"I care," she snapped, turning her anger on me. "I wish there was a way I could get back at him. Some way to hurt him like he hurt you." She put her hands behind her back and paced back and forth furiously, her steps hard and purposeful.
The hatred and anger boiled within her. I could feel it in the bond. It felt like a storm, and it scared the hell out of me. Wrapped around it all was an uncertainty, an instability that said Lissa didn't know what to do but that she wanted desperately to do something. Anything. My mind flashed to the night with the baseball bat. And then I thought about Ms. Karp. She became a Strigoi, Rose.
It was the scariest moment of my life. Scarier than seeing her in Wade's room. Scarier than seeing her heal that raven. Scarier than my capture by the guardians would be. Because just then, I didn't know my best friend. I didn't know what she was capable of. A year earlier, I would have laughed at anyone who said she'd want to go Strigoi. But a year earlier, I also would have laughed at anyone who said she'd want to cut her wrists or make someone "pay."
In that moment, I suddenly believed she might do the impossible. And I had to make sure she didn't. Save her. Save her from herself.
"We're leaving," I said, taking her arm and steering her down the hall. "Right now."
Confusion momentarily replaced her anger. "What do you mean? You want to go to the woods or something?"
I didn't answer. Something in my attitude or words must have startled her, because she didn't question me as I led us out of the commons, cutting across campus toward the parking lot where visitors came. It was filled with cars belonging to tonight's guests. One of them was a large Lincoln Town Car, and I watched as its chauffeur started it up.
"Someone's leaving early," I said, peering at him from around a cluster of bushes. I glanced behind us and saw nothing. "They'll probably be here any minute."
Lissa caught on. "When you said, 'We're leaving,' you meant...no. Rose, we can't leave the Academy. We'd never get through the wards and checkpoints."
"We don't have to," I said firmly. "He does."
"But how does that help us?"
I took a deep breath, regretting what I had to say but seeing it as the lesser of evils. "You know how you made Wade do those things?"
She flinched but nodded.
"I need you to do the same thing. Go up to that guy and tell him to hide us in his trunk."
Shock and fear poured out of her. She didn't understand, and she was scared. Extremely scared. She'd been scared for weeks now, ever since the healing and the moods and Wade. She was fragile and on the edge of something neither of us understood. But through all of that, she trusted me. She believed I would keep her safe.
"Okay," she said. She took a few steps toward him, then looked back at me. "Why? Why are we doing this?"
I thought about Lissa's anger, her desire to do anything to get back at Wade. And I thought about Ms. Karp - pretty, unstable Ms. Karp - going Strigoi. "I'm taking care of you," I said. "You don't need to know anything else."
At the mall in Missoula, standing between racks of designer clothes, Lissa asked again, "Why didn't you tell me?"
"You didn't need to know," I repeated.
She headed toward the dressing room, still whispering with me. "You're worried I'm going to lose it. Are you worried I'll go Strigoi too?"
"No. No way. That was all her. You'd never do that."
"Even if I was crazy?"
"No," I said, trying to make a joke. "You'd just shave your head and live with thirty cats."
Lissa's feelings grew darker, but she didn't say anything else. Stopping just outside the dressing room, she pulled a black dress off the rack. She brightened a little.
"This is the dress you were born for. I don't care how practical you are now."
Made of silky black material, the dress was strapless and sleek, falling about to the knees. Although it had a slight flair at the hemline, the rest looked like it would definitely manage some serious clinging action. Super sexy. Maybe even challenge-the-school-dress-code sexy.
"That is my dress," I admitted. I kept staring at it, wanting it so badly that it ached in my chest. This was the kind of dress that changed the world. The kind of dress that started religions.
Lissa pulled out my size. "Try it on."
I shook my head and started to put it back. "I can't. It would compromise you. One dress isn't worth your grisly death."
"Then we'll just get it without you trying it on." She bought the dress.
The afternoon continued, and I found myself growing tired. Always watching and being on guard suddenly became a lot less fun. When we hit our last stop, a jewelry store, I felt kind of glad.
"Here you go," said Lissa, pointing at one of the cases. "The necklace made to go with your dress."
I looked. A thin gold chain with a gold-and-diamond rose pendant. Emphasis on the diamond part.
"I hate rose stuff."
Lissa had always loved getting me rose things - just to see my reaction, I think. When she saw the necklace's price, her smile fell away.