Shadow Kiss Page 0,80

like every day. You should pull her from this entire field experience. Fake Strigoi attacks are not the way to recover from a real one."

"No!" I had pushed open the door before I realized it. They all stared at me, and I immediately felt stupid. I'd just busted myself for spying.

"Rose," said Dr. Olendzki, returning to her caring (but slightly chastising) doctor mode. "You should go lie down."

"I'm fine. And you can't make me quit the field experience. I won't graduate if you do."

"You aren't well, Rose, and there's nothing to be ashamed of after what's happened to you. Thinking you're seeing the ghost of someone who died isn't too out there when you consider the circumstances."

I started to correct her on the thinking you're seeing part but then bit it off. Arguing that I'd really seen a ghost wasn't probably going to do me any favors, I decided, even if I was starting to believe that was exactly what I was seeing. Frantically, I tried to think of a convincing reason to stay in the field experience. I was usually pretty good at talking myself out of bad situations.

"Unless you're going to put me in counseling 24/7, you're just going to make it worse. I need something to do. Most of my classes are on hold right now. What would I do? Sit around? Think more and more about what happened? I'll go crazy - for real. I don't want to sit on the past forever. I need to get moving with my future."

This threw them into an argument about what to do with me. I listened, biting my tongue, knowing I needed to stay out of it. Finally, with some grumbling from the doctor, they all decided I would go on half-time for the field experience.

It proved to be the ideal compromise for everyone - well, except me. I just wanted life to go on exactly as it had. Still, I knew this was probably as good a deal as I'd get. They decided that I'd do three days of field experience a week, with no night duties. During the other days, I'd have to do some training and whatever bookwork they dug up for me.

I'd also have to see a counselor, which I wasn't thrilled about. It wasn't that I had anything against counselors. Lissa had been seeing one, and it had been really useful for her. Talking things out helped. It was just...well, this was just something I didn't want to talk about.

But if it came down to this or being kicked out of the field experience, I was more than happy to go with this. Alberta felt they could still justify passing me on half-time. She also liked the idea of having counseling going on at the same time I was dealing with fake Strigoi attacks - just in case they really were traumatizing.

After a bit more examination, Dr. Olendzki gave me a clean bill of health and told me I could go back to my dorm. Alberta left after that, but Dimitri stuck around to walk me back.

"Thanks for thinking of the half-time thing," I told him. The walkways were wet today because the weather had warmed up after the storm. It wasn't bathing suit weather or anything, but a lot of the ice and snow were melting. Water dripped steadily from trees, and we had to sidestep puddles.

Dimitri came to an abrupt stop and turned so that he stood right in front of me, blocking my path. I skidded to a halt, nearly running into him. He reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me closer to him than I would have expected him to do in public. His fingers bit deep into me, but they didn't hurt.

"Rose," he said, the pain in his voice making my heart stop, "this shouldn't have been the first time I heard about this! Why didn't you tell me? Do you know what it was like? Do you know it was like for me to see you like that and not know what was happening? Do you know how scared I was?"

I was stunned, both from his outburst and our proximity. I swallowed, unable to speak at first. There was so much on his face, so many emotions. I couldn't recall the last time I'd seen that much of him on display. It was wonderful and frightening at the same time. I then said the stupidest thing possible.

"You're not scared of anything."

"I'm scared of lots of