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by Unknown

  Helen stared at him for a moment. “Quit track? Are you nuts?

  How else am I going to get a scholarship?”

  “That doesn’t matter anymore,” Lucas said, shaking his head.

  “Doesn’t matter? Lucas, this is my life you’re talking about.”

  “Exactly. You’ve been attacked, how many times now? We still

  don’t know who those women are. And I don’t think you realize

  just how big a threat Creon is even with me standing right next to

  you, let alone when you go running off by yourself across the island.

  This is your life we’re talking about, not just an athletic scholarship,”

  he said evenly, calmly. “I want you to quit. For now,

  anyway.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” she replied, completely

  deadpan.

  “I’m not. Quit track. Until we figure out how to deal with Creon,

  it’s too dangerous.”

  “What if I just walked up to you and told you to quit football?”

  she asked sarcastically.

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  “Done,” he said, holding his hands out in a placating gesture. “I

  told you once, and I meant it, that I’d never ask you to do

  something that I wouldn’t do myself. We’re in this together.”

  “You’re . . . That’s . . . I can’t believe you’re putting this on me!”

  she yelled, pointing a finger at him childishly. She stomped around

  in a circle, kicking at the sand and trying to figure out why she was

  so upset.

  “I’m not putting it on you! It’s on both of us! That’s what I’ve

  been trying to tell you,” he urged, raising his voice in frustration.

  “I’ve always felt stuck on this island, and I always thought track

  would be my one way to get off of it. Now you’re telling me to give

  up on all of my plans like it’s the easiest thing in the world!”

  “It’s easier than dying!” he shouted at her, but there was a humorous

  lilt creeping into his voice and a smile tugging at his lips.

  “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not, but you can fly.

  You’re not going to be stuck anywhere again!”

  Helen didn’t want to laugh. In fact, she was working very hard to

  give him a penetrating glare, but no matter how hard she tried, she

  couldn’t keep a straight face. She made a horrible noise, a huge

  piggy-sounding snort, and that made Lucas double up and laugh so

  hard he had to put his hands on his knees to brace himself. As

  Helen covered her face and really let herself laugh, she felt Lucas

  put his arms around her.

  They held on to each other, each of them propping the other up.

  That’s when Helen started to understand how things really worked

  between her and Lucas. They had to do this together, had to share

  fifty-fiftythe huge burdens that had been placed on them, or they

  would be crushed.

  Lucas turned his lips toward her cheek as he ran his hand up her

  spine and began to stroke the back of her neck. She felt the muscles

  across his shoulders tense and he suddenly pushed a knee between

  her thighs. Helen gasped and tried to decide if she should pull him

  down on top of her like she wanted, or push him away like he

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  wanted, but she didn’t get the chance to do either. As quickly as he

  had changed, he switched back. He pulled away from her with a

  sad smile, and then jumped into the air.

  “You know, you don’t need to run track to get into a good school.

  You’re going to kill it on your SATs,” he said breezily, but with the

  faintest bit of a quiver still lingering in his voice.

  “That’s what Hergie thinks, too,” Helen said. She still felt a bit

  dazed and shaky. She joined him in the sky and continued her

  thought when she finally had one. “I just didn’t want to be that girl,

  you know? The girl who does whatever her boyfriend tells her to do

  because she wants someone else to make all the tough decisions for

  her.”

  “I hate that girl,” Lucas said with a wrinkled nose as they flew

  back, hand in hand, to his house.

  “Everyone hates that girl. That’s why I can’t automatically do

  whatever you say, even if you are right. I’ve got my pride,” Helen

  said jokingly as they landed in his yard, but he didn’t laugh. She

  squeezed his hand. “What is it?”

  “Pride is a really dangerous thing for Scions. We’re prone to it,

  and it’s usually our downfall. I know you were kidding, but be careful,

  okay?” he said gently.

  “Oh, yeah. Hubris. Ancient Greece’s big no-no.” Helen nodded

  sagely. Lucas gave her a surprised look. “What? I’ve been doing my

  mythology homework. Actually, I guess it’s my history homework,

  isn’t it?”

  “It is. Family history,” he said, and pulled her close to him.

  They walked down to the fight cage with their arms around each

  other before separating. They changed into workout clothes and

  met back on the practice mat.

  Helen was expecting there to be a little lingering tension between

  her and Lucas after his “slip” at Great Point, but if anything, that

  momentary loss of self-control only served to make him more focused

  on training. Usually, there was a moment or two when one

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  or the other of them would become conscious of the intimate positions

  they pressed each other into as Helen tried to grasp the basics

  of jujitsu, but not that afternoon. Lucas was all business.

  “I just realized, we’ve been fighting all day,” Helen said as she

  tried and failed to break out of his armbar for the tenth time. “And

  I don’t think I’ve won once.”

  “How long has it been?” he asked, suddenly curious about

  something she didn’t understand right away. He craned his head

  and looked at the clock on the wall, then back at Helen. “Do you

  have your bolts back yet?”

  Helen connected to that strange sense at the bottom of her belly

  and felt a spark there. She nodded at Lucas, a bit surprised, and he

  grabbed her hand, pulling her to her feet.

  “Then let’s go try it out,” he said with a grin as he led her out of

  the gym.

  “Wait,” Helen said uncertainly, stopping him with an outstretched

  hand. “My lightning almost killed you today.”

  “Because you don’t know how to control it yet.” Lucas turned and

  cupped her shoulders in his hands. “You have to accept this. I

  know it freaks you out, but as harsh as it sounds, you’ve just got to

  get over it. This is who you are, Helen, and I’m not afraid of you, or

  your lightning. So you shouldn’t be, either.”

  Helen looked up at Lucas. His eyes were so sure, so accepting.

  “You know what?” she said, standing up straighter. “I want to

  learn how to control my lightning.”

  “Yeah, you do!” he nearly shouted. When they got outside, they

  saw Hector’s truck pull up and the rest of the Delos siblings pile

  out.

  “We’re going to test her bolts!” Lucas yelled toward them. Jason

  and Hector glanced at each other briefly with wide eyes. They both

  broke into a run.

  “How long has is been?” Hector shouted, sprinting toward them,

  giddy as a schoolgirl.

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>   “About an hour and forty-five minutes,” Lucas said. “She drank

  two gallons of water.”

  “And I still feel a little thirsty,” Helen admitted.

  “Well, get her some more water, Lucas!” Cassandra ordered as

  she and Ariadne caught up. “How is she supposed to make lightning

  bolts without hydrogen?”

  “Right,” Lucas said distractedly. Jumping into the air, he flew to

  the house and back in about twenty seconds. “Why didn’t you tell

  me you were thirsty?” he asked Helen, handing her a large bottle

  still cold from the fridge.

  “I didn’t know. I guess I should start paying better attention to

  that,” Helen mumbled to herself sheepishly.

  “You have to pay attention to everything that makes you more

  powerful. And your bolts make you very powerful,” Hector said, a

  feline grin spreading across his face. Helen tipped the bottle back

  and drank deeply.

  “That door was insane!” Jason exclaimed. Recalling it, he rubbed

  a hand across his face in that Delos gesture that Helen always noticed.

  “It was like you had taken an industrial-strength welder to

  it.”

  “How many volts do you think you have stored right now?” Cassandra

  asked. They all entered the arena.

  “No idea.” Helen shrugged. She felt for the charge and tried to

  gauge it, but she couldn’t describe it. “It’s a feeling, not a digital

  readout, Cass.”

  “Oh, then wait!” Cassandra said, holding up her hands. “Maybe I

  can devise a way to measure it.”

  “Cassie, geek out later! We’re all dying to see this right now,”

  Hector whined.

  “All right, fine! Sorry, Helen. Whenever you’re ready,” she reluctantly

  allowed.

  The Delos family moved behind Helen, giving her plenty of room

  to aim her bolt out across the nonconductive sand of the arena. She

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  held up her right hand. That was the hand she wrote with, but it

  didn’t feel like the best fit, so she switched to her left. Then she

  summoned her bolt—deliberately for the first time.

  Lightning shot out of her hand. Not static, not some pathetic

  splinter of a spark, but actual lightning. It arced forward in a

  bright, branching blur, and it made a huge cracking sound, like an

  orchestra of leather bullwhips snapping simultaneously. One

  second the air was full of blinding icy blue light, and the next

  second half of the arena was coated in a thick sheet of smoking

  amber-colored glass.

  No one said anything for a second.

  “Unbefrickinglievable,” Hector cussed quietly into the silence.

  Helen smacked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and

  stumbled toward the water bottle that Lucas automatically held out

  for her. She finished an entire liter in five gulps.

  “Maybe that was a bit much,” she said as she leaned against

  Lucas.

  “You could have fried about fifty people,” Ariadne murmured distractedly,

  looking from Helen to the irregular sheet of glass.

  “I don’t want to fry fifty people. Fifty French fries, sure. Who

  wouldn’t want fifty French fries? Delicious,” Helen said. She felt

  herself give a goofy grin.

  “The electricity makes her a little confused,” Lucas explained to

  his siblings in an embarrassed tone. “I hope it isn’t bad for her.”

  “It’s not the voltage, Lucas. It’s severe dehydration!” Cassandra

  chastised. “Her body is built to handle electricity. It’s the drain of

  the fluids out of her tissues that makes her seem like an airhead.

  And that isn’t permanent or damaging, so stop worrying.”

  In the kitchen, Helen put her lips under the faucet. Everyone

  waited patiently for Helen to drink her fill while they stared at one

  another behind her back. She could feel their fear. It was exactly

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  why she had suppressed her power to begin with. That power was

  so intense, so destructive, it was impossible for anyone to trust it.

  Helen shut off the tap and turned to face them. “Did I just freak

  everyone out?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Lucas said, his face a mask. Helen’s throat closed and her

  whole body went still. She kept her eyes on Lucas, but she was

  waiting for any one of them to condemn her for going too far. Lucas

  looked up at Helen and smiled at her. He smiled like he was

  proud of her.

  “But that’s our problem, not yours,” he said firmly. “There’s nothing

  wrong with what you can do. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  “Plus, I bet you’re real good at making s’mores,” Ariadne added.

  “But the real question is, can she do it without liquefying the

  chocolate?” Jason asked, like he was some kind of s’mores guru.

  Helen looked from face to face, her heart aching a bit with gratitude

  to find nothing but acceptance and compassion wherever her

  eyes landed.

  After all the talk of French fries and s’mores, everyone had junk

  food on the brain, so they headed to a local mom-and-pop burger

  shack by the beach. When Helen and Lucas got up to the counter,

  the cashier reached out to touch Helen’s necklace.

  “It’s a sea horse! I love sea horses,” the woman enthused, raising

  her hand to touch it, and dropping it again in embarrassment.

  Helen thanked her—because she would have felt rude if she

  didn’t—put in her order with Lucas and then they sat down in one

  of the booths, where they looked at each other, confused.

  “Your necklace isn’t a sea horse, it’s a heart,” Lucas disagreed

  vehemently.

  “What are you talking about, Luke?” Hector said, sounding disparaging.

  “Helen’s necklace is a cockleshell. Always has been, although

  I just noticed it today. Weird,” he said, twisting up his face

  in confusion.

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  “Nuh-uh,” Jason said with a disagreeing grimace. “It’s a strawberry.

  I was just looking at it this morning.”

  “Heart,” Lucas insisted.

  “Has everyone lost their minds? She’s wearing a golden key with

  pavé rubies on the top,” Ariadne said, reaching out to touch it.

  “Which, by the way, I think is so lovely.”

  Helen, still a little punch-drunk with dehydration, got up and

  went over to a pair of complete strangers at another booth. She

  smiled at the two shocked tourists, pointed to her necklace, and

  asked the man closest to her what he thought it looked like.

  “A rose. Of course,” he said with a hopeful smile. His friend

  leaned in and took a look, as if he were drawn to it.

  “That’s a locket,” he said with a faraway look in his eye. “Just like

  my mom used to wear.”

  “Thanks,” Helen said to them, then turned and went back to her

  table with a shrug. “You’re all wrong, except for Lucas. My mom

  gave me this charm when I was a baby. It’s a heart, and I’ve never

  worn anything but this heart since, like, forever.”

  “That’s what I see!” Cassandra said like she had just solved a

  mystery. “I’ve been wondering what everyone was talking about!”

  Helen sat back down next to Lucas. “Personally, I think you all

  see what you want to see.”

 
Cassandra’s mouth dropped open. “Oh my gods! She’s projecting!

  That’s why everyone is so cheerful and suddenly started jumping

  on top of each other like it’s mating season at the zoo.” she

  said. Her eyes were wide. She looked at Hector. “I need to go home

  right now.”

  “But . . . our burgers,” he said, slightly forlorn but also aware of

  the fact that he was going to end up doing whatever Cassandra told

  him to do.

  “We’ll need all this to go,” Cassandra said to the food runner. She

  turned to Helen. “I think I’ve figured this out, but I still need to test

  it.”

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  They raced back to the Delos compound, the rowdy group storming

  into the library and upsetting Castor and Pallas. Cassandra

  dragged one of the ladders over to a high shelf of her choosing and

  then had Lucas hold the bottom for her while she climbed. As she

  did so she told her father and uncle to look at Helen’s necklace and

  describe what they saw.

  “It looks like . . . That’s impossible,” Pallas said, his eyes hardening

  with anger as he took an involuntary step back.

  “What do you see?” Castor cautiously asked his brother.

  “I gave that to Aileen,” Pallas said, pointing to Helen’s necklace

  like he was accusing Helen of stealing it.

  “Cass?” Lucas called up to his sister, worried.

  “Her necklace looks like whatever would attract the person who

  looks at it. That ability is only related to one goddess and one relic,”

  Cassandra called down, still searching for something. “Aphrodite’s

  cestus.”

  “That can’t be,” Pallas said, shaking his head. “We might as well

  say she has the aegis of Zeus. Or the Loch Ness monster, for that

  matter. It’s folklore, it doesn’t exist.”

  “What’s a cestus?” Helen asked quietly, in case it was such a stupid

  question everyone needed to be able to pretend like they didn’t

  hear her.

  “The cestus is Aphrodite’s girdle,” Lucas responded automatically,

  his eyes darting from Cassandra to Castor before they landed

  back on Helen. “It’s a mythical object that makes the wearer impervious

  to any weapon.”

  “And impossible to resist,” Castor added. He cast a worried look

  at his son.

  “And I’m supposed to have this thing on me? Well, I hate to

  break it to you, but I’m fresh out of mythical girdles,” Helen said

  with a sarcastic laugh, but no one laughed with her.