Touch of Sibyl

Chapter Thirteen

After class, I walked over to Styx Hall to wait for Danica Cruz to show up and help me crack Jessy Ashton's password like she'd promised. To my surprise, the blond Valkyrie was already sitting on the front steps of the dorm when I got there.

"You actually came," I said, walking up to where she was sitting.

She shrugged. "You didn't exactly give me a choice, did you, Ava? So let's get this over with."

I swiped my ID card through the scanner, opened the door, and gestured for Danica to follow me inside. "Come on in. My room's on the third floor."

I led Danica up the stairs to my room in the turret. I went inside, threw my bag on the bed, and sat down on my desk chair, right underneath my framed Wonder Woman poster.

Danica stood in the doorway, her black eyes scanning over everything just the way that I'd done in Jessy's room last night. For a moment, I looked at my things, seeing them with a new eye. My bed with its purple and gray comforter and plump pillows. The crystal snow flake ornaments in the windows throwing out tiny rainbows of color. The bookcases crammed full of fantasy titles. The stacks and stacks of comic books and graphic novels on my desk. The superhero posters plastered on the walls. The half-eaten pack of gummi bears on my nightstand that I'd noshed on last night before going to bed.

I cringed. Shit. I'd forgotten what a total geek nest my room was. Danica was the only other person who'd been in here besides me and Grandma, when she'd helped me move in two months ago. The Valkyrie was going to think that I was even more of a loser than she did already. Great.

After a minute of staring, Danica stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

"Where's Jessy's computer?" she asked.

I showed her where I'd set it up on my desk. "Right here."

I got up so Danica could sit in my chair and have easier access to the laptop. I perched on the bed while she opened up the computer and turned it on. When the system had booted up, the Valkyrie looked at the password screen for a few seconds before starting to type.

"All right, baby," Danica crooned. "Talk to Mama and tell me all your secrets... ."

Okay, that was a little weird. I didn't want to break her concentration, so I didn't point out the fact that the Valkyrie was talking to a machine. Instead, I leaned back on the bed, grabbed the bag of gummi bears, and prepared myself for a long wait.

Three minutes later, Danica hit a final key and pumped her fist. "Hah! Gotcha!"

I sat up. "You cracked it already?"

"Of course I cracked it already," she said in a smug voice. "It was just a simple password protection screen. It wasn't like Jessy had any kind of real security on her computer."

"Well then," I said, moving to stand behind Danica. "Let's see what's on it."

For the next ten minutes Danica surfed through all the files on the laptop. Most of them were totally boring. History reports, essays, and all the other homework that Mythics students had to do. Lots of music and high-end shopping sites in Jessy's Web-browsing history. She even had a database that was solely dedicated to cataloging and organizing all of her designer clothes, shoes, and handbags. Apparently, the Valkyrie liked to keep track of how many times she wore each one of her outfits-never more than once a month. Must be nice. All I had was a different-colored hoodie for every day of the week.

Then, Danica pulled up Jessy's personal, private e-mails-the ones that weren't posted on her Mythical Academy Web page for everyone to see. Now, those? They were way more interesting than anything else on the computer.