“She can’t even throw a punch!” Hector protested, slurring his words.
“She doesn’t need to,” Cassandra said with finality. “She doesn’t need to learn to punch or hold a sword or shoot an arrow to defend herself. She’s already ten times more lethal than you are, Hector, and if you keep trying to find a way to beat her you’re going to end up brain-dead. These sessions are over.”
Cassandra stood up and walked out of the dojo.
“She’s still vulnerable!” Hector shouted after Cassandra’s retreating figure. “There are a million ways to subdue her once you find a way to get around her bolts!”
“Enough, Hector,” Jason said gently. “Cassandra’s right. Figure out her vulnerabilities and train her to deal with them, but the dojo work is done. Hand-to-hand combat is not something she ever has to fear.”
“So no more chaperone?” Helen asked, raising her eyes from her empty water bottle. The Delos kids looked at each other, shrugging.
“I guess not,” Hector finally concluded. “At least not until Cassandra foresees a threat. Then, I don’t care how lethal you are, one of us will be with you at all times again.”
“May I go until then?” Helen asked, looking at Hector and waiting politely for permission. He nodded. She bowed to him and then jumped into the air.
“Wait, Lennie!” Claire shouted up at her. “We were going to throw you a party. Kate made you a cake!”
Helen saw Claire, saw how worried she was, but she couldn’t do what Claire wanted. Shecouldn’tpretend to be cheerful. Not for a few hours while everyone threw her a party, not for half an hour to let them at least sing “Happy Birthday” and scarf down some cake, and not even for the five minutes it would take to explain to Claire why she couldn’t do any of those things.
“Love you,” she called out to her best friend before she flew away. She thought she heard Jason say something like “Lucas is the same” while she pulled open the door and soared out, but she might have imagined it.
She didn’t have a destination or a time limit—she only knew that she wasn’t allowed off island. She’d given Lucas her word, and she wasn’t about to break it now. Helen needed so desperately for their promises to be true, she wasn’t willing to break any of them—not even the one that might bring her some comfort. She might never get to go to Patagonia with Lucas, but the least she could do to keep faith between them was to not fly over the ocean until he told her it was okay.
She could, however, go right to the edge. She’d avoided Great Point for the past week—not because she was worried she’d break down and cry if she went there, but because she was worried she wouldn’t. She was starting to get frightened that she would never going to feel anything again. That she would become as sterile and lifeless as one of those pale flowers she saw in her nighttime wandering. She had enough sense to ask herself why she was reacting the way she was, but not enough clarity to discover the answer. Until she saw Lucas sitting on top of the lighthouse.
He was perched right on the edge of the catwalk that wrapped around the glass dome at the top of the lighthouse, watching the last bit of the day drag itself down behind the horizon. A storm was gathering over the water, and the fruit-punch colors of the sunset 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.
“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 leastexplainto me why we couldn’t be together?”
“If you wanted to know, why didn’t you justanswer the phoneone 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 anus, 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.”
“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.”
