A few kids gave me strange looks, eyeing my flushed face and the giant gulps of air I was sucking down, but I ignored them. What would Preston and the Reaper girl do now? Where would they go? Think, Gwen, think!
Then, the answer came to me.
You'd better finish me now, Gypsy. Or I'll get free one day, and I'll go kill that doddering old grandmother you love so much.
Grandma Frost, I thought, remembering Preston's awful, awful promise to me.
Somehow I knew that's where they were headed. Preston wouldn't miss a chance to hurt me by killing my grandma-he just wouldn't. And Grandma had no idea he was coming or the horrible danger she was in.
Terror twisted my heart at the thought, but I forced myself to push past the fear and think. I didn't know how the Reaper girl had gotten past all the security measures to get down to the prison in the first place, but if she'd been smart enough to do that, then she had to have thought out Preston's escape as well. She'd get him off campus as quickly as she could, and since the Reapers were leaving the academy grounds, I doubted the sphinxes would try to stop them. And then-and then what?
A car, I thought. She'd have a car waiting outside the academy walls to whisk Preston away, but the Reaper wouldn't immediately go into hiding. No, he'd stop by Grandma Frost's house first. I knew he would, which meant that I needed a car, too, if I had any chance of saving her.
I sucked in another cold breath and started to run.
I pulled my cell phone out of my jeans pocket as I ran. Since I couldn't text, run, and hold on to Vic all at the same time, I settled for hitting the numbers in my speed dial. First, I called my Grandma Frost.
"Pick up," I panted as I ran. "Please, please pick up."
But she didn't.
The terror rose up in my throat, choking me, but I forced it down. The Reapers couldn't have gotten to her house yet, so Grandma must be doing a psychic reading for one of her clients. She never answered the phone then. The answering machine clicked on, and I left her a garbled, frantic message telling her about the Reaper girl's freeing Preston and asking her to call me the second she got this message. I would have kept talking, but the machine clicked, cutting me off.
Cursing, I went to the next number on my list, which was Daphne. But apparently, the Valkyrie was still mad at me and screening her calls because she didn't answer. I tried Logan next, but the Spartan didn't answer, either.
Why did everyone have to pick today to be pissed at me?
So I went to the fourth person on my list. For once, for once, someone decided to answer his freaking phone.
"Hey, Gypsy," Oliver's smooth voice filled my ear. "What's going on?"
"I need you to get your car and meet me down by the main academy gate. Right now!"
"Gwen?" Oliver's voice sharpened as he heard the panic in my tone. "What's going on?"
"Preston just busted out of the academy prison," I said in between panting breaths. "I think he's headed to my Grandma Frost's house to kill her. I need you to drive me down there, so meet me at the front gate as soon as you can. And bring some weapons. We'll need them."
"Gwen-"
I hung up before Oliver could say anything else. I knew the Spartan would help me. That's what friends did for each other.
I kept running, trying Grandma Frost, Daphne, and Logan again and again-but nobody answered me. I cursed some more. What good were cell phones if nobody picked them up? Finally, just as I was running on fumes, I reached Styx Hall. It took me far longer than I would have liked to yank my student ID card out of my jeans pocket, scan it through the machine, open the door, and sprint up the three flights of stairs to my room, but there was something else I had to do before I met Oliver, another way I could maybe save my grandma.
"Nott!" I said, barging into my dorm room. "Nott, I need you!"
The Fenrir wolf had been napping in her nest of blankets, but she sprang to her feet at the sound of my frantic voice.
"What are you doing, Gwen?" Vic said. "You're wasting time."
"Shut up, Vic," I said, laying the sword down on the bed and shoving my cell phone into my jeans pocket. "I need to concentrate."
While I'd been sprinting across campus, it had occurred to me that the wolf could run much faster than I could-much, much faster. I was sure that Oliver was racing toward his car right now, but it would still take him time to get it and more time still for us to drive down the mountain.
It was time Grandma Frost just didn't have.
I dropped down beside the wolf, wondering if my crazy plan was going to work. Maybe Vic was right and I was just wasting time. But I had to try-I had to.
Metis had told me that I could do more with my Gypsy gift than just touch stuff and see things-that I could make other people see and feel things, too. I just hoped she was right.
Still sucking down big gulps of air, I carefully put my hands on either side of Nott's massive head and looked into her dull eyes-and then I reached for all the memories I had of my Grandma Frost. All the kindness and caring she'd shown me over the years, all the big and small ways she'd cared for me, especially after my mom had been killed, all the love I felt whenever I held her hand.
I concentrated on those memories, pulling them up in my mind, and then I sort of ... shoved them at Nott. Instead of touching something and letting the images fill my mind, I did the opposite-I took the memories I already had and consciously pushed them out in another direction, into another mind.
Somehow it worked.
The wolf flinched, and I could feel her confusion at the jumble of memories and thoughts that weren't her own crowding into her brain. After a few seconds, she relaxed when she realized I wasn't going to hurt her, that the thoughts weren't going to hurt her. Then, I focused on my grandma's house and pushed that image into the wolf's mind as well.
"I need you to go to my grandma's house and protect her until I get there," I said. "Please. Can you do that? Do you even understand me?"
Nott stared at me a second longer. Then, she leaned forward, licked my cheek with her tongue, and headed for the door.
"I'll take that as a yes," I said, grabbing Vic off the bed and scrambling after her.
I led Nott down the stairs and through the dorm, not caring who saw me or what they thought about it. For once, I got lucky, and we didn't run into any other students. I opened the back door of the dorm, and the wolf raced outside. In a moment, she'd disappeared from view.
I sucked in another breath and started my own sprint, racing down to the main gate. I didn't even spare the sphinxes a glance as I slipped through the iron bars to the other side. Oliver had been quicker than me, because the Spartan was already parked across the street in his black Cadillac Escalade.