Nepenthe • Something that can make you forget grief or suffering.
Never feeling like they belonged was a feeling that Lissa Dragomir lived with, even with her family and life long best friend, although they aided in that feeling not being so strong...
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People shouted and stood up, everyone wanting their opinion to be heard. As it was, most of them held the same view: Tasha was wrong.
They told her she was crazy. They told her that in sending out Moroi and Dhampirs to fight the Strigoi, she'd be expediting the extinction of both races. They even had the nerve to suggest that that was Tasha's plan all along—that she was somehow collaborating with the Strigoi in all of this.
While defense was something that Kate had been teaching Lissa, Kate would never ask Lissa to put her life on the line, to actively fight Strigoi.
She got up and walked out just as Dimitri said "You might as well leave. Nothing useful's going to happen now." with disgust all over his face.
As she got up, Dimitri's duster fell to the ground, and while she didn't bend down to pick it up, she didn't step on it as she walked away. She could feel eyes on her, but she needed to get out, get away.
Tasha's taunts were eating at her mind and sanity, taking a physical manifestation in the form of prickling needles all over her mind and scalp. Or perhaps that was just the sensation of Lissa trying to communicate with her through her bond. Either way, Kate couldn't handle it.
"Kate?" Diana called out as she noticed Kate's frazzled figure stepping closer to the front door.
The familiar and safe voice made Kate falter for a moment, it made her stop when Diana ordered her to. "What's going on?" Diana questioned in Turkish, pushing Kate's hair away from her face
"I need you to take him."
Diana frowned at Kate's words, but reached for the sleeping 1-year-old, "When will you come and get him?" Diana questioned, in English this time, rubbing the toddler's back as he fussed from being pulled away from Kate.
"I don't know. I need- I need to not be around people, to not be touched." Kate replied, her hands flexing as if her body was charged with too much energy, which in a way it was. "But, but if Belikov comes and gets him, don't mention me."
The way Kate said Belikov instead of Dimka told Diana that in some part Dimitri was involved, unfortunately before she could press for more information, Kate was out of the front door of the Lodge and out in the freezing outside.
The cold was welcoming, a blessing even. And it blew towards Kate's face as she waslked away from the front door, as far as she could, the rising sun light illuminating the snow covered field and sloped making it look angelic.
When she was in what she deemed a safe distance from the lodge, she fell to her knees and dug her hands into the cold snow, letting out a breath of relief as the burning and aching sensation in them dulled into nothing.
