I snapped out of it instantly. The dreamy haze was gone, as was the yearning in my body. But I'd discovered something. Under compulsion, I had definitely wanted him to kiss me. Yet even under compulsion, it hadn't been the electric, all-encompassing feeling I had when I was with Dimitri, that feeling that we were practically the same person and were bound by forces bigger than both of us. With Adrian, it had simply been mechanical.
Deirdre had been wrong. If my attraction to Dimitri was just some subconscious reaction, then it should have been as superficial as that forced attraction to Adrian. Yet they were completely different. With Dimitri, it was love - not just some trick my mind was playing on me.
"Hmm," I said.
"Hmm?" asked Adrian, eyeing me with amusement.
"Hmm."
The third "hmm" hadn't come from either of us. I looked across the hall and saw Christian watching us. I separated from Adrian, just as the bell rang. The sounds of students pouring out of classrooms rumbled through the hallway.
"Now I can see Lissa," said Adrian happily.
"Rose, will you come with me to the feeders?" asked Christian. He spoke in a flat tone, and his expression was unreadable.
"I'm not guarding you today."
"Yeah, well, I miss your charming company."
I told Adrian goodbye and cut through the cafeteria with Christian. "What's up?" I asked.
"You tell me," he said. "You were the one about ready to start making out with Adrian."
"It was an experiment," I said. "It was part of my therapy."
"What the hell kind of therapy are you in?"
We reached the feeders' room. Somehow, despite him getting out of class early, there were still a few people ahead of us in line.
"Why do you care?" I asked him. "You should be happy. It means he isn't moving in on Lissa."
"He could be moving in on both of you."
"What are you, my big brother now?"
"Annoyed," he said. "That's what I am."
I looked beyond him and saw Jesse and Ralf enter. "Well, keep it to yourself, or our good friends will overhear."
Jesse, however, was too busy to hear, because he was arguing with the feeding coordinator. "I don't have time to wait," he told her. "I've got to be somewhere."
She pointed to us and the others in line. "These people are ahead of you."
Jesse met her eyes and smiled. "You can make an exception this time."
"Yeah, he's in a hurry," added Ralf in a voice I'd never heard him use before. It was smooth and less grating than usual. "Just write his name down at the top of the list."
The coordinator looked like she was going to tell them off, but then a funny, distracted look came over her face. She glanced at her clipboard and wrote something. A few seconds after she looked away, her head jerked up again, eyes sharp once more. She frowned.
"What was I doing?"
"You were signing me up," said Jesse. He pointed at the board. "See?"
She looked down, startled. "Why is your name first? Didn't you just get here?"
"We were here earlier and checked in. You told us it was okay."
She looked down again, clearly puzzled. She didn't remember them coming earlier - because they hadn't - but she apparently couldn't figure out why Jesse's name was at the top now. A moment later, she shrugged and must have decided it wasn't worth overthinking. "Stand with the others, and I'll call you next."
As soon as Jesse and Ralf came near us, I turned on them. "You just used compulsion on her," I hissed.
Jesse looked panicked for a fraction of a second; then his normal swagger took over. "Whatever. I just convinced her, that's all. What, are you going to try to tell on me or something?"
"Nothing to tell," scoffed Christian. "That was the worst compulsion I've ever seen."
"Like you've seen compulsion," said Ralf.
"Plenty," said Christian. "From people prettier than you. Of course, maybe that's part of why yours isn't as good."
Ralf seemed highly offended at not being considered pretty, but Jesse just nudged him and started to turn away. "Forget him. He had his chance."
"His chance at - " I remembered how Brandon had attempted weak compulsion when trying to convince me his bruises were nothing. Jill had said that Brett Ozera actually had convinced a teacher that his were nothing. The teacher had dropped the matter, much to Jill's surprise. Brett must have used compulsion. Lightbulbs went off in different parts of my brain. The connections were all around me. The problem was, I couldn't untangle the wires quite yet. "That's what this is about, isn't it? Your stupid Man? and its need to beat up on people. It's got something to do with compulsion...."
I didn't understand how it all fit together, but the surprised look on Jesse's face told me I was on to something, even though he said, "You don't know what you're talking about."
I pushed forward, hoping some blind hits would make him mad and say something he wasn't supposed to. "What's the point? Does it give you guys some kind of power trip to do these little tricks? That's all they are, you know. You seriously don't know the first thing about compulsion. I've seen compulsion that would make you do handstands and throw yourself out a window."
"We're learning more than you can even imagine," said Jesse. "And when I find out who told - "
He didn't get a chance to finish his threat because he was called over to the feeder just then. He and Ralf stalked away, and Christian immediately turned to me.