Dreamless

you,” he said, laughing at himself a little. “It started with me learning how to bend light, but it’s turned into something else now. Something I never thought I could do.” He broke away with a pained look on his face. “I learned how to become invisible so I could stay close to you and let you move on with your life at the same time.”
    “Have you always been there?” Helen asked in a worried voice, thinking about a thousand private things he could have witnessed.
    “Of course not. I miss you, but I’m not a pervert,” he said, looking away and blushing a little. “You’ve always known when I’ve been there, Helen. Unlike everyone else, you can still sense my presence when I’m invisible. No one knows I can do this, except for you.”
    Helen didn’t know how to respond. The only thing she wanted to do was kiss him, but she knew she couldn’t. All she could do was stay still and stare at him.
    The bell rang and dozens of doors shut simultaneously, but neither Helen nor Lucas made a move. A few random kids were still roaming the halls, looking for trouble. Strangely, no teachers seemed to be stopping them. It was like a day without rules. Helen certainly didn’t care if she got in trouble. Suddenly, she felt like destroying something. She couldn’t recall ever feeling like that before.
    Over Lucas’s shoulder, Helen caught a glimpse of the ghoulish woman she had seen by the side of the road, walking down the hallway.
    “Right behind you,” Helen gasped quietly. Lucas moved very slowly to turn and look. “I saw her this morning, and it was like everything went wrong at the same time. That’s why I looked like I’d been attacked.”
    “She’s not mortal,” Lucas whispered to Helen as the ghoulish woman moved past them.
    “Can she see us?” Helen asked, but Lucas just shook his head distractedly. Helen saw his nostrils flare, and barely a moment later she smelled why.
    The she-ghoul reeked like rotten eggs and spoiled milk. It was the smell that Helen had mistaken for dead squirrel—the stench that had clung to her until she had scrubbed it off in the showers that morning.
    The smell seemed to permeate the walls, and commotions began inside every classroom that the she-ghoul walked by. There were loud voices and yelling at first, and then crashes and squeals followed, like everyone had suddenly started throwing the furniture around. Notebooks and book bags were being tossed into the air. Soon enough, the doors started opening and students started pouring out, closely followed by the teachers. But the teachers weren’t trying to restore order. They were just as unruly as the kids.
    Wrapped in their cocoon of invisibility, Helen and Lucas watched in awe as Miss Bee, their stolid, logic-loving social studies teacher, savagely kicked in a locker door with her sensible shoes. Helen looked up at Lucas and could tell he was fighting the urge to join in the destruction. She felt it, too. She had been feeling it all day, she realized. It was why she’d agreed to the costume and the glitter, and why she had been so willing to blow off five classes instead of just one or two. Helen felt like raising some hell.
    “Don’t even think about it,” Lucas whispered with narrowed eyes.
    “What?” Helen whispered back. She bit her lower lip, feigning innocence. “Don’t you feel like doing something bad ?”
    “Yeah, I do,” he said, and pulled Helen a little tighter to him. She felt his body generate a wave of heat, like she had just opened the door to a hot oven, and pressed harder against him. He held his breath and made himself look away from her. “We have to get out of here.”
    Lucas grabbed Helen’s hand and pulled her into a sprint. She understood why right away. If they moved fast enough, they could remain invisible as they went from hiding behind Lucas’s light-cloak to moving faster than a mortal could see. It was such a thrill to run through the hallways of her high school at Scion speed that she nearly hooted with glee.
    Once outside, Helen and Lucas took to the air and shot up high over the island, away from the influence of whatever was turning their school into the monkey cage at the zoo. Floating high above the ocean, Lucas turned to her and stared with a half smile on his face.
    “Maybe adding wings to those paintings wasn’t such a bad idea.”
    She knew immediately what he was talking about. The first time he’d taught her to land after flying, she’d hovered above