Touch of Frost (Mythos Academy #1)(12)
Author: Jennifer Estep

I crouched down beside Jasmine, trying not to stare at the horrible wound on her throat. I couldn’t tell if she was still breathing or not, and there was only one way to find out.

I had to touch her.

And I really, really didn’t want to.

As much as I liked learning people’s secrets, I knew that my Gypsy gift would kick in the second that I put my fingers on the Valkyrie’s skin. Then, I would see and feel and experience exactly what Jasmine had when her throat had been cut. It would be horrible, just as horrible as seeing all the awful things that Paige’s stepdad had been doing to her. Maybe even worse.

But there was no getting around it. I had to find out if Jasmine was still alive. I’d taken CPR in health class at my old school last year, so maybe I could help her-or at least run and find someone who could. I had to try, anyway. I just couldn’t stand here and do nothing, not when Jasmine looked so-so broken.

So I crouched down and stretched out my trembling hand toward her neck. My fingers loomed closer to her pale skin, before finally jerking forward and making contact.

I closed my eyes and bit my lip, expecting to be overwhelmed with emotions and feelings. Expecting to feel all the pain and terror and fear that Jasmine just had. Expecting to be overcome with all those horrible emotions and just start screaming-

I felt nothing.

Not fear, not terror, and especially not pain. Nothing. I didn’t even get the faintest flicker of feeling off Jasmine’s body. No vibes, no flashes, nothing. I frowned and pushed my fingers deeper into her neck, placing my whole hand on her skin just above the cut on her throat.

Still nothing.

Weird. Really weird. I always saw something, always felt something, especially when I was actually touching someone, in this case someone who’d just had her throat brutally sliced open-

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a quick, furtive movement. But before I could turn and see what it was, something cold and heavy slammed into my temple. A bright, white flash of pain exploded in front of my eyes, before the darkness swallowed me.

Chapter 5

The first thing I was aware of was the voices. Low, steady voices that seemed to bore into my skull like a dentist’s whiny drill. They kept on talking, one after another. Each one sent another spike of pain through my head.

"… obviously after the Bowl; Jasmine just got in the way… ."

"… but why kill her? It doesn’t make sense… ."

"… Reapers don’t have to make sense… ."

"Shut up," I mumbled.

The voices stopped, and I started to sink back down into the quiet blackness-

"Gwen?" a familiar voice murmured.

"Mom?" I mumbled again.

A hand smoothed back my hair. "No, Gwen. Not your mom. Can you open your eyes for me, please?"

Then I remembered. My mom was dead. Killed by some drunk driver. And I was stuck here at Warrior Freaks R Us. My heart squeezed in on itself, aching even more than my head did, and a hot tear trickled out of the corner of my eye before I could stop it. I missed my mom so much. I missed everything so much. My old school, my old friends, and everything else that I’d lost just because I’d wanted to know another girl’s secret-

"Gwen?" the voice asked again, more insistent this time. "Come on. Open your eyes for me, please."

My head still hurt, but after a few seconds of concentrating I managed to crack open my eyes, letting the light trickle in.

Black hair, bronze skin, green eyes, silver glasses. Professor Metis’s hazy face swam before me, and I had to blink several times before she came into focus.

"Professor Metis? What’s going on?" I asked, struggling to sit up.

Metis put her hand under my back and helped me up into a sitting position. My brain swam around inside my skull for a few seconds before it snapped back into place and the world stopped spinning.

To my surprise, I was still in the Library of Antiquities, although I was now lying on top of one of the tables instead of in the middle of the cold marble floor.

Other people were in here now, too. Like Coach Ajax, the big, burly, biker-looking, tattooed guy who oversaw the athletic programs and trained all the kids. Ajax stood a few feet away talking to Nickamedes. The coach’s onyx skin glistened under the library’s golden lights, and his chiseled muscles twitched and jumped with every move he made. He looked like the kind of guy who could break concrete blocks with his bare hands.

As if sensing my stare, the two men turned and walked over to us. They both nodded to Professor Metis, who nodded back.

"Gwen," Metis said, putting her hand on my shoulder. "I’m glad to see you’re feeling better."

"Professor? What are you doing here?" I asked, still confused.

Metis gestured at the two men. "Ajax, Nickamedes, and I make up the academy’s security council. We’re responsible for the safety of everyone at Mythos, for protecting students and staff from Reapers of Chaos and other threats. So we really need to know what happened here tonight. Do you think you can tell me what you saw? It’s very important, Gwen. We don’t want anyone else to get … hurt."

Hurt. Well, I supposed that was a polite way of saying what had happened to Jasmine, instead of the ugly truth-the fact that she’d been brutally attacked.

Their eyes fixed on my face. Metis’s gaze green and understanding, Coach Ajax’s black and hard, Nickamedes’s blue and suspicious.

I drew in a breath and told the three of them about working in the library. How I’d been shelving the last of the books when I’d heard a crashing sound. How I’d thought it was just some books falling over, only to come out of the stacks and find Jasmine sprawled underneath the smashed glass case with her throat cut and blood everywhere.

"I went over to try to help her," I said in a shaky voice. "I was feeling her throat for a pulse when somebody … somebody hit me."

I looked over at the case, expecting to see nothing but broken glass. But Jasmine was still there, still lying in thick puddles of her own crimson blood, her sightless blue eyes staring up at the ceiling.

My throat closed in on itself. "Is she-"

"Dead," Coach Ajax rumbled in his deep voice. "Bled out."

Nobody said anything.

"Are you sure there’s nothing else you remember?" Professor Metis asked. "Even the smallest detail might be helpful, might help us catch the person who did this."

I thought back, trying to remember, but nothing came to mind. My head still hurt too much for that. I reached up and touched my left temple. A lump the size of a robin’s egg thumped under my fingers, and I winced at the sharp pain that stabbed through my skull.

I dropped my hand into my lap, looked down, and realized that I was covered in blood-Jasmine’s blood. It was on my sneakers, on my jeans, and all over the front of my T-shirt and hoodie. And worst of all, dull brown bloodstains covered my hands like a coat of dried paint.