richellemead-vampireacademy01-vampireacademy-110824015328-phpapp02

I'd never met anyone else who took being a guardian so seriously, who understand all the lifeand-death
consequences. Certainly no one my age did yet; Mason hadn't been able to
understand why I couldn't relax and drink at the party. Dimitri had said I grasped my duty better
than many older guardians, and I didn't get why—especially when they would have seen so
much more death and danger. But I knew in that moment that he was right, that I had some
weird sense of how life and death and good and evil worked with each other.
So did he. We might get lonely sometimes. We might have to put our "fun" on hold. We might
not be able to live the lives we wanted for ourselves. But that was the way it had to be. We
understood each other, understood that we had others to protect. Our lives would never be easy.
And making decisions like this one was part of that.
"If I became Strigoi…I'd want someone to kill me."
"So would I," he said quietly. I could tell that he'd had the same flash of realization I'd just had,
that same sense of connection between us.
"It reminds me of Mikhail hunting Sonya," murmured Victor thoughtfully.
"Who are Mikhail and Sonya?" asked Lissa.
Victor looked surprised. "Why, I thought you knew. Sonya Karp.”
"Sonya Kar…you mean, Ms. Karp? What about her?" She looked back and forth between me
and her uncle.
"She…became Strigoi," I said, not meeting Lissa's eyes. "By choice.”
I'd known Lissa would find out some day. It was the final piece of Ms. Karp's saga, a secret I'd
kept to myself. A secret that worried me constantly. Lissa's face and bond registered complete
and utter shock, growing in intensity when she realized I'd known and never told.
"But I don't know who Mikhail is," I added.
"Mikhail Tanner," said Spiridon.
"Oh. Guardian Tanner. He was here before we left." I frowned. "Why is he chasing Ms. Karp?”