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“I’d never let anything happen . . .” Helen began incredulously, but Claire touched Helen’s arm and silenced her.
“I’m okay, Jason,” Claire said patiently as she reached toward him with her other hand. She held on to both Jason and Helen, as if she was trying to use her arms to bridge the gap between them.
It seemed that Jason put down a heavy burden as he nodded, finally accepting that Claire was safe, but as they turned to walk to Claire’s car, he glared at Helen, almost as if he didn’t trust her.
On the way to the parking lot, Claire repeated the conversation they’d had with Hector, but she couldn’t give Jason much information.
“I spent most of the time knocked on my ass. It was over really fast, though,” she finished sheepishly.
“There was this creepy commander,” Helen told Jason. “He didn’t look right.”
“Luke never said anything about that,” Jason said with a shake of his head.
“Maybe he didn’t see him,” Helen said, unable to bring herself to say Lucas’s name. “There was also a Shadowmaster there.”
“We know,” Jason said with a worried glance over at Claire. “Lucas mentioned that.”
“What was Lucas doing there, anyway?” Claire asked.
“He didn’t say,” Jason replied with a tired shrug. “Luke doesn’t seem to think he needs to explain himself to anyone anymore.”
“Is he okay?” Helen asked quietly. Jason pursed his lips.
“Sure,” he said, throwing up his hands like there was nothing else he could say, even if they both knew it wasn’t the literal truth.
“Are you going to be all right getting home alone?” Claire asked Helen when Jason left to go get his car. It took a moment for Helen to catch on, and when she did, she was stunned. Claire was ditching her for Jason.
“Hector said they were after him, not me. I’m not in any danger,” Helen said in a cold voice.
“Not exactly what I meant,” Claire said with raised eyebrows. Then she made Helen face her. “Hector is being hunted, and Jason’s going out of his head about it. He needs to talk to someone right now.”
Helen didn’t respond. She wasn’t about to say she was fine with Claire blowing off their plans when she wasn’t. She knew she was being childish, but she couldn’t stop herself. A big part of her wanted to say that she needed someone right now, too. Helen waited with Claire until Jason pulled up next to Claire’s car, but she didn’t say anything else. When they were gone she trotted toward a secluded area, looked around to make sure no one was watching her, and then took off and flew home.
Helen circled her house a few times, looking down at the empty widow’s walk. For just a moment, Helen let herself hope that Lucas would be up there, waiting for her to come home. It was almost as if she could feel him there, like his ghost was walking back and forth, scanning the horizon for her. Looking for the mast of her ship . . .
But as usual lately, she was all alone.
Helen landed in her yard, and went into the house. Jerry had left her a note and a rapidly cooling casserole. He and Kate were working late. It was delivery night, and that meant they would spend hours restocking the shelves and doing inventory. Helen stood in the middle of the kitchen with only one light on in the hall and listened to the house be empty. The silence was overwhelming.
Helen looked around at the dark kitchen and thought about the ambush that she had survived just hours earlier. It reminded her of the time she had been ambushed by Creon, right where she was standing. Lucas had come and saved her life. Then, afterward, he’d sat her on the counter and fed her honey. Helen pinched her eyes with her fingers until she saw pale blue spots and told herself that they hadn’t known then that they were cousins, so it was okay that she’d felt what she had. But she knew they were cousins now, so it wasn’t okay to relive it.
Helen couldn’t allow herself to stand around and think about Lucas. Standing still would lead to more thinking, more thinking would lead to hysterical crying, and Helen could not allow herself to cry before she slept or she would suffer for it in the Underworld.
Shutting off her memories, Helen marched upstairs and got ready for bed. All she wanted was someone to talk to before she laid her head down, but it seemed like no one was around anymore, not even Jerry and Kate.
Helen saw that her dad had replaced the blanket she had put over the hole in her window with a blue tarp and smiled to herself. He might not be around for Helen to talk to every moment of the day, but at least her father loved her enough to try to fix her messes. She checked the seal on the tape holding it down. It was on tight, but the room was still so cold Helen could see her breath. She climbed reluctantly into bed and pulled the miserable bed-wetter sheets up to her chin to keep in the heat.
Helen glanced around her room. The silence pounded in her ears and the walls spiraled in on her. She didn’t want to be the Descender anymore. For all her suffering she had learned nothing, and she was no closer to freeing the Rogues and the Outcasts from the Furies than she had been when she first descended. She was a failure.
Helen was at the end of her endurance. She was beyond tired, but she couldn’t let herself fall asleep in this condition. If she did, she didn’t know if she would ever have the strength to wake up again. She needed something, anything, to look forward to.
A fragment of a thought flashed across her mind’s eye—the sweet image of a strong hand that was open and ready to take hers. Behind that helping hand was a mouth that smiled as it said her name.
Helen didn’t just want a friend, she needed one. And she didn’t care if she had to go to hell to find him.
Automedon saw the Heir to the House of Atreus circle her house twice, staying high in the night sky before she landed in her yard. At first, he thought she stayed aloft because she had spotted him. He sank back into the neighbor’s bushes and took on the preternatural stillness that only a creature of nonhuman lineage could achieve. He knew the Heir was powerful and shou
ld not be underestimated. He hadn’t seen lightning like she had made during the battle in the woods in many years.
