Dark Frost (Mythos Academy #3)(33)
Author: Jennifer Estep

But most of all, I wanted to make the Reaper girl pay for murdering my mom.

"I don’t know why I thought you would be different. I don’t know why I thought you might understand. I don’t know why I thought this would work," Logan said. "I’m sorry, Gwen. I just-I just can’t do this. Not even for you. Especially not for you."

The Spartan turned around and stalked toward the double doors that led out of the library.

"Logan? Logan!"

But the Spartan didn’t stop. If anything, he quickened his pace-and he didn’t look back. Not even once.

I stood there in the middle of the library stunned-simply stunned. By the awful thing that had happened to Logan’s family and by the awful things he’d said to me. Things that were a little closer to the truth than I would have liked them to be. Tears burned my eyes, and a sob rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down. How had Logan and I gone from talking about us and what we could be to breaking up before we even got together?

"Ahem." Someone cleared his throat.

I swiped the tears from my eyes and turned to find Nickamedes standing behind me, holding my messenger bag in front of him like a shield. From the look on his face, it was obvious the librarian had heard everything Logan had said to me.

"I bet you just loved that, didn’t you?" I snapped, trying to keep the tears from running down my cheeks. "Your nephew telling me exactly what a horrible person I am. Did you give him pointers on that little speech? Or does being mean just run in the family?"

Nickamedes stared at me, his face blank and neutral. "I’m ready to close the library for the night, Gwendolyn. I thought you might want your things before you left."

He held out my bag, and I stalked forward and grabbed it from him, fully intending to run out of the library before he saw me cry. Except I didn’t get a great grip on the strap, and the bag fell to the floor, spilling my stuff everywhere. The perfect ending to a perfectly miserable night.

I got down on my hands and knees and started scooping everything back into the bag. Pens, notebooks, the latest comic books I was reading, the bag of food for Nott. I’d just crawled over to the gryphon book I’d dropped earlier, when I heard Nickamedes shuffle on his feet behind me.

"Where did you get this?" he asked in a low voice.

I looked up to find the librarian clutching my mom’s diary in his hands, a strange, twisted look on his face, like the leather cover burned his skin and it hurt him just to look at the journal. I got to my feet, stalked over, and yanked it out of his fingers, wondering if the damage had already been done, if he’d already imprinted his hatred for me on the diary.

"Give me that," I hissed. "That was my mom’s, and I don’t want you touching it. Not for one second."

The librarian frowned, but he didn’t say anything. Maybe for once he realized exactly how angry and hurt I was-if he even cared about such things. Instead, Nickamedes’s gaze fell to something else on the floor, something that had slid under one of the tables, and he walked over to it and bent down.

I stood there a second, clutching the diary and reaching out with my psychometry. Once again, all I felt was my mom’s presence, and the only images filling my mind were of her writing in the diary. Nickamedes hadn’t touched it long enough to leave any piece of himself behind. Good. I didn’t want him to ruin this for me, too.

"Gwendolyn, wait," Nickamedes said, still crouched down.

But I was in no mood to be lectured or whatever else the librarian had in mind, so I slung the strap of my bag across my chest and hurried out of the library as fast as I could.

I stalked across campus back to my dorm, trying not to cry about what had just happened between Logan and me-and failing miserably. For once, I was glad shadows covered the upper quad and the cobblestone walkways that led to the dorms. I didn’t want anyone to see me like this, or worse, take a stupid picture with his or her cell phone and text it to everyone at the academy.

I passed a few kids heading to their own dorms for the ten o’clock curfew, but I was able to make it back to Styx Hall without anyone’s getting a good look at my red, splotchy face. I used my student ID card to open the front door of the dorm and thumped up the stairs to my room on the third floor. I unlocked that door, too, and stepped inside. I threw my bag down on my desk, then went over and flopped onto my bed.

On the floor, Nott let out a little whine and lashed her tail from side to side. Vic’s eye snapped open at the sound of me coming into the room. The sword stared at me for a second, his purplish gaze dark and suspicious.

"What’s wrong?" Vic asked. "Why have you been crying?"

"It’s nothing, Vic," I said and let out a hiccup.

For some stupid reason, I always started hiccupping after I cried. Another thing that made me a freak, right along with my psychometry. For once, I wondered why I couldn’t have been blessed with a different kind of magic. Why couldn’t Nike have made me superstrong like a Valkyrie? Or superquick like an Amazon? My psychometry was what was keeping Logan and me apart. No, correction, it was what had driven Logan and me apart. After the way the Spartan had lashed out at me tonight, I doubted anything I said or did would make him give me another chance-would make him give us another chance.

I didn’t understand why. I’d told Logan that I’d seen his secret, that I knew what he was hiding, what made him so achingly sad, despite the fact that he tried to hide his pain with sly teasing and devilish grins. Instead of being relieved, Logan had only become angrier when he heard my confession. I didn’t understand what was wrong with the Spartan-or me.

Logan and I were over before we’d even gotten started. Sometimes I thought that was the story of my life. My dad, Tyr, had died when I was two, before I’d even had a chance to know him. My mom had been murdered and had never told me about Loki, Reapers, or being Nike’s Champion. And now, I couldn’t find the Helheim Dagger so I could protect it from the Reaper girl. Yep, tragic loss and epic failure definitely seemed to be the stories of my life.

I rolled over onto my back, and Nott got up from her spot on the floor. The Fenrir wolf was so tall that she easily managed to put her head on the bed. She looked at me with her dull rusty eyes-eyes that weren’t Reaper red anymore but weren’t quite brown either-and let out another whine. Trying to comfort me, I supposed.

I sighed, reached out, and stroked her silky ears. Nott let out a grumble of pleasure and shoved her head farther underneath my fingers. For some reason, petting her made me feel a little better-even if she was big enough to eat me. Sighing, I got to my feet. Just because I was suffering didn’t mean the wolf should, too.

While Nott ate the meat I’d brought her from the dining hall, I took a shower, then went downstairs and grabbed some blankets and pillows from one of the closets where the extra bedding was kept. I carried the blankets up to my room and made a nest for Nott in between my bed and my desk.