Starcrossed (40 page)

he touched her and got electrocuted. Then the blue light went out

like a switch had been turned off and Helen plopped onto the

ground like a half-baked soufflé.

“I feel awful,” she told him, a bewildered look on her face.

“Are you . . . grounded yet?” he asked her, practically vibrating

with worry.

Helen looked at the floor and giggled insanely as the electricity

running around her body tickled her brain.

“Nope. Linoleum,” she said, slapping the palm of her hand

against the nonconductive floor. Her vision swam in static. “You

were r.r.right. I should have learned to u.u.use this.” She had to get

rid of the energy, stat.

“Luk.k.k. Run.n.n,” she said, her jaw jittering uncontrollably with

energy as her bolt demanded to be released. She had held it too

long.

Lucas wouldn’t leave her, and Helen knew she could kill him if

she didn’t do this right. She racked her lightning-filled brain and

luckily remembered fourth-grade science class. Desperate to rid

herself of the monster she had summoned, she slid on her knees to

the exit door at the end of the hall and rammed her shoulder

against it.

As soon as she came in contact with the metal release bar that

ran across the middle of the door it glowed orange with heat and

started melting. She barely moved fast enough to open it before the

whole door turned into a solid block of smoldering metal. Tumbling

down the short flight of steps and crawling outside on her

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knees, she threw herself forward onto her hands. With a welcome

sigh she discharged her bolt into the one place that it would be

safely dismantled—the ground.

After a few seconds she felt herself get pulled up from the forgiving

earth and carried away.

“Are you injured?” Lucas asked anxiously.

“Just wicked tired,” she sighed, a little surprised at herself for using

the word wicked. She was too weary to care. “Really, put me

down,” she demanded when he didn’t respond. He stopped and

balanced her on her feet. She rubbed her tongue across her teeth

and then sucked at the roof of her mouth.

“Wow, I’m thirsty! And I think I know why! It’s like lightning,

right? So that means I’m generating the electic—I mean, erlecic—I

mean, the bolt—by ripping apart the water in my body! That makes

total sense,” she said, hearing herself sound like a cheerleader who

had suddenly figured out how her pompoms were made.

“Helen? You’re scaring me. Here, sit, please. Do you need

something?” Lucas asked, making her look him in the eye. She still

seemed to be throwing off sparks.

“I do need something,” she said, struggling to control her diction

and her fuzzy brain as best she could. “I need to tell you what’s going

on, so that you and I don’t accidentally kill each other over a

dumb misunderstanding, and I need you to promise me that if I

tell you, you’re not going to beat anyone up.”

“I don’t think I like this deal,” he said dubiously.

“Tough.”

He nodded his agreement. She looked around for a moment and

then decided to sit down on the top step of the outside stairs before

she fell down.

“Zach was the one who saw me chasing Creon. He dropped some

pretty threatening hints in class the other day, about me and about

you and how abnormally fast and strong we all are. Now he keeps

trying to talk to me alone and I think he might be trying to

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blackmail me or something. I’ve been dodging him for as long as I

can because . . .”

“The longer you wait, the more likely it is that the whole thing

turns into a big fish story and no one believes him, anyway,” Lucas

finished for her with a knowing nod.

“Right. You are so smart,” Helen marveled.

“And your brain is fried,” Lucas said, smiling at her indulgently.

The smile fell away. “Because of me. I’m such an idiot,” he

mumbled, looking down at his twisting hands.

“Correction, you’re a jealous idiot, and that has to change right

now,” Helen replied seriously, still feeling light-headed, but fighting

her way through it. “You have no reason to be jealous. I told

you that I don’t want anyone but you. I never have.”

“You’ve lived your whole life on this island, you don’t know what

‘anyone’ means yet,” he sighed. “And you have no idea how . . . Attractive

isn’t the right word. It doesn’t fully describe the effect you

have on men. On me. Look, I’m not a jealous person, Helen, really.

All the other girls I’ve dated . . .” Lucas broke off, took a breath,

and regrouped his thoughts before starting again.

“You know, I never believed in ‘The Face That Launched a Thousand

Ships’ thing. I used to hate that part in the Iliad. I even

laughed at it,” he said. Then he paused and shook his head ruefully

as he raised his eyes to the sky for a moment, mentally kicking

himself. “It’s ridiculous, when you think about it. A ten-year war

because some selfish coward ran off with an unfaithful woman? It

made me angry, and I hated Paris and Helen for being so weak.

Then I did something very, very stupid. I swore I would never have

made the same choices they did—that I would have been stronger.

Then, two weeks later, I saw your face for the first time.”

“Wait,” Helen said. She blinked with thirst, fatigue, and shock.

“I’m not Helen of Troy. I’m Helen Hamilton from Nantucket, and

no one is launching anything to come and get me. I think you’re

confused.”

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“I wish I was,” he said hopelessly.

“Hamilton!” yelled Coach Tar, clutching her clipboard and

marching toward them with her eyes wide. “Are you on fire?!”

Helen looked at where Coach was pointing and realized that the

ground all around her was seared and black. The exit door looked

like something out of a Dali painting.

Luckily, Lucas was a fantastic liar. As a bevy of teachers came

rushing to their aid, he explained that there had been some kind of

electrical sparking from above the door, suggesting that perhaps

the exit sign had shorted. He and Helen had run outside to stomp

out the sparks that had drifted onto the grass. As he wove his story,

Helen could hear how honest he sounded, how convincing. She

nodded every time he looked at her, knowing that she needed to

keep her mouth shut or she’d ruin the whole thing. Since the fire

was obviously electrical and the only possible source was the exit

sign, the story was believed.

Helen and Lucas insisted they were uninjured, but as a precaution

they were told to go to the nurse’s office for a quick checkup.

Just before Lucas led her away, Helen spotted Zach staring at them

from the crowd, his eyes frightened and resentful. He knew they’d

caused the fire. Helen touched Lucas’s shoulder and pointed Zach

out, and Lucas nodded, understanding her meaning perfectly.

“So much for letting it blow over,” she murmured ruefully.

“We’ll discuss it tonight with my family. Cassie will know what to

do,” he whispered, taking her sooty hand in one of his and texting

his cousins with the other as they walked down the hall to the

nurse.

Mrs. Crane checked them over, shook her head in wonder, and

declared them both perfectly well enough to go home, or even back

to practice if they wanted, though she gave both of them a nonsensical

lecture about hanging around under electrical death traps.

Then she looked at Helen’s necklace and smiled sweetly. “I’ve always

loved butterflies,” she murmured, lightly touching Helen’s

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charm, before shooing them both out of her office in her stern but

kindly way.

Helen and Lucas beat everyone else back to the Delos compound,

deciding once they arrived that they were entitled to a few moments

of relaxation before they began what Helen had started

thinking of as her superhero lessons. They stopped in the kitchen

to get Helen another bottle of water and then went for a little fly.

“Jase and Hector will call when they’re home from practice.

We’ve still got about another hour or so,” Lucas said confidently

when they touched down in the dunes. They walked down to the

half-damp sand that was flat and firm and perfect for a stroll.

“We’re supposed to have our first track meet next weekend,”

Helen said suddenly, biting her lip with worry. “I don’t know if

Coach’ll let me run after missing so many practices.”

“Yeah, about that,” Lucas said, sighing heavily and making her

stop and face him. “You need to quit track.”

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