accepting.
“You know what?” she said, standing up straighter. “I want to learn how to control my lightning.”
“Yeah, you do!” he nearly shouted. When they got outside, they saw Hector’s truck pull up and the rest of the Delos siblings pile out.
“We’re going to test her bolts!” Lucas yelled toward them. Jason and Hector glanced at each other briefly with wide eyes. They both broke into a run.
“How long has it been?” Hector shouted, sprinting toward them, giddy as a schoolgirl.
“About an hour and forty-five minutes,” Lucas said. “She drank two gallons of water.”
“And I still feel a little thirsty,” Helen admitted.
“Well, get her some more water, Lucas!” Cassandra ordered as she and Ariadne caught up. “How is she supposed to make lightning bolts without hydrogen?”
“Right,” Lucas said distractedly. Jumping into the air, he flew to the house and back in about twenty seconds. “Why didn’t you tell me you were thirsty?” he asked Helen, handing her a large bottle still cold from the fridge.
“I didn’t know. I guess I should start paying better attention to that,” Helen mumbled to herself sheepishly.
“You have to pay attention to everything that makes you more powerful. And your bolts make you very powerful,” Hector said, a feline grin spreading across his face. Helen tipped the bottle back and drank deeply.
“That door was insane!” Jason exclaimed. Recalling it, he rubbed a hand across his face in that Delos gesture that Helen always noticed. “It was like you had taken an industrial-strength welder to it.”
“How many volts do you think you have stored right now?” Cassandra asked. They all entered the arena.
“No idea.” Helen shrugged. She felt for the charge and tried to gauge it, but she couldn’t describe it. “It’s a feeling, not a digital readout, Cass.”
“Oh, then wait!” Cassandra said, holding up her hands. “Maybe I can devise a way to measure it.”
“Cassie, geek out later! We’re all dying to see this right now,” Hector whined.
“All right, fine! Sorry, Helen. Whenever you’re ready,” she reluctantly allowed.
The Delos family moved behind Helen, giving her plenty of room to aim her bolt out across the nonconductive sand of the arena. She held up her right hand. That was the hand she wrote with, but it didn’t feel like the best fit, so she switched to her left. Then she summoned her bolt—deliberately for the first time.
Lightning shot out of her hand. Not static, not some pathetic splinter of a spark, but actual lightning. It arced forward in a bright, branching blur, and it made a huge cracking sound, like an orchestra of leather bullwhips snapping simultaneously. One second the air was full of blinding icy blue light, and the next second half of the arena was coated in a thick sheet of smoking amber-colored glass.
No one said anything for a second.
“Unbefrickinglievable,” Hector cussed quietly into the silence.
Helen smacked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and stumbled toward the water bottle that Lucas automatically held out for her. She finished an entire liter in five gulps.
“Maybe that was a bit much,” she said as she leaned against Lucas.
“You could have fried about fifty people,” Ariadne murmured distractedly, looking from Helen to the irregular sheet of glass.
“I don’t want to fry fifty people. Fifty French fries, sure. Who wouldn’t want fifty French fries? Delicious,” Helen said. She felt herself give a goofy grin.
“The electricity makes her a little confused,” Lucas explained to his siblings in an embarrassed tone. “I hope it isn’t bad for her.”
“It’s not the voltage, Lucas. It’s severe dehydration!” Cassandra chastised. “Her body is built to handle electricity. It’s the drain of the fluids out of her tissues that makes her seem like an airhead. And that isn’t permanent or damaging, so stop worrying.”
In the kitchen, Helen put her lips under the faucet. Everyone waited patiently for Helen to drink her fill while they stared at one another behind her back. She could feel their fear. It was exactly why she had suppressed her power to begin with. That power was so intense, so destructive, it was impossible for anyone to trust it.
Helen shut off the tap and turned to face them. “Did I just freak everyone out?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Lucas said, his face a mask. Helen’s throat closed and her whole body went still. She kept her eyes on Lucas, but she was waiting for any one of them to condemn her for going too far. Lucas looked at Helen and smiled at her. He smiled like he was proud of her.
“But