I froze again, my heart leapfrogging up into my throat and choking me from the inside out. It wasn't the whispered words that creeped me out so much; it was the person who'd said them who really frightened me-Preston Ashton, when he'd been stalking me through the construction site at the Powder ski resort. Even worse, Preston had threatened to go after my grandma and kill her the same way he'd helped the Reaper girl murder my mom.
But Preston couldn't possibly be running around campus. He just couldn't. Preston was locked up in the academy prison in the bottom of the math-science building. I wasn't sure where the idea came from, but suddenly I was thinking of the prison and all the locks and magical wards you had to go through to even get to the door, calling up my memories of them and visualizing them in my mind. The pounding in my head intensified, and for a moment, I had trouble letting go of the images, but there was nothing to worry about. Preston was trapped so far underground he could never claw his way out.
Right?
Gypsy ...
The voice kept echoing through the library, growing louder and louder with every cold, raspy whisper. Maybe the voice was supposed to scare me and make me start screaming. And yeah, part of me was shaking with fear. But then I thought about what I'd seen at the coliseum. Creepy voices were one thing-flesh-and-blood Reapers were another. After the attack yesterday, someone's trying to scare me with whispers seemed like child's play-a bloody annoyance, as Vic would say, more than a real threat.
"All right, creepy voice," I muttered. "Let's see how raspy you are when my hands are around your throat."
Still holding on to the gryphon book, I kept sneaking through the stacks, stopping to look and listen every few feet, and trying to pinpoint exactly where the voice was coming from. I didn't see anything, but the voice kept whispering over and over again, like a bell that was stuck inside my head, bringing a fresh wave of pain with it every single time it chimed. I gritted my teeth, trying to pretend I didn't hear the sound and ignore the growing ache in my skull.
For a second, I wondered if it was all in my head, but I pushed that thought away. I'd seen a lot of Bad, Bad Things over the years with my Gypsy gift, one of the worst being a girl who was being abused by her stepdad. If I had actually lost my mind and was just imagining all this, well, there were worse things I could be thinking about than a creepy voice saying it was going to kill me.
I kept roaming through the stacks, peering around the edges of the bookshelves, looking for the source of the voice. I was just about to give up and go back to the checkout counter, when something rustled a few shelves over.
Still gripping the gryphon book, I slithered in that direction. My sneakers barely made a scuffle on the marble floor, but I still paused every few seconds, looking and listening. Finally, I reached the section where I'd heard the rustle. I peeked through the books just in time to see a figure rounding the far corner, his back to me.
"Gotcha," I muttered.
I darted around the corner of the bookshelf, raced down the aisle, and headed out into the main library space. A figure was walking in the other direction toward the checkout counter. I raised the book high, ready to bring it down and bash him on the head from behind-
He must have heard the whisper of my sneakers, because at the very last second, he turned and grabbed my wrist. A moment later, I was flying through the air. The next thing I knew, I was lying on my back on the floor, aching all over and desperately trying to breathe and remember what I'd been doing in the first place.
Something scuffed, a shadow fell over me, blocking out the light, and a pair of boots planted themselves beside my head. Not good-so not good. I flailed around on the floor, my fingers searching for the gryphon book, which had fallen out of my hands, but I didn't feel it anywhere. Cold, sweaty panic filled me. I needed that book. I needed some sort of weapon to fight off a Reaper, to keep Preston from killing me like he'd promised-
"Gypsy girl? Are you okay?"
His words made me freeze for a third time. Even if I couldn't see his face, I still recognized the voice, enough to know it wasn't Preston standing over me.
Oh, no. Logan had just kicked my ass instead.
Chapter 13
It took me a couple of seconds to get my breath back enough to answer him.
"Sure," I wheezed, trying to keep the library from spinning around and around. "I'm fine for a girl who just got flipped over a Spartan's shoulder and slammed to the floor."
Logan winced, leaned down, and helped me sit up. "Sorry about that," he said, a sheepish look on his face. "I saw you out of the corner of my eye, and, well, instinct took over. Especially after what happened yesterday."
Yeah, that was the thing about Spartans-they all had that killer instinct. It was a wonder Logan hadn't taken the gryphon book I'd been holding and stabbed me with one of the pointed edges. The Spartan could totally do freaky stuff like that, thanks to his ability to pick up any object and immediately know how to kill someone with it. Seriously. Logan was the kind of guy who could skewer you with a paper clip. That's what made him such a great fighter.
When I felt steady enough, Logan grabbed my arm and helped me onto my feet. The Spartan put his hands on my waist, and I felt the scorching heat of his fingers all the way through my gray hoodie and T-shirt. Suddenly, I felt dizzy once more, but for another reason entirely than getting thrown onto the floor and the air knocked out of my lungs.
"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked, his eyes bright with concern.
I smiled. "I'm feeling better all the time, Spartan, especially since you've got your arms around me."
A grin crept across Logan's face, and he pulled me a little closer, staring down into my face. As much as I wanted to just forget the last few minutes, I couldn't help wondering what had happened to the creepy whispers. They'd disappeared the second I'd attacked Logan. My head still throbbed, but the invisible fingers that had seemed to be drilling into my skull had vanished.
"Logan?"
"Yeah?" he asked in a husky voice, staring at my lips.
"When you first came into the library, before you saw me, did you hear any ... whispers or anything like that? A voice, maybe?"
The Spartan shook his head. "I didn't hear anything until you started sneaking up on me. You shouldn't wear sneakers, you know. They always seem to squeak no matter how quiet you're trying to be. But why are you asking about voices?"
I bit my lip. I didn't want to admit to the Spartan that I'd thought I'd heard voices or whatever those weird whispers had been. I didn't want him to think I was losing my mind, even if it seemed that way to me. Still, I couldn't help feeling that someone else had been in the library-someone who'd known exactly what Preston had said to me at the ski resort. But how was that even possible? Besides me, Logan had been the only other person there, and I knew the Spartan wouldn't try to scare me like that.