People are coming for you. You have to grow up, and you have to do it now or a lot of people are going to die. So go home. Eat something and get some rest. You look sick and I don’t want Luke blaming that on me. But tomorrow you come to train. No more excuses.”
Without waiting for a response, Hector stood up and left her alone on the dark beach. She fiddled with her heart necklace, running the charm along her lower lip as she sat there feeling ashamed of how she had acted. Her clothes were heavy with water, but she didn’t wring them out. She felt like she deserved to be waterlogged and uncomfortable a little longer.
Obviously, she had to keep training with Hector, but that meant she had to go to the Delos house. That meant she had to see Lucas, and she absolutely could not do that. No matter how she turned it over in her mind she felt like she was choking whenever she thought about having to see him every day, knowing that he was forcing himself to be nice to her, that he probably pitied her. She still couldn’t figure out how she could have been so wrong about Lucas in the first place, and it stuck inside her like a splinter that can’t be found and dug out. She didn’t expect him to fall at her feet or anything, but to go from holding her hand everywhere they went to saying he would never touch her? How could that be?
Unable to sit still with these thoughts in her head, Helen jumped up into the air with a little cry and let an easterly wind take her out over the water. For a few heartbeats she hung in a calm envelope of air as the stars switched on, desperately sucking up the beauty of that experience like it was emotional Novocain.
When she was calmer, she circled higher and hitched a ride on a steady westerly gust that brought her back over the island. She was not a graceful flyer yet—in fact she was barely competent—but if she didn’t think about it too much she knew what to do to move herself along. She had no clear idea where to go, but suddenly she was freezing cold and in need of comfort. Without making a conscious choice, she found herself circling over Claire’s house.
Helen alit in Claire’s front yard, and then realized that in her condition she couldn’t just go up and ring the bell. She was soaking wet and shaking with cold. Mr. and Mrs. Aoki would call her father immediately if they laid eyes on her like this.
Circling the house on foot, Helen peeked inside the windows, trying to figure out where Claire was. She fished her cell phone out of her jeans to call Claire and get her to come outside, and then smacked herself on the forehead when she saw that her two-day-old phone had been ruined by the salt water. She heard Claire yelling at her mother in Japanese as she stomped upstairs to her room. Claire’s bedroom light switched on, and she slammed her door shut behind her.
It was a terrible way to come out to Claire, and Helen was vaguely aware of that fact as she floated toward the window and saw her best friend sitting on her bed with her mouth hanging open. Helen waited for her to scream, but when Claire didn’t, she motioned to the locked window.
“Let me in,” she said urgently through her chattering teeth.
“Oh, damn it. You are a vampire,” Claire said. She had a disappointed but completely unsurprised expression on her face.
“What the hell? No! Just open the window, Gig, I’m freezing!” Helen said in a loud whisper. Claire dragged herself off her bed and walked to the window with her shoulders slumping dejectedly.
“I know it’s popular and all that, but I really don’t want you to suck my blood. It’s just so unsanitary!” Claire whined pitifully as she opened the window.
She put a protective hand over her bare throat, but she still let Helen inside despite the danger, and that fact was not lost on Helen.
“Oh, for the love of Pete, I’m not a frigging vampire, Gig! See? No fangs! No crazy eyes.” Helen lifted up her upper lip to expose entirely normal incisors, and then opened her eyes extra wide to show a complete lack of bloodlust.
“All right! But it was a valid question, considering the circumstances!” Claire