Starcrossed (34 page)

smacked herself on the forehead when she saw that her two-dayold

phone had been ruined by the salt water. She heard Claire

yelling at her mother in Japanese as she stomped upstairs to her

room. Claire’s bedroom light switched on, and she slammed her

door shut behind her.

It was a terrible way to come out to Claire, and Helen was vaguely

aware of that fact as she floated toward the window and saw her

best friend sitting on her bed with her mouth hanging open. Helen

waited for her to scream, but when Claire didn’t, she motioned to

the locked window.

“Let me in,” she said urgently through her chattering teeth.

“Oh, damn it. You are a vampire,” Claire said. She had a disappointed,

but completely unsurprised expression on her face.

“What the hell? No! Just open the window, Gig, I’m freezing!”

Helen said in a loud whisper. Claire dragged herself off her bed

and walked to the window with her shoulders slumping dejectedly.

“I know it’s popular and all that, but I really don’t want you to

suck my blood. It’s just so unsanitary!” Claire whined pitifully as

she opened the window.

She put a protective hand over her bare throat, but she still let

Helen inside despite the danger, and that fact was not lost on

Helen.

“Oh, for the love of Pete, I’m not a frigging vampire, Gig! See? No

fangs! No crazy eyes.” Helen lifted up her upper lip to expose entirely

normal incisors, and then opened her eyes extra wide to

show a complete lack of bloodlust.

“All right! But it was a valid question, considering the circumstances!”

Claire replied defensively as Helen wafted through the

window and then transitioned into the gravity-state in front of her.

“All right! I agree, it’s a valid concern,” Helen conceded, but

something was wrong. “I just flew in your window. Why aren’t you

more surprised?”

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“I’ve known you could fly since we were kids. I even pushed you

off your roof once to make sure. Sorry about that, by the way,” she

said sheepishly.

“You did push me!” Helen breathed, suddenly remembering the

whole incident in a flash.

They had been maybe seven years old and goofing off on Helen’s

widow’s walk. Helen fell, but she never hit the ground. She’d sort

of settled to earth like a leaf falling from a tree. Claire swore up and

down that Helen had slipped, but Helen never remembered losing

her balance, and because of the way Claire looked at her for weeks

afterward, Helen had suspected something fishy before putting it

out of her mind. Now it all made sense. Helen stared at Claire,

speechless.

“What? I didn’t think you’d die or anything! Long story short—I

saw you not fall down my stairs the day before when you actually

did slip, so I needed to test my theory,” Claire said as if it all made

perfect sense.

“By pushing me off the roof?”

“You have no idea how angry I’ve been with you since then for

keeping it from me! You can fly, Lennie, and you never told me!”

Claire yelled, completely shifting the argument away from herself,

but Helen decided that she should allow it, considering Claire’s obvious

hurt.

“I didn’t know until a few weeks ago!” Helen insisted.

“You are such a liar!” Claire said, jabbing a fist against her hip.

“It’s true! My mom put a curse on me when I was a baby so I

wouldn’t be able to use my . . . Aw, crap! It would be so much easier

if I was a vampire. Then you’d just understand!” Helen huffed,

frustrated and feeling misunderstood. She paced around for a bit,

raking her fingers through her tangled hair, before she was able to

put her thoughts in order.

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“Hergie made you read the Iliad, right? You remember how all

the heroes had superhuman strength and they could do all kinds of

things that normal people can’t?” she asked.

“Yeah. That’s because they were demigods. But that wasn’t real,”

Claire said like it was obvious. Then she got it. “Oh, my . . .”

“I’m one of those hero’s descendents. We’re called Scions, and I

have a whole bunch of powers—stuff you wouldn’t believe. But I

had no idea what I was or what I could do until just days ago. I

wish I could tell you everything, but I don’t know what I can or

can’t say. Please, Gig. I know it sounds insane, but I’ve never lied to

you. You just have to believe me.”

“Okay,” Claire said, nodding her head once and looking Helen

directly in the eye, as if she finally felt like she was getting the respect

she deserved. “I’ve had this mostly figured out for a while

now, you know. You found out that you were a demigod—how cool

is that by the way?—when the Delos family moved here. Because

they’re like you. I knew that as soon as I saw them. I just didn’t

know what you all were.”

“See?” Helen said with a flustered smile. “That’s why I had to tell

you, I need to be able to talk to you about all this so you can help

me figure it all out. But you can’t tell the Delos family I told you

until I find out if that’s okay or not.”

“It doesn’t matter. I can bluff, or pretend I guessed on my own. I

sort of did, anyway,” Claire said with a satisfied smile. Then

something occurred to her and made her switch to a more serious

attitude. “Where have you been, by the way? And why are you such

a damn mess?”

Helen was about to explain what happened between her and

Hector when Claire’s phone buzzed. Claire checked the text and

then started typing in a response.

“It’s Jason. I have to tell him you’re here, he’s been looking for

you all day,” Claire told Helen. The phone buzzed again.

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“It’s him.” She read the screen. “He wants me to keep you here.

He’s on his way over.”

“No! I’m not ready to talk to any of them yet!” Helen exclaimed,

backing away.

“Len, he’s really worried about you, they all are.”

“I gotta get out of here,” Helen stammered. She ran a hand over

her face and turned for the window.

“Where are you going?” Claire asked, trying to block Helen’s path

with an outstretched arm. “I’ll tell him to go away if you want, but

you have to let me know that you’ll be okay.”

“I’m just going home. Promise you won’t let him follow me,

okay?”

Claire promised and gave Helen a hug. Then Helen jumped out

the window, transitioning states in midair. She heard Claire gasp

as she flew away. A minute later Helen was landing in her front

yard and heading right for the stairs to take a shower and warm up.

He was waiting for her behind the front door. He swept her feet

out from under her before he even bothered to slam the front door

shut. Everything went completely dark, darker than any night, any

blindfold, or any closed room that Helen had ever experienced. She

was enveloped in a disorienting blackness that made her feel dizzy

and cut off from the rest of the world that she couldn’t even remember

the layout of her own house anymore. Where were the

stairs? The furniture? She didn’t know. It was as if she had fallen

into a black hole.

Helen was so shocked she didn’t have time to roll over before she

felt a very large man cover her from behind. He took her head

between his hands and wrenched it to the side, trying to break her

neck. She grabbed on to his wrists and pulled them outward, trying

to get him to release his grip, but he had leverage on his side. Her

neck muscles strained dangerously, and she felt herself start to

panic for the second time in an hour. But it was that recent brush

with death that informed her as she kicked and struggled. The

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thought of using her lightning made her stomach turn, but she

knew she had no choice.

Helen felt the current start in her belly. It was naturally trying to

arc out of her toward the ground, and all she had to do was release

it. Untrained as she was, she let the bolt go, and it shot down her

legs uselessly, causing her to convulse. In her desperation, she got

the last few volts to run up to her hands and jump across her skin

into the man’s wrists.

For a brief moment the blue spark lit up the room with a flash,

and she saw his eyes widen in surprise. Then she felt him shake

with the current, and heard him scream as he was electrocuted.

Helen smelled burnt hair and ozone like a calling card from her

darkest childhood nightmare. She felt what must have been half

her body’s energy empty out of her, leaving her as weak as a kitten.

The burden of the large man on top of her grew intolerably heavy,

and she knew she had to get out from under him before he recovered

or she would be no better off than she was when he’d had

her by the head. While her attacker was still shaking, she managed

to kick some of his weight off of her, and as the barest amount of

light was allowed to creep back into the room, she finally got a look

at him.

The gleaming blond curls and the thick body were Hector’s, and

for a moment she feared she had killed him while he might have

been trying to teach her a lesson. She leaned right over him to see

if he was still breathing. Hanging inches away from his face in the

regular darkness of night, she saw it was Creon, but it was too late.

The moment she recognized him he opened his eyes and grabbed

her to his chest in a deadly bear hug.

Helen screamed and struggled. She reached down into her belly

looking for the current, but all that was left was weak static. She

had already discharged all the voltage stored up in her muscles.

The release of all that energy had left her weak and vulnerable. Her

arms and legs had no strength, and she crumpled under Creon’s

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renewed attack like a paper bag. He fell on top of her, pinning her

to the ground as he pulled a bronze knife out of his belt.

“Such a shame, preciosa. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever

seen. Almost too perfect to cut,” he grunted into her ear. “But

Atlantis . . .”

She squirmed her neck away from his lips, shivers of disgust running

across her skin. Then he pushed off of her, raising his knife up

high over his head. He paused, and for a brief moment Helen

thought he wouldn’t do it, but she saw his eyes harden. He brought

it down directly over her heart.

Creon’s knife made a dozen pinging noises as it shattered and

scattered off of her skin. He had just a moment to register what

had happened before a foot connected with his head and sent him

flying off of Helen.

Lucas jumped on Creon with a vicious snarl, and the two of them

began to fight so fast Helen could barely see their hands move.

They punched and grabbed and gouged at each other, both of them

changing from a rapid-fisted boxing to some kind of strange wrestling

in which they tried to bend each other’s joints in the wrong

direction. Helen barely had time to roll onto her knees before it

was over. Cornered and still weak from having been electrocuted,

Creon cloaked himself inside an eerie shadow and ran at top speed

out of the house as soon as he could put even one inch in between

himself and Lucas, who chased him halfway across Helen’s lawn

before turning around and coming back inside.

“Are you okay?” Lucas practically shouted.

“Yeah, I just can’t . . .” Helen said as she tried to stand and then

fell back down on the ground with a woozy thump.

“What did he do to you?” Lucas asked, his voice high-pitched

with worry. He picked Helen up and tried to balance her so she

could stand on her own. “Are your legs broken?” He suddenly reclaimed

her weight as he frantically assessed the damage.

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“No, I just . . . Hector said to use my bolts to fight, and I did, but

they went the wrong way, I think,” she mumbled. She was confused

and seeing spots.

“Why can’t you stand?” Lucas asked as he tried to get her to take

her feet again. Her heart hurt from seeing Lucas’s beautiful face

and smelling his body and feeling his hands on her. She had a

vague sense where the ground was, but the whole world was falling

over, and she was too tired for this crap. She just couldn’t do this

anymore. She needed a nap.

The next thing she knew, Helen could taste something sweet on

her tongue. Honey. She opened her eyes all the way and saw that

she was sitting on the counter in her kitchen with Lucas standing

between her knees, holding her head up and tilted back as he

drizzled honey from a plastic bear.

“There you are,” he breathed through a small smile when she

looked at him. He looked back at her with so much tenderness

Helen had to remind herself that Lucas wasn’t really interested.

For the thousandth time she wondered what had happened to

make him push her away the way he had.

“Hi,” she said, her voice cracking like she’d just woken from a full

night’s sleep. “How’d you get here?”

“Cassie got a glimpse of Creon’s attack, but she didn’t know

where it was going to take place because all she could see was darkness.

I took a guess,” he said, brushing her hair back from her face