Chapter Eight
Helen spent the next few hours alternately listening to the details of her father’s trip and insisting that Lucas was not her boyfriend.
She figured out pretty fast that the only way to get Jerry to stop asking questions about Lucas was to ask him questions about Kate instead.
And besides, she genuinely wanted to know what was going on between the two of them.
Jerry kept insisting that they had never been anything more than friends.
Disappointed that her dad was obviously still lugging around a big bag of hurt for her mother, all Helen wanted was to escape upstairs to her room to think, but she had to wait until they finished dinner first. By the time she and her father were done eating, arguing over how much salt he was allowed to put on his dinner, and talking about the store, Helen was so exhausted she nearly fell asleep sitting on the edge of the tub as she brushed her teeth.
The next morning, Helen skipped breakfast, packed her own lunch box, and shouted good-bye to her father from the front door before he even made it downstairs. He called after her as she jumped into Lucas’s car, but she pretended she didn’t hear him.
“Shouldn’t we wait to see what he wants?” Lucas asked her.
“Nope. Let’s just go,” she said a little too quickly.
Lucas shrugged and drove off as Jerry made it to the front door. Helen waved to him, but she knew she would hear about this little stunt later. In detail.
“Okay, I’m still new around here so I don’t know the cafés. Where’s a good place on this side of the island?” Lucas asked.
“Ah, the News Store?” Helen offered with a shrug. “I don’t think we’ll be able to talk there, though.”
“How ’bout this,” he said as he pulled into a chain restaurant that was popular with the tourists.
Helen winced but assented. There were other mom-and-pop choices, but she knew all the people who worked in those places. For this conversation she needed a little privacy.
They stood quietly together in line, waiting to sit before they started talking. Helen tried not to stare at Lucas, but it was difficult. It amazed her how comfortable he seemed wherever he went, as if the whole world was as private to him as his own bedroom.
She tried to watch him out of the corner of her eye, maybe catch him fidgeting or shuffling his feet the way she herself did in public, but there was none of that.
He really didn’t care if people looked at him or not.
He didn’t subconsciously apologize to the world for his presence by slouching or crossing his arms or playing with his keys.
It unnerved Helen to see how he could just stand there and not do anything else, but it also inspired her.
Why should she slouch and feel bashful for taking up more space than most people?
She stood up a little straighter while she stared at him.
“Had enough?” he asked, smiling at Helen’s brazen admiration of his looks.
“Not yet,” she said, a matching smile breaking across her face.
“Good.”
As soon as they were seated, Lucas asked her what she wanted to know, and Helen had to think for a moment. She wasn’t entirely sure.
“I guess the first thing I need to know is who hurt Kate,” she said, dreading the answer.
“We have no idea,” he answered, sounding earnest. Helen’s heart sank. She knew from the night before that although Lucas couldn’t bear to be lied to, it didn’t stop him from telling a few whoppers of his own.
“That doesn’t make sense, Lucas,” she said carefully. “Your father told me that I was the only one of . . . our kind . . . who was not a member of your House. How can you not know two women who, by that logic, are related to you?”
Lucas nodded, like he understood why Helen doubted him.
“The House of Thebes is very large. Our immediate family—those of us who moved back here to the States—are a just a tiny splinter group, but the main part of the House of Thebes is much, much larger. They’re known as the Hundred Cousins, although there are a lot more of them than that now, and they’re loosely led by my uncle Tantalus,” he said, looking down at his coffee, his eyes far away.
“My dad knows everyone in our House on sight, but I don’t, and he wasn’t there when you were attacked.
Helen, I’ve got so many cousins, there are some I’ve never even heard of, let alone seen. ”
“If your uncle is the leader, can’t you just call and ask him which of your cousins is trying to kill me?”
“Tantalus may have been the one who sent them,” he said darkly.
“But we don’t know that for sure yet. My uncle Pallas—Hector, Jason, and Ariadne’s father—he went back to Europe after the first attack on you to see how much Tantalus knows.
” Helen studied his face for a moment. It was all sharp edges and glittering blue eyes.
“You mean spy on the rest of the House,” Helen said, surprised. He nodded. “But why would your family go through so much for me? I’m grateful, but still. What else aren’t you telling me?”
He tore at his croissant for a moment and then let out a fast breath.
“The Hundred Cousins are a kind of cult. They believe something that my family doesn’t, and they believe it so fanatically that they are willing to kill for it.
That’s why we left Spain. Hector . . .” Lucas trailed off, and then shook his head as if to clear it before turning his focus back on Helen.
“The point is that you’re in a lot of danger.
I’ve been following you since I first saw you, but I can’t guard you every second.
If either one of those women finds you without me there, they’ll try to kill you, and you don’t know how to defend yourself yet. ”
“Well, it’s not like I’ve ever had to defend myself,” Helen said, at a loss. “I mean, this is Nantucket. My dad and I forget to lock the front door more often than not!”
“You’re very important to us. Much more than I can explain to you right now,” Lucas said, leaning forward and taking her hands.
“I know you said you needed a few days, and I didn’t want to freak you out by throwing all of this at you at once, but you have to start training with us as soon as you can. My family will teach you how to fight.”
“You mean like judo and stuff?”
“Sort of,” Lucas said, smiling reassuringly. “Don’t look so worried. With your gifts you’ll be kicking ass in no time.”
“What gifts?” Helen asked doubtfully.
“You really don’t know, do you?” he marveled.
“Hey, Luke, what’s up?” Zach asked, entering the café. He was smiling, but his smile faded as soon as he saw whom Lucas was with. Behind him stood a few guys from the football team, all of whom were staring, openmouthed, at the unlikely pairing.
“Hey, Zach. Getting some coffee. You?” Lucas answered, totally unfazed. Helen gave a watered-down smile and untucked her hair from behind her ears to hide her face. Lucas reached across the table and smoothed her hair back behind her shoulder.
“Same, yeah,” Zach mumbled as he nearly tripped over himself to get away, his eyes darting between Helen and Lucas with disbelief. “See you in a few,” he called out before joining the other guys in line.
Helen bit her lip and stared at her coffee cup, rubbing her stomach under the table as subtly as possible. Please, no cramps, she thought.
“What’s the matter?” Lucas asked, watching her.
“Nothing. Can we just go?” she pleaded, desperate to change the subject, get away, maybe drop dead if at all possible.
“Sure,” Lucas said, standing up. He gave her a worried look. “I know it’s not nothing, Helen, and I’d rather you told me the truth, whatever it is. Ariadne gave all three of us guys a whole lecture about women’s troubles years ago, you know. And by lecture, I mean beating.”
“Well, I owe her one, but it’s not what you think.” Helen grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the door.
Lucas waved to Zach on his way out. Zach waved back, but he was still pouting.
“I think I’ve lowered your rank. Sorry,” Helen said as they got in the little silver Mercedes.
“What are you talking about?” Lucas asked, backing out of the parking lot.
“Well, Zach and all those guys saw us together,” she said, like her meaning was obvious.
“And?”
“Zach and Gretchen aren’t my biggest fans, which makes me sort of like popularity antimatter at school,” Helen explained sheepishly. Lucas’s face cracked into a huge smile and he grabbed her hand, but he had to let it go to shift.
“I’m going to have to start driving an automatic,” he mumbled to himself before continuing.
“You think you’re unpopular? The first hour I was on this island I heard about the beautiful, perfect, heavenly Helen Hamilton.
You know that’s what the boys call you, right?
Heaven Hamilton?” Helen dodged his seeking hand, but he eventually captured hers and held it tighter.
“Stop it, Lucas. This isn’t a joke to me. And what’s up with this?” she asked, holding up their linked hands.
“I don’t know,” he said with a curious tilt of his head. “But it feels right, doesn’t it? Look, why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you about being seen with me. Are you afraid of people talking?”
“Yes and no. You don’t understand because you haven’t been here long enough, but those popular people have something against me, and some of them go out of their way to be mean to me. I’ve never fit in with them.”
“And you never will,” he told her seriously. “No matter where you go you are going to be different, Helen. It’s about time you got used to it.”
“I am used to it! I’ve had my whole life to get used to it!” she exclaimed as they drove into the school parking lot.
“Good. Now stop freaking out and listen for a sec. Those guys weren’t staring at us because they hate you. They were staring at us because they couldn’t figure out how the hell I convinced a girl who tried to strangle me the other week to get in my car and go out for coffee.”