“You don’t have to use them to kill. Just to knock people out,” Lucas amended, aware now that something was disturbing Helen deeply.
He couldn’t know that what he was saying to make it better only made it worse. Helen thought of Kate’s unconscious body—how Kate had convulsed in that nauseating way when the blue light flashed. How her head had lolled back and her mouth fell open uncontrollably when Helen had picked her up off the ground. She couldn’t get the horrifying images out of her head so she started pacing around, wringing her hands to dispel the nervous energy she felt. She knew everyone was staring at her. She looked up and locked eyes with Pandora, who was clearly attentive to her strange reaction.
“Why don’t we talk about this tomorrow?” Pandora said to the room in general. “Hector needs to eat and everyone else needs a shower. No offense, but pee-ew, guys.” She got a few laughs, but more important, she got the focus off Helen. Helen smiled at her gratefully.
“Are you okay?” Ariadne whispered in Helen’s ear as the family meeting broke up. Helen squeezed Ariadne’s hand and tried to smile, but she had no idea what to say. She started to wander toward the door.
“I’ll take you home,” Lucas called out over his shoulder to Helen, ending the brief conversation he was having with his father and uncle.
“I’m supposed to watch Helen tonight,” Jason said apologetically.
“And I have my bike,” Helen said. She couldn’t bear to be with him alone.
“I don’t care,” Lucas replied bluntly to them both. He stared down Jason for a moment, speaking volumes with his eyes, then turned back to Hector. “I need your truck,” he said with barely controlled anger. Hector nodded, glancing over at Helen and back at Lucas with something approaching sympathy.
Lucas grabbed Helen’s hand and pulled her outside. He loaded her bicycle into the back of Hector’s SUV, held Helen’s door open for her while she got in, and drove out of the garage without a word. Once off the Delos property he pulled over into one of the many scenic park-and-gawk spots and turned in his seat to face Helen.
“What’s going on?” he asked, angry and frustrated and frightened all at the same time.
Helen didn’t have an answer for him.
“Will you at least tell me what I did wrong?”
“I already told you, you didn’t do anything,” Helen said to her lap.
“Then why are you treating me like this? Look at me,” he pleaded, taking her hand. She stared at their linked hands like it was the first time she had ever seen anything like it.
“What the hell is this?” she asked. She pulled her hand out of his with disgust. “You know what? I take it back. You did do something to me. You led me on.”
Lucas’s whole face crumpled. Helen had had no reason to hope after what she had heard the night before, but for some reason there was a tiny spark still glowing in her that maybe, somehow, she had misunderstood. Or that he would change his mind. It went out completely when Lucas nodded.
“I led you on,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his fists so hard Helen thought for a moment he was going to rip the steering wheel off. His voice was harsh, almost a snarl. “You and I can’t be together, so just get it out of your head and move on.”
Helen unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the car.
“Wait, please,” he started to say, almost as if he was in pain, but Helen slammed her door shut and cut him off.
“Wait for what? For you to tell me that I’m a really nice girl but you’d never touch me? Thanks, I got that part already. Now open the back so I can get my bike,” she bit out. Her voice was foreign to her, so bitter and loaded with sarcasm that it sounded like someone else’s.
“I promise I won’t say anything the rest of the way if you don’t want me to. Just let me take you home,” Lucas replied calmly. She hated that he was calm.
“Open the damn door, or I’ll rip it off!” Helen yelled back.
She knew she was making a fool of herself, throwing a tantrum in the middle of the road like this, but she couldn’t stop. Humiliation was leaking out of every pore and she needed to get away from him fast. She didn’t want to leave anything behind,