Starcrossed
: Chapter 16

At around six o’clock in the morning, Lucas finally accepted the fact that he had run out of time. The sun was up. It was the next day, and Helen was probably already standing in a hotel window somewhere, in fulfillment of Cassandra’s prophecy. He knew his best bet would be to give up, go home, and wait for his little sister to see something else, even if it half killed him to admit that. He hadn’t beaten Fate. Again.

Lucas saw the Pig still parked out in front of his house, and had to sneak in. It looked like Jerry, Kate, and Claire had all been forced to spend the night to wait out the storm, and that meant Jerry and Kate still didn’t know that Helen was missing. As far as they knew, Helen was safe at home and stranded there with all three Delos boys on the other side of the island. Lucas knew that lie wouldn’t hold up much longer, but he decided someone else was going to have to think up a new cover story to tell Jerry. He couldn’t control his emotions about Helen long enough to convince anyone she was still safe, let alone her father.

Lucas flew in through his window and paced around his room for another hour. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he should eat or rest or dry off, but the only thought he could keep in his head was the thought of Helen. Cass would know it if she was injured, wouldn’t she?

The houseguests woke and went downstairs. Lucas heard Claire’s phone buzzing with text alerts, and knew that the phones were back on. He listened from his room while Jerry and Kate tried to call Helen. When she didn’t answer either her cell or the phone at the Hamilton household, they got worried and decided to go back home to see if she was there. The roads were a mess, but even though that would slow them down, Lucas knew he only had a few more hours tops to replace Helen before her dad realized she was missing and called the police. As soon as Jerry and Kate departed, Lucas met Hector and Jason on the stairs as all three of them came out from hiding in their rooms at the same time.

“Bro, put a clean shirt on, at least!” Hector admonished as soon as he saw Lucas.

“Leave it,” Lucas mumbled, shaking his head and trying to pass his cousins, but Jason stepped in front of him.

“Don’t you think your mom is worried enough as it is? Go clean up before you come downstairs,” Jason said quietly.

It was a guilt trip, pure and simple, but Jason was still right. Lucas nodded and pulled his shirt off over his head on his way to the bathroom. He washed, dressed, and met the rest of his family down in the kitchen. Even so, everyone stared at him when he walked in the room, and his mother looked like she had seen a ghost. Lucas checked his edges and realized that he was blurring himself. His mom always got upset when he did that because she knew that meant that he was upset. He made a conscious effort to let the light do what it wanted, and sat down in a corner, his eyes on Cassandra. Then the sound of bickering made him realize that Claire was there.

“What are you still doing here?” Jason was saying in a dismayed voice. “Why didn’t you go back with them?”

“I’m not going anywhere until we replace Lennie,” Claire huffed back at him.

“We?” Jason sputtered, but Claire held up an imperious hand and fished her vibrating phone out of her back pocket.

“Guys?” Claire said, looking at the incoming number. “It’s Helen.”

“Let me talk to her,” Lucas demanded as he jumped up out of his chair and held out his hand to take the phone.

“She called me, not you,” Claire said gently.

She answered her phone, immediately asking Helen several questions at once. Then Claire was quiet for a moment. She put the call on speakerphone.

“Okay, Len, we can all hear you. What is it?” Claire asked, looking around at the rest of his family but avoiding eye contact with Lucas.

“I’m with my mother, Daphne, and my mother only. We are not being coerced by any other individual, family, or House,” Helen announced to the room as smoothly as if she were playing a recording. “My mother and I are preparing to leave the island together, and we ask that you allow us to leave it in peace. I am not in any physical danger. You know all of this is true, because your Falsereplaceers can hear it in my voice. Good-bye. I will miss you all.”

The line went silent. Lucas stared at the phone as Claire switched out of speaker mode, put her phone to her ear, and repeated Helen’s name a few times.

“That wasn’t her,” Lucas insisted, shaking his head repeatedly. He felt something was off, like there was a lie lurking somewhere. Helen wasn’t supposed to leave him. Ever. “She’d never call me a ‘Falsereplaceer’ like that.”

“Lucas, it was her,” Claire insisted, finally meeting Lucas’s eyes and giving him a sad look as she did so. “I know she sounded really weird, but it was Helen. You know that.”

“Was she lying?” Castor asked Lucas.

“No,” Lucas answered hoarsely, as though his voice couldn’t entirely commit to something that the rest of him knew was so wrong. “She told no lies.”

“So Daphne is alive,” Pallas breathed, his eyes wide and blank with shock.

“We still don’t know if ‘Daphne’ is Daphne Atreus,” Castor said, blocking his brother from leaving the room.

“Enough, Castor. Just stop it,” Pallas said, a note of weariness weighing his voice down. “I thought Helen was that Atreus whore when I first saw her!”

“And Hector is a dead ringer for Ajax, and Lucas looks like one of Poseidon’s children from the House of Athens!” Castor shouted, losing his patience. “More often than not the way we look is about fate, not our Houses. You know that as well as anyone! Helen’s mother could be any one of the five different Daphnes we heard were killed in the slaughter eighteen-plus years ago.”

“You’d do anything to keep the peace, wouldn’t you? Even let that woman get away,” Pallas said, pushing past Castor and throwing Hector’s restraining hand off his shoulder.

Lucas took an automatic step forward to get his cousin’s back. Hector could easily overpower his father if he had to, but Lucas didn’t want them to fight at all. A fight would delay him from replaceing Helen, and he had to see her. They weren’t supposed to be separated, and Lucas couldn’t shake the overwhelming sensation that something very wrong was happening.

“Where are you going, Dad?” Hector asked wearily, backing off from a physical fight.

“To replace the woman who murdered my brother,” Pallas said through gritted teeth as he strode toward the door.

“You will not go,” Cassandra said.

Everyone in the room froze at the sound of her voice. There was a chiming tone to it, as if more than one person was speaking at the same time. The voices coming out of her were old and young and everything in between, all speaking in harmony. Lucas saw Claire take an instinctive step back toward Jason in terror. Cassandra’s mouth was glowing, and her hair was writhing around her head like snakes.

“Lucas, son of the sun, is the only one who can see the face he seeks,” she continued to prophesy. “He will replace the daughters of Zeus, they who are beloved by Aphrodite, and give them shelter in the Royal House of Thebes. Oh! Caution! Betrayal . . .” She broke off uncertainly. The light left her, and she began to shake. She looked frightened, but not even Lucas wanted to go near her.

“Are you okay?” Lucas asked her quietly from across the room, breaking the unnatural silence. She nodded and rubbed her hands over her shoulders and upper arms, suddenly looking much smaller than she was.

“You’re going to need to take Hector and the twins with you,” she warned. “I think there’s going to be a fight.”

“I’ll go, too,” Castor said, but Cassandra shook her head.

“If Daphne sees you or Pallas, she’ll run,” she said with an apologetic shrug.

“So our children are to go face her alone? No. Daphne is too dangerous. We can’t let them anywhere near her,” Pallas objected as his anger gave way to fear. “She seduced Ajax and murdered him!”

“We don’t know that!” Castor yelled out in frustration.

For a moment it looked like Castor was going to hit his brother, but Hector insinuated himself in between them. Lucas nearly screamed with frustration, wondering how Scions had ever survived this long. They were always at each other’s throats, and none of this infighting got him any closer to Helen.

“Everyone calm down! Uncle. Father,” Hector said, turning from one to the other, and assuring both of them. “We can handle this.”

There was a gasping laugh, a bitter sound that caught everyone’s attention. When Lucas looked over, Pandora had a hand over her mouth and her eyes were filling up with tears. She looked tenderly at Hector, and spoke to him from behind her hand.

“You sound just like him, you know,” she said with an odd smile. “Like Ajax. It’s as if another cycle is starting.”

“There’s no cycle waiting for me, Aunt Dora. I’ll be fine,” Hector said with a cocky smile. “We’ll all be back in a couple of hours with Helen and Daphne, safe and sound.”

“Where is she?” Lucas asked Cassandra, relieved to finally be doing something.

“Helen and her mother are somewhere close to the ferry, but they are moving around so I can’t see exactly where,” she replied.

Lucas felt his cousins fall in behind him as he turned and headed for the door.

“Wait! I’m going with you,” Claire insisted as she scurried to catch up with the fast-moving Scions. “Lennie needs me.”

“You really are insane, you know that?” Jason said scornfully, but Lucas could hear admiration behind his false anger. “You’re staying here.”

“But I can talk to her! She’ll listen to me,” Claire reasoned, holding up her hands and pressing against Jason’s chest to keep him from walking past her. She looked at Lucas, begging him to agree with her, but he couldn’t do that.

“You’re not going, Five-Two,” Hector said, ending the argument. “If there’s a fight you’d be a target, and I don’t want anyone getting hurt trying to protect you.” He glanced at his brother meaningfully.

“Don’t worry, I’ll bring her back,” Lucas assured Claire. He followed his cousins and jumped into the truck. “Just please stay here, and stay safe.”

“Of course,” Claire replied in her most deferential tone. Lucas didn’t need to be a Falsereplaceer to know she was lying.

He hoped she wouldn’t do anything too stupid, but he couldn’t stop to replace out what she was scheming. Helen was about to leave the island. Lucas didn’t know if he had a touch of his little sister’s talent or not, but he just knew that if Helen left him then, he might lose her forever.