Chapter Eighteen
Waiting in the shadows outside the Hamilton house was a long shot, but Creon had no other choice.
He couldn’t get within a thousand yards of the Delos compound now that he had shown his hand and put them on the defensive.
He had been so close, so close, but underestimating his cousin had cost him.
Lucas was stronger than he had thought. He would never make that mistake again, but it was possible that once was all it would take to change Creon from a savior to an embarrassment.
Now that his target was being protected by his own family, he had few options but to wait and see if she was stupid enough to go out on her own. He was hoping that if she went anywhere it would be to the place she had once called home.
It wasn’t much of a chance, but it was all he had at this point.
He couldn’t go back to the yacht and face his other cousins empty-handed.
He had to come up with something else—a lead, an opportunity, something—before he involved any of the Hundred.
No matter how this turned out, his father could never know about his failure outside the hotel.
It was too humiliating to even think about.
Tantalus had finally entrusted Creon with the truth, and for the first time in over nineteen years, Creon had been allowed to hear his father’s actual voice.
He hadn’t been allowed in the same room, or seen his father’s face, because that woman had deformed it so monstrously it would be death to look upon him, but for the first time in such a long time Creon had actually spoken to his father and learned about the burden he carried.
His father praised him for being so strong and faithful over the years.
Then he told his son what had really happened in that rowboat, how his thoughts and his will had been so grievously twisted that he had had been led into a type of sin that had marked him forever—marked like Medusa.
Tantalus admitted his wrongs, repented for them, and told his son that he had been trying to right them ever since.
He had sworn to remove the feminine evil of the cestus from the world so that all men, Scions and normals alike, could finally control their lust. Then he had entrusted Creon with the same sacred mission.
And Creon had failed.
Creon felt his phone vibrate in his pocket for the fifth time.
He had been ignoring it for a while and he didn’t even want to know who was trying to contact him, but this time he caved and pulled it out to look at the screen.
It was his mother. He debated answering for a moment, then finally relented.
“Where are you?” Mildred asked in a low voice.
“Hunting,” Creon replied vaguely, sensing his mother was being watched, maybe even listened to. It had happened before.
“One of the traitors just called me,” she said in an urgent whisper. “She told me about your failure in front of the hotel, and she wants to change sides. She wants her men freed of the cestus. . . .”
Creon heard the crackling sound of his mother’s phone as it brushed up against fabric, as if it had been shoved into a pocket or under a sweater. A few seconds passed during which all Creon could hear was the rhythmic brushing of clothes against the mouthpiece as his mother walked somewhere else.
“Are you still there?” she finally asked when she got to relative safety.
“Yes. Mother, what’s going on?”
“Sssh. Just listen. The Hundred are starting to doubt you. I can’t let them know we’re in contact,” she whispered urgently. “Where are you? She wants to meet right now, to make a plan.”
Helen spent fifteen minutes on the phone with her dad, trying to get him to calm down.
He had been just about ready to go down to the police station, and he demanded to know where she had been all night.
She didn’t have an answer for him. Jerry was as angry as he had ever been with her.
He demanded that she come home immediately.
He even yelled at her, which he hadn’t done since she was a kid.
Helen wasn’t used to disobeying her father, but she found herself telling him that she was safe and that she wasn’t coming home just yet.
She hung up on him while he was still sputtering.
She knew she was being unfair to him, but she didn’t know what else to do.
She hadn’t decided if she was going to tell her father about Daphne’s return and then tell him that she was leaving to live with her, or if it was kinder to just disappear.
Daphne insisted that a clean break would be better for everyone, including Jerry, but Helen couldn’t quite bring herself to accept that.
He might be physically safer, but emotionally he would be destroyed.
Helen went through both scenarios in her head, and neither of them felt right.
Either way her father, the person who deserved to suffer the least, was the one who would be hurt the most. Eventually, her brooding was interrupted by Noel, who let Helen know that Claire and Jason were awake.
Helen went upstairs to Jason’s room and pushed the door open a crack.
Daphne was sitting on the edge of the bed next to Claire, holding her hand and looking down at her with a fretful tenderness.
Daphne had loved Claire when she was a baby, she had explained to Helen the night before, and she had always worried for Claire’s safety growing up alongside a Scion.
In the hotel during the storm, Daphne had removed Helen’s curse, and she had also explained that she had left Claire excluded from being able to trigger the cramps, even though it could have exposed Helen, just in case Helen ever needed to protect Claire.
Helen had thanked her for that, although there was little else her mother told her that night to make her grateful.
“Did you sort things out with Lucas?” Daphne asked as Helen entered the room. Helen flinched when she heard his name, nodded hastily, and put the attention back on Claire.
“Hey, Gig. You really freaked me out,” she said. She came over to stand next to the bed.
“Freaked myself out,” Claire said, gesturing for her to sit down. Then she noticed Helen’s puffy face. “Are you okay?”
“Not important,” Helen said as she perched next to her mother. “How are you two?”
“It was easier than I thought it would be,” Jason replied. “We never went into the rubble, all we did was climb the dry hills.”
“Good,” Helen said, smiling with relief. “That’s far away from the river.”
“I know,” Jason said, smiling back at Helen before he looked back down at Claire. “She really is strong.”
“What river? What rubble?” Daphne interjected, glancing from Jason to Helen, but she was overruled by Claire’s urgency.
“That was real?” she blurted out, her eyes dark and wide with fear.
“Yes and no,” Jason said softy, briefly brushing his lips against Claire’s forehead as he sat up painfully and gently pulled her up with him. “It’s a real place, but we only went there in spirit.”
“But I was so hungry. So thirsty,” Claire whispered, suddenly terrified.
She trustingly turned her face into Jason’s neck and he held her close to him. The bond they had forged in the dry lands still tied them to each other, and Helen had a feeling that Jason was reluctant to let it dissolve.
“Don’t be afraid, we only walked along the edge of it, we never crossed the river and went in. Not even the best Healers can go all the way in and make it out alive,” Jason said reassuringly. He met Helen’s eyes as if to ask her to help him explain.
“The place you went is just beyond the place you go when you’re sleeping. It’s not something you should be afraid of,” Helen said, putting her hand on Claire’s back and trying to comfort her. “Just think of it as an intense dream if that makes it easier, because that’s what it feels like.”
“Nightmare is more like it,” Claire said as she pulled her face away from Jason and got ahold of herself.
“Well, you almost died,” Helen said with a shrug. “That shouldn’t be fun.”
“Helen?” Daphne asked, comprehension dawning on her face. “How many times have you been to this place you’re talking about?”
“I’ve lost count,” Helen said softly, shaking her head.
Daphne stared at her daughter with a hard look on her face. There was a knock on the door. Matt poked his head in sheepishly.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Matt said with a slight grimace. “Hey, Claire. You okay?”
“Come in,” Claire responded as she tried to sit up a little straighter. She reached out to Helen, who helped brace her. “I’m glad you’re in one piece,” she said gratefully.
“Yeah, so am I,” Matt said with relief. “But there’s still a big problem that we need to fix. I noticed some people staring at us when we . . . uh . . .”
“Hit Luke with your car?” Jason finished for him with a humorous glint in his eye.
“Right. So I need to go take care of that. Before it gets out of control,” Matt said uncomfortably. “The longer I stay here, the more everyone will talk. If I start denying it, showing everyone that I couldn’t have been in an accident because I’m not injured . . .”
“Then the whole thing goes away before it gets started,” Daphne finished for him. “Are you really willing to lie to your own kind for us?” she asked coldly.
“I don’t see it as your kind or my kind. All I see are my friends and they need my help,” Matt said with narrowed eyes. He glanced over at Helen uncertainly, as if to ask if she was sure about this new mother she had acquired.
“I’ll take you wherever you need to go,” Helen said as she stood. “I’ve got to go talk to my dad, anyway. I’ll drop you off on the way.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Daphne said, surprised that Helen would even suggest it. “It’s far too dangerous.”
“I can’t just leave him,” Helen said. “That’s what you did, and I’ve spent my whole life cleaning up the mess you left behind. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that I don’t want to repeat your mistakes. Not now, not ever.”