Raven, the woman who manned the coffee cart, had already left for the night.
I bit my lip. Just because I didn't see anyone didn't mean the library was empty. That arrow had come from somewhere.
Someone had shot it at me, and I had no way of knowing whether or not he was stil in here-
A hand clamped down on my shoulder. I shrieked and threw myself to the left, banging my shoulder on the opposite bookshelf.
I grabbed one of the thick books, whipped back my arm, and turned around on my knees, ready to throw the heavy volume at whomever was behind me, then surge to my feet and run like crazy.
Nickamedes stood in the middle of the aisle, his hands on his hips.
"Gwendolyn?" The librarian frowned. "Are you okay?" I scrambled to my feet, for once extremely grateful to see him. So much so that I would have hugged him if it wouldn't have been just too weird. Nickamedes opened his mouth to say something else, but I held up my hand.
"Shh!" I hissed.
Nickamedes's confused frown turned into a glacial glare at my shushing, but I ignored him and concentrated. Once again, I didn't hear anything. No rustles, no whispers of clothing, no footsteps hurrying away.
"I ask again. Are you okay?" Nickamedes said in a snide tone. "Or are you having some sort of ... episode?"
"No, no, I'm not okay," I said, moving past him and stalking to the end of the aisle. "I'm not okay because of that-"
I rounded the corner and pointed at the end of the bookshelf, but my words died on my lips.
The arrow was gone-vanished, like it had never even been there to start with.
"Gwendolyn? Is something the matter?" Nickamedes stepped out from the stacks behind me.
My mouth opened, closed, and opened again, but no words came out. No, I'm not okay, I wanted to say.
Someone just tried to put an arrow through my skull.
But I couldn't tel him that. Not without proof. Nickamedes hated me. He'd never believe someone had just taken a shot at me in the library. And even if he did, wel , he might not care al that much.
I clamped my lips together and stood there, anger, embarrassment, and fear making my cheeks burn.
Nickamedes raised his black eyebrows in a way that clearly said he thought I'd lost what little sense I had. "Wel , I'm done with my e-mails. Go get your things together, and I'l turn off the lights and lock up for the night." He walked back to his office, but I stayed where I was, feeling crazy, scared, and frustrated, al at the same time. I blew out a breath and turned back to the bookshelf, as if the arrow would somehow magical y reappear. It didn't, of course, but I realized that maybe I hadn't been imagining things after al .
Because there was a nick in the wood that hadn't been there before.
The deep, ugly, starlike shape looked like it had grooved maybe four inches into the dark, glossy wood. Whoever had shot the arrow must have yanked it out while I'd been looking around the far side of the bookshelf. That was the only explanation I could come up with. But if that was the case, why hadn't he fired another arrow at me when I'd had my back turned? Had the archer heard Nickamedes moving around in his office and had been scared off? If so, I was going to have to start being a lot nicer to the uptight librarian-a whole lot nicer.
But right now I wanted answers, and I knew of one way to maybe get them. My hand trembling, I brought my fingers up to the groove. I hesitated a second, then pressed them to the splintered wood, knowing that my psychometry would kick in and show me exactly what had happened.
THUNK!
An image of the arrow slamming into the bookcase fil ed my mind-but nothing else. No clue as to who had shot it or why.
Disappointing but not surprising. I'd need the actual arrow itself for that or the bow that it had been launched from. Those were the tools the archer had touched, the things he'd used when he'd tried to kil me. The bookshelf was just where the arrow had landed.
That's why there weren't any emotions attached to it-just the sudden violence of the arrow slamming into the thick wood.
Frustrated, I dropped my hand.
"Gwendolyn!" Nickamedes cal ed out to me from one of the doors in the glass office complex. "You either come get your bag right this second or leave it here for the night!" There was nothing else I could do-not tonight, not without the bow, the arrow, or some other sort of proof-so I turned away from the splintered bookshelf and headed over to the checkout counter.
I grabbed my messenger bag and slung it over my shoulder, but I wasn't real y thinking about what I was doing.
Instead, I was replaying the day's events in my head. First, the SUV, and now the arrow in the bookcase. It al added up to only one conclusion.
Someone was trying to kil me. But it wasn't in the gym this time, and it wasn't just for practice.
No-this time, it was for real.
Chapter 6
"Someone's trying to kil you? Real y?" Daphne asked a half an hour later.
I shrugged. "Kil , maim, or injure. Isn't it al the same thing to Reapers?"
We were in my dorm room, eating the chocolate-strawberry cookies Grandma Frost had baked earlier today. Wel , Daphne was eating the cookies. I didn't have an appetite for them. Knots stil twisted and tangled together in my stomach from almost getting skewered in the library.
After Nickamedes had locked the front doors, I'd run al the way from the Library of Antiquities on the upper quad down to Styx Hal , where my dorm room was. With every step, I'd expected an arrow to zoom out of the shadows and rip through my heart.
But nothing had happened.
I'd made it to my dorm in one piece, used my student ID
card to get inside, and had gone straight up to my room, which was stuck in a separate turret on the third floor. The room featured al your standard dorm furniture-a bed, a desk, some bookshelves, a TV, a smal fridge-although I'd added my own personal touches. A couple of framed photos of my mom stood on my desk, along with a smal statue of Nike. Vic, who was currently sleeping in his scabbard, hung on the wal above the desk, right next to my posters of Wonder Woman, Karma Girl, and The Kil ers.
Normal y, I considered my dorm room a safe haven from the craziness that was Mythos Academy. Not tonight, though. I huddled on my knees on the floor, my purple and gray plaid comforter wrapped around me, and peered through the bottom of one of the picture windows set into the wal . There didn't seem to be anyone lurking on the dorm's lawn, but then again, it was pitch-black outside now.
"Why do you think it's a Reaper who tried to kil you?"
Daphne asked.
"Who else could it be? Besides, Professor Metis told me that Jasmine's family might come after me because I was involved in her death."