Midnight Frost

Daphne shouted and loosed another arrow.
    Vivian and her roc managed to avoid the second arrow, as well.
    “Get us out of here!” Agrona screamed again. “Now!”
    This time, Vivian listened to her. She slapped the leather reins down against the roc’s back. The creature let out another loud, screaming cry before it flapped its wings, zoomed up into the sky, and disappeared.
     
    I waited a few moments to make sure that Vivian and Agrona weren’t going to come back for another strike, then turned to Logan. He’d gotten back up onto his feet, although he was holding his hand to his side.
    I hurried over to him. “Are you okay?”
    He smiled, although I could see the pain in his eyes. “I’ll live, Gypsy girl. Just a little scratch.”
    “Are you sure? Let me take a look at it—”
    “No!” he said, violently twisting away before I could touch him. “Don’t touch me! Just . . . don’t.”
    I stood there, my hand stretched out toward him. Logan must have seen the hurt in my face because he blew out a breath.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just . . . I’m sorry. I’ll be okay. Really, I will be. Nothing to worry about.”
    I dropped my hand and stared at him, not sure what to do, not sure what to say. This was the moment I’d longed for ever since he’d left. To see Logan again. But now that he was here, now that we were face-to-face, I realized things still weren’t right between us—and I didn’t know how to make them that way again.
    “Gwen! Gwen!” My friends’ voices echoed through the ruins.
    A second later, they were all crowding around me and Logan. Daphne, Carson, Oliver, Alexei, Ajax, Rachel, even Rory, who shoved a bloody, bruised, and disheveled Covington along in front of her.
    My eyes scanned each one of them. Except for Daphne, everybody had some lumps, bumps, and bruises. Carson was limping and using his staff to stand upright, as though he’d twisted his ankle, while Ajax’s right arm appeared to be broken from the awkward way the coach was holding it against his side and grimacing. Rachel and Oliver both had bloody faces and scraped knuckles, and blood dripped from a series of deep cuts on Alexei’s left arm. But no one seemed to be seriously injured. At least, nothing Daphne couldn’t take care of with her healing magic until we could get back to the academy. I let out a quiet sigh of relief that no one had been hurt worse.
    “Are you okay?” Daphne asked.
    “I’m fine. Just a little beat up, bloody, and bruised. Nothing to worry about,” I said, echoing Logan’s words.
    Once they realized I was okay, they all looked at Logan, who shifted under the weight of their curious gazes. Everyone seemed surprised to see him—except Oliver.
    Oliver saw me watching him and winced. I thought of all the times he’d been texting on his phone the past few days. I’d thought he’d been talking to Kenzie back at the academy, but now, I knew better.
    I narrowed my eyes. “You were texting with Logan this whole time. That’s why you were so certain he hadn’t been captured by Reapers. You knew he was here.”
    A guilty flush crept up Oliver’s neck, but he didn’t say anything.
    “Um, hello. Totally lost right now. Who is this guy?” Rory asked, jerking her thumb at Logan. “And why are you all looking at him like you’ve just seen a ghost?”
    Logan winced, but he stared at her. “I’m Logan Quinn.”
    Rory’s brow furrowed in confusion, but after a moment, her face brightened. “Oh. You’re the guy who went all Reaper on Gwen and tried to kill her. Right?”
    “Yeah,” Logan muttered. “That’s me.”
    Rory opened her mouth, but Daphne elbowed the other girl in the side and shot her a warning look. Rory glared at her and took a step forward, like she was going to shove Daphne, but Rachel stepped between them.
    “That’s enough,” she said, her eyes darting around the ruins as if she expected more Reapers to appear at any second. “We need to get out of here—right now.”
    Oliver gestured at the Reapers’ bodies. “But what about them? Don’t you want us to check them? They might be able to give us a clue as to where Vivian and Agrona went.”
    Ajax shook his head. “There’s no time. Vivian and Agrona could come back with reinforcements, not to mention the snow that’s going to start coming down soon. We need to get off the mountain and back to the academy as quickly as possible. So let’s move.”
    We all hurried to grab our backpacks and other