"Okay," said Christian.
There was a collective sigh of disappointment from the crowd. Adrian had used his compulsion smoothly enough that no one suspected. It had looked as though Christian had simply seen reason. As the crowd dispersed, Eddie and I released Christian enough to a lead him over to far corner where we could talk in private. As soon as Adrian broke the gaze, Christian's face filled with fury, and he tried to leap at Adrian. Eddie and I were already holding on. He didn't move.
"What did you just do?" exclaimed Christian. Several people down the hall glanced back, no doubt hoping there'd be a fight after all. I shushed loudly in his ear. He flinched. "Ow."
"Be quiet. Something's wrong here, and we need to figure it out before you do something stupid."
"What's wrong," Christian said, glaring at Adrian, "is that they're trying to break up Lissa and me, and you knew about it, Rose."
Adrian glanced at me. "Did you really?"
"Yeah, long story." I turned back to Christian. "Look, Adrian didn't have anything to do with this. Not intentionally. It was Tatiana's idea - and she hasn't even actually done anything yet. It's just her long-term plan - hers alone, not his."
"Then how did you know about it?" demanded Christian.
"Because she told me - she was afraid that I was moving in on Adrian."
"Really? Did you defend our love?" Adrian asked.
"Be quiet," I said. "What I want to know, Christian, is who told you?"
"Ralf," he said, looking uncertain for the first time.
"You should have known better than to listen to him," remarked Eddie, face darkening at the name.
"Except, for once, Ralf was actually telling the truth - aside from Adrian being in on it. Ralf's related to the queen's best friend," I explained.
"Wonderful," said Christian. He seemed calm enough, so Eddie and I released him. "We've all been played."
I looked around, suddenly taken aback by something. "Where's Lissa? Why didn't she stop all of this?"
Adrian raised an eyebrow at me. "You tell us. Where is she? She didn't come to dinner."
"I can't. ..." I frowned. I'd gotten so good at shielding myself when I needed to that long periods of time would go by without me feeling anything from her. This time, I sensed nothing because there was nothing coming from her. "I can't feel her."
Three sets of eyes stared at me.
"Is she asleep?" asked Eddie.
"I can tell when she's asleep...This is something different..." Slowly, slowly, I gained a sense of where she was. She'd been blocking me out on purpose, trying to hide from me, but I'd found her as I always did. "There she is. She was - oh God!"
My scream rang down the hall, echoing Lissa's own screams as, far away, pain shot through her.
Twenty-three
OTHERS IN THE HALL stopped and stared. I felt like I had just been hit in the face. Only it hadn't been my face. It had been Lissa's. I shifted into her mind and became instantly aware of her surroundings and everything happening to her - like the next time rocks flew up from the ground and slammed into her cheeks. They were guided by a freshman I didn't know anything about, save that he was a Drozdov. The rocks hurt both of us, but I withheld my screaming this time and gritted my teeth as I shifted back to the hallway with my friends.
"Northwest side of campus, between that weird-shaped pond and the fence," I told them.
With that, I broke away from them and headed out the door, running as hard as I could toward the part of campus where they were holding Lissa. I couldn't see all of the people gathered there through her eyes, but I recognized a few. Jesse and Ralf were there. Brandon. Brett. The Drozdov guy. Some others. The rocks were still hitting her, still cutting into her face. She didn't scream or cry, though - she just kept telling them over and over to stop while two other guys held her between them.
Jesse, meanwhile, kept telling her to make them stop. I only half-listened to him through her mind. The reasons didn't matter, and I'd already figured it out. They were going to torture her until she agreed to join their group. They must have forced Brandon and the others in the same way.
A suffocating feeling suddenly overwhelmed me, and I stumbled, unable to breathe as water smothered my face. Fighting hard, I separated myself from Lissa. That was happening to her, not me. Someone was torturing her with water now, using it to cut off her air. Whoever it was took their time, alternately filling her face with water, then pulling it back, then repeating. She gasped and sputtered, still asking them to stop when she could.
Jesse continued watching with calculating eyes. "Don't ask them. Make them."