On the other side of the cage, Helen saw Jason standing between Lucas and Hector. Jason’s shirt was half torn off and blood was running from a cut on his head, but still he fought to keep the two larger Delos boys from ripping each other up like wrapping paper on Christmas morning. Hector was yelling at Lucas, pleading his case.
“She can take anything. Anything! I hit her harder than I’ve ever hit anyone and she stood right back up! But she won’thitback!” Hector roared, his voice cracking with passion. He saw Helen looking at him and pointed an accusing finger at her. “You think you can just stand back and let Luke do all your fighting for you? You’re stronger than all of us combined, but you’re too good to fight, Princess?”
Jason wrapped both his arms around his brother and held on as Hector bucked and struggled.
“I’mnottrying to get hit!” Helen lisped through her broken and rapidly regrowing teeth. Ariadne put her own arms around Helen and held her as she stared daggers at her big brother.
“How dare you, Hector? She wasn’t raised like we were, always at each other’s throats. It just isn’t in her,” she scolded.
Hector seemed chastened by his sister’s tone and finally stopped struggling against Jason’s restraint. He slumped against his brother for a moment and then abruptly pushed him away. Then, with one easy leap he jumped over the fifteen-foot-high fence surrounding the fight mat and landed with an intentionally loud slap.
“She’d bettergetit in her. Because I don’t want any of the people I love todiedefending her lazy ass,” he rasped. As he walked out of the fight room, Lucas ran to Helen.
“I’m so sorry.” He reached out and took Helen from Ariadne’s arms. “You don’t ever have to fight him again.”
“Why not?” Helen asked, pushing off his chest, her speech still slurred from taking too many knocks to the head. “I may not be a natural fighter, but he’s right. I need to learn this or someone else could get hurt. Someone like my father, or Claire, or Kate... Those women are still after me. They could hurt anyone I care about.”
Lucas caught her as she fell over. He looked over her mashed-up face inch by inch as he carried her out of the cage and into a back area that served as both locker room and medical facility.
He sat her on top of a stainless-steel table and left her for just a moment to gather some gauze, a basin of water, and, strangely, a juice box and a jar of raw honey. He didn’t say a word, but gestured for her to open her mouth, which she did, and then he started drizzling honey onto her tongue. As soon as her taste buds registered the oily sweet sunshine taste, she understood. Honey was the perfect health food for demigods. A feral need kicked in, and she grabbed his wrist with both her hands and held on until she was licking the jar clean.
When the honey was gone she finally caught her breath. She looked up and met Lucas’s eyes, and nodded at his inquisitive look, as if to say that she was better now. Without a word, Lucas pushed a plastic straw into the juice box and gave it to Helen to hold on to as he started in on her cuts with the gauze and some hot water.
Helen was having a hard time seeing straight. Everything was out of focus, and her eyes couldn’t seem to get hold of Lucas. It was strange. Her vision kept sliding off his shape, as if it was too slippery for her gaze. She tried to watch Lucas’s expression as he doctored her cuts, but it was almost impossible to see him. As the minutes ticked by and Helen healed on her own, Lucas became visible again and Helen could see that the grooves of worry dug into his forehead loosened and went away. He dabbed at the leftover blood and sighed.
“Why didn’t you get out of Hector’s way, Helen?” he asked softly, breaking the long silence. “Why didn’t you block with your hands?”
“He’s faster than me,” she replied, but they both knew that wasn’t the whole truth, and as she took in his skeptical look she continued. “I knew if I started blocking him he’d just get angrier, and then I would eventually have no choice but to hit him so hard he wouldn’t be able to hit me back.”
“That’s sort of the point of fighting, you know,” Lucas said with a touch of a smile.
“Then I don’t want any part of it,” Helen said seriously. “I don’t want to hurt people, Lucas. Can’t you teach me something else?”
“Like what?” he asked, at a loss.
“Like what you did in the hallway at school that first time we saw each other. How you spun me around and stood between my legs so I couldn’t get at you? That didn’t hurt me at all, but you still had me beat. Or what you did on your lawn that night. Remember? I was on top of you and then you did that thing with your hips?” she said with building optimism. He nodded and looked away.
“It’s called jujitsu. It’s for hand-to-hand fighting and I’d rather you never got that close to your opponents. But I’ll teach it to you if you want,” he said quietly.
Looking up at Lucas, Helen realized she was still seeing spots. She had to brace herself by putting her hands on his waist. As the spots went away she could see the color rising in Lucas’s cheeks, and she felt waves of heat coming off his skin. Helen could smell his scent and it made her feel quiet and still, almost drowsy.
“And flying,” Helen said, suddenly breaking herself out of her languid mood. “You still have to teach me how to get airborne. Once I learn that, I can just fly away from the bad guys.”
“I’ll teach you how to fly,” he said softly, nodding his head and looking down. Helen searched for his eyes, but he wouldn’t look at her. She wiped a hand across her face and it came back streaked with blood.
“Am I really that hideous right now?” she asked as she leaned away from him, suddenly self-conscious. To Helen’s surprise he didn’t reply, he just pulled her against him and held her.
“Promise me something,” he said into her hair. He waited for her to nod before continuing. “Promise me that next time you fight you’re not going to just stand there and let the other guy beat the crap out of you until he’s too tired to lift his arms.”
“If I can avoid it, believe me, I will,” Helen said with a little laugh, but Lucas pulled away from her so he could look her in the eye.
“I won’t watch that again. You understand me?” he said sternly.
She nodded slowly and saw his face relax a little. His eyes were so intense she had to glance around for something else to talk about.
“Your shirt,” Helen said, pointing to the bloody print of her face on his chest. “Which reminds me. I’ve ruined these workout clothes Ariadne gave me. Should I change into another set, or are we done?”
“We’re done. You can put your street clothes back on after you wash up,” he said briskly as if to banish the heavy mood he had fallen into. He took her face in his hands one last time and examined her former cuts. After a few moments he released her. “You certainly do heal fast. But you’ll still have some impressive bruises, so if I were you I’d avoid your father for the rest of the night.”
