I'd just never expected to see my own mom's murder.
For months I'd thought that my mom had been killed by a drunk driver coming home from work one night, but looking into Preston's mind had shown me what had really happened. How Preston had been there. How he'd caused the accident by ramming his SUV into my mom's car. How he'd done so on the orders of a mysterious Reaper girl-a girl who was Loki's Champion and was searching for the Helheim Dagger that my mom had hidden years ago. And then, finally, how the Reaper girl had plunged her sword into my mom's heart, killing her.
The same Reaper girl who was standing in front of me right now.
The awful pain of that moment, of reliving my mom's murder, knifed through my heart, splintering it into a thousand broken, bloody shards. I let out a noise that was somewhere between a whimper and a growl. But along with the pain came anger-more anger than I'd ever felt before. The rage quickly swallowed the pain, burning away everything else except my need for revenge.
"Gwen?" Daphne whispered, sensing the change in me. "What's wrong?"
For a moment, I couldn't speak; I couldn't move; I couldn't even think. There was nothing but the rage that filled every cell of my body. Finally, I forced the words out through clenched teeth.
"It's her," I muttered. "The Reaper girl. Loki's Champion. That's her right there."
The girl who killed my mom.
"Hey," one of the other Reapers said, staring down at the glass that littered the floor. "Why are all the cases in here smashed already-"
"Now, Daphne!" I screamed. "Now!"
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Daphne rose up from her spot behind the stuffed horse, already drawing back her golden arrow and lining up her shot, aiming for the other girl. But the Reaper saw what she was doing, grabbed the man next to her, and shoved him in front of her, using him as a human shield. Daphne let go of her bowstrings.
Thwang!
My best friend's aim was true, but the arrow zoomed into the man's heart instead of the Reaper girl's.
A Valkyrie, I thought, making a mental note in the back of my mind. The Reaper girl had to be a Valkyrie, had to have a Valkyrie's superstrength, to shove a grown man around like he weighed nothing.
Beside me, a puff of golden smoke filled the air, and another arrow appeared in the onyx quiver strapped to Daphne's back. My friend had been right-that was wicked cool. Daphne saw me staring at her. She nodded, reached back, and grabbed the arrow.
"Kill them!" the Reaper girl bellowed over the noise of the still-blaring alarms. "Kill them all!"
The other Reapers didn't hesitate. Five of them charged forward while the Reaper girl stayed where she was. Two of the Reapers raced by the wax Viking.
With a loud battle cry, Logan leaped out from his hiding spot and rammed his sword into the Reaper closest to him, wounding his enemy. For a moment, there was mass confusion, before those two turned to fight Logan; the other three hurried in our direction, one going right and the last two going left.
Carson and I stepped out from behind the stuffed horse to meet them, still keeping Daphne in between us. She put an arrow in one of the guys to the left, felling him just before he reached Carson. That was all that I saw before the Reaper on my side of the dais attacked.
Swipe-swipe-swipe.
The Reaper swung his sword at my head, but I parried his blows. I hadn't been going to Mythos Academy for very long, and I hadn't had the lifelong weapons training the other kids had had, but I'd gotten a crash course in learning how to stay alive these last few months. The Reaper raised his sword for another strike, but I ducked behind the figure of the Roman centurion, putting it between us. The Reaper wasn't quite quick enough to pull his blow, and his sword stuck in the wax that made up the Roman's chest. He frantically tugged on his weapon, trying to free it for another strike at me.
I didn't hesitate. It was kill or be killed, and if the situation had been reversed, the Reaper would have done the same to me. Still, that knowledge, that cold logic, didn't make me feel any better as I darted forward and shoved Vic into the Reaper's chest with all my strength. The Reaper screamed and clawed at the silver blade, trying to rip Vic out of my hands. I tightened my grip, yanked the sword out, then plunged it into his stomach. The Reaper screamed again and stumbled back. He sprawled to a stop on the floor below the dais, and he didn't get back up.
"Nicely done, Gwen!" Vic shouted, his mouth moving underneath my sweaty hand.
"Shut up, Vic!" I screamed back at him.
On the other side of the dais, Carson battled another Reaper, parrying the Reaper's sword with the staff he'd grabbed earlier. Daphne stood a few feet behind him, her bow up and ready, just waiting to put an arrow into the Reaper as soon as she got a clear shot. Across the room, Logan had killed the Reaper he'd stabbed before and was battling the second one.
My head whipped around to the seventh and final Reaper-the girl who'd murdered my mom. She stood in the same spot as before, a long, curved sword in her black-gloved hand. She stared at me, and through the slits in her mask, I saw the faintest glint of her eyes-and the spark of red that flashed in their depths. The angry, hate-filled flicker burned like a match underneath the twisted rubber covering her face.
"Well, well, well," the Reaper girl hissed. "If it isn't Nike's Champion, slinging a sword like she actually knows how to use it. I was hoping I might run into you here."
Her words made my stomach twist with fear, but I pushed the feeling aside. I knew the Reaper girl wanted to kill me. She'd threatened to do so in the memory I had of her stabbing my mom. I supposed I shouldn't have been surprised that she knew who I was and what I looked like. Professor Metis had once told me that Champions could recognize other Champions, that we were inevitably drawn to each other, attracting and repelling like magnets.
"Yeah, it's me. Gwen Frost," I snapped. "Nike's Champion in the flesh. I know what you did to my mom."
The girl threw back her head and laughed. She just-laughed. Low, long, and loud. Like it was funny that she'd killed my mom in cold blood. Like it was the most hysterical thing ever that she and her Reaper friends had just done the same thing to a museum full of innocent people.
"Well, I should certainly hope so," she said. "Killing your weak, sniveling mother was the most fun I've had in ages."
Rage once again filled my heart, blocking out everything else. All my questions, all my worries, all my fears. There was only me and her and my desire for revenge, this burning, burning need I had to make her pay, to make her suffer for taking my mom away from me.