"Yes," she replied. "Emphasis on learning. Something you missed out on for two years. You're hardly in a position to lecture me about guardian protocol."
I wound up in arguments all the time; something in my nature made that inevitable. So I was used to defending myself and having insults slammed at me. I had a tough skin. But somehow, around her - in the brief times I had been around her - I always felt like I was three years old. Her attitude humiliated me, and touching on my missed training - already a prickly subject - only made me feel worse. I crossed my arms in a fair imitation of her own stance and managed a smug look.
"Yeah? Well, that's not what my teachers think. Even after missing all that time, I've still caught up with everyone else in my class."
She didn't answer right away. Finally, in a flat voice, she said, "If you hadn't left, you would have surpassed them."
Turning military-style, she walked off down the hall. A minute later, the bell rang, and the rest of Stan's class spilled into the hall.
Even Mason couldn't cheer me up after that. I spent the rest of the day angry and annoyed, sure that everyone was whispering about my mother and me. I skipped lunch and went to the library to read a book about physiology and anatomy.
When it was time for my after-school training with Dimitri, I practically ran up to the practice dummy. With a curled fist, I slapped its chest, very slightly to the left but mostly in the center.
"There," I told him. "The heart is there, and the sternum and ribs are in the way. Can I have the stake now?"
Crossing my arms, I glanced up at him triumphantly, waiting for him to shower me with praise for my new cunning. Instead, he simply nodded in acknowledgment, like I should already have known that. And yeah, I should have.
"And how do you get through the sternum and the ribs?" he asked.
I sighed. I'd figured out the answer to one question, only to be given another. Typical.
We spent a large part of the practice going over that, and he demonstrated several techniques that would yield the quickest kill. Every movement he made was both graceful and deadly. He made it look effortless, but I knew better.
When he suddenly extended his hand and offered the stake to me, I didn't understand at first. "You're giving it to me?"
His eyes sparkled. "I can't believe you're holding back. I figured you'd have taken it and run by now."
"Aren't you always teaching me to hold back?" I asked.
"Not on everything."
"But on some things."
I heard the double meaning in my voice and wondered where it had come from. I'd accepted a while ago that there were too many reasons for me to even think about him romantically anymore. Every once in a while, I slipped a little and kind of wished he would too. It'd have been nice to know that he still wanted me, that I still drove him crazy. Studying him now, I realized he might not ever slip because I didn't drive him crazy anymore. It was a depressing thought.
"Of course," he said, showing no indication we'd discussed anything other than class matters. "It's like everything else. Balance. Know which things to run forward with - and know which to leave alone." He placed a heavy emphasis on that last statement.
Our eyes met briefly, and I felt electricity race through me. He did know what I was talking about. And like always, he was ignoring it and being my teacher - which is exactly what he should have been doing. With a sigh, I pushed my feelings for him out of my head and tried to remember that I was about to touch the weapon I'd been longing for since childhood. The memory of the Badica house came back to me yet again. The Strigoi were out there. I needed to focus.
Hesitantly, almost reverentially, I reached out and curled my fingers around the hilt. The metal was cool and tingled against my skin. It was etched along the hilt for better grip, but in trailing my fingers over the rest of it, I found the surface to be as smooth as glass. I lifted it from his hand and brought it to me, taking a long time to study it and get used to its weight. An anxious part of me wanted to turn around and impale all of the dummies, but instead I looked up at Dimitri and asked, "What should I do first?"
In his typical way, he covered basics first, honing the way I held and moved with the stake. Later on, he finally let me attack one of the dummies, at which point I did indeed discover it was not effortless. Evolution had done a smart thing in protecting the heart with the sternum and ribs. Yet through it all, Dimitri never faltered in diligence and patience, guiding me through every step and correcting the finest details.
"Slide up through the ribs," he explained, watching me try to fit the stake's point through a gap in the bones. "It'll be easier since you're shorter than most of your attackers. Plus, you can slide along the lower rib's edge."
When practice ended, he took the stake back and nodded his approval.
"Good. Very good."
I glanced at him in surprise. He didn't usually hand out a lot of praise.
"Really?"
"You do it like you've been doing it for years."
I felt a delighted grin creep over my face as we started leaving the practice room. When we neared the door, I noticed a dummy with curly red hair. Suddenly, all the events from Stan's class came tumbling back into my head. I scowled.
"Can I stake that one next time?"
He picked up his coat and put it on. It was long and brown, made of distressed leather. It looked very much like a cowboy duster, though he'd never admit to it. He had a secret fascination with the Old West. I didn't really understand it, but then, I didn't get his weird musical preferences either.