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They both burst out laughing.
“I had to get them! I was trashing my regular sheets with mud from the Underworld!” she said, smacking Orion on the leg. He captured her hand and kept it there against his thigh.
“Helen, be honest,” he teased. “You still pee the bed, don’t you?”
She smiled and shook her head, giving him a look that warned him not to push it. The playful laughter died down quickly, and the fun was replaced by a delicate tension. For some inexplicable reason Helen was still touching Orion’s thigh. She snatched her hand away but found that she ended up immediately replacing that same hand on his calf.
Orion leaned back against the pillows and reached out to touch her upper arm at the same time, as if he needed to reassure himself that Helen was really there.
“I’m not attacking you,” he whispered with a faraway look in his eyes. He ran his fingers down her arm and cupped her elbow in his palm. “The Furies really released us.”
“They did,” she whispered back. “Now you can go home.”
The awed look on his face crumbled. “You and I might be out, but it’s not over, you know,” he said.
“Not yet,” she agreed, her voice breaking just above a whisper. “But I understand if you have more important things you want to do now.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked with a curious look on his face.
“You’re free. You can be with your dad.” Helen couldn’t look at him. Glancing around for something to do with her hands, she realized she was still wearing the fairy wings. She shrugged out of them and spoke in as calm a voice as she could muster. “I understand if you don’t want to go down to the Underworld with me anymore.”
Orion’s lips parted in surprise and he narrowed his eyes at Helen. “Unbelievable,” he said under his breath. “After everything I’ve told you about myself.”
Orion flung the bunched-up covers out of his way with an angry snap and tried to stand, but Helen grabbed his arms and stopped him.
“Hey. You haven’t been able to see your father since you were ten, and this isn’t really your burden to begin with. It’s mine. I had to at least bring it up,” she said seriously.
“I already told you. I’m in this with you to the end, no matter what.”
“
I was hoping you’d say that,” she whispered, smiling up at him gratefully. His stern look softened into a smile, and he allowed Helen to gently nudge him back into her bed.
She couldn’t seem to stop touching him. Orion had probably spent his whole life beating girls off with a stick, and it was embarrassing to know that she was no different from any them.
“So don’t put this away just yet, okay?” she said, lowering her hand to touch the Bough of Aeneas, still in the guise of a gold cuff around his wrist. She allowed herself one tiny, trailing caress across the backs of his fingers and then forced herself to remove her hands from his body altogether.
“I don’t think it comes off, anyway,” he said softly.
His breathing sped up as they stared at each other. He seemed to relax into her bed and get more alert at the same time, and she wondered if he could see her heart beating in her chest. For just a moment, Helen was certain he was going to lean forward and kiss her.
She panicked, wondering what she would do if he did. This was no dream, and Helen wasn’t sure if she was really ready for anything physical, no matter how much she wanted him right then. Orion’s eyes flicked down to her chest, and his expectant expression fell away.
“It’s okay. I’m not in a hurry, Helen,” he told her in a thick voice. “In fact, I’d rather we take our time.”
At the mention of time, a wave of panic tightened every muscle in Helen’s body. She leapt out of bed, ran to her window, and lifted the blue tarp. She could hear unusually loud noises on the street coming from the center of town.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe I forgot!” she yammered hysterically, doubling back to grab Orion’s arm and pull him with her as she jumped out of her broken window. “I left my family in the middle of a riot!”
They landed together and took off running with Helen leading the way. A moment later they arrived in the town center and stopped. Helen could barely believe her eyes. People she saw every day, people she chatted with as she served them muffins and lattes, were trying to tear each other to shreds. Even uniformed police officers and firefighters were running around, smashing car windows and brawling in the street.
“What do you want to do?” Orion asked, ready for a fight. “I don’t know this place or these people. Who’s the bad guy?”
Helen shrugged helplessly as she watched the free-for-all. Pivoting around in a circle, she tried to decide who to protect and who to fight against. But they were all her neighbors, and from what she could see, the vast majority of them were hurting each other out of sheer panic. She noticed a path being cleared through the random swarm and headed for it.
Automedon, closely followed by her old pal Zach, was carelessly flicking helpless people out of his way. With his inhuman strength, he sent anyone who stepped in his path soaring through the air like kites that had been snipped from their strings. The Myrmidon wasn’t intentionally seeking to hurt people—he just didn’t care if anyone around him lived or died.
A man was lying on the ground, directly in Automedon’s path. A little girl in a princess costume and a boy dressed as a bear were beside him, standing in a pile of spilled Halloween candy. The little girl was bawling inconsolably and pushing on the man’s back, trying uselessly to wake him. The brave little boy turned to face Automedon, his fists clenched inside the furry bear paws, ready to defend the fallen man and the defenseless baby girl. The man was Luis, Helen realized as she drew closer, and the children were Marivi and Juan.
