I followed his gaze to where Jesse was laughing about something with that idiot Ralf.
"Jesse doesn't know," said Lissa defiantly.
Christian's eyes were glued to me. "He does, though. Doesn't he, Rose? He knows."
My stomach sank out of me. Yes. Jesse did know. He'd figured it out that night in the lounge. "I didn't think...I didn't think he'd tell. He was too afraid of Dimitri."
"You told him?" exclaimed Lissa.
"No, he guessed." I was starting to feel sick.
"He apparently did more than guess," muttered Christian.
I turned on him. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh. You don't know."
"I swear to God, Christian, I'm going to break your neck after class."
"Man, you really are unstable." He said it almost happily, but his next words were more serious. He still wore that sneer, still glowed with anger, but when he spoke, I could hear the faintest uneasiness in his voice. "He sort of elaborated on what was in your note. Got into a little more detail."
"Oh, I get it. He said we had sex." I didn't need to mince words. Christian nodded. So. Jesse was trying to boost his own reputation. Okay. That I could deal with. Not like my reputation was that stellar to begin with. Everyone already believed I had sex all the time.
"And uh, Ralf too. That you and he - "
Ralf? No amount of alcohol or any illegal substance would make me touch him. "I - what? That I had sex with Ralf too?"
Christian nodded.
"That ass**le! I'm going to - "
"There's more."
"How? Did I sleep with the basketball team?"
"He said - they both said - you let them...well, you let them drink your blood."
That stopped even me. Drinking blood during sex. The dirtiest of the dirty. Sleazy. Beyond being easy or a slut. A gazillion times worse than Lissa drinking from me for survival. Blood-whore territory.
"That's crazy!" Lissa cried. "Rose would never - Rose?"
But I wasn't listening anymore. I was in my own world, a world that took me across the classroom to where Jesse and Ralf sat. They both looked up, faces half smug and half...nervous, if I had to guess. Not unexpected, since they were both lying through their teeth.
The entire class came to a standstill. Apparently they'd been expecting some type of showdown. My unstable reputation in action.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I asked in a low, dangerous voice.
Jesse's nervous look turned to one of terror. He might have been taller than me, but we both knew who would win if I turned violent. Ralf, however, gave me a cocky smile.
"We didn't do anything you didn't want us to do." His smiled turned cruel. "And don't even think about laying a hand on us. You start a fight, and Kirova'll kick you out to go live with the other blood whores."
The rest of the students were holding their breaths, waiting to see what we'd do. I don't know how Mr. Nagy could have been oblivious to the drama occurring in his class.
I wanted to punch both of them, hit them so hard that it'd make Dimitri's brawl with Jesse look like a pat on the back. I wanted to wipe that smirk off Ralf's face.
But ass**le or not, he was right. If I touched them, Kirova would expel me in the blink of an eye. And if I got kicked out, Lissa would be alone. Taking a deep breath, I made one of the hardest decisions of my life.
I walked away.
The rest of the day was miserable. In backing down from the fight, I opened myself up to mockery from everyone else. The rumors and whispers grew louder. People stared at me openly. People laughed. Lissa kept trying to talk to me, to console me, but I ignored even her. I went through the rest of my classes like a zombie, and then I headed off to practice with Dimitri as fast I could. He gave me a puzzled look but didn't ask any questions.
Alone in my room later on, I cried for the first time in years.
Once I got that out of my system, I was about to put on my pajamas when I heard a knock at my door. Dimitri. He studied my face and then glanced away, obviously aware I'd been crying. I could tell, too, that the rumors had finally reached him. He knew.
"Are you okay?"
"It doesn't matter if I am, remember?" I looked up at him. "Is Lissa okay? This'll be hard on her."
A funny look crossed his face. I think it astonished him that I'd still be worried about her at a time like this. He beckoned me to follow and led me out to a back stairwell, one that usually stayed locked to students. But it was open tonight, and he gestured me outside. "Five minutes," he warned.
More curious than ever, I stepped outside. Lissa stood there. I should have sensed she was close, but my own out-of-control feelings had obscured hers. Without a word, she put her arms around me and held me for several moments. I had to hold back more tears. When we broke apart, she looked at me with calm, level eyes.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"Not your fault. It'll pass."
She clearly doubted that. So did I.
"It is my fault," she said. "She did it to get back at me."
"She?"
"Mia. Jesse and Ralf aren't smart enough to think of something like that on their own. You said it yourself: Jesse was too scared of Dimitri to talk much about what happened. And why wait until now? It happened a while ago. If he'd wanted to spread stuff around, he would have done it back then. Mia's doing this as retaliation for you talking about her parents. I don't know how she managed it, but she's the one who got them to say those things."
In my gut, I realized Lissa was right. Jesse and Ralf were the tools; Mia had been the mastermind.
"Nothing to be done now," I sighed.
"Rose - "
"Forget it, Liss. It's done, okay?"
She studied me quietly for a few seconds. "I haven't seen you cry in a long time."
"I wasn't crying."
A feeling of heartache and sympathy beat through to me from the bond.
"She can't do this to you," she argued.
I laughed bitterly, half surprised at my own hopelessness. "She already did. She said she'd get back at me, that I wouldn't be able to protect you. She did it. When I go back to classes..." A sickening feeling settled in my stomach. I thought about the friends and respect I'd managed to eke out, despite our low profile. That would be gone. You couldn't come back from something like this. Not among the Moroi. Once a blood whore, always a blood whore. What made it worse was that some dark, secret part of me did like being bitten.
"You shouldn't have to keep protecting me," she said.