Touch of Sibyl

Chapter Eight

The first thing I was aware of was the voices. Low, steady voices that seemed to bore into my skull like a dentist's whiny drill. They kept on talking, one after another. Each one sent another spike of pain through my head.

"... obviously after the Bowl; Jessy just got in the way... ."

"... but why kill her? It doesn't make sense... ."

"... Chitauries don't have to make sense... ."

"Shut up." I mumbled.

The voices stopped, and I started to sink back down into the quiet blackness--

"Ava?" a familiar voice murmured.

"Mom?" I mumbled again.

A hand smoothed back my hair. "No, Ava. Not your mom. Can you open your eyes for me, please?"

Then I remembered. My mom was dead. Killed by some drunk driver. And I was stuck here at Warrior Freaks R Us. My heart squeezed in on itself, aching even more than my head did, and a hot tear trickled out of the corner of my eye before I could stop it. I missed my mom so much. I missed everything so much. My old school, my old friends, and everything else that I'd lost just because I'd wanted to know another girl's secret--

"Ava?" the voice asked again, more insistent this time. "Come on. Open your eyes for me, please."

My head still hurt, but after a few seconds of concentrating I managed to crack open my eyes, letting the light trickle in.

Black hair, bronze skin, green eyes, silver glasses. Professor Tin's hazy face swam before me, and I had to blink several times before she came into focus.

"Professor Tin? What's going on?" I asked, struggling to sit up.

Tin put her hand under my back and helped me up into a sitting position. My brain swam around inside my skull for a few seconds before it snapped back into place and the world stopped spinning.

To my surprise, I was still in the Library of Antiquities, although I was now lying on top of one of the tables instead of in the middle of the cold marble floor.

Other people were in here now, too. Like Coach Jack, the big, burly, biker-looking, tattooed guy who oversaw the athletic programs and trained all the kids. Jack stood a few feet away talking to Nickimedes. The coach's onyx skin glistened under the library's golden lights, and his chiseled muscles twitched and jumped with every move he made. He looked like the kind of guy who could break concrete blocks with his bare hands.

As if sensing my stare, the two men turned and walked over to us. They both nodded to Professor Tin, who nodded back.

"Ava." Metis said, putting her hand on my shoulder. "I'm glad to see you're feeling better."

"Professor? What are you doing here?" I asked, still confused.

Tin gestured at the two men. "Jack, Nickimedes, and I make up the academy's security council. We're responsible for the safety of everyone at Mythics, for protecting students and staff from Chitauri of Chaos and other threats. So we really need to know what happened here tonight. Do you think you can tell me what you saw? It's very important, Ava. We don't want anyone else to get ... hurt."

Hurt. Well, I supposed that was a polite way of saying what had happened to Jessy, instead of the ugly truth-the fact that she'd been brutally attacked.

Their eyes fixed on my face. Tin's gaze green and understanding, Coach Jack's black and hard, Nickimedes's blue and suspicious.

I drew in a breath and told the three of them about working in the library. How I'd been shelving the last of the books when I'd heard a crashing sound. How I'd thought it was just some books falling over, only to come out of the stacks and find Jessy sprawled underneath the smashed glass case with her throat cut and blood everywhere.