“She provoked me,” Creon said as he moved past his mother and grabbed the handle of his suitcase. “Besides, it’s better this way and you know it.”
Mildred dropped her eyes and nodded, accepting that her son was right. More than one reporter had “disappeared” over the years.
“Given the situation, I approve of you leaving the country for a while.” She held up the plane ticket she had taken from the front pocket of his suitcase and waved it at him before he could bolt out of the room. He stopped dead, realizing that he had been caught. “What I don’t approve of is your choice of destination. What do you think you’re going to accomplish by going there? Your father forbade the Hundred to go anywhere near Nantucket.”
He took a breath to calm himself down. It didn’t work. “It’s their fault we don’t have what is rightfully ours, it has to be, because all the other Houses are gone! I have to know how they can live with themselves when they’ve sentenced the rest of their family to inevitable death. Immortality is my birthright, and regardless of what my father allows or forbids, I will not sit back while they deny me that!”
Creon shouldered his carry-on, wheedled the ticket out of his mother’s reluctant hands, and moved past her. He hurried down the ancient stone steps at the back of the citadel, his heart still pumping with excitement.
Outside, there was a nondescript black sedan waiting. His mother’s driver was behind the wheel, ready to take him to the airport. Creon realized that Mildred had known all along that he would kill that girl. She had probably known he would do it the moment she arranged for Creon to meet her.
“Son?” she called out to him from under the arched gate. “Did you kill her just to have a reason to leave?”
He turned and faced her, forcing patience. “Did you send me there to kill her?”
His mother smiled at him, but her eyes were far away and out of focus—thinking many thoughts at once. She walked toward him slowly, making him wait for her even though she had to know that he was vibrating with adrenaline. She stepped close to him and looked up into his face. Her elegantly sculpted lips were pulled tight in a thin line of warning.
“Stay away from Hector.”
Wednesday morning, Helen ran out of the house and toward Lucas’s waiting car before Jerry could get it into his head to come out and “have a talk with that young man,” as he had been threatening. Helen wasn’t entirely sure if her dad was serious or if he was just trying to get a rise out of her, but she wasn’t about to take any chances. It wouldn’t be fair to put Lucas through the traditional parental screening when they weren’t even officially dating.
“Ready?” she asked quickly, trying to distract Lucas.
“Should we wait?” Lucas asked when he saw Jerry standing in the front door.
“No, just drive. Quick! I don’t know if he’s really going to do it or not,” Helen responded desperately as she waved good-bye to her father.
“Do what?” he asked. He put the car in gear and drove out.
“Try and talk to you, man-to-man,” Helen said, relieved.
“Well, in that case,” Lucas said. He hit the brakes and shifted into reverse.
“What are you doing?” Helen put her hand over his to stop him from shifting.
“I’m going to go inside and talk to your dad. I don’t want him to feel like he can’t trust me with his daughter.”
“Lucas, I swear to whatever god you think is holy that I will get out of this car and walk to school if you go inside and talk to my dad.”
Lucas smiled and shifted back into first, driving away from her house. “Who told you the gods were holy?” he asked with a sinister glint in his eyes. Helen punched him on the arm.
“You just did that to see me freak out, didn’t you?” she asked indignantly.
“Hey, you’re the one embarrassed by her own father. You’re pretty cute when you panic,” he said with a huge smile.
Helen tried to smile back at him, but it came out all mangled on her lips. She had no idea what to think. The use of the word cute could either encourage her hopes, or eulogize them.
Every person who recognized them honked and waved with a big smile on their face. Honking at passing friends was customary on the island,