I woke up screaming.
One second, I was on the amphitheater stage with Logan killing me, and Vivian, Agrona, and Loki all happily watching. The next, I was lying in bed in my dorm room, wrestling with the pillow I'd buried my face in.
I slapped the pillow off the bed, sat up, and gulped down breath after breath. My eyes darted around my room, but everything was the same. Bed, desk, bookcases, fridge, TV. Vic hanging on the wall, Nyx curled up in her basket in the corner, Ran's seaweed net draped over the back of my chair.
Real - this was real. Everything else had been a dream. Just a dream.
Vic's eye snapped open, and he regarded me with a sympathetic expression. "Another nightmare?"
I slid to the floor and leaned back against the side of the bed. Nyx hopped out of her basket and raced over to me. I scooped up the pup and cradled her in my arms. Nyx licked my cheek, and I felt her warm concern wash over me.
"Gwen?" Vic asked again. "Another nightmare?"
"Something like that."
"Did he stab you again this time?"
"Oh yeah."
My chest ached, as though Logan really had hurt me again, and I buried my face in Nyx's fur until the sensation faded away, and I was reasonably sure I wasn't going to cry.
"How did it start?" Vic asked. "The nightmare?"
Calmer now, I rewound the images in my mind. Thanks to my psychometry, I never forgot anything I heard, saw, or felt, not even my dreams. Sometimes it was a blessing, being able to recall a cherished memory, but with the nightmares I'd been having lately, it seemed more like a curse.
"I was in here, pacing back and forth, and I felt like I needed to escape . . ."
I told Vic the rest of it. When I finished, the sword frowned in thought, while Nyx licked my fingers, trying to let me know she was here for me too.
The weird thing was that I really had gone to the Crius Coliseum a few days earlier, and I really did have Ran's net draped over my desk chair. In fact, I'd talked about the net and how useless it seemed with Alexei and Daphne Cruz, my best friend, when we'd had dinner in the dining hall earlier. We'd come back to my dorm room to hang out for a while, and after they'd left, I'd decided to lie down on my bed to rest for a few minutes before taking a shower and getting ready for bed. Instead, I'd fallen asleep, and the image of the net had somehow led to my recurring nightmare of Logan stabbing me in the chest.
Just like he'd done for real a few weeks ago.
"Well, obviously, you still have some issues with the Spartan and what he did to you," Vic finally said. "And who wouldn't? Do you want to talk about it?"
He'd been asking me that ever since I'd had the first nightmare a couple of weeks ago, but once again, I shook my head. I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't even want to think about it, even though my refusal to deal was probably causing some of my nightmares. After a moment, I sighed, suddenly tired - of Reapers, of fighting, and most especially of all the horrible memories that I could never, ever forget, not even when I went to sleep.
"Gwen?" Vic asked again.
"I'm fine now," I said. "It was just a dream. It wasn't real."
This time.
Vic gave me a sympathetic look, which I ignored. The sword had been extra nice to me ever since Logan left. All of my friends had, which only reminded me all the more that he was gone.
Still, despite my words, the nightmare had shaken me, and once again, I felt that desperate need to escape, to go someplace where no one was watching me, to go someplace where no one would think to look for me or try to hurt me. I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. Just after eight. I still had some time before the dorms locked down for the night at ten.
I gave Nyx one more hug, carried her back over to her basket, and helped her settle down inside it. Then, I shrugged into my jacket and grabbed my gloves and scarf. I also plucked Vic off the wall and belted the sword and his scabbard around my waist. Unlike in my dream, I wasn't going to be so stupid as to not take a weapon with me, even if my destination wasn't that far away and campus was supposedly safer these days.
"Where are we going?" Vic asked.
"You'll see."
I opened the door and left my dorm room.
For real, this time.
Chapter 2
I'd told Alexei I was staying put in my room for the rest of the night, so he'd gone back to his own dorm instead of standing guard outside my door. Good. I didn't want him to know where I was going. I didn't want anyone to know. Seriously, it was that sad and pathetic.
I didn't bother crawling out a window like I had in my dream. Instead, I walked down the steps and right out the front door of Styx Hall.
One thing that was the same in real life as in my nightmare was the weather. Because of the cold, snow, and blustering winds, campus was as deserted as I'd imagined it had been - except for the members of the Protectorate.
Men and women of all shapes, sizes, and ethnicities could be seen patrolling the academy grounds, standing guard under trees and peering into the shadows that had spread out over the landscape. After the Reaper attack at the band concert, security on campus had been seriously beefed up, and members of the Protectorate could be seen here twenty-four-seven now. I doubted it would help, though. Try as they might, the Protectorate couldn't be everywhere at once. Sooner or later, the Reapers would strike here again, and all I could do was to wait for it to happen - and try to survive.
Another thing that was the same was Aiko, who was standing below my windows, just as she had in my dream. I waved at the Ninja, and she lifted her hand and waved back. I liked Aiko. She read comic books and graphic novels, just like I did.
I stepped onto the path outside my dorm and hurried across campus. Aiko watched me go but didn't follow, since her orders were to keep an eye on my dorm - not necessarily on me. That was Alexei's job. I felt bad about not keeping my promise to him to stay inside, but I couldn't sit in my room for the rest of the night. Not after the nightmare. So I headed toward Hephaestus Hall, one of the boys' dorms.
All of the Mythos dorms required a student ID card in order to get inside, and your card only let you in to the dorm where you lived. But if you leaned on the front bell long enough, someone would eventually get fed up enough to buzz you inside without checking to make sure you really belonged there. We kids were totally lazy that way. I only had to hold down the bell for thirty seconds before the door clicked open.
"Enough already!" a male voice rumbled from deeper inside the dorm. "We're trying to watch the game!"
I grinned, opened the door, and stepped through before the guy came to investigate. Judging from the alternating cheers and groans I heard coming from the common room, everyone in the dorm was watching the game, which made it easy for me to climb the steps to the fifth floor. I paused at the top of the stairs, wondering if someone might actually be in his room, studying, but everything was still and quiet. Since the coast was clear, I crept down the hallway until I reached the last door.