"She's not going to talk," Preston said. "Finish her, and let's go before another car comes along."
"Oh, very wel ," the girl huffed.
She gripped her sword and raised it over her head. She turned toward Preston, and I saw a smile curve her lips despite the shadows that cloaked her face. Then she brought the weapon down with a vicious slash. I shoved the memory away the second before the sword plunged into my mom's heart.
My mom hadn't been kil ed by some anonymous drunk driver like I'd thought. No, she'd been murdered-
murdered by Preston and the Reaper girl.
I opened my eyes, wrenched my hand away from his, and sprang up out of my chair, stumbling away until my back was pressed up against one of the glass wAll s of the cel s. I was only about a foot away from Raven and her desk.
"I told you that you wouldn't like what you saw, Gypsy,"
Preston sneered. "Tel me, how did it feel to see your own mother murdered right before your very eyes?" Everyone froze for a second, then they All turned to look at me. Metis shocked, Coach Ajax angry and disgusted, Nickamedes with a pitying expression on his face. Even Raven looked up from her gossip magazine, a haunted look in her eyes.
"Just wait," Preston sneered. "Because I'l be doing the same thing to you reAll soon, Gypsy."
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I couldn't speak, I couldn't scream, I couldn't even breathe.
Everything just hurt. Every cel , every nerve, every broken, bloody bit of my shattered heart.
Desperate, I turned to Metis, searching for some kind of comfort, some kind of reassurance. Instead, what I saw was guilt.
Sometimes if a memory was vivid enough, if an emotion was strong enough, I didn't have to touch an object or person to get a vibe off them. Guilt fil ed the professor's green eyes, and her whole body radiated with it, like heat boiling off the sun, burning me to the bone.
"You knew my mom was murdered," I whispered. "This whole time, you knew."
"Gwen-" Metis started, stepping toward me.
I turned and ran from the prison, but I didn't even make it to the door before Preston's mocking laughter started ringing in my ears.
Chapter 26
I sprinted out of the prison and back up the many flights of stairs. Somehow All the doors opened at my touch, despite the fact that I didn't know the codes or the magic mumbo jumbo. Or maybe Metis just hadn't locked them behind her.
Either way, I stumbled out of the math-science building and into the cold. And then I just ran, desperate to get as far away from Preston and the awful thing I'd seen, the awful thing he'd helped the Reaper girl to do my mom.
They'd fol owed her home from work that night. They'd caused the car accident. They'd murdered her. They'd taken her away from me. Not a drunk driver. The casket at her funerAll had been closed because the Reaper girl had murdered her, and Grandma Frost hadn't wanted me to see my mom like that.
Grandma. She had to have known about my mom's murder, just like Metis. When I'd first come to the academy, I'd asked Grandma over and over again why I had to go to school at Mythos. I'd thought it had been because I'd had a freak-out with my magic. Now I knew the reAll reason why: Reapers had murdered my mom, and Metis and Grandma Frost had been afraid they'd do the same thing to me. So they'd shipped me off to Mythos, so Metis could keep an eye on me, thinking I'd be safe on campus, that the magic protecting the grounds would protect me as wel . They just hadn't realized how dangerous the academy would turn out to be for me.
But as hard as I tried, as fast as my legs pumped, I couldn't outrun the memories-because they were mine now, too. I couldn't unsee them, and I couldn't forget them-
ever. My psychometry wouldn't let me.
For the very first time, I thought of my Gypsy gift as a curse.
I don't remember exactly how, but I wound up in the Library of Antiquities. Students and staff crowded into the first floor of the library, clustered around the study tables and checkout counter. I kept to the back wAll and raced past the bookshelves and glass cases ful of artifacts. For once, I was glad the other kids never paid any attention to me. I didn't want anyone to see me like this, much less start gossiping and texting about it on their stupid cel phones.
I didn't stop running until I sprinted up the stairs and reached the second floor, where All the statues of the gods and goddesses were arranged in an enormous circle on the balcony. Nobody else was up here, and the silence pressed against my face like a blanket, smothering me. Or maybe that was because I was out of breath from my frantic run.
My footsteps finAll y slowed, then stopped, in front of Nike's statue. The Greek goddess of victory towered thirty feet tAll , like All the other statues, her feathery wings just peeking out from behind her back, her proud gaze fixed on something only she could see.
"Why?" I whispered. "Why did they have to kil my mom?"
Nike's face remained cold and impassive. I didn't know why I'd come here, what I'd thought would happen, but the grief overwhelmed me, weighing me down until I couldn't take another step.
I curled up into a bAll at the goddess's feet and wept.
I don't know how long I cried-the eerie, stil silence of the second floor swAll owed up my sobs-but at some point, my exhaustion overpowered everything else, and I fel asleep right there in the library. I woke up, stiff and sore from my awkward position, my eyes crusty with dried tears, and my heart just-just sick with what I'd seen in Preston's mind. His awful, awful memories of my mother's murder.
It took me two minutes to realize the statue was gone.
I'd col apsed in a heap at Nike's feet, but now only empty air fil ed the space where the goddess's statue had been. I jumped to my feet and looked around, but All the other statues were stil in their places along the second floor balcony, All turned the same way, staring down into the first floor of the Library of Antiquities.
Only Nike was missing. I took a few steps back from the spot where she'd been-
"Hel o, Gwendolyn," a soft voice cAll ed out to me.
Somehow I managed not to scream. Instead, I slowly turned around, and there she was-Nike. She looked the same as she had the last time I'd seen her, the night Jasmine had tried to murder me in the library.
Nike might have been the Greek goddess of victory, but she was also the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Her hair slipped past her shoulders, the soft brown waves shimmering with a metAll ic, bronze sheen. An elegant gown in a soft lilac color rippled around her body like water, while a thin silver belt looped around her waist. The belt matched the crown of silver flowers that ringed her head-laurels, the symbol for victory. Soft, feathery wings arched up from the goddess's back, making her look as if she could take flight at any moment.