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“Helen?” Lucas said, touching the side of her face and turning

  her eyes to his. “I’m sorry to bring him up, but you know I had to.”

  “I know, Lucas, it’s not that,” she began and stopped, needed a

  second to regroup. “Do you think my lightning is dangerous?”

  “Very,” he said seriously. “But only if you don’t learn to use it.”

  “I don’t want to use it! I want to go back to forgetting about it!”

  “Helen, you don’t need to run away from yourself anymore,” he

  said, scowling down at the ground. “Look, this is partly my fault. I

  should have told you about your lightning sooner, but I could tell

  you were avoiding it, maybe even repressing it, for some reason.

  What I really wanted was for you to discover it yourself and want

  to learn about it, like you did with flying.”

  “Lucas, I . . .” Helen broke off, shaking her head. “I think I killed

  someone with it, and even if he was trying to hurt me, it still terrifies

  me.”

  “You can’t be afraid of your power anymore, Helen,” Lucas said

  gently. “You are the strongest of us all, but all that strength is for

  nothing until you own your powers.”

  “But I’ve spent my entire life scared to death of using any of

  them,” Helen said in a strangled voice, thinking about her cramps.

  “I know I’m asking you to forget about years and years of conditioning,

  and it probably won’t happen overnight, but it still has to

  happen, and you have to be the one to decide to make it happen.

  You are the most amazingly talented Scion I’ve ever seen.” Lucas

  raked a hand through his hair and shook his head, at a loss.

  “Really, Helen, you can’t see yourself the way I do, but if you could,

  you’d be speechless. It’s time for you to stop fearing what you can

  do, and it’s definitely time for you to start using all your talents

  when you train, especially your lightning.”

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  “How am I supposed to do that without frying everyone? I don’t

  suppose you have a garage full of lightning rods?” she tried to joke,

  flustered that Lucas thought she was powerful, but more important,

  that he seemed to love that about her.

  “I haven’t worked out the details yet,” he said with a grin. “But I’ll

  think of something.”

  When they went into the house it was dinnertime. Helen was

  happy to see that Claire was still there, sitting at the table, waiting

  to be fed like the rest of the family, chatting away with the twins

  about a paper due the next morning for one of their brainiac

  classes, and stopped only to wave excitedly at Helen when she and

  Lucas came through the back door.

  As usual, the kitchen was packed. Pallas and Castor were hovering

  hungrily over the stove, burning themselves every time they

  dipped a finger into a pot to taste what Noel was cooking, but not

  caring enough to stop. Pandora and Hector were joking around

  with each other by the sink, laughing identical laughs as they tried

  to see who was better at spitting a grape into the air and then

  catching it again in their mouths. Poor Noel couldn’t turn one way

  or the other without tripping over one of her offspring, a guest, a

  husband, an in-law, a nephew, or a niece—and, yet again, no one

  seemed to be lending her a hand.

  “You know I can cook, right? Should I offer to help your mom?”

  Helen asked Lucas sheepishly.

  “Are you kidding? My mom loves this. Sometimes I think she’s

  just waiting for all of us to get married and move out so she can

  open her own restaurant.” He saw Helen’s dubious look. “I’m serious!

  She was telling my dad the other day she wants to have a dinner

  party and invite half the island. She’s insane.”

  “There you are, Helen, dear,” Noel said when she looked up, as if

  she had been truly anxious about Helen’s whereabouts. Then she

  turned back to her stove top and started talking to herself. “She’ll

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  need extras. So damned thin all of a sudden . . . Father still doesn’t

  know the first thing about her so he isn’t feeding her properly and

  Kate is so worried! Now where is Cassie?”

  Noel was mumbling to herself, but loud enough so Helen could

  hear. She couldn’t tell if Noel was out of her mind with stress, used

  to being talked over in such a loud room, or if she was intentionally

  letting Helen in on her thoughts. Noel took a lungful of air and

  hollered Cassandra’s name.

  There was a startled thump from upstairs, and Cassandra’s distant

  voice yelling back, “Start without me, I’m busy!”

  Helen and Claire shared a wide-eyed stare, which melted into

  identical warm smiles. They had both been only children, both

  growing up not being allowed to raise their voices indoors. Together,

  they’d dreamed of having big families and full houses with a

  thousand things happening at once, and now they saw in the other

  the remembrance of that girlish wish. The yelling jangled the

  nerves a bit, but there was no denying that it made the Delos house

  feel like a home. “Hec-Jace-Castor-Lucas!” Noel sputtered while

  she stared at her son’s face and repeatedly forgot what she had

  named him. “Go drag your little sister down here. We have guests

  tonight.”

  Lucas did as his mother asked, returning with a very grouchy

  Cassandra thrown over a shoulder.

  “But I see them every day!” Cassandra whined as Lucas bent forward

  and put her down on her own feet next to Helen.

  “Mom said,” Lucas replied with an apologetic shrug. Apparently,

  there was no arguing with that because Cassandra rolled her eyes

  and sat down at the table without another word.

  “Hi,” Cassandra said in a slightly miffed way to Helen. “Do you

  eat a lot of garlic?”

  “No. Why? Does my breath stink?” Helen replied uncertainly,

  already working up a blush at the thought of having gassed Lucas

  all day with dragon breath.

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  “Not at all. Just trying to figure out why you’re impervious to

  weapons,” she said. She held up a book she had clutched in her

  hand and waved it at Noel’s uncaring back. “I’m trying to solve a

  problem here,” she said loudly, obviously intending for her mother

  to hear, but Noel kept right on cooking.

  “I’ve been looking stuff up, too,” Hector added, hands behind his

  head, exactly like someone who hadn’t.

  “You just worry about teaching her to defend herself, and I’ll take

  care of the research,” Cassandra said in a frazzled way as she

  opened her book and started leafing through it. Hector smiled, obviously

  glad he was off the hook.

  Castor, Pallas, and Cassandra, asked Helen about different

  habits—foods she ate, daily routines, even prayers her mother

  might have taught her to say before bed. Nothing yielded an answer,

  and they gave up when dinner was served.

  It was good. Really, really good. Helen ate like she hadn’t been

  fed in weeks. She drank glass after glass of water. She was so dehydrated

  she could feel the cool water fanning out in her system

  and thickening her tissues like a dry rag fatten
ing up as it absorbs a

  puddle. She felt guilty at one point for hogging all the food and

  forced herself to put her knife and fork down, but Noel looked at

  her sharply and asked her if she didn’t like the meal. Helen murmured

  an apology and gladly resumed chowing down.

  After dinner, Lucas drove her back to her house, which by now

  was a waste of both time and fuel, but something they had to do to

  keep Jerry from getting suspicious about how Helen was traveling

  around the island.

  “I don’t like leaving you alone,” Lucas said, glancing nervously at

  every shadow in the yard.

  “I’ll be okay,” Helen lied. Actually, now that it was dark out she

  didn’t want Lucas to get farther than a few inches away from her,

  but with her dad home there was no option but for them to

  separate.

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  “I’ll be back in an hour or so,” Lucas told her as she got out of the

  car. Helen shut the door but kept a hold of it, looking at him uncertainly

  through the open window. “What is it?” he asked.

  “I feel horrible, Lucas! It’s autumn, and you and your cousins are

  sleeping outside at night. That just isn’t acceptable.”

  “We don’t have much of a choice. We can’t leave you by yourself

  until you can fight.”

  “I won’t allow it anymore,” she said, tucking her hair behind her

  ear and crossing her arms stubbornly. “You’re just going to have to

  stay in my room.”

  “Because that’s relaxing,” he replied with gentle sarcasm. “I

  barely shut my eyes last night. Trust me, I’ll get more sleep on your

  roof.”

  “No,” she said, sticking to her guns, even though she was getting

  warm and jittery at the thought of him in her room again. “You

  either come inside or you don’t spend the night here at all.”

  Lucas looked up at her. “We’ll figure something out when I get

  back. Okay?”

  Helen reluctantly agreed and went into the house to see her dad.

  Through a wide yawn, he tried to ask her how her weekend had

  gone but after working double shifts for two days straight he could

  barely keep his eyes open. Helen sent him to bed, promising to fix

  breakfast in the morning. Jerry was snoring away before she’d

  even brushed her teeth. She finished up in the bathroom and put

  on a pair of boxer shorts and a baggy V-neck tee, thinking that Lucas

  would appreciate her attempt to cover up, and then went to the

  linen closet to find an air mattress she was pretty sure her dad had

  gotten for his birthday a few years ago.

  At the bottom of the closet she found the unused kit herding dust

  bunnies around its corners and brought it back into her bedroom.

  She sat down on the floor, opened the box, and took out the different

  components. As she tried to find any part of the instructions

  that was written in English, she heard a tap. She smiled

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  involuntarily, and waved for Lucas to come through her unlatched

  window, marveling at how lovely he looked as he soared in her

  window, quite certain that she looked nothing like that when she

  flew.

  “Is that spine cracker for me?” he whispered with a smile as he

  pointed at the air mattress.

  “Hey, if you don’t like it, I’m all for you sleeping in my bed,”

  Helen whispered back, making a show of closing up the kit.

  “No, it’s perfect,” he said, stopping her by grabbing her hands

  and pulling her into his arms. He held on to her like he hadn’t seen

  her in forty days, instead of forty minutes, and then he grinned and

  rubbed his face against her cheek.

  “You need a shave!” she said, squirming away from his scratchy

  chin. He chuckled sadistically and turned his attention to the air

  mattress.

  “I was going to sleep on the couch downstairs,” he said uncertainly,

  still deciding if that would be better.

  “My dad . . .”

  “Wouldn’t be able to get down the stairs fast enough to catch

  me.”

  “And what if you didn’t hear him and didn’t get out in time? I’d

  never be able to explain it,” Helen countered.

  “Better that than the alternative,” he said, gathering up the mattress.

  “Look, I’m fine on the roof, Helen. I’m really not comfortable

  sleeping in here with you. I think it would be a mistake.”

  No matter how guilty it made her feel to make Lucas sleep on the

  roof, she could tell that she wasn’t going to win this one. They

  dragged the air mattress up to the widow’s walk and eventually

  figured out how it was supposed to inflate, but Lucas had to read

  the instructions in Spanish because the English ones were nearly

  incomprehensible. Hilariously so.

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  “Insert mouth to the purpose inflation,” Helen whispered, quoting

  one of the stranger lines of the English instructions as she fixed

  up the newly filled mattress with sheets.

  “Expel lung into inflator tube,” Lucas whispered back. He stuffed

  a pillow into a fresh case. “That sounds like it would hurt.”

  Trying to silence their giggle fit only made it harder to stop. They

  both crumpled up on top of the mattress, stifling their laughs.

  Every now and again they would get control over themselves—only

  to snort and stuff their hands back over their faces as soon as they

  made eye contact. It went on way past the time when their throats

  started stinging with the tension of holding in the sound. Finally,

  they got it all out and just lay there on their backs, breathing heavily

  with the exhaustion of a damn good laugh. Helen felt Lucas take

  her hand and shake his head at the night sky.

  “What am I doing?” he whispered to himself, digging his other

  hand into his hair.

  “What? We’re not allowed to laugh together now?” she

  whispered, the ghost of a smile still haunting her lips.

  “It’s not that,” he said, turning his face to her tenderly. “But it’s

  not exactly healthy for me to enjoy your company so much that

  something as stupid as blowing up a mattress is this much fun. As

  soon as I think I’m in control, you make me laugh or you say

  something so smart, and I feel like I lose a little bit of myself. I

  thought I was prepared, but this is much harder than I imagined.”

  “And what exactly is ‘this,’ Lucas? Why are you sleeping on my

  roof and not in my bed?” Helen asked. She rolled over onto her

  side to face him and reached out to run her fingers over the Ushaped

  hollow under his Adam’s apple.

  “Go downstairs,” he ordered desperately, brushing her hand

  away before she made contact. “Please, Helen. Go to your own

  bed.”

  There was a part of Helen that knew exactly how to seduce Lucas

  whether he wanted to be seduced or not, and that freaked her out

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  enough to make her get up and walk on shaky legs to her own bed.

  It rattled her that she could be so aggressive, so unconcerned with

  what he wanted that she would consider forcing herself on him.

  As she settled down under the covers she heard Lucas tossing

  and turning above her. She heard him stan
d up with a sharp exhale

  and go to the door on the widow’s walk.

  Her heart started joyfully hammering away when she heard him

  put his hand on the knob and turn it. Helen sat up, listening to him

  listening to her.

  Both of them could hear the other’s breath, the other’s blood

  rushing around under the skin, and, for just a second, Helen could

  have sworn that she was so aware of him that she could feel his

  body heat from so far away. Finally, he seemed to win some kind of

  fight, and forced himself to go lie back down on his air mattress.

  Helen lay back as well. After getting control over her thumping

  heart, she fell into the dreamless sleep that she was usually blessed

  with when Lucas was watching over her.

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  .....................................................................

  Chapter Fourteen

  Just before dawn, Lucas touched her face to wake her up.

  When she opened her eyes, he kissed her forehead and told

  her he’d be back in a bit to take her to school. Then he

  jumped out her window and flew away. Helen decided

  there was no way she was going to be able to fall back

  asleep, so she got up and made a big elaborate breakfast for her

  dad.

  “You okay?” Jerry asked between mouthfuls of pancake, syrup,

  and bacon.

  “Considering? I’m great,” she answered honestly as she sipped

  her coffee.

  “How are things with you and Lucas?” he asked cautiously.

  “Weirder’n hell,” she replied with a smile. Then she shrugged and

  laughed. “But what can you do?”

  “What can you do?” her father repeated. His chewing slowed

  down as an all-consuming thought hijacked his motor skills.

  Helen knew he must be thinking about Kate, but an instinct told

  her to let him be. He still needed more time, and when he was

  ready he would come to her to talk about it.

  Lucas picked her up as planned; they sparked and blushed at the

  sight of each other. Just sitting in the same car with him put Helen

  in such a good mood that when one of her favorite songs came on

  the radio she danced in her seat and somehow convinced Lucas to

  sing along with her as they drove to school. He would deny it later,

  but he got really into it, and Helen stopped to listen to him with

  her mouth hanging open.

  “What?” he said, stunned when he noticed he was belting out the