Starcrossed

by Josephine Angelini

  from behind. “I’m going to teach you how to transition into the

  massive-state—turn up the gravity pulling on you. The best way to

  get the hang of it is to do it while you’re landing.”

  “Is that what you did when you landed on Hector the other day in

  the tennis courts?” Helen guessed. “And last night?” She was

  thinking of how heavy he’d made his body when they were wrestling

  in her bed. She pinched her lips together to keep herself from

  smiling.

  “Exactly,” he said against her ear, letting his lower lip brush

  against her skin. “It’s the third state of gravity for fliers, and it

  could save your life in a fight.”

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  With his arm around her waist and the two of them floating ten

  feet above the ground, he taught her how to warp the way the

  world pulled on her. Lucas guided her to reverse the impulse that

  made her weightless and imagine her body becoming heavier. She

  was able to pick up the basics right away and when Lucas told her

  to touch down she thudded into the lawn with a jarring blow, kicking

  up two great divots of grass with her heels. She was impressed

  with herself and looked up at Lucas for approval, but apparently,

  there was still a lot left for her to learn.

  “You’ll get better at it,” he said encouragingly as he pounded into

  the lawn next to her, skidding two deep trenches with his feet.

  “You are such a show-off!” she said, grinning at him.

  “Hey, I’ve got to impress you as much as I can, while I can. Soon

  you’ll be flying circles around me,” he said. He took her hand and

  pulled her tight up against his side as he led her toward the house.

  “I doubt that,” Helen said, shaking her head. Lucas was so graceful

  in the air. There was no way she’d ever fly the way he did.

  “You’re stronger than me,” he said without any envy or judgment,

  just as a fact. “When you realize that, you’re going to be able to do

  things that I never dreamed of.”

  “If I’m so strong, then why do I always need you to come and

  save my sorry ass?” she asked sarcastically.

  “Because fighting is about much more than strength,” he said

  seriously. “Which is good, or Hector would still be able to beat the

  crap out of me in a fight.”

  “I can still beat the crap out of you in a fight,” Hector shouted

  from inside the house. Lucas smirked at Helen and shook his head

  as they walked into the kitchen. They didn’t get far.

  “Not on my clean floors!” Noel shouted, pointing to Lucas’s and

  Helen’s muddy shoes. Then she realized why they were so muddy.

  “What did you savages do to my new lawn?” she groaned.

  “I had to, Mom. Helen needs to learn.” Lucas dutifully backed out

  of the house and took off his shoes, and Helen did the same.

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  “Helen, dear. You look hungry. Make sure you eat something before

  you leave,” Noel said kindly, before shifting right back into

  scolding mode. “About that lawn, you know the rules, Luke.”

  “‘Fix what you break,’ yeah, yeah. And you know I always do,” he

  said with a mischievous smile as he came into the house and started

  chasing his poor, hassled mother out of the kitchen with the

  threat of a tickle. She tried to beat him off with a dish towel, but

  she didn’t stand a chance.

  As Lucas ran upstairs to change his clothes, Helen could see he

  was happy. And so was she. She knew she was still in danger and

  should be terrified, but watching Lucas bound up the stairs three at

  a time, all she could feel was giddy, bubbly happiness. She still had

  no idea what the heck was going on between them, but she was

  happy.

  Apparently, Helen wasn’t the only one. Pandora came into the

  kitchen with a yoga glow, humming to herself. She didn’t have on

  her bracelets. Instead, it was her anklets and a spangled belly chain

  that were jingling away cheerily with every step and sway of her

  hips.

  “Oh my gods, I love that!” she exclaimed, reaching out and touching

  the charm Helen always wore around her neck. “I always say, if

  it isn’t plastered with diamonds it isn’t really jewelry.”

  “What?” Helen asked, puzzled, looking down. Pandora was chugging

  from a bottle she took from the fridge and didn’t hear.

  “The workout room is all yours,” she tossed back over her

  shoulder at Hector. Helen fingered her heart necklace and

  wondered why Pandora had mentioned diamonds. There were no

  diamonds on her charm.

  “You ready for a beating, Princess?” Hector asked once his aunt

  had danced out of the room.

  “Do you have to call me that?” Helen huffed, wondering if being a

  dick was part of his strategy or if it was just his personality

  baseline.

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  “Well, now I do,” he smirked, pleased with himself for hitting a

  nerve.

  “Let’s go before I wreck Noel’s kitchen with your big, stupid

  face.”

  “That’s the spirit,” he said encouragingly. Helen had to laugh. He

  really could be quite charming when he wasn’t trying to kill her.

  Hector and Lucas started Helen out on the heavy bag, thinking

  that it was the most basic place to begin. She didn’t get it. She tried

  to follow through with her hips like they told her, but she kept positioning

  herself strangely at the last moment and taking all of the

  momentum out of her swing. She just didn’t like to punch things. It

  didn’t come naturally to her. Hector couldn’t even watch.

  “You’ve got the killer instincts of a houseplant,” he groaned, covering

  his face.

  “Maybe we should move on to grappling. It’d probably be more

  useful for her, anyway, considering all of her attacks have been

  close-quarter struggles,” Lucas suggested.

  Helen readily agreed. She was a terrible fighter, but not even

  Hector could deny that she was trying. The boys gave her a brief

  rundown of dojo etiquette, and then she entered the ring with a

  bow, as she had been taught. She was expecting Lucas to be her

  teacher, but he stood back and let Hector go into the dojo with her

  instead.

  “I thought this was your specialty,” Helen said uncertainly to

  Lucas.

  “It is. He’s way better on the ground than I am,” Hector replied

  for him with a grin. “Now get down on your hands and knees. You

  know, like you’re a dog.”

  Despite the fact that Hector was deliberately trying to get Helen’s

  back up, she stayed calm and focused on the instructions she was

  given. Jujitsu was part physical, which was fun, but the main part

  of it, the real challenge, was mental. She felt like she was trying to

  solve a puzzle, trying to unwind out of the human pretzel that

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  Hector had made out of her. A few times she pissed him off by giggling

  and shying away from the sexually suggestive shapes he was

  trying to bend her into, but he gutted it out and kept working with

  her rather than let Lucas take over the lesson.

  “Nah-uh!” Hector said when Lucas tried to enter the ring. “You.

  Out.”
/>   “You’re not breaking it down step-by-step for her, Hector!” Lucas

  called from outside the cage. He wouldn’t come in the ring and

  break the rules of the dojo, but he could still yell from the sidelines.

  “She doesn’t know the first thing about pulling guard!”

  “Well, tough,” Hector replied as he raised himself up from

  between her knees. “There’s no way I’m letting you in here, brother,

  so just forget it.” He gestured meaningfully at her prone body

  and open legs, and raised his eyebrows. Helen started laughing

  hysterically.

  “You have nothing to worry about, Hector!” she managed to

  choke out. “Trust me!”

  That got Lucas blushing. Helen heard a familiar laugh from outside

  the ring. “Giggles? Is that you?” She propped herself up and

  shoved Hector off of her.

  “Yeah, it’s me. I gotta say, Len, I would have thought it would be

  harder to get between your legs, but Hector doesn’t seem to be

  having any trouble at all,” Claire teased.

  “What are you doing here?” Helen said, surprised.

  “I tried to stop her, but she just barged in and . . .” Jason began,

  his voice fraying with frustration.

  “I really wanted to see you do demigod stuff!” Claire said, cutting

  him off. “I’ve never gotten to see you do all your tricks on purpose

  before.”

  “Tricks? We’re not show ponies, Claire!” Jason yelled at her.

  Helen looked at Hector and shrugged while Claire and Jason

  continued to bicker. “You know what? I think they enjoy fighting,”

  she commented.

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  “She’s your friend,” Hector said to her.

  “He’s your brother,” Helen said back.

  Then she heard the door slam. Lucas had left the room. Helen

  stood up and called after him, but she couldn’t leave the ring until

  Hector, her dojo master for the day, dismissed her. She turned to

  him and pleaded with her eyes.

  “You may be safe for today, but you’re still in a lot of danger, you

  know. I know you don’t like this, but you need to train. And anyway,

  it would be better if you just let him start hating you now,

  Helen,” he said heavily.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, surprised that Hector

  could be so unfeeling.

  “Then chase after him if you have to,” he said, looking away.

  Helen bowed to him and ran out of the practice ring. “But it will

  only get harder,” he warned as she turned to close the door. She

  slammed it behind her to make her point . . . though she didn’t exactly

  know what that point was.

  She ran outside and heard a deep thunking noise coming from

  the tennis courts. She started to run and then realized that, duh,

  she could fly. Leaping into the air, she looked down to see Lucas in

  the tennis-courts-turned-arena, chucking spears at a target. He

  saw her and took flight, meeting her in the air.

  “Come on,” he said, taking her hand and looking down at a

  couple of mortals on the nearly empty beach below them.

  “Someone could still see us.”

  They flew high, going north to Great Point where they could be

  alone. They touched down on the soft sand around the lighthouse

  and transitioned into two normal people walking on the chilly

  beach, holding hands. Lucas was still silent after a few moments so

  Helen decided to go first.

  “You know we were all joking around, right? I wasn’t trying to

  hurt your feelings. I’m sorry if I did,” Helen told him.

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  “You didn’t hurt my feelings,” he said, shaking his head and

  clenching his fists. “It’s much simpler than that. Much more basic.

  I hate seeing Hector on top of you. I’m jealous, Helen.”

  “Then you train me,” she said hopefully, and he stopped walking

  and turned away from her with a groan. “Wait, why not?” she

  persisted.

  “I’m a demigod, not a saint,” he said with a self-deprecating

  laugh. “There’s only so much I can take.”

  “Exactly. So, what can’t you take? Decide which of the two options

  is harder, and do the other. That way, no matter how hard

  your choice turns out to be, at least you can find comfort in knowing

  you’re avoiding something even worse,” Helen said logically.

  Lucas looked at her sidelong and smiled.

  “You give good advice, you know that?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I’ve got my own agenda,” she said through a

  playful smirk.

  “You’re betting I’m going to choose to train you, aren’t you?” he

  asked, a laugh bubbling up in his chest.

  “Flat out banking on it.”

  They walked along for a bit, smiling at their own thoughts. She

  could feel him struggling to make his decision, and she let him be.

  Then, finally, she felt him give in to something and take a deep

  breath.

  “The twins will still be teaching you archery and spears, and

  Hector will still be in charge of boxing and sword fighting, but I’m

  taking over for all the grappling disciplines. Just a warning, this

  could still be vetoed by my father and uncle, no matter what I say.”

  “Don’t I have any say?” Helen asked, slightly annoyed. “Castor

  and Pallas can’t tell me what to do. If I want you to train me, then

  why shouldn’t I get what I want?”

  “Um . . . maybe leave my family to me,” Lucas said goodnaturedly,

  and Helen decided to let the subject drop. “Come on, we

  need to go back. I don’t like having you out in the open like this.”

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  “Everything is so close,” Helen said as they hovered over the Delos

  lawn, still in awe over how fast and simple it was for her to get

  from one end of the island to the other. “Don’t you ever get sick of

  being stuck over Nantucket?”

  “I would if I was stuck,” he said wryly as they touched down in

  the backyard, “but I just went to New York the other day.”

  “You did! For what?”

  “Bagels. There’s this place out in Brooklyn that I love. It only

  takes me ten minutes at subsonic to get there.”

  Helen stopped dead when she realized what that meant.

  “You mean, any day at school, you and I can just fly to Boston

  and eat our lunches in Harvard Square and then be back in time

  for fifth period?”

  “Sure,” he said with a shrug. “I want you to get a few more weeks

  of experience before we go off island, but soon you’ll be strong

  enough to go everywhere with me.”

  “I want to see the statues on Easter Island! And Machu Picchu!

  And the Great Wall of China!” Helen exclaimed, practically hysterical

  with excitement.

  She started bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet as they

  walked toward the house. Lucas grabbed her hands.

  “We’ll need to wait a bit before we go overseas. You can barely

  stay in the air as it is and it’s harder to navigate with no point of

  reference, plus oceanic air currents can be a nightmare.”

  “But I’ll be with you, and you know all that stuff already!” She

  stopped dead and gripping his hand tightly to her chest. “I’m

  strong enough now, I swear! Please? I’ve always dreamed of traveling!

>   Lucas, you have no idea! My whole life I’ve wanted off this

  island.”

  “I know, and we will—soon! We’ll tape a map to a dartboard and

  wherever we hit, we’ll go. Fiji, Finland, Florence, whatever!” he

  said indulgently, pulling her against him to stop her from jumping

  into the air and leaving without him. “We can go eat sushi in Tokyo

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  every night until it gets boring. We can do whatever you want,

  Helen. When you’re a better flier.”

  “We really can, can’t we?” she asked breathlessly, noticing the

  fact that they had both used the word “we.” Then a less-pleasing

  thought occurred to her. “You’ve been doing this for a while now,

  haven’t you? Running off to other continents when you had a few

  hours to kill.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “But always alone?”

  “We can carry people short distances when we fly if we have to,

  but it’s unbelievably exhausting to tamper with other people’s

  gravity. You’d be better off just walking there.”

  He was attempting to sound lighthearted about it, but his face

  was turned down. Helen looked at him sideways, trying to figure

  out what it must be like to know that you could go to the Louvre

  and see the Mona Lisa instead of just looking at a picture of it in a

  book, but you’d have to go there by yourself. It must have been so

  lonely for him. He’d been the only Scion who could fly for his entire

  life, and that meant that he’d been isolated in a lot of

  ways—until he met her.

  “There’s plenty of time for us to see the world, but for now, I

  think you’d better stay local. And since I can’t ask you to do

  something that I wouldn’t be willing to do myself, I promise I

  won’t go off island without you,” he said.

  “Yeah, right,” Helen said, laughing and trying to pull her hand

  out of his, but he held on to her.

  “I’m serious,” he said, tugging on her hand and pulling her toward

  him until she was practically stepping on his feet. “There’s

  another reason I want you stay over the island, especially when I’m

  not with you. My family can’t protect you if they can’t find you.

  Don’t forget, those women are still out there. And Creon will be

  back for you. . . .”

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  At the mention of Creon’s name, it came flooding back to her. He

  had tried to kill her, and he very nearly succeeded. The dizzying

  darkness had been bad enough, but he had forced her to use her