"Why?"
For the first time, Logan looked at me, his mouth curving up into a small, sexy grin. "Somebody's got to watch out for you, Gypsy girl. Trouble seems to follow you wherever you go. We both know that you can't even walk around campus without running into people-literally."
His smile melted some of the ice in his eyes, and for a moment I felt like things had gone back to the way they were before the homecoming dance. That we were back to the teasing sort of flirting that had been going on between us. So I screwed up my courage and did something that I'd been thinking about ever since that night in the library.
"Well, maybe you'd like to talk about it some more. Over ... coffee or ... whatever."
Yeah, I was totally asking him out, and he knew it.
But he didn't like it, because Logan immediately stiffened. The warmth in his blue eyes snuffed out, and his mouth tightened. He took a step back and shook his head.
"That's not a good idea, Gwen."
Uh-oh. He'd used my name, which meant he was serious. My heart squeezed in on itself.
"Why not? I ... like you. A lot. And it seems like you might ... like me, too?" I winced. The words hadn't sounded so needy, so freaking desperate, in my head.
For a second, Logan's face softened. "I do like you, Gwen. A lot. I think there's something really special about you."
His features hardened once more. "But there are things that-that you just don't know about me. About Spartans and what we are. Things that you don't want to know. Especially about me. I'm not the guy you think I am. I'm not some sort of hero. Not at all."
Logan got that look in his eyes, that wild, hurt, desperate sort of look that Paige Forrest had had right before I'd picked up her hairbrush. Whatever secrets the Spartan had, they were biggies.
And all that I had to do to find out what they were was reach out and touch him.
Logan was the first boy I'd liked in, well, forever. And he was standing here telling me that, yes, he liked me, too, but that we couldn't even go have coffee together. Much less do anything else. I wanted to know what he was hiding from me, what secret he thought was so terrible that I wouldn't want to be with him.
And I wanted to know right now.
It would be so very easy to use my Gypsy gift, my psychometry, on Logan. To grab his hand and see all of his secrets. The temptation to do it was so strong.
But then, I thought about Jasmine Ashton and how the Valkyrie had used her powers, her magic, to get what she'd wanted-revenge on her best friend. I remembered what Grandma Frost had told me about the other people like us, other Gypsies. About how some of them used their powers for selfish things. About how some of them were evil.
Slowly, I curled my hands into fists. No. I wouldn't be like that. I wouldn't do that. Not to Logan. Not to someone I cared about. I wouldn't use my gift, the one that Nike had given my family, to force him to reveal his secrets. I was smarter than that now. I was better than that now. I was better than Jasmine and all the other Reapers like her, who only used their powers to hurt others.
So I just stared at him, my feelings for him so obvious in my violet eyes. But Logan just looked away.
"Logan!" a voice called out. "There you are!"
A girl walked across the quad toward us-the same girl Logan had taken to the homecoming dance. The one who'd been pissed that he'd been dancing with me. Daphne had told me that her name was Savannah Warren and that she was an Amazon who lived in Valhalla Hall. I'd asked around and figured out it was her room and her window that Logan had jumped out of the day I'd run into him outside the dorm after I'd swiped Jasmine's laptop.
Savannah gave me a dirty look and slid past me to get to him. Logan put his arm around her. He turned his head, and she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. Logan pulled Savannah even closer, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. My fisted hands clenched together that much tighter. If the Amazon stuck her tongue any farther down Logan's throat, she was going to poke his brain out of the back of his skull. If there was even anything in there to start with.
After a minute of sucking face, the two of them broke apart. Logan smiled down at her, although his eyes were still cold in his face. Savannah turned and smirked at me, and I felt my heart ice over. So this was how it was going to be. Logan Quinn, man-whore of Mythos Academy, was back in full force, and I was just that Gypsy girl to him again.
"Are you ready, babe?" Savannah asked, putting her head on Logan's shoulder and peering up at him through her long, perfect eyelashes.
"Sure. Let's go," Logan said. "The Gypsy and I were done here anyway."
And then, he turned and walked away with her. He never even looked back at me.
I stood there, feeling like my heart had just been broken without it ever having really been offered up for sacrifice in the first place.
Chapter 26
Later that night, Daphne came over to my dorm room with a pizza in one hand and a six-pack of soda in the other as part of our plans for a serious study session and a total gossip fest. I'd been responsible for dessert, of course, and Grandma Frost had loaded me up with chocolate, peanut butter, and pumpkin fudge when I'd seen her yesterday.
Daphne and I spread the food out on the floor and sat down in front of the TV, which I turned to the latest Project Runway marathon, per Daphne's request. While the Valkyrie stared at the fashions on the flickering screen, I opened the pizza box and stopped cold.
"What is this?" I asked.
What was inside the box didn't look like a pizza to me. Oh, there was a crust and some mozzarella cheese under there somewhere, but the whole top of the pizza was covered with some sort of exotic meat, a suspicious spicy-smelling white sauce, and steamed vegetables, cut into fancy shapes, of course. My eyes narrowed. Was that wilted spinach? Yucko.
"I got it at the dining hall," Daphne said, digging into the steaming pie and grabbing a slice. "It's a grilled lamb Florentine pizza. It's the latest thing on the menu."
"Whatever happened to plain old cheese and pepperoni? Or ham and pineapple?"
Daphne rolled her eyes. "Pepperoni? That is so boring and so over." Her black eyes flicked to my clothes. "Just like all those hoodies that you wear. We seriously have to go shopping, Gwen. You totally need some new threads."
I might not have been friends with the Valkyrie long, but I was starting to learn her moods-and that there was no point in arguing with her about my hoodies. So I sighed, grabbed a slice of pizza, and bit into it. Okay, so it was actually kind of good, spinach and all, but I wasn't going to tell Daphne that. At least, not yet.