Touch of Frost (10 page)
Authors: Jennifer Estep
Chapter 8
My chance meeting with Logan Quinn spooked me so much that I practically ran all the way back to Styx Hall. It was almost eight o’clock now, and darkness had fully fallen on the academy. The golden glow from the street lamps that lined the walkways and huddled next to the buildings did little to banish the black shadows. Or maybe that was just because I’d stolen a laptop and other personal stuff from a dead girl’s room and now I was feeling all guilty about it.
I swiped my ID card through the machine and went inside the dorm. A few girls, Amazons mostly, hung out in the common area downstairs, texting on their cells, watching TV, or both. Once again, nobody paid any attention to me as I went up the stairs. I doubted they realized that I lived here at all.
My dorm room was the only one on the third floor, stuck in a separate little round turret that had been added onto the building for whatever reason. The walls were straight, although the roof rose up like a pyramid above my head. A couple of large picture windows were set into the turret, including one with a padded window seat that had an awesome view of the campus and the Appalachian Mountains that towered above it.
My room had the same stuff in it as Jasmine’s did—a bed, a desk, some bookcases, a tiny TV—although mine were nowhere near as nice or expensive as hers. Still, I liked it. Grandma Frost had helped me decorate it with all my stuff from home, like my posters of Wonder Woman, Karma Girl, and The Killers. My superthick, purple and gray plaid comforter covered my bed, along with the big, fluffy pillows that I liked, while several Swarovski crystal ornaments shaped like snowflakes dangled in the windows.
The snowflakes were an inside joke between us. With a last name like Frost, it was kind of inevitable. I couldn’t even remember when it had started, but every year for Christmas, Grandma gave me something with a snowflake on it and I did the same for her. Last year, I’d bought her a snowflake-patterned scarf, and she’d given me the snowflake ornaments in return.
They were my favorite things in the room, along with the picture of my mom that sat on my desk, right next to the latest comic books that I was reading.
I opened the small fridge tucked in at the foot of my bed and grabbed a carton of milk and some pieces of the pumpkin roll that Grandma Frost had sent me back to the academy with. Then, I fished Jasmine’s laptop out of my bag, along with the book and the photo that I’d taken from her room, and put everything on my scarred wooden desk. While I scarfed down the milk and the pumpkin treat with its sweet cream cheese filling, I plugged the laptop into the wall and waited for it to boot up.
It took
forever,
or maybe it just seemed that way because I was in such a hurry to start surfing through Jasmine’s files. Finally, the welcome screen popped up—and asked me for a password.
forever,
or maybe it just seemed that way because I was in such a hurry to start surfing through Jasmine’s files. Finally, the welcome screen popped up—and asked me for a password.
I finished off my milk and cracked my knuckles. Then, I flexed my fingers and put my hands down onto the keyboard, waiting for the vibes and flashes to hit me, to fill my mind the way they always did.
Nothing happened.
I frowned. No, that wasn’t quite true. Stuff happened. A couple of images of Jasmine sitting at her desk downloading music and shopping online flashed before my eyes. And I felt . . . satisfaction—the kind of smug satisfaction that came from getting exactly what you wanted no matter how expensive it was. Jasmine must have really been lusting after those cute black stiletto boots that she’d bought last week.
The problem was that I didn’t get the big whammy that I usually did when I touched someone’s stuff. Maybe I should have expected it. Computers were one of the everyday items that I could touch without getting much of a vibe off of, especially the ones in the library that were used by tons of kids. Maybe Jasmine just hadn’t used her laptop enough to leave much of an impression of herself behind. Maybe there wasn’t anything interesting on here. Maybe she didn’t have any deep, dark secrets.
Maybe I’d just broken into a dead girl’s dorm room for nothing.
I closed my eyes, reaching for my Gypsy gift once more, straining to see something, to feel something, anything that might give me a clue as to who had murdered Jasmine. Or at least what her password was so I could unlock her stupid computer.
I got a couple more images of Jasmine ordering stuff online—something that looked like a fancy knife or letter opener, along with a scarlet robe crusted with jewels. I got that same smug feeling of satisfaction, but that was it. Nothing else.
There wasn’t anything in the images that would tell me her password, which was what I really needed right now. I might be savvy enough to slip open a loose door lock, but I wasn’t computer literate enough to know how to break into someone’s system. I’d need help with that, which was a major, major problem. It wasn’t like I had a friend here at Mythos I could just call up and ask for a favor.
It wasn’t like I had any friends here at all.
But I’d come this far. I wasn’t going to let some stupid password stop me. So I fired up my own laptop and used it to log on to the academy Web site, clicking through the various pages and links until I found what I wanted—a list of all the kids in the Tech Club.
Mythos might be a place of magic, but it also happened to be inhabited by teenagers, some of whose parents owned computer companies and some of whom happened to be budding hackers themselves. For all the old-fashioned magic mumbo jumbo, the Powers That Were at the academy had realized that technology wasn’t going away and had gotten with the times. Hence the establishment of the Tech Club.
So all I had to do was find someone willing to help me crack Jasmine’s computer and keep quiet about it after the fact—
My eyes spied a name near the top of the alphabetical list. I blinked, making sure that I was seeing it right.
She
was in the Tech Club? Yes, she was, which meant that this whole thing might actually be easier than I’d thought. I looked at the name and sat there a minute, thinking about it.
She
was in the Tech Club? Yes, she was, which meant that this whole thing might actually be easier than I’d thought. I looked at the name and sat there a minute, thinking about it.
Then, I smiled. Oh yeah. This part was actually going to be
fun.
fun.
I stood in the back of the dining hall the next day at lunch, looking for her. Like everything else at the academy, the dining hall was
totally
pretentious. Instead of the long orange plastic tables at my old school, the Mythos cafeteria featured round tables covered with creamy white linens, fine china, and crystal vases full of fresh narcissus flowers. The tables were arranged around a large circular open-air garden that featured twisting grapevines, along with orange, olive, and almond trees. Marble statues of gods and goddesses like Dionysus and Demeter peeped through the greenery, watching the students eat. Suits of polished armor lined the walls, along with more oil paintings showing various mythological feasts. Somebody really cared about the ambiance in here, although I didn’t know why. It was like eating lunch in a museum.
totally
pretentious. Instead of the long orange plastic tables at my old school, the Mythos cafeteria featured round tables covered with creamy white linens, fine china, and crystal vases full of fresh narcissus flowers. The tables were arranged around a large circular open-air garden that featured twisting grapevines, along with orange, olive, and almond trees. Marble statues of gods and goddesses like Dionysus and Demeter peeped through the greenery, watching the students eat. Suits of polished armor lined the walls, along with more oil paintings showing various mythological feasts. Somebody really cared about the ambiance in here, although I didn’t know why. It was like eating lunch in a museum.
And the food? It was just as fancy and froufrou as everything else. We’re talking veal and liver and escargot and other stuff that I didn’t even recognize. Who wanted to scarf down slimy snails for lunch? Yucko. The salads were just about the only thing on the menu that I would even eat, and only because it was really hard to screw up raw vegetables. Still, the chefs at Mythos tried, always carving the carrots into elaborate curlicued shapes and fashioning the tomatoes into rosettes.
But the fanciest things were the desserts. Almost every one of them came in its own special serving bowl, was ridiculously small, and was served flambé. Seriously. A chef would come over and set your thumbnailsize chocolate-cherry soufflé on fire, if that’s how he thought it should be served. Whatever. I’d rather have a tin of Grandma Frost’s fresh-baked oatmeal raisin cookies any day. At least then I didn’t have to worry about getting my eyebrows singed off because I needed a sugar fix.
I’d finished eating my usual grilled chicken salad five minutes ago, and now I was looking for the person who was going to help me break into Jasmine’s laptop, even if she didn’t know it yet.
It took me another two minutes of scanning the crowd before I spotted her sitting on the far side of the dining hall, a book on the table in front of her, even though her black eyes were fixed on the band geek next to her. I wound my way through the tables, heading toward them.
“. . . and so you see, there’s lots of symbolism in
The Iliad,
” Carson Callahan lectured in a patient voice. “All you have to do is pick out your favorite god or hero and I’m sure I can help you come up with something to write your English lit paper on.”
The Iliad,
” Carson Callahan lectured in a patient voice. “All you have to do is pick out your favorite god or hero and I’m sure I can help you come up with something to write your English lit paper on.”
Daphne Cruz gave the object of her affection a dazzling smile that turned her from merely pretty into downright gorgeous. “You’re so smart, Carson. It’s all just gibberish to me.”
Daphne eased a little closer to the band geek and put her hand on his arm. Carson’s brown eyes widened behind his black glasses, and he blinked several times. The two of them were lost in their own little world.
I cleared my throat. “So sorry to interrupt.”
At the sound of my voice, they started and jumped back from each other, as though they’d been doing something they shouldn’t have. Daphne’s head snapped up to me, even though Carson kept staring at her.
“Then why are you?” Daphne asked in a low, ugly voice.
She tapped a nail on her book, and pink sparks flickered in the air. The Valkyrie was annoyed with me for interrupting her pseudodate with her crush.
I smiled at her. “Because I need to talk to you, Daphne. About that special project that we’ve been assigned for myth-history class.”
She frowned. “What project? You’re not even in my myth-history class—”
“You know. The one we talked about in the girls’ bathroom the other day. It was right after I told you about that charm bracelet that I found for Carson.” I looked at the band geek. “How did that work out for you, Carson? You and Leta?”
Despite his dusky skin, the band geek still flushed an interesting shade of purple-red. “Um, well, I haven’t actually, ah, done anything about that yet, Gwen.”
“Well, you’d better hurry,” I said. “The homecoming dance is Friday night. You wouldn’t want to go without a date, now would you?”
Daphne’s eyes narrowed, and her glossy pink lips pressed into a line that was so hard and thin that I couldn’t even see them in her face anymore.
“Carson,” Daphne said in a deceptively sweet voice. “I really do have to talk to Gwen. Maybe we can catch up later? Before last period and talk about my paper some more?”
“Sure,” Carson said.
Daphne and I kept staring at each other. Carson’s head swiveled back and forth between the two of us, not sure what was going on. Finally, though, after about thirty seconds of absolute silence, he got the idea that he should leave.
“Okay, then, I’ll just . . . go,” he said.
Carson stood up and started stuffing books and papers into his bag, before he looped the strap over his shoulder. He gave me another look before staring down at Daphne. The Valkyrie was too busy glaring at me to notice, but a sad, quiet longing crept into the band geek’s gaze as he looked at her. Sweet, but I didn’t have time for the Romeo and Juliet drama right now.
“Bye, Carson,” I said in a firm voice, prodding him on his way.
Carson snapped out of his silent Valkyrie worship. “Um, bye, Gwen.”
Carson gave Daphne one more longing look, then threaded his way through the tables and headed out of the dining hall.
I waited until Carson was out of sight before I sat down in his spot. Next to me, Daphne packed up her own books and papers as fast as she could, probably intending to leave me sitting here by myself since I’d driven off her crush.
“That was a cozy little scene,” I said in a mild voice. “I didn’t know you were such a flirt, Daphne.”
The Valkyrie gave me a look that would have cut glass. “I wasn’t flirting with Carson.”
“Oh, sure you were. You were practically batting your lashes at him. And that
hand-on-the-arm
move? A
classic
flirting technique. Executed very well, by the way. Did Morgan McDougall give you some tips? I hear that she’s quite popular with the guys.”
hand-on-the-arm
move? A
classic
flirting technique. Executed very well, by the way. Did Morgan McDougall give you some tips? I hear that she’s quite popular with the guys.”
Daphne glowered at me, but she didn’t deny any of it. She knew that there was no use, not after the confession she’d given me in the girls’ bathroom the other day. She sighed, leaned back in her chair, and crossed her arms over her chest.
“What do you want, Gwen Frost?” she snapped. “I’ve got an English lit paper to write, in case you didn’t hear.”
“I want you to help me with something.”
She let out an angry snort. “And what would that be?”
I looked around to make sure that no one was paying attention to us, then leaned forward. “I want you to help me break the password on Jasmine Ashton’s laptop.”
Daphne frowned, as though she didn’t understand what I’d just said. “Jasmine’s laptop? How would you even—”
Her black eyes widened. “You have it! You have her laptop! You dirty little thief!”
“Sshh!” I hissed, glancing around to make sure no one had heard her. “Not so loud. I’m trying to keep this on the down-low. But yeah, I have her laptop. And some other stuff, too.”
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