The gleaming blond curls and the thick body were Hector’s, and for a moment she feared she had killed him while he might have been trying to teach her a lesson. She leaned right over him to see if he was still breathing. Hanging inches away from his face in the regular darkness of night, she saw it was Creon, but it was too late. The moment she recognized him he opened his eyes and grabbed her to his chest in a deadly bear hug.
Helen screamed and struggled. She reached down into her belly looking for the current, but all that was left was weak static. She had already discharged all the voltage stored up in her muscles. The release of all that energy had left her weak and vulnerable. Her arms and legs had no strength, and she crumpled under Creon’s renewed attack like a paper bag. He fell on top of her, pinning her to the ground as he pulled a bronze knife out of his belt.
“Such a shame,preciosa. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Almost too perfect to cut,” he grunted into her ear. “But Atlantis...”
She squirmed her neck away from his lips, shivers of disgust running across her skin. Then he pushed off of her, raising his knife up high over his head. He paused, and for a brief moment Helen thought he wouldn’t do it, but she saw his eyes harden. He brought it down directly over her heart.
Creon’s knife made a dozen pinging noises as it shattered and scattered off of her skin. He had just a moment to register what had happened before a foot connected with his head and sent him flying off of Helen.
Lucas jumped on Creon with a vicious snarl, and the two of them began to fight so fast Helen could barely see their hands move. They punched and grabbed and gouged at each other, both of them changing from claw-handed boxing to some kind of strange wrestling in which they tried to bend each other’s joints in the wrong direction. Helen barely had time to roll onto her knees before it was over. Cornered and still weak from having been electrocuted, Creon cloaked himself inside an eerie shadow and ran at top speed out of the house as soon as he could put even one inch in between himself and Lucas, who chased him halfway across Helen’s lawn before turning around and coming back inside.
“Are you okay?” Lucas practically shouted.
“Yeah, I just can’t...” Helen said as she tried to stand and then fell back down on the ground with a woozy thump.
“What did he do to you?” Lucas asked, his voice high-pitched with worry. He picked Helen up and tried to balance her so she could stand on her own. “Are your legs broken?” He suddenly reclaimed her weight as he frantically assessed the damage.
“No, I just... Hector said to use my bolts to fight, and I did, but they went the wrong way, I think,” she mumbled. She was confused and seeing spots.
“Why can’t you stand?” Lucas asked as he tried to get her to her feet again. Her heart hurt from seeing Lucas’s beautiful face and smelling his body and feeling his hands on her. She had a vague sense where the ground was, but the whole world was falling over, and she was too tired for this crap. She just couldn’t do this anymore. She needed a nap.
The next thing she knew, Helen could taste something sweet on her tongue. Honey. She opened her eyes all the way and saw that she was sitting on the counter in her kitchen with Lucas standing between her knees, holding her head up and tilted back as he drizzled honey into her mouth from a plastic bear.
“There you are,” he breathed through a small smile when she looked at him. He looked back at her with so much tenderness Helen had to remind herself that Lucas wasn’t really interested. For the thousandth time she wondered what had happened to make him push her away the way he had.
“Hi,” she said, her voice cracking like she’d just woken from a full night’s sleep. “How’d you get here?”
“Cassie got a glimpse of Creon’s attack, but she didn’t know where it was going to take place because all she could see was darkness. I took a guess,” he said, brushing her hair back from her face and placing a long lock behind her shoulder. “Sorry I was late.”
“Don’t sweat it,” she said, her voice still shaking with fear. She took a deep breath to steady herself and pulled herself together.
“You messed him up pretty good. I’ve never seen Creon bolt from a fight like that before,” Lucas said with admiration.
“I just softened him up for you.” She couldn’t resist smiling at him, even though she knew she’d spend hours rethinking and regretting it. “Did I miss anything while I was out?”
“Just a trip from there to here,” he said, pointing over his shoulder then to the counter. “And a quick call to Jason for backup.”
“Lennie!” Claire shrieked frantically as she barged through the front door. She gasped at the knocked-over furniture in the foyer.
“In here. Don’t freak out, I’m all right,” Helen called out to Claire. Then she saw Lucas’s questioning look. “It’s okay, she knows some of it,” she told him. She pushed him back so she could jump down off the counter. Claire came in first, followed by Jason, who looked like he was ready to strangle her.
“Sorry, Luke. I was at her place looking for Helen when you called. I tried to come alone but Five-Two latched on to my arm and wouldn’t let me go without her,” Jason growled, nearly tearing his hair out in frustration.
“Um, excuse me? But she’s my best friend and I could tell something was up,” Claire snapped at Jason. “How could this have happened? You just flew out my window, like, two seconds ago.” Claire grabbed Helen in a hug.
“You know about... stuff?” Jason asked, surprised, not sure how much he should say.
“I told her,” Helen admitted as she pulled out of Claire’s enthusiastic hug and rubbed her sore neck.
“But I’ve always sort of known. I just thought she was undead or something,” Claire said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Believe me, I’m much happier you’re all part Greek god instead of part something disgusting like bat or wolf or mosquito.”
Jason and Lucas shared a look over Claire’s head. Helen explained what had happened as quickly as she could while Lucas took Jason outside to look at the tracks, but it was too late to try to follow Creon. They came back inside with grim looks on their faces to find Helen and Claire had switched the lights on to assess the damage in the entryway.
“Are those pieces of a knife?” Claire asked.
“Yeah. He kinda stabbed me in the heart,” Helen said tentatively, not knowing how Claire would react.
“You can still do that? Stop blades?” Claire asked, unsurprised. “What about the lightning thing? Can you still do that, too?”
