So I drew in a breath, pushed up my sleeves, and wrapped my bare hands around the notebook. Then I sat there and waited for the images and feelings to flood my mind.
Chapter 19
For a half a second nothing happened, but then my psychometry kicked in, and images of Oliver fil ed my mind.
Mostly, there were the same images I'd seen the first time I'd picked up the notebook Wednesday morning during weapons training. Oliver sitting at the desk in his dorm room, scribbling on the pages, and the Spartan hunched over the notebook, doodling in class while his professors lectured. I also got the same flashes of feelings that I had before, boredom and frustration from doing homework mixed with occasionAll spurts of anger and angst.
Then that warm, soft, fizzy feeling started way, way down deep in the pit of my stomach. I concentrated, focusing on that particular vibe, trying to cAll up All the images that went with it.
Everything and everyone Oliver associated with that specific feeling. A hazy figure began to take shape in my mind, one with black hair and eyes. I shut out everything else, so I could bring the haze into supersharp focus and see exactly who Oliver had such a massive crush on-
Kenzie's face popped into my head.
I gasped in surprise, but the sensations didn't stop there.
It was like I'd opened a floodgate. All these emotions just poured into me. I saw and felt everything Oliver did toward his friend. All the good times they'd had together growing up. All the admiration and loyalty between them. All the smAll ways Oliver's feelings had started to deepen into something that went way beyond friendship. All the giddy joy just being with Kenzie made him feel. All the anger and soul-crushing despair that Kenzie would never like him back the same way. And then, at the very end, All the frustration and fear that I would tel Kenzie how Oliver reAll y felt about him and ruin their friendship-ruin everything good they had between them.
My heart alternately soared up and plummeted down as I rode the rol er coaster of Oliver's emotions until I thought it would pop right out of my chest. FinAll y, though, the emotions flickered, then faded away, tel ing me that I'd seen and felt everything I could from the notebook.
My eyes snapped open. The notebook slipped from my fingers, and I sagged down onto the bed, a little overwhelmed by everything I'd just seen. I drew in severAll deep breaths, waiting for the intense emotions and feelings to fade.
So Oliver was in love-or at least serious, serious like-
just as I'd thought he was, but instead of crushing on a girl, Oliver had feelings for Kenzie, his best friend and fel ow Spartan.
That was it? That was Oliver's big secret?
Yeah, it was a pretty major secret, but I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. It didn't matter to me who Oliver was crushing on. People liked who they liked, and I thought we All should just get over it already. As long as people were happy with who they were, that was All that mattered.
But knowing Oliver's secret didn't help me answer any of my other questions. Like whether or not he was a Reaper and had tried to kil me. I felt like I was stil missing something, so I picked up the notebook again. This time I flipped through it page by page, trying to read Oliver's scribbled handwriting. But there was nothing on the pages I hadn't already seen and felt. Lots of class notes, lots of doodles, lots of reAll y cool portraits of Kenzie.
Whatever else he was, Oliver was an artist with some wicked talent.
What I didn't find was anything that told me one way or the other if Oliver was the Reaper who'd been gunning for me. I'd gotten All that I could from the notebook, so I stuffed it back down into the sheets were I'd found it. Then I stood in the center of the room, wondering if there was anything else in here that I could get a vibe off of, anything else that could tel me whether or not my suspicions about Oliver were right.
My searching gaze landed on some keys on Oliver's nightstand. I walked over, leaned down, and looked at them. I didn't know much about car keys, but I recognized the symbol for a Cadil ac when I saw one. I'd seen this kind of key dozens of times at Mythos and had found lost sets of them a dozen times more, since so many of the academy students had big, fancy cars they took out on the weekends
-like Cadil ac Escalades.
My breath caught in my throat, and I thought back to that day outside my Grandma Frost's house. The SUV that had almost hit me had been big, black, and expensive. That was All I reAll y remembered about the vehicle. It could have been an Escalade, or it could have been something else.
Only one way to find out.
My heart racing, I picked up the keys and wrapped my fingers around the one for the Cadil ac. The metAll key felt cold and smooth in my palm, and the images started almost immediately. Flickers and flashes of various trips Oliver had taken, most of them with Kenzie sitting in the passenger's seat, the two of them listening to the radio.
Sometimes Logan lounged in the back, hanging out with his friends.
I concentrated, going deeper, and cAll ing up every image, every memory associated with the key. After a few seconds, the images changed, and the scene shifted.
Oliver sat in his SUV parked on a residentiAll street. I got the sense he was nervous and waiting for something-or someone. He looked through the tinted windshield, his eyes on a lavender-painted house at the end of the block.
It was like I was watching a scary movie from the kil er's point of view. After a moment, I saw myself open the door of Grandma Frost's house and come outside, heading toward the bus stop. Oliver cranked the engine, put the SUV into gear, and steered it away from the curb. I stepped out into the street, and he accelerated, putting his foot All the way down on the gas-
My eyes snapped open again, and I had to sit back down on the bed a second time. I knew what had happened from there.
Oliver had almost run me down. I was wil ing to bet if I touched the Spartan's bow, wherever it was, I'd get a flash of him aiming it at me in the Library of Antiquities.
Yeah, maybe I'd thought Oliver had tried to kil me, but my stomach stil twisted with the certain knowledge, and a bitter, bitter taste fil ed my mouth. Oliver Hector had tried to kil me. Wel , had tried to run me down with his SUV at the very least. But why?
Because he'd thought I'd tel Kenzie about Oliver's crush on him?
Or because Oliver was a Reaper? I didn't know, and my head started pounding as my troubled thoughts spun around and around.
Whether he was a Reaper or not, Oliver wanted me dead. The reAll question now was this: What was I going to do about it?
I put Oliver's keys back where they belonged and laid Kenzie's key card on his nightstand to make him think he'd just forgotten it this morning. Then I left the Spartans' room and pul ed the door shut behind me.