Frostbite(Vampire Academy, Book 2)(36)

"I told you," said Lissa, "I don't know. I don't know what happened."

Frustration and fear for us burned through her. It saddened me to see her so anxious, but at the same time, I was glad I hadn't gotten her involved. She couldn't report what she didn't know.

"I can't believe they wouldn't have told you where they were going," said my mother. Her words sounded flat, but there were lines of worry on her face. "Especially with your … bond."

"It only works one way," said Lissa sadly. "You know that."

Dimitri knelt down so he could be at Lissa's height and look her in the eye. He pretty much had to do that to look anyone in the eye. "Are you sure there's nothing? Nothing at all you can tell us? They're nowhere in town. The man at the bus station didn't see them  …  though we're pretty sure that's where they must have gone. We need something, anything to go on."

Man at the bus station? That was another stroke of luck. The woman who'd sold us the tickets must have gone home. Her replacement wouldn't know us.

Lissa gritted her teeth and glared. "Don't you think if I knew, I'd tell you? You don't think I'm worried about them too? I have no idea where they are. None. And why'd they even leave …  it doesn't make any sense either. Especially why they'd go with Mia, of all people." A twinge of hurt flickered through the bond, hurt at being left out of whatever we were doing, no matter how wrong.

Dimitri sighed and leaned back on his heels. From the look on his face, he obviously believed her. It was also obvious that he was worried-worried in more than a professional way. And seeing that concern-that concern for me- ate up my heart.

"Rose?" Christian's voice brought me back to myself. "We're here, I think."

The plaza consisted of a wide, open area in front of a shopping center. A caf was carved into a corner of the main building, its tables spilling out into the open area. A crowd moved in and out of the complex, busy even at this time of the day.

"So, how do we find them?" asked Christian.

I shrugged. "Maybe if we act like Strigoi, they'll try to stake us."

A small, reluctant smile played over his face. He didn't want to admit it, but he'd thought my joke was funny.

He and I went inside. Like any mall, it was filled with familiar chains, and a selfish part of me thought that maybe if we found the group soon enough, we could still get in shopping time.

Christian and I walked the length of it twice and saw no signs of our friends or anything resembling tunnels.

"Maybe we're in the wrong place," I finally said.

"Or maybe they axe," suggested Christian. "They could have gone to some other-wait."

He pointed, and I followed the gesture. The three renegades sat at a table in the middle of the food court, looking dejected. They looked so miserable, I almost felt sorry for them.

"I'd kill for a camera right now," said Christian, smirking.

"This isn't funny," I told him, striding toward the group. Inside, I breathed a sigh of relief. The group clearly hadn't found any Strigoi, were all still alive, and could maybe be taken back before we got in even more trouble.

They didn't notice me until I was almost right next to them. Eddie's head jerked up. "Rose? What are you doing here?"

"Are you out of your mind?" I yelled. A few people nearby gave us surprised looks. "Do you know how much trouble you're in? How much trouble you've gotten us in?"

"How the hell did you find us?" asked Mason in a low voice, glancing anxiously around.

"You guys aren't exactly criminal masterminds," I told them. "Your informant at the bus station gave you away. That, and I figured out that you'd want to go off on your pointless Strigoi-hunting quest."

The look Mason gave me revealed he still wasn't entirely happy with me. It was Mia who replied, however.

"It isn't pointless."

"Oh?" I demanded. "Did you kill any Strigoi? Did you even find any?"

"No," admitted Eddie.

"Good," I said. "You got lucky."

"Why are you so against killing Strigoi?" asked Mia hotly. "Isn't that what you train for?"

"I train for sane missions, not childish stunts like this."

"It isn't childish," she cried. "They killed my mother. And the guardians weren't doing anything. Even their information is bad. There weren't any Strigoi in the tunnels. Probably none in the whole city."

Christian looked impressed. "You found the tunnels?"

"Yeah," said Eddie. "But like she said, they were useless."

"We should see them before we go," Christian told me. "It'd be kind of cool, and if the data was bad, there's no danger."

"No," I snapped. "We're going home. Now."

Mason looked tired. "We're going to search the city again. Even you can't make us go back, Rose."

"No, but the school's guardians can when I call and tell them you're here."

Call it blackmailing or being a tattletale; the effect was the same. The three of them looked at me like I had just simultaneously gut-punched them all.

"You'd really do that?" asked Mason. "You'd sell us out like that?"

I rubbed my eyes, wondering desperately why I was trying to be the voice of reason here. Where was the girl who'd run away from school? Mason had been right. I had changed.

"This isn't about selling anyone out. This is about keeping you guys alive."

"You think we're that defenseless?" asked Mia. "You think we'd get killed right away?"

"Yes," I said. "Unless you've found some way to use water as a weapon?"

She flushed and didn't say anything.

"We brought silver stakes," said Eddie.

Fantastic. They must have stolen them. I looked at Mason pleadingly.

"Mason. Please. Call this off. Let's go back."

He looked at me for a long time. Finally, he sighed. "Okay."

Eddie and Mia looked aghast, but Mason had assumed a leadership role with them, and they didn't have the initiative to go on without him. Mia seemed to take it the hardest, and I felt bad for her. She'd barely had any real time to grieve for her mother; she'd just jumped right on board with this revenge thing as a way to cope with the pain. She'd have a lot to deal with when we got back.

Christian was still excited about the idea of the underground tunnels. Considering he spent all his time in an attic, I shouldn't have been all that surprised.

"I saw the schedule," he told me. "We've got a while before the next bus."

"We can't go walking into some Strigoi lair," I argued, walking toward the mall's entrance.

"There are no Strigoi there," said Mason. "It's seriously all janitorial stuff. There was no sign of anything weird. I really do think the guardians had bad information."

"Rose," said Christian, "let's get something fun out of this."

They all looked at me. I felt like a mom who wouldn't buy her kids candy at the grocery store.

"Okay, fine. Just a peek, though."

The others led Christian and me to the opposite end of the mall, through a door marked staff only. We dodged a couple of janitors, then slipped through another door that led us to a set of stairs going down. I had a brief moment of dj vu, recalling the steps down to Adrian's spa party. Only these stairs were dirtier and smelled pretty nasty.

We reached the bottom. It wasn't so much a tunnel as a narrow corridor, lined in grime-caked cement. Ugly fluorescent lights were embedded sporadically along the walls. The passage went off to our left and right. Boxes of ordinary cleaning and electrical supplies sat around.

"See?" said Mason. "Boring."

I pointed in each direction. "What's down there?"

"Nothing," sighed Mia. "We'll show you."

We walked down to the right and found more of the same. I was starting to agree with the boring assessment when we passed some black writing on one of the walls. I stopped and looked at it. It was a list of letters.

D

B

C

O

T

D

V

L

D

Z

S

I

Some had lines and x marks next to them, but for the most part the message was incoherent. Mia noticed my scrutiny.

"It's probably a janitor thing," she said. "Or maybe some gang did it."

"Probably," I said, still studying it. The others shifted restlessly, not understanding my fascination with the jumble of letters. I didn't understand my fascination either, but something in my head tugged at me to stay.

Then I got it.

B for Badica, Z for Zeklos, I for Ivashkov  …

I stared. The first letter of every royal family's name was there. There were three D names, but based on the order, you could actually read the list as a size ranking. It started with the smaller families-Dragomir, Badica, Conta-and went all the way up to the giant Ivashkov clan. I didn't understand the dashes and lines beside the letters, but I quickly noticed which names had an x beside them: Badica and Drozdov.

I stepped back from the wall. "We have to get out of here," I said. My own voice scared me a little. "Right now."

The others looked at me in surprise. "Why?" asked Eddie. "What's going on?"

"I'll tell you later. We just need to go."

Mason pointed in the direction we'd been heading. "This lets out a few blocks away. It's closer to the station."

I peered down into the dark unknown. "No," I said. "We're going back the way we came."