Touch of Frost (Mythos Academy #1)(15)
Author: Jennifer Estep

Deep down, I knew that I didn’t have anything to do with the drunk driver who’d T-boned my mom’s car and then driven off, leaving her to die in the wreck. It had been an accident, a stupid, stupid accident, and nothing more.

Still, I wondered what my life would have been like right now, right this very second, if I hadn’t seen the awful things that Paige’s stepdad had been doing to her.

I couldn’t help but think that my mom, Grace, would still be alive. That I’d be across town in our old house, in my old bed. That tomorrow I would have gotten up and gone to my old school with all of my old friends. Instead of being stuck here at Mythos Academy, where a girl had just been murdered and danger and bad guys lurked around every corner, according to Metis.

I couldn’t help but think that my life would be so much better. So much simpler. So much closer to normal than this freak-show world that I was trapped in.

Metis opened her mouth like she wanted to say something else, but I turned around so she wouldn’t see the hot tears that burned my eyes.

"Well, go in and try to get some rest now," she said in a soft voice. "And feel free to call me, if you need to talk about anything, anything at all."

"Yeah," I said. "Sure. Thanks, Professor."

Instead of looking back at her, I opened the door and stepped inside the dorm, shutting Metis and everything else out for the night.

Chapter 6

Jasmine Ashton’s murder was the talk of Mythos Academy the next day.

But not in the way that I expected.

All the professors announced the news in their first-period classes. My finding Jasmine’s body wasn’t mentioned. The official story was that Nickamedes had been the one to discover her in the library, along with the smashed case and the fact that someone had stolen the Bowl of Tears. The professors assured all the students that Jasmine had apparently been in the wrong place at the wrong time and that since the Bowl was gone, whoever had killed her was probably long gone along with it. But, just to be on the safe side, students should stick together in groups and find a professor immediately if they saw anything suspicious.

After that, there was a campuswide moment of silence for Jasmine, so we could all pray for her soul or whatever they did at Mythos.

Two of the Valkyries Jasmine had been friends with were in my first-period English lit class, and I thought that they might ask to be excused, to go back to their dorm rooms for the rest of the day and just process what had happened to their friend-to just feel sad and grieve and cry for her. But the two girls opened up their textbooks, got out their laptops, and started working on the latest critical thinking essay like the rest of us. Like everything was normal. Like nothing out of the ordinary had taken place. If it hadn’t been for the faint headache that I still had, I would have thought that I’d imagined everything that had happened last night.

My eyes went from face to face, but everyone was just as calm and collected as the two Valkyries were. Nobody cried. Nobody looked upset. Nobody seemed scared at all that one of their classmates had been murdered last night.

Last year at my old school, David Jordan, a popular football player, had been working his after-school job at a convenience store when he’d been shot to death during an armed robbery. The next day at school, people had been hysterical. Crying, weeping, screaming, wondering why David had been shot, why he’d had to die, what he’d ever done to deserve something like that, something so violent and awful and random. The school had brought in grief counselors to talk to all of David’s friends and everyone else who’d been shaken up by his death.

Jasmine Ashton had been the most popular girl in my second-year class. Yeah, she wasn’t the first student at Mythos to die, according to Professor Metis, but Jasmine’s death had to be one of the most unexpected, the most shocking. But everyone was so calm about it.

It was creepy.

And it was the same everywhere that I went all day long. Oh, the kids talked about Jasmine and her gruesome murder, but not in the way that I expected.

"So who do you think will be homecoming queen now that Jasmine’s gone?" the girl sitting in front of me whispered in my fourth-period chemistry class. "Because the dance is on Friday and we already voted for all the kings and queens last week."

The petite Amazon sitting across from her shrugged. "Oh, the profs will just give it to the runner-up, which has to be Morgan McDougall. She was Jasmine’s number two. Besides, you know how Morgan is. She’ll be more than happy to wear that tacky crown, even if it wasn’t really hers to start with."

The two girls giggled at their cattiness.

Then, the one in front of me leaned closer to her friend. "Speaking of something else that wasn’t hers to start with, I heard that Morgan and Samson Sorensen were getting very cozy at lunch today. Really comforting each other, if you know what I mean."

That caught the Amazon’s interest. "Really? That’s quick work, even for a total slut like Morgan. Tell me more… ."

The talk was the same all day long. Who would be homecoming queen, if Morgan and Samson were hooking up, even who was going to get to move into Jasmine’s primo dorm room whenever her parents cleared out her stuff. Apparently, the Ashtons were vacationing on some remote island off the coast of Greece and the school higher-ups hadn’t been able to reach them yet to tell them about their daughter’s death. But everyone had a cell phone these days, even parents. It sounded to me like the Ashtons just didn’t want to be bothered with Jasmine’s murder. They probably didn’t want to cut their sweet vacation short to come deal with everything.

Finally, in myth-history class, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I tapped Carson Callahan on the shoulder and asked him about it.

"What is wrong with people here?" I muttered. "The girl was murdered. In the library, where we all have to go practically every single day. And nobody even talks about it, except to wonder who’s going to be the stupid homecoming queen now and which Valkyrie’s going to sink her claws into Samson Sorensen next. Nobody cares. Not about Jasmine anyway or who might have killed her or the fact that maybe he’s still here on campus hiding out somewhere."

Carson gave me a sad look, like he and everyone else knew a secret that I didn’t. "Do you know how many kids I’ve grown up with who have died, Gwen? Lots of them. So many that I’ve lost count. We go to Mythos for a reason. We’re warriors, and warriors die. That’s just how things are. Sure, some of the kids have car accidents or get drunk at the beach and drown or whatever. And sometimes, they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time and get ripped to shreds by Nemean prowlers or murdered by Reapers. Sometimes, they’re even Reapers themselves, and you have to kill them before they kill you."