Chapter Twelve #4
“Lennie!” Claire shrieked frantically as she barged through the front door. She gasped at the knocked-over furniture in the foyer.
“In here. Don’t freak out, I’m all right,” Helen called out to Claire.
Then she saw Lucas’s questioning look. “It’s okay, she knows some of it,” she told him.
She pushed him back so she could jump down off the counter.
Claire came in first, followed by Jason, who looked like he was ready to strangle her.
“Sorry, Luke. I was at her place looking for Helen when you called. I tried to come alone but Five-Two latched on to my arm and wouldn’t let me go without her,” Jason growled, nearly tearing his hair out in frustration.
“Um, excuse me? But she’s my best friend and I could tell something was up,” Claire snapped at Jason. “How could this have happened? You just flew out my window, like, two seconds ago.” Claire grabbed Helen in a hug.
“You know about . . . stuff?” Jason asked, surprised, not sure how much he should say.
“I told her,” Helen admitted as she pulled out of Claire’s enthusiastic hug and rubbed her sore neck.
“But I’ve always sort of known. I just thought she was undead or something,” Claire said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Believe me, I’m much happier you’re all part Greek god instead of part something disgusting like bat or wolf or mosquito.”
Jason and Lucas shared a look over Claire’s head.
Helen explained what had happened as quickly as she could while Lucas took Jason outside to look at the tracks, but it was too late to try to follow Creon.
They came back inside with grim looks on their faces to find Helen and Claire had switched the lights on to assess the damage in the entryway.
“Are those pieces of a knife?” Claire asked.
“Yeah. He kinda stabbed me in the heart,” Helen said tentatively, not knowing how Claire would react.
“You can still do that? Stop blades?” Claire asked, unsurprised. “What about the lightning thing? Can you still do that, too?”
“How do you know all this about me?” Helen sputtered. Claire sighed.
“After I pushed you off the roof . . .” she began.
“After you what?” Lucas yelled.
“It was when we were seven! And she wasn’t hurt!” Claire yelled back. “Anyway. I knew about the knife thing because, well, I tried to stab you once, too,” she continued bashfully. “But I already knew you’d be fine because of what happened with Gretchen and the scissors in second grade. Remember?”
Helen grimaced. “Oh, yeah! Gretchen and the scissors! She really was trying to kill me, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah, she was. She was crazy jealous of you. But I never wanted to hurt you, I just had to be sure I wasn’t losing my mind. It was scary, you know?” she asked apologetically.
Helen smiled, forgiving her instantly.
“I guess I can’t blame you. But how’d you know about the lightning-bolt thing?”
“Remember when we were nine, we were going off island on the ferry to see the Boston Aquarium, and that creepy guy with that huge gut kept trying to talk to us? Remember how he kept ‘accidentally’ bumping up against you and stroking your hair?”
Helen did remember, even though she had spent a lot of time trying to forget. There had been that horrible smell of burnt hair, and the empty look in his eyes. Helen nodded, shivering at the thought, and dreading where Claire was going.
“Remember how he just disappeared suddenly before we docked? Well, he didn’t just disappear. He tried to grab you, Len, and I saw an electric spark jump from you to him. It blew him right off the deck of the ferry. It looked like lightning, except it came out of you.”
“I think I killed him,” Helen whispered, needing finally to admit what she had done.
“Good! He was a child molester! You should probably get a medal,” Claire insisted. Helen looked at Claire’s earnest face. The man probably did mean to do something terrible, but did that justify frying him?
“First, you don’t know that you killed him.
Second, it was a reflex. Whether he deserved to die or not isn’t the point.
You shouldn’t feel guilty about something that was done in self-defense,” Lucas insisted.
He touched Helen’s shoulder. She moved away from him uncertainly, not knowing how to feel. Luckily, Jason changed the subject.
“So you’ve always known she wasn’t entirely human,” Jason said to Claire with a wry smile. “Didn’t that ever bother you?”
“I was a little worried she might try to drag me off to hell and drain my essence at some point, but I figured that was still better than having Gretchen for a best friend,” Claire said with just enough honesty to get a laugh.
“Plus, I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but this island is full of white people.
Not exactly easy growing up Japanese here.
But with Lennie around I always knew no matter how strange I was, she would always be way stranger. So that was nice.”
“And you never told anyone else over all of these years? You never mentioned it to someone when you were little, even by accident?” Lucas asked skeptically.
“Come on Lucas, I’m not stupid! I saw E.T., you know, and I know what the men in the white coats did to him and Elliot,” she replied with a disgusted look on her face. “I’d never tell on Lennie. Or you, for that matter.”
“Thanks,” Lucas replied, a little confused by the alien metaphor.
He and Jason shared another look, and this time there was obvious admiration in their eyes.
“You know what I don’t get?” Helen asked, changing the subject. “Why can she be around when I do Scion stuff but it doesn’t affect me? All of these times she saw me use my powers over the years, but I don’t remember ever feeling pain in my stomach.”
Helen explained her mother’s curse to Claire, but no one had an answer to her question.
They turned their attention to cleaning up as best they could before Jerry got home.
Claire offered to stay with Helen for the night, in case she was too freaked out to sleep alone, but Jason nixed that idea right away.
“And what are you going to do if Creon shows up again? Throw your pocketbook at him and give him a piece of your mind?” he said shaking his head. “Uh-uh. I know you two are like sisters, but you’re not staying here.”
“I’ll stay. You take Claire home,” Lucas said, quietly assuming control before Claire could start another argument with Jason. “Let me know if you see anything around her house.”
“Right,” Jason said with a nod as he guided Claire toward the door.
He didn’t seem surprised that there might be something dangerous lurking around Claire’s house, but Helen and Claire were.
Helen lifted her arm to stop them from leaving, suddenly terrified again.
It was night and any shadow could have Creon inside it.
Sensing Helen’s fear, Lucas intercepted her hand and held it tightly.
“Jase can handle it,” he told her confidently.
“Wait, what do you mean, my house? My parents are home,” Claire said, her anxiety resurfacing as well. “You don’t think the guy who did this . . .”
“Don’t worry,” Jason said with a sensitivity he usually reserved for everyone in the world except Claire. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you or your parents.”
“Thank you,” she said slowly, looking a bit surprised that she had any reason to say those words to him.
She turned and waved at Helen, who thought to herself that the impossible had just happened.
Claire had finally run out of nasty things to say to Jason.
Helen shut the door behind them and took a deep breath.
Then she glanced over at Lucas, and prayed to a pantheon of gods that looking at him would get easier someday.
“You look tired,” she said, realizing it was true as she said it.
“So do you. I hear you’ve been having a lot of nightmares,” he said back, completely unashamed to admit he was asking his cousins about her.
“Why do you care? Please, Lucas, just go away,” she begged, rubbing her face with her hands.
“I can’t. I won’t,” he said, moving forward and pulling her into his arms.
She felt too fragile to fight him off. She melted into his chest and rested there for a few moments.
“Why do you smell like the ocean?” he said suddenly, pulling away from her to get a better look. He studied her bedraggled clothes speckled with sand, and asked suspiciously, “What happened to you today besides Creon?”
“How is that fair?” she demanded. She pushed him from her with a bitter laugh. “If I lie to you you’ll know, and if I stay silent you’ll assume something worse than the truth.”
“Then just tell me as much or as little as you want,” he said quietly, stepping away from her to allow her some personal space. “But tell me something. What happened?”
“I was dodging practice because I couldn’t bear to see you.
Hector found me hiding on the beach, I got in his face, and he nearly drowned me to teach me a lesson in humility,” she blurted, tears of exhaustion brimming in her eyes.
“Then I went to Claire’s to cry on her shoulder and tell her I was a Scion.
Then I flew home, where Creon attacked me, tried to break my neck, and stabbed me in the heart.
You pretty much know the rest. Now I just want to take a hot shower and lie down because I’m freezing cold and itchy and I don’t think I can handle anything else happening today. ”
“Okay. You go shower,” Lucas said, nodding tightly as he stepped out of her path. “I’ll wait for you in your room.”
Helen staggered up the stairs and ran into the bathroom.
She got into the shower and began to cry.
Sitting down in the tub with the spray fanning out all around her she couldn’t stop the tears any longer.
She tried to be as quiet as she could, and hoped that the droning rush of water would mask the sound of her crying.