a hospital,” Ariadne insisted as she studied Matt’s uneven pupils.
“No,” Matt said vehemently. “There’s no way to explain this. Normal people don’t get up and walk away after you run them over with a car.”
They all knew he was right. Even concussed, Matt was a quick thinker.
“You hit your head,” Jason warned as the Scions shot each other uncertain looks.
“And I still know what I saw. Look, don’t worry about me, I’d never rat out a friend, but we have to go now,” Matt insisted. “Before the police come.”
“Ari?” Jason asked as he met his twin’s eyes in an honest exchange. “Is it life threatening?”
Ariadne ran her hands just over Matt’s skull, a faint glow coming out of her palms. “He’ll be just fine,” she said after a brief moment. She started to lead Matt toward Hector’s truck, but Matt giggled and stopped dead.
“Wow. What did you do to me?” He gave her a goofy smile.
“I healed you. That’s my gift,” she answered as she smiled back at him, suddenly looking exhausted.
“Thanks,” Matt said. He allowed himself to be moved toward Hector’s truck. “Wait. Where’s Claire?”
Helen was out of the truck and barreling down on Matt before her mother could even hold out an arm to stop her.
“What do you mean ‘where’s Claire’?” Helen demanded, balling her fists so hard her arms started shaking. “Where did you last see her?”
“The front seat,” Matt replied weakly as he gestured toward his car.
Jason’s whole body went rigid. Moving so fast he was little more than a blur, Jason tore the door of the car off with one hand and tenderly scooped Claire out from underneath the dashboard with the other. She was unconscious, bleeding, and as limp as a wet cotton doll.
“No,” Jason whispered to her. “You were supposed to stay away from me.” He placed his lips a hair’s width away from hers and held statue still.
“How is she?” Ariadne asked urgently.
“She’s breathing,” he said after a moment, his voice breaking. He lifted his head up and met his twin’s eyes.
“Well, can you heal her or not?” she asked him calmly, as though she and her twin had prepared themselves for this.
He clenched his jaw and nodded but didn’t speak, carrying Claire into the back of the truck and holding her carefully on his lap while everyone else organized.
“I’ll take care of Matt’s car and meet you back at home,” Lucas said to Hector, already obscuring the particulars of the wreck by bending the light around it.
“Wait,” Daphne commanded. She raised a hand like she was hailing a cab and closed her eyes. “This will draw less attention,” she said. Thick wreaths of pearl gray fog rolled off the water and down the street, the long, ropy tendrils racing toward her delicately tilted fingers. Helen had the feeling that the recent storm was no accident, and wondered if her mother had conjured it.
“Great Zeus, Cloud-Gatherer,” Hector said under his breath, thinking along the same lines as Helen. The scene of the accident disappeared in the fog, and then he turned to Lucas. “Where are you going to hide the car?”
“In the ocean. We can clean it up after dark,” Lucas answered as he plunged into the thick mist to push Matt’s lump of twisted metal and leaking toxins off the dock.
Everyone else squeezed into Hector’s truck. The whole incident, from Creon’s attack to their getaway, had only taken a few minutes and they were a full four blocks from the scene before they heard the first siren sounding through the fog.
They drove in complete silence, at a completely lawful speed, out to Siasconset, each of them stuck inside their own thought box of shock and worry. As they cruised along, Helen couldn’t take her eyes off of Jason and Claire. Jason had started moving his hands an inch above her body, his palms glowing like his sister’s had when she healed Matt. He whispered in her ear. He blew soft, sparkling breaths against her closed eyes as if he was exhaling energy directly into her unconscious dreams.
Whatever he was doing was helping Claire, but it was also causing him excruciating pain. A thick, slick sweat beaded up on his graying skin as Claire seemed to settle with more comfort in his arms and gather more color in her cheeks. By the time they parked at the Delos compound, Jason was so spent Helen didn’t even ask, she just picked Claire up off his lap and carried her into the house for