Hands shaking, I reached forward and grabbed hold of the branch. I didn’t get much of a vibe off the broken piece—it was just wood, after all—but the wolf let out a low, warning growl. For a second, I thought it was going to reach up with its other paw and rip my throat open with its sharp, black claws. Instead, the creature put its head back down, burying its muzzle in the snow, and closed its eyes, bracing itself for what it knew I was going to do.
“Here goes nothing,” I muttered.
I shoved the branch through the wolf’s leg. It took all the strength and bravery I had to force the wood through the creature’s muscle and out the other side, but I did it. Then I grabbed the bloody stick and threw it as far away as I could. The broken branch hit one of the flattened trees and fluttered to the snow.
The Fenrir wolf let out a horrible, horrible howl, and before I could blink, I was on my back in the snow, with the monster on top of me, its paws as heavy as lead weights on my chest. I froze, staring up into its bloodred eyes. The wolf leaned closer, its breath hot, heavy, and sour on my face. I tensed, waiting for it to sink its teeth into me... .
The wolf leaned forward and licked my cold cheek.
Its tongue was wet, heavy, and as rough as sandpaper against my skin, but the wolf’s touch was gentle enough. My psychometry kicked in the second it licked me, and I got a series of flashes off it, mostly of the avalanche and all the snow slamming into its body just like it had mine. But there was also a warmer, softer feeling in the mix, a sense that the wolf was actually ... grateful to me for getting the branch out of its leg. For helping it when I could have just crawled away and left it here alone and injured in the snow.
The wolf stared down at me, paws still on my chest, its shaggy tail thumping from side to side and spraying us both with snow. It seemed like ... it expected me to do something. Maybe my mind was completely gone, because there was only one thing I could think of right now that might satisfy it. I reached up and awkwardly patted the side of its head, since that was all I could reach.
“Nice puppy,” I whispered, and passed out.
Chapter 14
“Gwen! Gwen Frost!”
Someone shouting my name snapped me out of the blackness that I’d been drifting along in. I opened my eyes and realized that I was still outside on my back in what was left of the crushed, snowy thicket.
But I wasn’t cold.
Sometime while I’d been unconscious, the Fenrir wolf had lain down lengthwise next to me. It was longer than I was tall, and it had wrapped its thick, shaggy tail around my legs, like I was a cute, wayward puppy that it was cuddling with. I turned my head and almost bumped my nose into the wolf’s. The creature blinked at me, like it had been asleep, too, then yawned, showing me each and every one of its sharp, pointed teeth. It could have seriously used a breath mint.
Snuggling with a wolf? That was kind of weird. All right, really weird. But since the creature hadn’t tried to, you know, eat me, I wasn’t going to complain. Not one little bit. Still, I slowly scooted away from it. No point in tempting fate, the gods, or whatever crazy thing was at work here.
“Gwen!” the shout came again. This time I realized it was a man’s voice. “Can you hear me?”
“Over here!” I shouted back, although my voice came out as more of a low, strained rasp. “I’m over here!”
Silence. For a second I wondered if he’d even heard my hoarse cry, but then—
“I heard her! She’s alive!”
Scuffles sounded, and through the pulverized pine trees, I spotted someone in a black jacket running toward me, sending up sprays of snow in every direction. I turned and looked back at the wolf.
“I think you’d better go now,” I said. “They wouldn’t like you being here.”
I don’t know if the Fenrir wolf understood my words or not, but the creature rose to its feet. I noticed that its right ear had a bloody, jagged V in it, like a piece of it had been torn off during the avalanche. The creature leaned down and gently butted me with its head. I hesitated, then reached up and stroked its silky ear. My psychometry kicked in, and once again, the wolf’s warm gratitude filled my mind. Maybe it was my imagination, but the wolf almost seemed to—to rumble with pleasure at me petting it. Yeah, that was kind of weird, too, especially since I’d never thought of the wolf as anything but a mythological monster, a nightmare come to life.
“Gwen!” the shout came again, closer and louder this time.
The wolf let out another happy rumble, then loped off through the trees, heading away from the sound of the approaching voice. It limped a little on its injured leg, but it still moved quicker than I could ever dream of.
I put my head back down on the snow and tried to ignore the tremors that shook my body and the fact that my teeth clattered together like dried up bones. I’d just petted a Fenrir wolf—and lived. How twisted was that? Daphne would have probably thought it was wicked cool. I was just happy I’d survived.
Without the wolf to help keep me warm, the cold quickly seeped into my body. I knew I should fight the icy numbness, but I just didn’t have the strength. Not right now. I’d just started to drift off to sleep again when Coach Ajax burst into the thicket, his big, burly body tearing through the broken trees like they weren’t even there. He dropped to one knee in the snow beside me.
“Gwen?” he asked in a tight, concerned voice. “Are you all right?”
“I’ve definitely been better,” I said, and passed out again.
I was out of it for a while after that. I tried to stay awake, really, I did. You would think it would have been easy, given all the shouting, noise, and general commotion. But time after time, my eyes slid shut, and I just didn’t have the energy to stop them. All I got to see of my dramatic rescue were these little snapshots whenever I woke up for a minute or two.
Coach Ajax carrying me out of the trees and putting me on a stretcher that was attached to the back of a snowmobile. Professor Metis wrapping me in warm thermal blankets to help get my body temperature back up where it should be. Even Nickamedes was there, throwing the snowmobile into gear and racing down the mountain faster than I thought the librarian would ever dare to drive.
Finally, though, the cold, wind, and noise faded away, replaced by soft, soothing, quiet warmth. I dreamed then—strange dreams about all sorts of things. Well, they weren’t really dreams so much as disjointed images and old memories, not all of which were my own.
I’d had these sorts of dreams before. Thanks to my Gypsy gift, I never forgot anything that I saw or felt when I touched an object and got a vibe off it. Sometimes, when I went to sleep, my mind randomly surfed through other people’s memories, other people’s feelings. Usually I saw things that I’d already experienced, thanks to my magic. Other times the images were completely new. I didn’t always notice every little thing when I touched an object and flashed on it. But all the information was floating around in my mind, and sometimes my subconscious kicked in and showed me what I’d missed.
Either way, it was like watching a movie in my head, and more often than not, I felt like Alice roaming through Wonderland and staring at all the curious things around her.
This time was no different. One after another, various flickers, flashes, and flares of memory filled my mind. The arrow quivering in the bookcase beside my head at the Library of Antiquities. The shriek of the calliope music from the Winter Carnival turning into the roar of the avalanche. The Fenrir wolf sitting in the snow staring at me with its red, red eyes. Even my mom, climbing into her car.
Somehow I knew this last memory was from the night my mom had been killed by a drunk driver—and I was watching her get into her car for the very last time before the accident. But the really bizarre thing was that it was a memory I shouldn’t even have. I hadn’t been there the night my mom had left the police station—or touched anything that would give me a vibe about the accident. At least, not that I knew of, and I think I would have remembered that, even in my weird, twisted dreams.
“Mom?” I mumbled.
My mom opened her car door and slid inside. Cold, sweaty panic filled me, and I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I had to stop her. I had to tell her to stay at the police station and not drive home tonight. If only she would stay put, she wouldn’t be T-boned by that damn drunk driver. She wouldn’t die and leave me and Grandma Frost by ourselves.
I raced toward my mom, my sneakers smacking against the cracked pavement, but the closer I got to her car, the fuzzier the image got, until the vehicle just faded away completely—with my mom still inside it. I stopped, gasping for air, and my heart throbbed with a dull, familiar, bitter ache. I whirled around and around, but there was no one else in the parking lot—and nothing but blackness all around me. Why did my mom always keep leaving me? Why couldn’t she stay with me for just a little while? Why was I always the one who was left behind?
“I think she’s finally coming out of it.” A soft voice interrupted my dream.
The blackness vanished, and my eyes fluttered open.
I was lying on a hard, lumpy hospital bed. To my left, a complicated-looking machine chirped out a steady tune in time to the green, squiggly lines that skipped up and down on a monitor. My heart rate, I supposed. Blankets covered me from neck to ankle, and I felt several heating pads trapped between my back and the bed. I tried to move and found that I was wrapped up tighter than a mummy. It took me several seconds to wiggle my hands out of the tight cocoon and sit up.
Everything in the room was white—white walls, white floors, white ceiling, even the blankets piled on top of me were white. The lack of color worried me, and for a second I thought I was still stuck in the snowbank before I was able to shake off my confusion.
My eyes skipped around the rest of the room, but there wasn’t much to see—except for the statue. The stone figure perched on a long table directly across from my bed, turned so its eyes stared straight into mine. It was the same statue of Skadi that I’d noticed in the lobby and then earlier today at the outdoor carnival. Only this time, the Norse winter goddess’s lips curved down, as though she was disappointed I’d survived the avalanche and was here in the infirmary, instead of buried in a cold, snowy grave. I pulled the blankets back up to my chin and looked away.
Footsteps scuffed on the floor, and Professor Metis stepped into the room. Faint lines grooved into her forehead, and weary worry darkened her green eyes. The professor looked all tired and used up, like she’d been the one out in the avalanche instead of me.
“How are you feeling, Gwen?” Metis asked in a soft voice.
“Fine,” I said. “I feel fine.”
The weird thing was that I really did feel fine. All the aches, pains, bruises, and scratches I’d gotten during the avalanche had vanished. In fact, I felt like I could hop out of bed right now and do a round of weapons training with the Spartans—and win. Which totally wasn’t like me at all.
“Of course you feel fine, Gwendolyn,” Nickamedes said in a snide tone, entering the room behind the professor. “Since Aurora just spent the better part of an hour healing you.”
Aurora? It took me a second to realize that he meant Professor Metis. Aurora, so that was her first name. Pretty. I liked it.
“Did you—did you touch me?” I asked her. “When you healed me?”
If she had, it might help explain all the crazy dreams I’d had. Although I still wasn’t sure where that memory of my mom had come from. Could it have been from Metis? She and my mom had been best friends when they were kids, so she had to have tons of memories of my mom. But the images I’d seen had been from the night my mom had died, when her car had been hit by a drunk driver. Surely, Metis would have told me if she’d been there that night. What reason would she have to keep it a secret? My head started to ache from trying to figure everything out.
Metis shook her head. “I didn’t know if you’d want that or not, Gwen, given your psychometry, so I didn’t actually touch you. It’s more difficult, but I can heal people just by being in close proximity to them, sort of by pushing my aura into theirs and feeding them my energy until they’re well again.”
The way she described it made me think of Daphne and the pink sparks that always flashed around her fingertips. The Valkyrie had once told me that the color of her magic was tied to her aura and personality. I wondered if Daphne would have the same healing power that Metis did when the Valkyrie’s magic finally quickened.
“So what happened?” I asked. “Up on the mountain?”
“What do you remember?” Metis asked, her voice much softer and kinder than Nickamedes’s was.
I thought back. “Well, the chair lift was on the fritz, and I was slogging down the slope to the hotel when I heard some kind of explosion. I looked up, and there were flames dancing all over the top of the mountain. Then, a few seconds later, the avalanche started, and all the snow began sliding down the mountain, coming right at me.”
I shuddered and hugged my arms around myself, as if that would somehow banish the horrible memory from my mind. I wouldn’t need my Gypsy gift to recall the avalanche. No matter how many other bad things happened to me, I’d remember the roar of the snow for the rest of my life. The shadow of it blocking out everything else, and the cold, cruel force of it trying to pull me under and bury me—forever.
Across from me, I noticed the statue of Skadi was now smiling, as if the stone figure could somehow hear what I was thinking. Creepy.
Then another awful thought filled my mind. “No one else was hurt, were they? By the avalanche?”
“No,” Metis said. “All the other students were either at the carnival or at the hotel. You were the only one walking down the slope at the time.”
I sighed with relief. No one else had gotten hurt. Good. That was good.
Metis and Nickamedes looked at each other. The librarian raised his black eyebrows, like he was asking the professor a question. Metis shook her head the tiniest bit, telling the librarian no to whatever it was he wanted.
“What?” I asked. “What’s going on? The two of you aren’t telling me something. Teachers and parents always have that guilty look when they’re holding something back.”
Metis drew in a breath. “You’re right, Gwen. I really don’t know how to say this, but there is some ... evidence that the avalanche wasn’t an accident.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about? Sure, I saw the flames and heard the explosion or whatever, but there has to be some kind of explanation right? The chair lift catching on fire or something?”
Nickamedes stared at me, his eyes as cold and hard as chips of ice. “Oh, there’s an explanation, all right, Gwendolyn. Mainly, that someone caused the avalanche—on purpose.”
Chapter 15
Despite all the craziness that had been going on the past few days, Nickamedes’s words still stunned me.
“You think it was—it was deliberate?” I asked, cold dread pooling in the bottom of my stomach. “Why?”
Nickamedes stared down his nose at me. “Mountains do not blow themselves up, Gwendolyn. After we got you down here safely to the infirmary, Ajax and I went back up the mountain. We found some burn marks and other things that indicate that someone deliberately set off an explosion at the top of the mountain, which was what caused the avalanche.”
The Reaper. I knew it was the mysterious Reaper who was trying to kill me. First, the SUV outside my Grandma Frost’s house, then the arrow in the library, and now, the Fenrir wolf and the avalanche. Somehow, the Reaper had seen me leave the carnival and start down the mountain. I didn’t know if he’d planned the explosion and the avalanche in advance or not, but he’d seen an opportunity to kill me, and he’d taken it.
And he’d almost succeeded. If I’d hadn’t run for the pine trees, if I’d been just a second or two slower in getting there, if I hadn’t tied myself to the tree ...
If, if, if.
If any of those things had gone wrong, the avalanche would have swept me away—forever.
What was even
worse was the fact that this time the Reaper hadn’t cared who else he might have hurt. If there had been anyone else going down the mountain the same time I had been, if Daphne and Carson had decided to have lunch with Preston and me ... My stomach twisted, and I thought I was going to be sick.
The door to the infirmary banged open, and Daphne barged inside, pink sparks of magic flashing around her, like a thousand tiny fireflies winking on and off.
“Sorry, Aurora,” Coach Ajax said, sticking his head into the room. “I couldn’t keep her out any longer.”
“Gwen!” Daphne said, rushing over to me.
She bumped Nickamedes out of the way, her Valkyrie strength pushing the librarian back several steps. He gave her a sour look, and his mouth pinched down into a frown.
Daphne grabbed my hand, and her concern for me flooded my body. It was a nice feeling—in a panicked, anxious kind of way.
“I’m fine,” I said, squeezing her hand tight. “Really, I’m fine.”
Her face relaxed a little bit. “You’d damn well better be. You’re my best friend.”
“And you’re mine,” I whispered back, hot tears stinging my eyes. “You’re my best friend, too.”
Daphne gripped my hand even tighter, her Valkyrie strength crunching my bones together, but I didn’t pull away. I knew I’d have bruises tomorrow, but I didn’t care. Right now, I was happy to let her warm, happy relief flood my body. We stayed like that for a few seconds, before the Valkyrie’s gaze flicked around the room.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “What’s with the big professor powwow?”
Metis smoothed a stray piece of her black hair back into her bun. “Nickamedes and I were just filling Gwen in on what happened during the avalanche and what we think might have caused it.”
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