“All right,” I said. “As long as I’m not totally embarrassing myself.”
As we passed the ball around and tried to hit the basket, Tarren asked, “Can you believe the incredible BS Charles spouts sometimes? I mean, was he serious about those ‘Tips for Getting Along with Your Parents’?”
“My favorite was, ‘Don’t use sarcasm,’” I said, dribbling the ball then bouncing it to Johann who missed it. “The next time I’m in a fight with my dad, I’ll be sure to try that,” I said as sarcastically as possible.
“What about, ‘Use I statements, not you statements’?” Avis asked. He stole the ball from Johann and tried to bounce it between his legs, but ended up hitting the side of his ankle and sent the ball rolling across the court. Helios jogged over to get it.
“Does ‘I think you are annoying, Mom!’ count?” Tarren asked.
“What I find infuriating,” Helios said, as he double dribbled back toward us, “is this false message about celebrating yourself for who you are when in the next breath we are reminded of the retribution from the Council if we so much as dare to reveal our true natures.” He planted his feet and tried a two-pointer from the top of the key. The ball hit the rim and ricocheted to the side.
“Word, Bolden Goy!” Tarren said, then she stopped, looked at Avis and they both laughed.
“What’s that, baby, a non-Jew with lots of chutzpah?” he asked.
“I meant Golden Boy,” she said, still laughing. She held up her hand for a high five from Helios, but he stared angrily at the basket he just missed.
Johann retrieved the ball and stood on the free throw line. He cradled it near his belly then heaved it up in an underhand pitch. The ball soared past the basket and over the backboard. “Airball!” I yelled. Tarren wasn’t kidding. These guys really did suck. I got the ball and ran a wide circle to the right, evading Helios who tried to smack it away from me. I stopped, planted my feet, and aimed. By some miracle of physics, my ball swooshed through the net. Before I could stop myself, I was jumping and hollering. I did a toe-touch then pumped my fist in the air and yelled, “Go, Josie, go!”
Everybody stopped moving to stare at me. Tarren held the ball against her hip. “What the heck was that?”
“Sorry,” I muttered, my face blazing in embarrassment.
“Hell to the no,” Avis said. “You’re a cheerleader?”
“Was! Not anymore,” I told them, but I laughed because it was all so ridiculous. Like the cheerleader in me was the para in them just waiting to pop out! They continued to stare at me and Helios seemed almost miffed. “What?” I said. “None of you do any sports or anything at school?”
“We’re not allowed,” Helios said.
That stopped me cold. “You mean the Council?”
“Wouldn’t be fair, now would it?” Tarren bounced the ball by her side. “How could the poor little human boys and girls compete with us and all our superpowers?” she said in a whiny baby talk voice. Then she looked around and seeing that no one but we were in the park, she took the ball and zoomed around the court. She was so fast, her purple T-shirt and gossamer green skirt were a blur in the fading sunlight. She zipped by me, swooshing my hair to the left, then circled Avis twice before she leapt, one leg bent, the other straight behind her, the ball held high above her head. She floated like a little leaf toward the basket where she deposited the ball gently through the hoop. She alighted, for just a moment, on top of the back board, one leg in an arabesque, then she hopped and landed softly beside me. “Where’s my cheer?” she asked.
“Dang!” I yelled, smacking myself on the forehead. “That was crazy beautiful. Did you guys see that?” I looked at Johann. “What can you do?”
He shifted from foot to foot. “Uh, well, this is not my sport,” he said. “I’m better at swimming.”
“You know, the whole not having to breathe thing?” Tarren pointed out.
“And I like ballroom dancing, too,” he said and did a quick little two-step turn.
“So I gathered,” I said.
Helios stepped forward. Behind him, the sun had become a fiery orange ball, slowly sinking over the river. He picked up the basketball and jogged to center of the court. As we all looked around to make sure no one had come into the park, the court lights flickered on. Helios stood in the center of their glow. He took a breath and then threw the ball down. It bounced high into the graying sky. I lost sight of it among the gauzy purple clouds. Helios bounded across the court then leapt into the air. I watched him soar up and over our heads, nearly in slow motion, twisting and turning, seeming to pause in midair as he struck position after position. He was a bird. He was a shooting star. He stood at the helm of his chariot, the golden orb of sun trailing behind him. Then, he spread his arms and legs as if they were beams of light and he flipped head over heels, before he snagged the ball, fell back toward earth, and glided to the basket. He slammed down the ball, but it caught the rim and shot off to the left, sending Helios careening to the side. He tucked into a little ball and smacked the pavement hard, then rolled to a stop at the base of the goalpost. We all ran toward him, calling his name.
I got there first and dropped down to my knees. “Are you all right?!” I yelled, reaching toward him. But he looked up at me with fire in his eyes. I reared back.
He stood, blood dripping down the side of his face, and yelled in Greek. I’m not sure what he was saying, but I got the idea. He lifted his fists over head and cursed the sky then suddenly a loud POP! resounded through the night and the lights shut off.
“Oh come on, Helios!” Tarren said from somewhere in the dark.
“Every time you get mad, dawg, you bust up the lights,” Avis said.
“By the wings of Hermes!” Helios cried. “I can’t help it. It pisses me off when I miss.”
“Holy crap!” I laughed in disbelief. “That was awesome.”
I heard Tarren giggle. “It was pretty funny.”
Our eyes began to adjust. We found ourselves in a circle beneath the basket.
“Before you missed,” Johann said, “it was a very daring move.”
“Is your head okay?” I reached for Helios, but he flinched away from my touch.
“Yes, of course,” he said, and in the dim light I could see that the blood was gone and his skin was perfectly intact.
“Whoa,” I said, stepping back. “You already healed.”
“Try explaining that to the school nurse,” Tarren said. “Rule number 725. We’re not allowed to do anything that might cause energy, I mean, injury, in front of the student body.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, you guys. I didn’t realize there was so much you weren’t allowed to do.”
From down the block we heard the rumble of a car engine. Johann, Tarren, Avis, and Helios huddled a little closer to one another as a black car slowly cruised past the basketball courts.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Shhh.” Avis pulled me closer to the group. We stood stock still as the car idled for a moment on the street in front of us, then someone shone a bright flashlight toward the courts.
“Just be cool,” Avis told everyone.
The light skimmed over us and I felt Helios, who was directly behind me, shudder. Then the car squealed around the corner. As it passed under a streetlight I saw Impala flash from the rear bumper and my stomach dropped. “What the heck?” I said, wondering if it had been Kevin. Was he following me?
“Do you think it’s the DH?” Tarren asked Avis.
He shook his head but he looked a little worried. “Probably not.”
“What’s the DH?” I asked.
“Dip heads,” Tarren said.
“Douche hats,” Avis added.
“Dumb hicks,” Helios said.
“No, really, who are they?” I asked.
“Just some idiot self-appointed demon hunters,” Avis said. That sent a shiver through my body. Then Avis broke the awkward silence with one of his weird crowing guffaws. “But they missed
the best part of the show!”
Everybody laughed, but nobody seemed all that amused.
“Do they do that a lot?” I asked.
“It’s sort of random,” Tarren explained. “They’re out looking for trouble, so if we ignore them and act normal, they move on.”
“Anybody want to head over to Buffy’s?” Avis asked.
“Sure, I’ll go,” said Tarren.
“Me, too,” said Johann.
“Can’t,” I said, digging my phone out of my pocket to check the time. “I’m bus bait tonight and the next one leaves in fifteen minutes.”
Helios brushed little flecks of asphalt off his clothes. I noticed his hands were shaking. Probably from the hard fall he had taken. “I’m heading your way, Josie. I can give you a ride, if you want.”
“Really?” I tried to wipe the big, goofy grin off my face and appear nonchalant. “I mean, if it’s not a big deal or anything.”
“No problem,” he told me with an equally uninterested shrug.
“All right, then we’ll catch you later,” Avis said as he followed Tarren and Johann off the court.
“Will you be okay?” I called after them, thinking about that car and who might be driving it.
“We can take care of ourselves,” Tarren called.
She was right. I had no need to worry about them. If anyone, especially someone as stupid as Kevin and his posse, messed with my para friends, they’d regret it and that brought a little smile to my face.
“My car is a few blocks away in a private lot,” Helios said. I followed him into the darkening night.
chapter 12
when we got to Helios’s car, my mouth fell open. “That’s your ride?” I asked, pointing to the crazy beautiful sparkling gold car with shiny hubcaps and dark tinted windows.
“Yes, it’s an Infiniti M hybrid.” Helios ducked his head and bit the side of his lip. “Not my first choice.”
“Dang, man,” I said, slowly walking around the rolling curves of its fender. “What was your first choice then? A Rolls-Royce?”
“I’d rather have something a little less”—he opened the door for me—“ostentatious.”
The new car smell enveloped me as I slid onto the soft gold leather seat. “Then why did you get it?”
“My father,” he said from the driver’s seat. “You know, the whole golden chariot thing.” He pressed a button and the dashboard lit up, but no sound came from the engine. “He just can’t let go.”
All I could do was laugh.
“After I wrecked my Mercedes, I asked him to get me something simpler and this is what he came up with,” Helios told me as we silently glided out of the garage.
“How’d you wreck the Mercedes?”
We pulled onto Meridian Street. He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other poised on the console between us. I could feel the warmth emanating from his bronzed skin. “A fight with my father, a little too much nectar of the gods, and a race with the setting sun. We think we’re in charge of our destinies. That we won’t make the same mistakes as our fathers and our father’s father, but…” he trailed off and sighed. “In the end, it’s all so passé.”
After seeing him get mad on the basketball court, I could only imagine what that fight was like. “Is that why you’re in the group?”
“Sort of. I was supposed to lose my license.” He grimaced. “That wasn’t the first time I had a car problem. I tend to speed,” he confessed, eyebrows up. “My mother pulled a few strings and got me into the group instead.”
“We should have a side support group for people with car issues,” I joked. “Auto Anger Management.”
“You smash them and I crash them,” he said with a grin.
I watched the trees, buildings, and billboards whiz by the window as I laughed. “This baby has speed,” I said, patting the dashboard. “I’m lucky to get Gladys up to sixty-five. And then she rattles like a skeleton on a roller coaster.”
Helios slowed down and took a ramp to I-465, the highway that circled the city. “I haven’t opened her up yet,” he said as we merged into traffic. The streetlights spilled into the car and I noticed that Helios’s face glowed. He looked at me and smiled. It was the first time I’d seen him look genuinely happy and it sent shivers up and down my back. The left lane was open. I felt like we could merge onto a moonbeam and drive straight to the large yellow moon slowly rising in the east. “Want to see how fast it’ll go?” he asked, but he didn’t wait for an answer.
As the car rocketed forward, I fell back into the cradle of my seat. We zipped past the other cars, which looked like tired dogs meandering down a country lane. I reached for the dashboard. “Helios!” I said, but I was laughing. “You’re going to get busted.”
“Relax,” he told me. He was more at ease here than I’d ever seen him. His shoulders were down, his mouth was soft, and his eyes sparkled. We hugged a curve to the left and my whole body leaned toward him from the centrifugal force. I caught sight of the speedometer, which read eighty-five miles per hour.
“Seriously,” I told him. “If you get a ticket…”
He turned toward me. Our faces were inches apart and the moon swathed us in its glow. “But doesn’t it feel good?” He nearly hummed.
“Yes,” I said, melting in his gaze. The number on the dash crept toward ninety and my heart inched up toward my throat. “But you have to slow down.”
“Is that really what you want?” he asked, but I couldn’t answer. He straightened out the wheel and released his foot from the gas. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t.” I rearranged myself in my seat. “I thought it was a blast. But if you got caught…”
“Ah, yes. Realizing the consequences. The key to managing my anger.” He shook his head. “The only problem being that my kind are not known for controlling their impulses. Look at my ancestors. Warring and fighting. Trapping one another. Creating monsters to stir up trouble. All the way back to Zeus. That guy is a complete megalomaniac!”
As soon as the words left his mouth a heavy cloud passed over the moon and a flash of heat lightning brightened the sky. Helios rolled his eyes and shook his fist, then yelled, “Oh whatever!” He muttered, “I can never get a freakin’ break.” He turned to me. “The whole all-knowing, all-seeing thing gets old so fast.”
I laughed and shook my head as he crossed three lanes and exited from the highway. We stopped at a red light on the surface street under a looming Zombie Apparel billboard. The girls stared down at us like scarecrows in halter tops and micro-miniskirts. “Do you like those ads?” I asked, pointing up at the Zombie Love Attack!
Helios craned his neck to see then he shook his head. “They look like those girls who follow Johann around,” he said. “All skinny and weird. Hollow-eyed and kind of stupid. I like girls with a little more spunk and a little more meat on their bones.” He looked me up and down and grinned. “Like you.”
I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or not. “Uh, thanks, I think.”
The light turned green, but we didn’t move because Helios had turned in his seat to stare at me. “That was a compliment,” he assured me.
I was liquid. A little puddle sloshing around in the seat. My head fell to the side and my mouth went limp. My lips tingled and all I wanted to do was kiss him. But, just as I tilted toward him, my phone beeped. I jumped, breaking the spell between us. Helios exhaled and leaned away. The stoplight turned yellow and Helios gunned it.
As we moved through the intersection, I scrambled to get my beeping phone out of my bag. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I muttered. “I don’t even want to answer it. Somebody’s texting me. Which is totally weird. Nobody texts me anymore,” I rambled on, embarrassed and disappointed. I opened the phone and saw a message from Kayla—
Need your help! Sadie’s gone. Freaking out. I’m next!
“Oh my god,” I mumbled, thinking of tiny little Sadie out on the streets alone. I immediately texted back—
Where R
U?
“Everything okay?” Helios asked.
“I don’t know.” My phone beeped again.
@ HAG. Hiding in the bathroom. Pls help. They’re coming 4 me.
I texted back, WHO? because I had no idea what she was talking about. Her parents, maybe, or her ex-boyfriend. Then, I looked up. “Where are we?” I asked Helios.
“On the west side. Sorry for the detour. I’ll take you home.”
“No, wait.” I turned and leaned on the console between us. “I know this is kind of weird, but I have a friend who needs me to pick her up.”
He glanced at me, eyebrows flexed.
“She’s on the south side. Near Tarren’s house.” Kayla hadn’t texted back so while I talked, I punched in the words, B there soon! then I hit SEND.
He frowned. “I don’t want to go all the way back downtown. Tell her to call someone else.”
“Seriously?” I ask, surprised by how cold he’s gone all of the sudden. “But she doesn’t have anyone else. Look, it’s a long story,” I pleaded. “It’s just that, she’s one of the girls where I’m doing my community service and something’s wrong. Girls keep disappearing and now she’s worried.”
The relaxed and happy speeding Helios was gone. Now that stony mask he wore during group therapy was back in place. “Why is it any of your concern?”
“Because,” I said, then I hesitated. “She’s my friend.”
Helios frowned. “You’ve only been working there for a week, Josie.”
“But I’ve known these girls longer than that. I have a blog and.…” I shook my head impatiently. I didn’t have time to explain empathy to Mr. Greek God. “I need to go there. If you can’t help me, then just drop me off here.”
Helios scoffed. “And then what? You’ll take the bus?”
“Maybe. I don’t know!” I looked out the window, searching for a way to get to Kayla.
“You shouldn’t wander around the Southside at night alone,” he told me.
“No kidding, Sherlock,” I muttered. “But I can’t ignore her. She asked me for help.” We stopped at a red light. I looked at him and pleaded with my eyes. “Come on, Helios. What else have you got to do?”
Josie Griffin Is Not a Vampire Page 9