Building the Tension | ✔ | 18+

Chapter 7a - Hiding in Plain Sight

Nearly as soon as I drifted off to sleep that night, I entered what I immediately recognized to be a spirit dream. I found myself dressed in the red Asian-style dress that Tasha Ozera had gotten me for Christmas, with my nazar around my neck, in the lobby area of Lissa and Adrian's dorm. I silently breathed a sigh of relief that Adrian hadn't left me in the bathrobe that I had fallen asleep in.

"Hello, little dhampir," Adrian said, face splitting into a big smile, "How are you this fine evening? You're getting to bed pretty late."

Grappling for an excuse, I said, "My schedule's all messed up. I'll be glad to be back awake at night again."

"I could put in a word with Kirova," he offered, "You'll find I can be very persuasive," implying compulsion.

"No. No need to do that," I replied, "I'm sure it won't be too much longer before things get back to normal. Anyways, when they do, I'll be put back on field experience. My mother told me that there's a chance that I might be back to field experience full time. You probably wouldn't see me very much, then."

"I could certainly find a way to be around Ozera more often, if it meant being closer to you. And you'd still have Sundays off," Adrian said, then, "Wait - your mother talked to you?"

"Yes, she came by an hour or so after breakfast yesterday," I replied, "After the attack, they felt like I was ready to go back to full-time."

"They?" he asked, "You mean Belikov?" I winced. Just having Adrian say Dimitri's name would yield nothing good right now.

"My mother only mentioned Alberta," I replied quickly. Maybe too quickly.

Adrian saw through my steering to a different topic and said, more a statement than the question it should've been, "You talked to him about the dream. If guardians can just drop by your dorm room at will, then he must've been able to, too."

I tried to be evasive. "Remember, I'm the one who wanted to talk to him - not the other way around. When would I have talked to him? We've been on lockdown. Other than mealtimes, I haven't even been allowed to leave my dorm."

"It doesn't really make any sense that you would've been able to, but, that's not really an answer to my question," Adrian scrutinized me meaningfully, "Little dhampir, I feel like you're hiding something."

I was probably quiet for a bit longer than I should've been, especially because the spirit dream had to be taking a lot out of him to maintain it for this long. I could be a good liar when I wanted to be, but Adrian was always better than most in reading lies - maybe a part of seeing my aura. So far, I'd avoided telling Adrian anything that was an outright lie, but it seemed I'd have to. I made a silent wish that it would work as I finally said, struggling to give him a thing I could be hiding without giving anything away, "I told him that I wanted to talk to him, but we haven't had any time for a discussion yet. We probably won't have time to talk until our next training session in the gym - which will probably be my day off on Sunday. It'll be Wednesday when I wake up in the morning, though. By the time we're back on nights, that'll be another day down, making it Thursday. If we're not off of lockdown and back on nights in the next four days, then I might be talking to him on my birthday..."

Adrian finished, "And you don't want a rejection on your birthday."

I nodded. "I don't."

"Rose," he said, catching me off-guard by using my actual name, and taking my hand again and holding it to his heart, "please know that I care for you, too - and I won't reject you. Even if he wants you, you have to know that he's taking advantage of you. And what kind of life could the two of you really have? It would be months before you could even really have a relationship. Is that what you really want?" I almost felt like I was feeling a bit of compulsion from him on part of that, but I shrugged it off. Adrian wouldn't do that to someone he cared about - would he? I wanted to say 'yes' to his question outright - that, yes, I really wanted that, if it meant being with Dimitri - but I knew that I shouldn't give that much away.

"And are you really sure you're in love with him? Or that you don't have feelings for me, too?" he continued. "All I'm saying is, please, consider my offer." As he finished, we were eye to eye. I blinked, unsure how to reply. Adrian leaned in and kissed my forehead. The dream disintegrated before my eyes.

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Author's Notes:

Only two sections to this chapter.

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