Starcrossed (8 page)

Dodging her way through the day, Helen made it to work that

evening with something like relief, until she realized that a lot of

kids from her school were coming in to buy a single piece of candy

or one can of soda.

“Why don’t you go to the back and do some stocking for me?”

Kate asked, giving Helen a gentle pat on the arm. “They’ll stop

coming in to gawk if they think you’ve left for the day.”

“Don’t they have anything else to do on a Friday night?” Helen

asked hopelessly.

“What island did you grow up on?” Kate replied sarcastically.

Helen rested her forehead briefly on Kate’s shoulder, stealing a

second of comfort before she straightened up. “You may as well do

the inventory, too. And take as long as you want,” Kate added as

Helen headed toward the back.

Inventory was not usually Helen’s favorite job, but it was that

night. She was so occupied counting every object in the store that

before she knew it, they were locking the front and going through

the ritual of closing down.

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“So. What really happened between you and that Lucas kid?”

Kate asked without looking up from the stacks of bills she was

sorting.

“I wish I knew.” Helen sighed as she rested on her broom handle.

“Everyone’s talking about you two. And not just the kids,” Kate

said with a half smile. “So what’s up?”

“Look, if I had an explanation, believe me, I’d be shouting it in

the streets. I don’t know why I attacked him,” Helen said. “And the

worst thing is that the attack isn’t the worst thing.”

“Oh, you’re going to have to explain that,” Kate said. She put

aside the money. “Come on. Tell me. What’s the worst thing?”

Helen shook her head and started pushing the broom around.

There had always been a voice in her head that would whisper

possible explanations for her strangeness, words like freak or

monster or even witch. No matter how deftly Helen silenced that

voice, it always came back eventually.

The absolute worst thing that Helen could think of would be to

find out that she really was one of those things.

“It’s nothing,” Helen said, unable to look up.

“It isn’t just going to go away because you don’t talk about it, you

know,” Kate pressed. Helen knew she was right, and she also knew

she could trust Kate. Besides, she needed to talk to someone about

it or she’d go crazy.

“I’m having nightmares. Actually, it’s the same nightmare that I

keep having over and over, and it feels so real. Like I’m going

someplace while I’m sleeping.”

“Where do you go?” Kate asked gently. She came out from behind

the counter and made Helen stop sweeping and focus.

Helen pictured the barren, hopeless world she had been forced to

visit the last few nights.

“It’s a dry place. Everything is bleached and colorless. I can hear

running water in the distance, like there’s a river somewhere, but I

just can’t reach it. It’s like I’m trying to find something, I think.”

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“A dry land, huh? You know that’s pretty common in dream imagery,”

Kate assured her. “It comes up in every dream book, in

every country I’ve ever been to.”

Helen swallowed her frustration and nodded. “Yeah, but I wake

up in the morning and my feet . . .” She stopped herself, hearing

how crazy she sounded. Kate studied Helen for a moment.

“Are you sleepwalking, honey? Is that it?” Kate took Helen’s

shoulders, encouraging Helen to look her in the eyes. Helen threw

up her hands and shook her head.

“I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’m so tired, Kate,” she said. A

few exhausted tears slipped out. “Even if I manage to fall asleep I

wake up and I feel like I’ve been running and running. I think I’m

going crazy.” She let out a nervous laugh. Kate pulled Helen into

one of her pastry-scented hugs.

“It’s okay. We’ll figure it out,” Kate said soothingly. “Have you

talked to your father yet?”

“No. And I don’t want you to, either,” Helen insisted, drawing

back to look directly at Kate. Kate gave her a searching look, and

Helen continued. “Next week, if I’m still crazy, I’ll tell him, but I

think we’ve both had enough drama for one week.”

Kate nodded. “You decide when you’re ready to talk about it with

your dad, and I’ll be there. My little loca,” she teased smilingly.

Helen smiled back, grateful that she had Kate, who could listen to

her seriously when she needed it, and then stop being serious at

just the right time.

“I think we can leave the rest.” Kate gave Helen one final squeeze.

“Ready to go?” she called over her shoulder as she went behind the

counter and put the money in the safe.

Helen stowed her broom and made her way to the back door.

Switching off the lights, Helen turned to lock up as Kate headed

across the alley toward her car, keys in hand.

Neither of them heard a thing. There was a blur and a faint flash

of blue light in the corner of Helen’s eye, and a smell. It was a

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nauseating yet hauntingly familiar odor of sizzling hair mixed with

stale ozone. Then Kate dropped to the ground like a puppet with

her strings cut. Helen instinctively held out her arms to try to

break Kate’s fall, but the attacker took the opportunity to put a bag

over Helen’s head from behind.

She was too startled to scream. As she was pulled backward

against a soft chest, it suddenly registered in Helen’s head that her

attacker was a woman.

Helen had always known she was strong—and not just strong for

a girl. Strong for a bear. She bent her knees and braced the balls of

her feet against the pavement, ready to give her would-be abductor

the shock of her life. She flexed her back and tried to break out of

her attacker’s arms, and was surprised to realize that she couldn’t.

The unseen woman was just as impossibly strong as Helen. But

Helen had more to lose.

The soles of her sneakers shredded under the pressure of her feet

as she pushed off. She took one step, and then another, walking

right out of her ruined shoes as she dragged the woman along with

her. Then Helen heard a thump, a gasp, and she pitched forward

violently as she was released.

Struggling to get the black velvet bag off of her head, Helen heard

a rapid succession of slaps, thuds, and the quick huffs of stunned

breaths. There was a draft of air and the staccato sound of

someone sprinting away just as she yanked the hood off and

pushed her hair out of the way.

Lucas Delos stood over her, his body tense, his eyes scanning the

distance for something that Helen couldn’t see from her position

on the ground.

“Are you injured?” he asked in a low, unsteady voice, still looking

out over her head. There was blood on his lip and his shirt was

torn. Helen had a bare moment to say she was fine before she

heard the sobbing sisters start to whisper.

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He looked down at her, and when his icy blue eyes met her warm

brown ones, a thrill ran down her legs. Helen jumped up into a

fighting crouch. The whispers turned to wails and Helen saw the

bent heads and shivering white bodies of the three sisters blink in

and out of her field of vision. She backed up and scrunched her

eyes shut by force of will alone. The anger was so intense she felt as

if her organs had caught fire.

“Please go away, Lucas,” she begged. “You just helped me, and

I’m grateful. But I still really, really want to kill you.”

There was a short pause, and Helen heard his breath catch.

“This is hard for me, too, you know,” he replied in a choked voice.

A skipping, scuffing sound from where he stood, a rush of wind,

and then Helen dared to open her eyes. He was gone, and thankfully

the miserable poltergeists had gone with him.

Helen crouched next to Kate, trying to see if she was bleeding

anywhere. She got down on her hands and knees to inspect every

visible inch, but strangely there were no cuts, bruises, or scrapes of

any kind. Kate was breathing evenly but she was still unconscious.

Helen risked picking her up and hoped she was doing the right

thing by moving her. She gently laid Kate down in the back of the

car, and then ran around to the driver’s seat as she dialed her dad’s

cell number. She started up Kate’s car as the phone rang.

“Dad! Meet me at the hospital,” she blurted as soon as he

answered.

“What happened? Are you . . .” he began in a panicked voice.

“It’s not me, it’s Kate. I’m on my way to the emergency room now

and I can’t talk and drive. Just meet me,” she said, pushing END CALL

and tossing the phone onto the passenger seat without waiting for

a response.

Now she had to think up a really good lie, and quick, because the

hospital was only a few minutes away.

She called the police as she pulled to a stop at the emergency

room entrance, saying nothing more than that her friend had been

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attacked and that they were at the hospital. Then she dithered

around in the driveway for a second, not knowing how to get Kate

into the actual emergency room. Helen didn’t want to leave her,

but she couldn’t very well pick Kate up and reveal her freakish

strength in front of so many people, so she finally went inside

alone.

“Help?” she mumbled timidly to the admitting nurse. That didn’t

work, so she raised her voice and hopped up and down. “Help! My

friend is outside, and she’s unconscious!” That got people running.

Once her dad got there and they both knew that Kate was going

to be fine, Helen made a statement to the police. She told them

that a woman she’d never had the chance to see had made Kate

pass out with a blue flashy thing. When Helen saw Kate fall, she

went out into the alley and that must have scared the woman off

because she ran away. Of course, Helen didn’t mention anything

about the near abduction, the wrestling match, or the fact that Lucas

Delos had appeared out of nowhere to fight the superstrong

woman off. The last thing she needed was to complicate this situation

any more or tie Lucas Delos to herself in any way. What was

he doing there, anyway?

“What happened to your shoes?” the police officer asked. Helen’s

heart started pounding. How could she have overlooked the fact

that she was barefoot?

“I didn’t have them on from before,” she stated in a rush, and

then continued haltingly. “Before, earlier, they had torn . . . while I

was stocking in the back. And I had taken them off. When I saw

that Kate was hurt I just dropped them, and came straight here.”

Worst lie ever, Helen thought. But the officer nodded.

“We found a pair of ripped sneakers in the alley,” he said as if

Helen had told him exactly what he expected. He went on to explain

that Kate had been Tasered, and that since the assailant had

used up the charge on Kate, she was forced to run off when she saw

another person arrive.

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“One more thing,” the officer said, just before turning away.

“How did you lift her into the car all by yourself?” Both the officer

and her father stared at her for a moment with puzzled looks on

their faces.

“Willpower?” Helen said lamely, hoping they bought it.

“She was lucky to have you there. That was very brave of you.”

The officer gave her an approving smile. Helen couldn’t handle being

praised for lying. She looked down at her bare feet, and they reminded

her of how dumb she had been not to take care of that detail

from the start. She was going to have to learn to be more

careful.

When the police were done questioning Kate, Helen and Jerry

went in to check on her. Unlike Helen, Kate had gotten a quick

look at the woman before she got zapped.

“She was older—in her late fifties at least. Short salt-and-pepper

hair. She looked totally harmless, but I guess she wasn’t,” Kate said

ruefully. “What the hell? Since when did little old ladies go around

Tasering people?” She was trying to make a joke out of it, but

Helen could tell she was really shaken up. Kate’s face was pale and

her eyes were big and shiny.

Jerry decided to stay the night with Kate and bring her to her

house when she was discharged. The doctors told Kate she probably

shouldn’t drive for a few days, so Helen offered to take Kate’s

car and bring it over to her on Sunday. Kate thanked Helen for the

favor, but Helen had her own reasons for wanting Kate’s car. There

was one more detail she had to take care of before she headed

home.

She had just enough time to get scared as she drove across the island

on Milestone Road to the Delos compound in Siasconset. The

closer she got, the more she found herself shaking, but she had no

choice. She had to make sure Lucas kept his mouth shut about the

attack or she could get into serious trouble. She didn’t think he

would tell anyone. The Delos family worked very hard to appear

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normal when Helen knew they were anything but. No one of regular

human strength could have stopped Helen from strangling him

if she set her mind to it. Lucas was like her.

The thought made her stomach heave. How could she be anything

like someone she hated so desperately? First, she had to

make sure he never mentioned his involvement to the police, but

after that she was determined to hate him from as far a distance as

she could without falling into the ocean.

Helen had to concentrate to see through the fog. In the dim predawn

light, way the heck out on private property, she wasn’t sure

where the turn onto the long driveway started. She pulled the car

over and got out, heading on foot toward the sound of the ocean.

She had only seen this particular compound from the beach, and

she was trying to scour her memory for any landmark she could recognize

from the opposite direction. Then she heard a stumbling,

thudding sound behind her. She spun on her heel and saw Lucas