Dimitri's Point of View in Shadow Kiss (Vampire Academy) (Book 3)

Part 21

21

It was the day of Rose's first counseling session. I was sitting in my room, staring at a stack of Westerns that I really didn't have the heart to read. My mind was too anxious and my body couldn't stay still. One second I was fiddling with the hem of the comforter on my bed, and the next I was up fixing the slightly off-centered lamp on the table.

It wasn't that I was worried for Rose, I was nervous for her. I never liked councilors, they tended to give a lot of questions more than answers. And if I knew Rose, which was pretty well, by now she would have gave the councilor a snarky comment and left the room.

I knew I couldn't go in there or even stand by the door to see how the session was going. But the anxiety was killing me. So I decided to do what I always did in situations like this. I quickly got up and grabbed my coat and was out the door within minutes, bowing my head to fight against the strong gust of wind blowing through the Academy.

Sixty-three.

My fist hit the punching bag one last time before I turned around and began kicking the other sack hanging from the ceiling. My mind was clear now, and my jitters gone. But somewhere deep inside my mind I could still feel that tug of nervousness for my Rose.

It wasn't that I was worried about the counseling session as much as I was dreading what they were talking about. Something ached inside of me to know what she was telling the councilor. Could it have been the ghosts she had claimed to see on the plane? Or the Spokane house? Or both?

Sixty-seven.

I had to forget about it. It wasn't my problem, it was supposed to help Rose and keep her on track.

So why did it feel like it was hurting her?

Seventy.

When my knuckles connected with the bag, a sharp pain started at the base and threaded through my arm, making me pull back with a half gasp, half grunt. The first thing I noticed was the blood dotting on the green surface of my target. The second, was that my hand was throbbing and I could barely bend it without it screaming with pain.

At first, I had thought I broke it, but when I examined it further, I had just broke the skin. Sighing, I looked back up at the bag still swaying from my last punch. The gym was quiet so the creaking sounded loud to me.

The third thing I noticed was that I wasn't wearing any gloves.

Stupid. I thought.

In my haste, I didn't bother to grab gear or protection. And didn't think to look in the storage room in the back for an extra pair. I glanced back down at my hand and decided it was a sign to call the training session off for now. There was no way I could make it to a hundred before I possibly broke something.

After going to the clinic to have her quickly heal the wound, I walked back to my dorm. It was getting late and I knew I should go to bed soon if I planned to get up early in the morning. But my mind wouldn't rest. This time, it wasn't just filled with images of Rose, but of my childhood, and my grandmother with her Tarot cards and my sisters laughing at me when I believed my fortune. Images of me growing up thinking that Vampires were the only supernatural things in our world. That ghosts and zombies just didn't exist because then the Earth would be unbalanced, it wouldn't be fair to nature if that many powerful beings walked around.

Without noticing, my feet turned me towards the direction of the east end of the campus where the only building was the chapel. It was times like these that I found my security and clarity in the house of our Saint. I believed there was a “greater spirit” living somewhere in the stars, but that belief didn’t stretch far so I didn’t go to church willingly. Only when I wanted peace to clear my thoughts and sort things out orderly.