Free Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

make any sense. She was nuts. Used to wander campus while everyone was asleep.”
    I smiled tightly, like I thought it was funny. Instead, I thought back to Ms. Karp again, surprised to be thinking about her for the second time in two days. Jesse was right— she had wandered campus a lot when she still worked here. It was pretty creepy. I’d run into her once—unexpectedly.
    I’d been climbing out of my dorm window to go hang out with some people. It was after hours, and we were all supposed to be in our rooms, fast asleep. Such escape tactics were a regular practice for me. I was good at them.
    But I fell that time. I had a second-floor room, and I lost my grip about halfway down. Sensing the ground rush up toward me, I tried desperately to grab hold of something and slow my fall. The building’s rough stone tore into my skin, causing cuts I was too preoccupied to feel. I slammed into the grassy earth, back first, getting the wind knocked out of me.
    “Bad form, Rosemarie. You should be more careful. Your instructors would be disappointed.”
    Peering through the tangle of my hair, I saw Ms. Karp looking down at me, a bemused look on her face. Pain, in the meantime, shot through every part of my body.
    Ignoring it as best I could, I clambered to my feet. Being in class with Crazy Karp while surrounded by other students was one thing. Standing outside alone with her was an entirely different matter. She always had an eerie, distracted gleam in her eye that made my skin break out in goose bumps.
    There was also now a high likelihood she’d drag me off to Kirova for a detention. Scarier still.
    Instead, she just smiled and reached for my hands. I flinched but let her take them. She tsk ed when she saw the scrapes. Tightening her grip on them, she frowned slightly. A tingle burned my skin, laced with a sort of pleasant buzz, and then the wounds closed up. I had a brief sense of dizziness. My temperature spiked. The blood disappeared, as did the pain in my hip and leg.
    Gasping, I jerked my hands away. I’d seen a lot of Moroi magic, but never anything like that.
    “What . . . what did you do?”
    She gave me that weird smile again. “Go back to your dorm, Rose. There are bad things out here. You never know what’s following you.”
    I was still staring at my hands. “But . . .”
    I looked back up at her and for the first time noticed scars on the sides of her forehead. Like nails had dug into them. She winked. “I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on me.”
    I jumped back to the present, unsettled by the memory of that bizarre night. Jesse, in the meantime, was telling me about a party.
    “You’ve got to slip your leash tonight. We’re going up to that spot in the woods around eight thirty. Mark got some weed.”
    I sighed wistfully, regret replacing the chill I’d felt over the memory of Ms. Karp. “Can’t slip that leash. I’m with my Russian jailer.”
    He let go of my arm, looking disappointed, and ran a hand through his bronze-colored hair. Yeah. Not being able to hang out with him was a damned shame. I really would have to fix that someday. “Can’t you ever get off for good behavior?” he joked.
    I gave him what I hoped was a seductive smile as I found my seat. “Sure,” I called over my shoulder. “If I was ever good.”

SIX
    A S MUCH AS LISSA AND Christian’s meeting bothered me, it gave me an idea the next day.
    “Hey, Kirova—er, Ms. Kirova.” I stood in the doorway of her office, not having bothered to make an appointment. She raised her eyes from some paperwork, clearly annoyed to see me.
    “Yes, Miss Hathaway?”
    “Does my house arrest mean I can’t go to church?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “You said that whenever I’m not in class or practice, I have to stay in the dorm. But what about church on Sundays? I don’t think it’s really fair to keep me away from my religious . . . um, needs.” Or deprive me of another chance—no matter how short and boring—to hang out