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by Unknown

  seemed to be trying to claw their way out of the rain clouds. His

  skin was painted with that dying light and he was, as always,

  beautiful.

  Then Helen understood why she was pent up like a dam instead

  of bawling like a waterfall. She wasn’t sad. She was furious.

  As she flew toward him, he saw her and stood. Helen didn’t land

  on the catwalk. Instead, she floated in front of him, claiming the

  air for herself. For a moment, they just stared at each other, both of

  them too overwhelmed to break the silence with speech.

  “What are you doing here?” Lucas said at last, his sunken eyes

  wide and hungry for the sight of her. Helen ignored his stupid

  question and said the first thing that came to mind.

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  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded, angry and hurt and not

  sure what she wanted to hear from him. “Right from the start. Why

  couldn’t you at least explain to me why we couldn’t be together?”

  “If you wanted to know, why didn’t you just answer the phone

  one of the thousand times I’ve called you this past week?” he demanded

  in return, just as angry and hurt as she was.

  “Stop it! Stop asking me questions when you’re the one with all

  the answers!” she bellowed at him, finally feeling the hitch and

  sting of tears in her throat.

  The dam was about to burst, and she knew that what was going

  to come out would be ugly, red-faced sobbing. She had to get as far

  away from Lucas as possible. She summoned one of the turbulent

  storm winds to yank her body away and take her wherever it chose,

  but Lucas felt her recklessness. He dove into the air and caught her

  before she could be chewed up by the storm she was so drastically

  underestimating. As soon as he had her safe again in his arms he

  broke down and kissed her.

  Helen was so stunned she stopped crying before she had a chance

  to start and nearly fell out of the sky. Still the better flyer, Lucas

  caught her and supported her as they tumbled on the wind, holding

  and kissing each other as he guided them safely back down to

  the catwalk. As their feet touched down, the light inside the lighthouse

  switched on and projected the shadows of their embracing

  figures out onto the choppy waves of the ocean.

  “I can’t lose you,” Lucas said, pulling his mouth away from hers.

  “That’s why I didn’t tell you the whole truth. I thought if you knew

  how bad it was you’d send me away. I didn’t want you to give up

  hope. I can’t do this if you give up on us.”

  “I don’t want to give up,” Helen cried. “But there can never be an

  us, Lucas. You should have told me that.”

  “Don’t say never,” he said. He brushed his face against her neck,

  no longer kissing her, but unable to let her go completely. “Nothing

  is forever, and there are no absolutes. We’ll find a way.”

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  “Lucas,” Helen said, frowning and pushing against his chest until

  he let her go. She sat down on the catwalk and pulled him down

  next to her so they could talk. “We would hate ourselves. And eventually,

  we’d hate each other.”

  “I know that!” he said, his voice rising desperately. “I’m not talking

  about running off and doing whatever we want!”

  “Then, what?” Helen asked softly, calming him down. “What are

  we supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he admitted. He leaned back against the glass

  wall of the lighthouse and pulled Helen against his chest. “But I

  will not go through another week like this last one.”

  “Me neither,” she said. She rested against him, fully relaxing for

  the first time in days. “I don’t care how hard being together is,

  nothing is worse than being apart.”

  “What was it you told me? Decide what you can’t do and then do

  the opposite?” he asked with an amused smile, pressing his lips

  against her forehead. “At least now we know we can’t be apart.”

  “It was like being dead,” she said fearfully, as if even mentioning

  the numbness she had felt would allow it to creep back into her

  body.

  “For me too,” he said in a strange, strangled voice.

  “What about your mother? She won’t allow us to be together.”

  “We’ll have to talk with her. We’ll have to talk to my whole

  family.”

  “And if they still want to separate us?”

  “Then we run,” Lucas said, his voice low and even.

  Neither of them said anything for a while. They just watched the

  beacon light flash across the foaming waves of the storm-churned

  ocean. Helen could hear his heart pounding, but his grip on her

  only tightened as if he was already bracing himself for the battle he

  would have to fight to keep her close to him.

  “They’ll chase us,” she whispered. “They’ll think we’ve started the

  war.”

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  “I know,” Lucas said. “But we won’t. We’ll keep the Truce, even if

  they don’t believe that we can.”

  “We don’t have to make the same mistakes that they did,” Helen

  said defiantly. “It makes me so angry that everyone assumes that

  even though we know what would happen, we’ll still go out and do

  the same stupid thing.”

  Lucas laughed, but there was no joy in the sound.

  “It’s almost as if we don’t need to live our lives or feel our feelings

  at all, because someone already told us what the ending was going

  to be,” he said bitterly. She could feel him tensing with indignation,

  until a new and serious thought stilled him. “Are you really willing

  to do this? You know that it would mean you’d have to leave your

  father behind?”

  “I know,” she said, knowing full well she’d be hurting her father

  far worse than her mother ever did, but also knowing that she

  would do it for Lucas—for both of them.

  “I understand if you can’t do this—” he began, but Helen cut him

  off.

  “If they won’t let us stay together, we have no choice. We have to

  run away.”

  “It won’t be forever,” he said, trying to console her as well as himself.

  “Just until we can figure out a way around this. And we will

  figure it out. There has to be a way.”

  “I’ve thought of something,” Helen said, her whole body going

  still. She felt Lucas tense.

  “I think I know where you’re going with this, and I don’t think I

  want to hear you say it,” he said uncertainly.

  “What if I wasn’t a virgin?” Helen said quickly, just to get it over

  with.

  “I’m not sharing you, Helen,” he replied immediately. “Besides, it

  won’t work.”

  “I’m serious, we have to consider it,” she insisted, struggling in

  his arms until he loosened his grip enough for her to lean back and

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  look at him. “Tell me the truth. Would you stop wanting me if I was

  with someone else first?”

  “Of course not,” he said, smiling tenderly at her. “And I don’t just

  want you, Helen. I love you. Big difference.”

  “Okay, look. I hate to even think about this, but I’ll do it,” Helen

  pleaded as Lucas started to shake his head vehementl
y. “I love you,

  too, and I’ll do whatever I have to do if it will let us be together.

  What? Why are you shaking your head? You’re not the only one

  making this decision, you know.”

  “Tricks like that won’t work, not unless you just want something

  physical. Is that all you want from me? Sex?” he teased.

  “Of course not, you know that!” Helen said in frustration, shoving

  him away from her. “I just told you I loved you!”

  “That’s why it won’t work,” he said. He took her hands and pulled

  her closer to him. “If you and I were to be together the way we

  want, or at least the way I want—” he began uncertainly.

  “And what do you want, exactly?” Helen interrupted urgently.

  “I want it all. Everything we talked about. I want us to go to

  school, learn a dozen languages, live all over the world. Most of all,

  I want us to be together.”

  “I do, too!” Helen said excitedly as if she had found a way out.

  “And we can do all that without ever getting married!”

  “We’d share everything,” he said, shaking his head like Helen

  wasn’t understanding him. “And because of that, we’d be considered

  a married couple in the eyes of the gods, regardless of who

  took your virginity. I want a whole life with you, and because I

  want that, you would be my wife. I can’t even pretend I would

  settle for less.”

  “You’re saying that it’s our commitment to each other that will

  define us to the gods, not a white dress or a ring?” Helen asked,

  already knowing the answer.

  “Exactly,” he said. Then he suddenly laughed at a thought. “Also,

  it’d be kinda hard to be together if I was in prison.”

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  “What are you talking about?” Helen asked, suddenly alarmed.

  “Why would you go to prison?”

  “For killing the guy that took your virginity,” he replied. “You I

  would forgive. But the guy? Dead man.”

  Helen smirked at Lucas like she didn’t believe him, but she wisely

  decided not to question his sincerity.

  “Then what’s the plan?” She sighed, resting back against him.

  “We can’t be together and we definitely can’t be apart.”

  “We stick together and play by the rules until we can rewrite

  them. We’re going to find a way to make this work. I promise.”

  “Isn’t that hubris?” she asked, raising her eyes to his. “Thinking

  we can beat the Fates?”

  “I don’t care what it is anymore. I need to hope,” he responded

  before he allowed himself kiss her.

  Helen fell against him, and this time she was able to enjoy his

  mouth without the shock that came along with the unexpectedness

  of their first kiss. This time she could pay attention to him, feel him

  responding to her. Far sooner than Helen wanted, Lucas pulled

  back, pinched his eyes together like it hurt, and gently pushed her

  hands off of him.

  “You have to stop,” he said, forcing himself to laugh, even if it

  was a shaky, watered-down laugh.

  “Sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing yet,” Helen said through her

  tingling lips.

  “Could have fooled me,” he mumbled as he took both of her

  hands and stood up, pulling her to her feet with him. “I think a

  little cold air will do us good.”

  “Where to? Venice?” Helen asked with a cheeky grin.

  “Sure. Because that’s exactly what you and I need—a more romantic

  setting,” he replied sarcastically. “Sorry, Sparky, but I’m

  taking you home to your father before I start a war.”

  He leapt into the air and spun back to face her, holding out a

  hand like they were in an old movie and he was asking her to

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  dance. She groaned at how gorgeous he was, then joined him with

  a smile, taking his hand and rolling her body over the playful eddies

  he carved into the wind for her.

  Moments later, they were landing in Helen’s yard and strolling

  toward the door, hand in hand. Just as Helen was about to go inside

  the house, Lucas stopped her.

  “You actually thought I didn’t know, didn’t you?” he asked her incredulously.

  “Happy birthday.”

  “I totally forgot!” Helen exclaimed with a bemused smile.

  “I didn’t,” he said, kissing her. He looked up at the brightly lit

  house, and they both listened briefly to an emergency weather report

  blaring away on the TV. “Your dad’s waiting for you. You’d

  better go in.”

  “Yeah. Kate made me a cake,” Helen said. She grimaced, guilty

  over how she’d treated her family this past week.

  “Tomorrow, first thing, I’ll be back to get you,” Lucas promised

  as he brushed his mouth lightly against hers. “Then we’ll go to my

  house and tell my family. Together.”

  “Right. We still have to plead our case,” Helen said. Wrapped

  around each other, they kissed for a few more moments, stalling

  for time that the storm wouldn’t give them. Finally, Lucas pulled

  away. Glancing around at every shadow suspiciously, he told her to

  hurry into the house. It was dark out and he was unwilling to leave

  her unguarded for even a moment. Helen ran inside and closed the

  front door behind her, peering out the window in time to see Lucas

  fly away. She called out for her father as she walked into the family

  room.

  “Jerry isn’t here, Helen,” said a woman’s voice behind her. Helen

  spun around, already calling up a bolt, but the woman grabbed her

  tightly by the wrists and shook her head.

  “That won’t work on me,” she said. Electricity danced across her

  flawless face, making her long, blonde hair crackle and fluff, and

  circling the pupils of her warm brown eyes.

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  “Oh my god,” Helen said, looking at the heart-shaped charm that

  fell neatly into the groove at the base of her attacker’s throat.

  The woman ripped off Helen’s identical necklace with one hand

  and jabbed a needle into her neck with the other. Helen felt her

  muscles go limp and refuse to follow her commands. The world

  faded into a pale gray haze, and even though she kept trying to see,

  her eyes could only chase the bright squiggles that tracked across

  the backs of her eyelids. She was losing consciousness so fast,

  Helen knew that she had to have been given a powerful drug,

  maybe even a lethal one. The last thing Helen felt was her attacker

  tenderly supporting her body as it swooned to the floor. Helen

  couldn’t see, couldn’t move, but for just one moment longer she

  could still hear.

  “My sweet little girl,” the woman whispered, and then Helen experienced

  nothing, not even nightmares.

  Lucas was only halfway home when the wind tried to throw him

  down to the ground and the sky started to flash with the first bolts

  of lightning. He landed immediately, and had to go the rest of the

  way on foot rather than get electrocuted or crushed. He wondered

  if Helen could fly through the lightning and if she would be able to

  control it so that he could fly with her in a storm if the situation

  ever arose. That would be beautiful, he thought as he walked

  through the garage and into the
kitchen, flying through lightningbright

  clouds.

  As soon as he opened the door, he stopped, sensing something

  wrong.

  “Didn’t you bring Helen with you?” Cassandra asked nervously as

  he stood in the doorway. “I could have sworn I saw you together

  today.”

  Lucas looked around the room and saw Jerry and Kate, the

  promised cake bristling with unlit candles, and Claire sitting wideeyed

  next to Jason.

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  “I just left her at home to be with you two,” he said gesturing to

  Jerry and Kate. Panic washed up his legs, nearly making his knees

  buckle.

  Lucas ran out the kitchen door, past the cars in the garage, and

  ripped the outside door off its hinges as he leapt up into the apoplectic

  sky. Jumping up twenty feet, Jason tackled him out of the

  air and dragged him back down, pinning Lucas’s weightless body

  to the ground.

  “Sorry, brother, but the storm is too big. We drive tonight,” Jason

  said.

  “There was someone waiting for her inside her house!” Lucas

  yelled, taking on mass and throwing Jason off of him.

  “We know, you idiot! This afternoon, while you had your phone

  shut off, Cassie saw that Creon came back to the island,” Jason

  said, latching on to Lucas to make sure he didn’t change states

  again and fly off. “But Creon isn’t the one at her house!”

  “Then who is it?” Lucas asked, visibly calming down. He and

  Jason stood up and waited for Hector to pull his truck out.

  “Cassandra was getting little images all day long, but she didn’t

  understand them. One of the things she saw was a woman tailing

  Creon as he came back to the island. She had this habit of tucking

  her hair behind her ear with her pinkie finger,” Jason began. The

  truck pulled out and Lucas and Jason jumped onto it. They eased

  themselves inside as the truck sped off into the punishing wind and

  rain.

  “Then Cass said she kept seeing flashes of several different women,

  over and over,” Jason continued. “She didn’t know why she

  was having visions about women that she didn’t recognize and that

  didn’t seem to have anything to do with each other. It took a while,

  but Cass finally noticed that they all had exactly the same way of

  putting their hair behind their ear, like a nervous tic. Because of

  that, Cass realized that they were all the same person, and the