The Truth Of The Matter (complete)

Chapter 9

It was like she couldn't hear me. She just continued to writhe around in the floor next to her desk screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Rose!!! Rose, no!!! Please, no!!! Rose!!!!"

Finally, she was still and semi quiet. She had stopped screaming but she was still whimpering, whining and holding onto her head and chest. One of the guardians came and scooped her up in his arms and ran for the infirmary. I ran after them because I needed to know what was wrong with Lissa and why she was screaming for Rose that way.

When we got to the infirmary Guardian Reynolds kicked the door open.

"Dr. Oldenzki!!!" He screamed.

When she heard him screaming Dr. Oldenzki came running towards us from down a hallway in front and to the left of us. A few minutes later Lissa was in a bed and being examined by Dr. Oldenzki. When she couldn't find anything wrong with Lissa she turned to me.

"What happened?"

"We were sitting in class when all of the sudden she started screaming for Rose. She was holding her head with one hand and her chest with the other and screaming bloody murder."

"Where is Rose? Maybe she knows what's going on."

Sadly, I informed her of what had happened with Rose.

"Rose dropped out of the academy on her birthday. She and Lissa got into a huge fight just as she was about to walk out of the gates of the academy. Lissa told her that if she left not to bother ever coming back because she would never have Rose as her guardian or friend if she left. And that if she walked out of those gates, that as far as she was concerned Rose was dead to her."

Dr. Oldenzki looked shocked as did everyone else in the room.

"Do you know why Rose left?" Headmistress Kirova asked me. She and several others had joined us in the room as Dr. Oldenzki examined Lissa.

I nodded. "She was in love. Well, they loved each other actually. They have loved each other since shortly after she and Lissa came back to the academy."

"Who? Who was she in love with?" Kirova sounded shocked.

"Belikov." Alberta, Emil, Yuri and Celeste all answered her question themselves.

Again, I just nodded. I'd thought that I was the only one who knew, who had noticed how they were and acted with and around each other. Because Lissa and my aunt Tasha had sure as hell not either one noticed. Even though they both claimed to know Rose, in Lissa's case, and Belikov, in Aunt Tasha's case, better than anyone else in the world. Only neither of them had known the real Rose and Dimitri. Possibly not ever known the real them.

"That's why she left isn't it? She went after him, didn't she?" Kirova asked.

"Yes." The guardians and I all said that time.

"That's why she stayed locked up in her room for the entire two weeks between the rescue mission and her birthday, isn't it?"

"Yes." Alberta answered.

"Has anyone heard anything from her?"

"No."

"Why did she do it? She would have become Lissa's guardian..."

"On the shopping trip to Missoula, Rose and Dimitri made a promise to each other. They promised that if either of them was ever turned, that the other would go after them and set their soul free." Alberta answered.

Now that was something that I did not know. But it doesn't surprise me in the least with as much as they loved each other.

"My God. Does she really think that she can beat him?" Kirova asked her face filled with shock and worry.