richellemead-vampireacademy01-vampireacademy-110824015328-phpapp02

"Hey," I said, suddenly wanting to cheer him up, "did you help come up with the plan to get us
back? Because it was pretty good. Brute force and all that.”
He arched an eyebrow curiously. Cool. I'd always wished I could do that. "You're
complimenting me on that?”
"Well, it was a hell of a lot better than the last one they tried.”
"Last one?”
"Yeah. In Chicago. With the pack of psi-hounds.”
"This was the first time we found you. In Portland.”
I sat up from my stretches and crossed my legs. "Um, I don't think I imagined psi-hounds. Who
else could have sent them? They only answer to Moroi. Maybe no one told you about it.”
"Maybe," he said dismissively. I could tell by his face he didn't believe that.
I returned to the novices' dorm after that. The Moroi students lived on the other side of the
quad, closer to the commons. The living arrangements were partly based on convenience. Being
here kept us novices closer to the gym and training grounds. But we also lived separately to
accommodate the differences in Moroi and dhampir lifestyles. Their dorm had almost no
windows, aside from tinted ones that dimmed sunlight. They also had a special section where
feeders always stayed on hand. The novices' dorm was built in a more open way, allowing for
more light.
I had my own room because there were so few novices, let alone girls. The room they'd given
me was small and plain, with a twin bed and a desk with a computer. My few belongings had
been spirited out of Portland and now sat in boxes around the room. I rummaged through them,
pulling out a T-shirt to sleep in. I found a couple of pictures as I did, one of Lissa and me at a
football game in Portland and another taken when I'd gone on vacation with her family, a year
before the accident.
I set them on my desk and booted up the computer. Someone from tech support had helpfully
given me a sheet with instructions for renewing my e-mail account and setting up a password. I
did both, happy to discover no one had realized that this would serve as a way for me to