Shadow Kiss Page 0,81

things. I was scared for you." He released me, and I stepped back. There was still passion and worry written all over him. "I'm not perfect. I'm not invulnerable."

"I know, it's just..." I didn't know what to say. He was right. I always saw Dimitri as larger than life. All-knowing. Invincible. It was hard for me to believe that he could worry about me so much.

"And this has been going on for a long time too," he added. "It was going on with Stan, when you were talking to Father Andrew about ghosts - you were dealing with it this whole time! Why didn't you tell anyone? Why didn't you tell Lissa ... or ... me?"

I stared into those dark, dark eyes, those eyes I loved. "Would you have believed me?"

He frowned. "Believed what?"

"That I'm seeing ghosts."

"Well... they aren't ghosts, Rose. You only think they are because - "

"That's why," I interrupted. "That's why I couldn't tell you or anybody. Nobody would believe me, not without thinking I'm crazy."

"I don't think you're crazy," he said. "But I think you've been through a lot." Adrian had said almost the exact same thing when I asked him how I could tell if I was crazy or not.

"It's more than that," I said. I started walking again.

Without even taking another step, he reached out and grabbed me once more. He pulled me back to him, so that we now stood even closer than before. I glanced uneasily around again, wondering if someone might see us, but the campus was deserted. It was early, not quite sunset, so early that most people probably weren't even up for the school day yet. We wouldn't see activity around here for at least another hour. Still, I was surprised to see Dimitri was still risking it.

"Tell me then," he said. "Tell me how it's more than that."

"You won't believe me," I said. "Don't you get it? No one will. Even you ... of all people." Something in that thought made my voice catch. Dimitri understood so much about me. I wanted - needed - him to understand this too.

"I'll...try. But I still don't think you really understand what's happening to you."

"I do," I said firmly. "That's what no one realizes. Look, you have to decide once and for all if you really do trust me. If you think I'm a child, too na?ve to get what's going on with her fragile mind, then you should just keep walking. But if you trust me enough to remember that I've seen things and know things that kind of surpass those of others my age...well, then you should also realize that I might know a little about what I'm talking about."

A lukewarm breeze, damp with the scent of melted snow, swirled around us. "I do trust you, Roza. But... I don't believe in ghosts."

The earnestness was there. He did want to reach out to me, to understand...but even as he did, it warred with beliefs he wasn't ready to change yet. It was ironic, considering tarot cards apparently spooked him.

"Will you try to?" I asked. "Or at the very least try not to write this off to some psychosis?"

"Yes. That I can do."

So I told him about my first couple of Mason sightings and how I'd been afraid to explain the Stan incident to anyone. I talked about the shapes I'd seen on the plane and described in more detail what I'd seen on the ground.

"Doesn't it seem kind of, um, specific for a random stress reaction?" I asked when I finished.

"I don't know that you can really expect 'stress reactions' to be random or specific. They're unpredictable by nature." He had that thoughtful expression I knew so well, the one that told me he was turning over all sorts of things in his head. I could also tell that he still wasn't buying this as a real ghost story but that he was trying very hard to keep an open mind. He affirmed as much a moment later: "Why are you so certain these aren't just things you're imagining?"

"Well, at first I thought I was imagining it all. But now ... I don't know. There's something about it that feels real... even though I know that isn't actually evidence. But you heard what Father Andrew said - about ghosts sticking around after they die young or violently."

Dimitri actually bit his lip. He'd been about to tell me not to take the priest literally. Instead he asked, "So you think