“How do you know all this about me?” Helen sputtered. Claire sighed.
“After I pushed you off the roof...” she began.
“After youwhat?” Lucas yelled.
“It was when we were seven! And she wasn’t hurt!” Claire yelled back. “Anyway. I knew about the knife thing because, well, I tried to stab you once, too,” she continued bashfully. “But I already knew you’d be fine because of what happened with Gretchen and the scissors in second grade. Remember?”
Helen grimaced. “Oh, yeah! Gretchen and the scissors! She reallywastrying to kill me, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah, she was. She was crazy jealous of you. But Ineverwanted to hurt you, I just had to be sure I wasn’t losing my mind. It was scary, you know?” she asked apologetically.
Helen smiled, forgiving her instantly.
“I guess I can’t blame you. But how’d you know about the lightning-bolt thing?”
“Remember when we were nine, we were going off island on the ferry to see the Boston Aquarium, and that creepy guy with that huge gut kept trying to talk to us? Remember how he kept ‘accidentally’ bumping up against you and stroking your hair?”
Helen did remember, even though she had spent a lot of time trying to forget. There had been that horrible smell of burnt hair, and the empty look in his eyes. Helen nodded, shivering at the thought, and dreading where Claire was going.
“Remember how he just disappeared suddenly before we docked? Well, he didn’t just disappear. He tried to grab you, Len, and I saw an electric spark jump from you to him. It blew him right off the deck of the ferry. It looked like lightning, except it cameout of you.”
“I think I killed him,” Helen whispered, needing finally to admit what she had done.
“Good! He was a child molester! You should probably get a medal,” Claire insisted. Helen looked at Claire’s earnest face. The man probablydidmean to do something terrible, but did that justify frying him?
“First, you don’tknowthat you killed him. Second, it was a reflex. Whether he deserved to die or not isn’t the point. You shouldn’t feel guilty about something that was done in self-defense,” Lucas insisted. He touched Helen’s shoulder. She moved away from him uncertainly, not knowing how to feel. Luckily, Jason changed the subject.
“So you’ve always known she wasn’t entirely human,” Jason said to Claire with a wry smile. “Didn’t that ever bother you?”
“I was a little worried she might try to drag me off to hell and drain my essence at some point, but I figured that was still better than having Gretchen for a best friend,” Claire said with just enough honesty to get a laugh. “Plus, I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but this island is full of white people. Not exactly easy growing up Japanese here. But with Lennie around I always knew no matter how strange I was, she would always be way stranger. So that was nice.”
“And you never told anyone else over all of these years? You never mentioned it to someone when you were little, even by accident?” Lucas asked skeptically.
“Come on Lucas, I’m not stupid! I sawE.T., you know, and I know what the men in the white coats did to him and Elliot,” she replied with a disgusted look on her face. “I’d never tell on Lennie. Or you, for that matter.”
“Thanks,” Lucas replied, a little confused by the alien metaphor.
He and Jason shared another look, and this time there was obvious admiration in their eyes.
“You know what I don’t get?” Helen asked, changing the subject. “Why can she be around when I do Scion stuff but it doesn’t affect me? All of these times she saw me use my powers over the years, but I don’t remember ever feeling pain in my stomach.”
Helen explained her mother’s curse to Claire, but no one had an answer to her question. They turned their attention to cleaning up as best they could before Jerry got home. Claire offered to stay with Helen for the night, in case she was too freaked out to sleep alone, but Jason nixed that idea right away.
“And what are you going to do if Creon shows up again? Throw your pocketbook at him and give him a piece of your mind?” he said shaking his head. “Uh-uh. I know you two are like sisters, but you’re not staying here.”
“I’ll stay. You take Claire home,” Lucas said, quietly assuming control before Claire could start another argument with Jason. “Let me know if you see anything around her house.”
“Right,” Jason said with a nod as he guided Claire toward the door.
He didn’t seem surprised that there might be something dangerous lurking around Claire’s house, but Helen and Claire were. Helen lifted her arm to stop them from leaving, suddenly terrified again. It was night and any shadow could have Creon inside it. Sensing Helen’s fear, Lucas intercepted her hand and held it tightly.
“Jase can handle it,” he told her confidently.
“Wait, what do you mean, my house? My parents are home,” Claire said, her anxiety resurfacing as well. “You don’t think the guy who did this...”
“Don’t worry,” Jason said with a sensitivity he usually reserved for everyone in the worldexceptClaire. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you or your parents.”
“Thank you,” she said slowly, looking a bit surprised that she had any reason to say those words to him.
