and relaxed against the pillows. I got changed quietly and climbed into bed next to him, laying on my side while tucking my hand under my cheek.

"Was she asleep? I didn't hear any fighting?"

I smirked. "She was passed out. Guess what book it is that has her so consumed."

"Please tell me it isn't the sparkling vampire one," Dimitri moaned, he couldn't handle the Twilight craze anymore. I snorted and shook my head even though his eyes were still closed.

"Ours."

Dimitri's eyes opened and turned his head. "You mean?"

"Vampire Academy? Yeah. She's reading the second book right now. She's pretty far in too," I said closing my eyes.

During my pregnancy with Mason, Lissa discovered her passion and talent as a writer. But coming up with something that she could work with was difficult. She had tried lore writing and science fiction, but one day over a glass of wine, an idea sparked in her head.

She felt that there was so much of my life that she had missed in our high school years, so she grilled me for an entire weekend, wanting to know everything she could. I knew that she was onto something but she seemed so excited, I couldn't help but give her the information.

Even when it came to parts of my time at the Academy that were a little more R rated, I divulged enough for her to form the connections. After that weekend I didn't hear from her for a week until her fiancé Derek called me and told me that I needed to talk to her.

In that week she had written a manuscript completely from my point of view. I would joke from time to time that we were at 'Vampire Academy' and Lissa hated it, but when she emailed me a zipped file that was named that.

I read it over the course of three days and I was shocked. It was my life, but I was so caught up in it that I couldn't stop.

I called her once I read and just sat there gaping. She was worried I hated it, but when I told her that I couldn't put it down, she was overcome with joy. She sent it off to a publication house and they ate it up too. Because the story was of mine and Dimitri's lives, she promised up the royalties after Dimitri agreed to let the book be published.

It was a hit in the young adult genre and she couldn't believe the demand. So we sat done and went over more of what had happened. Given that I left shortly after graduation, she had changed a lot in the storyline. And the world she created was immensely riveting. The events that played out, the way Dimitri and I came back together, a different tale of how Lissa met her only living relative. She created a fantasy that was so magical nobody could believe that it was real.