Dimitri's face was both hard and sad. "The Strigoi killed some Moroi and dhampirs. And some...some they carried away."
Twenty-five
DEAD OR TAKEN AWAY.
It wasn't enough that the Strigoi had come and attacked us, that they'd killed Moroi and dhampirs alike. They'd also carried some off. It was something Strigoi were known to do. Even they had limits on how much blood they could drink at once. So they'd often take prisoners to keep as snacks for later. Or sometimes a powerful Strigoi who didn't want to do the dirty work would send his or her minions off to bring back the prey. Every once in a while, they'd even purposely take back captives to turn into more Strigoi. Whatever the reason, it meant that some of our people might still be alive.
Students, Moroi and dhampir, were gathered up once certain buildings had been declared Strigoi-free. Adult Moroi were herded inside with us, leaving the guardians to assess the damage. I wanted desperately to be with them, to help and do my part, but they made it clear my part was over. There was nothing I could do at that point except wait and worry with the others. It still seemed unreal. Strigoi attacking our school. How could it have happened? The Academy was safe. We'd always been taught that. It had to be safe. It was why our school years were so long and why Moroi families endured being separated for most of the year. It was worth it for children to have a safe place to go.
That was no longer true.
It took only a couple hours for them to get a casualty count, but waiting while those reports trickled in felt like days. And the numbers...the numbers were harsh. Fifteen Moroi had been killed. Twelve guardians had been killed. A group of thirteen, both Moroi and dhampirs, had been taken away. The guardians estimated that there had been close to fifty Strigoi, which was beyond mind-boggling. They'd found twenty-eight Strigoi bodies. The rest appeared to have escaped, many taking victims with them.
For that size of a Strigoi party, our casualty count was still lower than one might have expected. A few things were credited for saving us. One was the early warning. The Strigoi had barely penetrated the school's inner grounds when I'd warned Stan. The school had gone into lockdown quickly, and the fact that most everyone was already inside for curfew had helped. Most of the Moroi victims - dead or taken - were those who had been out in the open when the Strigoi came.
The Strigoi had never made it into the elementary dorms, which Dimitri said was largely thanks to me and Christian. They had managed to breach one of the Moroi dorms, however - the one that Lissa lived in. My stomach had dropped when I heard that. And even though I could feel that she was fine through the bond, all I could see was that smirking blond Strigoi, telling me he was going to finish the Dragomirs off. I didn't know what had happened to him; the attacking Strigoi group hadn't gotten far into her dorm, thankfully, but there had been casualties.
One of them was Eddie.
"What?" I exclaimed when Adrian told me.
We were eating in the cafeteria. I wasn't sure which meal it was since the campus had reverted to a daylight schedule that threw my sense of timing off. The cafeteria was nearly silent, all conversations in low whispers. Meals were the only reason students could leave their dorms. There was going to be a guardian meeting later on that I was actually invited to, but for now, I was confined with the rest of my friends.
"He was with you guys," I said. I focused on Lissa, almost accusingly. "I saw him with you. Through your eyes."
She looked up at me over the tray of food she had no interest in eating, her face pale and full of grief. "When the Strigoi got in downstairs, he and some other novices went down to help."
"They didn't find his body," said Adrian. There was no smirk on his face, no humor anywhere. "He was one of the ones they took."
Christian sighed and leaned back in his chair. "He's as good as dead, then."
The cafeteria disappeared. I stopped seeing any of them. All I could see in that moment was that room back in Spokane, that room where we'd been held. They'd tortured Eddie and nearly killed him. That experience had changed him forever, affecting the way he now conducted himself as a guardian. He'd grown extremely dedicated as a result, but it had cost him some of the light and laughter he used to have.
And now it was happening again. Eddie captured. He'd worked so hard to protect Lissa and others, risking his own life in the attack. I'd been nowhere near the Moroi dorm when it had happened, but I felt responsible - like I should have watched over him. Surely I owed it to Mason. Mason. Mason who had died on my watch and whose ghost I hadn't seen since he'd warned me earlier. I hadn't been able to save him, and now I'd lost his best friend too.
I shot up from my chair and shoved my tray away. That dark fury I'd been fighting blazed through me. If Strigoi had been around, I could have burned them up with it, without any need of Christian's magic.
"What's wrong?" asked Lissa.
I stared at her in disbelief. "What's wrong? What's wrong? Do you seriously have to ask that?" In the silent cafeteria, my voice rang out. People stared.
"Rose, you know what she means," said Adrian, voice unusually calm. "We're all upset. Sit back down. It's going to be okay."
For a moment, I almost listened to him. Then, I shook it off. He was trying to use compulsion to chill me out. I glared at him.
"It is not going to be okay - not unless we do something about this."
"There's nothing to be done," said Christian. Beside him, Lissa was silent, still hurt from when I'd snapped at her.
"We'll see about that," I said.
"Rose, wait," she called. She was worried about me - and scared, too. It was tiny and selfish, but she didn't want me to leave her. She was used to me being there for her. I made her feel safe. But I couldn't stay, not right now.
I stormed out of the commons and into the bright light outside. The guardians' meeting wasn't for another couple hours, but that didn't matter. I needed to talk to someone now. I sprinted to the guardians' building. Someone else was walking into it as I was, and I bumped her in my haste.
"Rose?"
My fury turned to surprise. "Mom?"
My famous guardian mother, Janine Hathaway, stood there by the door. She looked the same as she had when I'd seen her at New Year's, her curly red hair still worn short and her face weathered from the sun. Her brown eyes seemed grimmer than last time, however, which was saying something.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
As I'd told Deirdre, my mother and I had had a troubled relationship for most of my life, largely because of the distance that inevitably came with having a parent who was a guardian. I'd resented her for years and we still weren't super close, but she'd been there for me after Mason's death, and I think we both tentatively hoped things might improve in coming years. She'd left after New Year's, and last I'd heard, she'd gone back to Europe with the Szelsky she guarded.