Jennifer Estep Bundle

by Jennifer Estep

  “Gwen,” Logan said in a soft voice. “Gwen.”

  There was no judgment in his voice, no reproach, no condemnation, and I knew the Spartan would go along with whatever I decided to do. If I killed Preston, Logan would stand here and watch me do it. And I wanted to do it so badly. My hands trembled from the urge to just end Preston and the threats he’d made against my grandma.

  But I didn’t want Logan to see me as that kind of person—someone who could kill in cold blood—and I didn’t want to be that kind of person myself. I didn’t want to be a monster. For the first time, I truly understood what that was.

  I let out a tense, ragged breath and pulled the sword away from Preston’s throat.

  “I’m okay now,” I whispered. “I’m okay.”

  Logan reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m glad,” he whispered back.

  Chapter 23

  Scarcely a minute had passed after I lowered the sword before shouts started echoing through the semidark construction site.

  “Gwen! Logan! Oliver!”

  “Over here!” Logan yelled back.

  A few seconds later, a flashlight cut a bright path through the gloom and landed on my face. I squinted against the harsh glare, keeping my sword and eyes trained on Preston, not daring to let myself be distracted by the fact that we were about to have company. I might not have killed Preston, but if the Reaper moved an inch now, I’d cut him and worry about the consequences later. He’d do the same to me, try to kill me any way he could, no matter what. Something else Daphne had been right about.

  To my surprise, Nickamedes stepped out of the shadows, a sword clutched in one hand and a flashlight in the other. The librarian’s black eyebrows shot up at the sight of me standing over Preston, the Reaper’s blood covering both of us like we’d been playing paintball instead of fighting to the death.

  “Are you two all right?” Nickamedes asked, looking at Logan.

  “We’re fine, more or less,” Logan replied. “I’ve got a bad gash on my thigh, and Gypsy girl’s got some bumps and bruises. What about Oliver?”

  Oliver. My breath caught in my throat. I’d been so busy fighting Preston that I’d forgotten about the other injured Spartan—and the fact that we’d had to leave him behind at the mercy of the Reaper and the Fenrir wolf. Even though I knew it had been the only choice at the time, guilt and shame burned in my heart. If Preston had killed Oliver, I didn’t know what I’d do.

  “Ajax found Oliver and took him to Aurora in the infirmary,” Nickamedes said. “He should be fine, once she gets that bolt out of his shoulder and stops the bleeding.”

  I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding in.

  Relief filled Logan’s face. “Good.” He looked away from the librarian. “I didn’t want to leave him. You have to believe me. I would never leave someone behind. Not again. I wanted to stand and fight.”

  Misery made Logan’s shoulders sag, and his voice was so soft I had to strain to hear it.

  “I know you didn’t, and so does Oliver.” Nickamedes stepped closer to the Spartan and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re okay. You had me worried, Logan.”

  I’d thought I was done being surprised for the day, but I didn’t expect the casual, easy familiarity the two of them seemed to have with each other. The way they were talking, you’d think they were actually ... friends or something. Family even, a small voice whispered from the back of my mind. For the first time, I noticed how similar the two of them looked—and how they both had the same black hair and ice blue eyes.

  Logan and Nickamedes? Family? That was a little hard to wrap my brain around, especially since I’d never heard one mention anything about the other. Besides, Nickamedes was just too prissy to be related to someone as easygoing as Logan.

  As if to prove my point, Nickamedes turned to glare at me, his eyes sharp and narrowed in his pale face.

  “Two students severely injured, you yourself covered in blood, a Reaper on the premises, a Fenrir wolf running around loose somewhere, and extensive property damage to the resort. Well?” Nickamedes snapped. “What do you have to say for yourself, Gwendolyn?”

  I thought for a second, then grinned at him. “I followed your directions exactly. I never set one foot outside the hotel.”

  I thought the librarian was going to reach over and strangle me right then and there.

  An hour later, I sat on a bed in the resort infirmary watching Professor Metis finish healing Oliver. Metis had already fixed the gash in Logan’s leg, and the Spartan was in the next room, telling Coach Ajax and Nickamedes what had happened for the tenth time. Like Logan had said, I’d only gotten a few bumps and bruises, and my injuries weren’t severe enough to require healing. But I’d stayed behind in the infirmary anyway. I needed to talk to Oliver—about a lot of things.

  “There,” Metis said. “All done.”

  She dropped her hands from Oliver’s shoulder, and the warm, healing, golden glow that had enveloped his body slowly disappeared. Metis had already pulled the bolt out of his shoulder, and the skin there was smooth, whole, and unbroken once more. Oliver’s face was still pale and sweaty from all the pain he’d experienced, but if I hadn’t seen the Spartan writhing on the floor in the construction site, I wouldn’t have known anything much had even happened to him.

  Metis looked first at me, then at Oliver. Her green eyes were dark and thoughtful behind her silver glasses. She could tell something was going on between the two of us, but I didn’t volunteer any information, and neither did he.

  “I’ll leave the two of you alone for a few minutes,” she finally said, after it became apparent Oliver and I weren’t going to talk in front of her.

  “Thanks, professor,” I said in a soft voice. “I think we’d both appreciate that.”

  Metis nodded, then left the room and closed the door behind her. Oliver and I didn’t speak for a few moments.

  “So, here we are,” I said, staring at the Spartan who was half lying, half sitting on the next bed over.

  He sighed. “Yeah. Lucky us.”

  More seconds ticked by in silence. On the table against the wall, the miniature statue of Skadi stared at us, her features neutral for once.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?” I finally asked in a soft voice.

  Oliver winced. “I guess I owe you that much, don’t I?”

  I shrugged.

  Oliver sighed again, then sat all the way up on the bed. He swung his legs over the side so that he was facing me. Then he straightened his shoulders and looked at me.

  “So I’m gay, and I’m in love with my best friend, who is not gay and has no idea how I feel about him. But you know all that already. You have ever since you picked up my notebook in the gym.”

  I shook my head. “No, I didn’t. I got a feeling you had a serious crush on somebody, but I didn’t realize who it was. You yanked the notebook out of my hands before I could see that it was Kenzie.”

  Oliver frowned. “But I thought you knew. You said all that stuff about me not wanting anyone to know who I wanted to hook up with. And then on the bus ride over here, you said that I’d ... contaminate your stuff if I so much as touched it. I thought you were talking about me being gay.”

  Pain filled his green eyes. Oliver dropped his gaze from mine and picked at a loose thread on one of the bed sheets.

  You could contaminate it because you’re you, my own cold, nasty voice whispered in my mind. I’d been talking about something else entirely, and I’d said the words without thinking, without realizing how Oliver would interpret them.

  “I was talking about my comic books,” I said, trying to explain. “Whenever people touch stuff, they can leave part of themselves behind—their thoughts, feelings, memories. My psychometry magic lets me see, feel, and experience those things like they’re my own memories, my own emotions. That’s why I don’t like people touching my things—because they can leave bitter, ugly pieces of themselves behind. Plus, I thought
you were teasing me or something. I just wanted you to go away.”

  I winced. “Shit. I was a complete bitch, wasn’t I? You probably think I’m a total bigot.”

  This time, Oliver shrugged. We fell silent for a few seconds.

  “So why did you try to run me down outside my grandma’s house? Why shoot that arrow at me in the library?” I asked.

  “It’s complicated,” he said. “My parents know I’m gay, and they’ve been great about it. Really, really supportive. Logan and Kenzie know, too, and they’re cool with it. They wouldn’t be my friends otherwise. Pretty much everyone at Mythos knows. I’m not trying to hide it, but I don’t shout it from the rooftops either, you know? I figure it’s nobody’s business but mine.”

  I nodded. I understood what he was talking about. I did the same thing with my Gypsy gift. Yeah, the other Mythos kids knew I had the power to find lost items, but I didn’t stand out on the quad and brag about it between classes either.

  I thought about that strange look Morgan had given me in the lobby when I’d told the clerk that I wanted to know what room Oliver was in. The Valkyrie knew Oliver was gay—that’s why Morgan had thought it was weird that I’d go to his room or that I’d said that she’d hooked up with him.

  Oliver drew in a breath. “But Kenzie doesn’t know how I feel about him. I think Logan suspects, but he’d never say anything to Kenzie. Logan’s too good a friend to do that. But I didn’t know what you would do, Gwen. I didn’t want you to tell anyone, especially not Kenzie.”

  “But why not just tell Kenzie how you feel?” I asked in a soft tone, even though I already knew what his answer would be.

  Oliver shook his head. “Because Kenzie’s my best friend, and I don’t want to ruin our friendship. It’s one of the best things in my life. Kenzie’s not gay, so he’s never going to feel the same way about me that I do about him. When I realized you knew about my feelings for him, I just ... panicked, and I thought that if maybe I gave you something else to think about, then you’d forget all about me and my secret.”

  Oliver and I were more alike than he realized. I hated the fact that my feelings for Logan were so obvious to everyone. If I could have, I would have hidden them, especially since I had no idea how Logan really felt about me. Even back at my old school, I’d mostly kept my crushes to myself instead of immediately telling all my friends, because I knew how easy it was for one person to slip up and let a secret like that out of the bag. And if my crush didn’t like me back, well, that’s when things got humiliating, like they had with Logan. I could only imagine how much worse the situation would have been if Logan and I had been as close as Oliver and Kenzie were. So yeah, I could totally understand where Oliver was coming from about wanting to keep his feelings to himself.

  He drew in a breath. “Plus, I didn’t want to be the juicy gossip of the week at the academy or make Kenzie that either. That would just hurt both of us. I’ve got enough to deal with as it is now—being gay, being a Spartan, learning how to fight Reapers. I don’t need people snickering and texting about me behind my back, because I’m in love with my best friend on top of everything else, you know?”

  I did know. I’d been miserable when I’d first come to the academy because I hadn’t fit in, because I’d felt so desperately out of place. Even after I’d become friends with Daphne and Carson, there were days when I still felt that way—like all anyone saw when they looked at me was Gwen Frost, that freaky Gypsy girl who touched stuff and saw things. Yeah, I knew how Oliver felt.

  “I know what you’re going through,” I said. “But don’t you think that the car and the arrow were a little ... extreme? You could have just asked me not to say anything to Kenzie. I would have kept quiet about something that important to you.”

  Oliver winced. “I know, but I was mean to you that morning in the gym, making fun of you. I thought that you’d tell Kenzie, even if I asked you not to. Let’s face it. Getting payback is like the school sport at Mythos.”

  “Why were you so snarky to me? I wondered about that.”

  “Because Kenzie said he thought it was cool you liked superheroes. He’s been dropping hints for a couple of weeks now that he’s into someone. I thought it might be you, and I was jealous. That’s why I made fun of your shirt.”

  “But Talia Pizarro was the girl Kenzie really liked instead.”

  Oliver nodded and drew in another breath. “Plus, Logan had told me and Kenzie that you’d had some run-ins with Reapers and that was why we were training you, in case they came after you again. I know I overreacted, but scaring you and making you think there was another Reaper after you just seemed like the easiest, quickest way to make you forget about my crush on Kenzie.”

  Oliver stared at me, his green eyes bright and earnest in his face. “But I wasn’t trying to hurt you. Not really. If you hadn’t jumped out of the way of my Escalade, I was going to swerve to the other side of the street, and I made sure I put the arrow at least a foot away from your head in the library. I was just trying to scare you. That’s all, Gwen. I swear.”

  His logic made sense, in a weird sort of way. Oliver had just wanted to give me something else to think about besides the fact that he was in love with someone who would probably never return his feelings. It was my own fault I’d jumped to the wrong conclusions and had been stupid enough not to see Preston for the villain that he really was.

  It was just like when I’d asked Carson about all the freaky games and decorations at the carnival. Carson hadn’t seen anything wrong with the Reaper masks and Nemean prowlers because they were a part of the world that he’d grown up in. Those things were normal to Carson, just like fighting and scaring your enemy were normal to a fierce Spartan warrior like Oliver. Just like Daphne hacking into a computer system and messing with another girl’s grades or me breaking into people’s rooms and trying to learn all their secrets was normal to us. Maybe we all just did things that seemed perfectly reasonable to us at the time, even if deep down we knew that these things were wrong, or that other people wouldn’t understand or agree with us.

  I shook my head. “Well, you did a good job. I thought there was a Reaper trying to kill me because of what happened to Jasmine.”

  Oliver’s gaze sharpened. “What did you have to do with Jasmine?”

  I sat there and told him all about Jasmine faking her own murder, trying to sacrifice Morgan to Loki, and how I’d gotten caught up in the middle of it all. The Spartan had just told me his secret. I figured it was only fair to tell one of mine. Besides, Oliver had helped save me by texting Logan and telling him we were in trouble. Then, after Preston had stormed off after me and Logan, Oliver had texted Nickamedes and the other professors and told them what was going on. Maybe he hadn’t used his Spartan fighting skills, but Oliver was still a hero.

  Oliver looked at me with new interest after I finished my story. “Logan always said you were kick-ass, but I didn’t really believe him—until now.”

  “Why? Because most of the time I don’t know the end of a sword from the back of my hand?”

  “Something like that.”

  We grinned at each other.

  After a moment, my smile faded. This time, I was the one who looked down and picked at the bed sheet. “So ... Logan thinks that I’m kick-ass?”

  Oliver winced. “I’m, uh, really not supposed to say anything about that.”

  I stared at him with narrowed eyes. “Spill it, Spartan.”

  For a second I thought he wasn’t going to answer me, but then he sighed. “Yeah, Logan thinks that you’re kick-ass. He talks about you all the time. The boy is totally obsessed with you, Gwen.”

  “So why is he with Savannah instead of me?” The jagged edges of my heart scraped together in my chest as I asked the question, but I wanted to know why—I needed to know why.

  “Logan has a problem with letting girls get close to him. I mean, really, really close to him and not just for—” Oliver bit off his words.

  “Sex?” I asked in a wry
tone.

  He blushed a little. “Yeah, sex. I think you scare Logan, because he already cares so much about you. If he let you get closer to him, he’d be a total goner.”

  I didn’t ask Oliver why Logan wouldn’t let a girl get close to him. I knew the answer had something to do with that horrible memory I’d seen—the one of a young Logan standing over the dead, bloody bodies of his mother and sister.

  “So ... are we cool?” Oliver said, interrupting my thoughts.

  “About you scaring the shit out of me?”

  He gulped and nodded.

  I grinned. “Yeah, we’re cool.”

  Oliver hesitated. “And about Kenzie and how I feel about him—”

  This time, I cut him off. “It’s your secret. You keep it as long as you need to, and I’ll do the same. But if you ever need somebody to talk to, I’m here. I’m pretty good at listening.” My grin widened. “Since, you know, I’m all kick-ass and stuff.”

  Oliver snorted and rolled his eyes, like he wished he’d never told me that. Yeah, I was totally going to get some mileage out of Logan’s comment. After a moment, Oliver stretched out his closed fist toward me.

  “Friends?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  It occurred to me then that something unexpected and good had come out of this whole mess. I wouldn’t want to face down another Reaper anytime soon. Okay, okay, I wouldn’t want to battle another Reaper ever, but this time, I thought the battle had been worth the reward.

  I leaned forward and bumped my fist against Oliver’s. “Definitely friends.”

  Chapter 24

  Oliver and I left the infirmary and went out to face the others.

  Professor Metis, Coach Ajax, and Nickamedes wanted to question both of us, along with Logan, about what had happened in the construction site, so we all trooped into an office next to the infirmary. The grilling went on for about an hour. I told the whole story three times, from beginning to end, with a few small changes. Namely, that Preston had confessed to trying to run me over and shooting the arrow at me in the Library of Antiquities.