Dreamless

challenged. “You started this conversation, Cassandra. You’d better finish it.”
    “Maybe you and Orion go insane and don’t have coherent futures that I can read,” Cassandra said tiredly, glancing uncertainly over at Jason, who was glaring back, warning her with his eyes.
    “No.” Helen stood up. She felt a pressure inside her head give way and her nose start to run again. “I hear what you’re saying, but you’re wrong. I’m being pushed to my limit, and I know that it’s taking a lot out of me, but I’m not going crazy.”
    Jason sighed and dropped his head into his hands like he was as weary and as fed up as Helen. A sudden burst of energy overcame him. He took three fast strides over to his father’s desk and pulled a handful of tissues out of the box that was resting on top.
    “Here,” he said in an intense voice as he gestured to Helen’s face with the tissues.
    Helen raised a searching hand and touched her nose. When she pulled her hand back it was covered in blood.
    “Scions don’t get spontaneous nosebleeds.” Cassandra’s expression was unreadable. “Jason and I think this problem is much worse than anyone else is willing to admit.”
    Helen cleaned herself off as best as she could and looked first at Cassandra, then at Jason. Neither of them would meet her eyes.
    “Jason,” Helen said, a note of pleading creeping in on her otherwise frustrated tone. “Just spit it out. How much worse?”
    “We think you’re dying,” he replied quietly. “We don’t know exactly why, and because of that, we have no idea how to help you.”

CHAPTER TEN
    M att wrapped a towel around his waist and sat down on the wooden bench outside the boys’ showers in the downstairs torture chamber, or as the Delos family liked to call it, the “exercise” room. Hanging out with demigods was not easy, but he couldn’t just stick his head in the sand and pretend that the world was a safe and predictable place anymore. Matt’s whole life, his whole future, had changed the second he hit Lucas with his car less than a month ago.
    He looked at his right hand and grimaced. He was pretty sure his knuckles weren’t supposed to be this big, or this purple. He tried to ignore them. The last time he had told Ariadne that he’d broken something she’d fixed it, and then she turned a terrifying shade of gray. Matt didn’t ever want to see Ariadne like that again, especially not for his sake.
    Matt just needed a minute to relax in the residual steam of his shower, and then he’d go over to the little freezer in the corner and put some ice on his hand. It’d be fine, and if it wasn’t—well, he was left-handed, anyway. His phone rang and he winced as he reached for it, clutching his side.
    “Yeah?” he answered distractedly as he walked to the mirror. There was a large red welt rising up on his ribs. Great , he thought. Now I’ll have something black and blue on the upper half of my body to match that lovely bone bruise on my shin .
    “Hey, man.”
    “Zach?” Matt hissed. Immediately forgetting his aches and pains, he spun around and made sure that Jason or Lucas hadn’t walked in. “What the hell!”
    “I know, I know. I just need—”
    “ Don’t ask me for a favor,” Matt warned. “I’ve done enough of those for you over the years already.”
    “I’m not asking for a favor, I only want to . . . Can’t you at least meet up with me?” Zach sounded desperate. “You know, to talk? I just want to talk to you!”
    “I don’t know, man.” Matt sighed with true regret. “We’re sort of past that point. I mean, we’ve chosen our sides, right? After you ratted out Hector, every single member of the Delos family is looking for a reason to kick your ass. Just stay away, all right?”
    “All right,” Zach said so softly Matt could barely hear him. His voice shook, like he was scared witless. “I just needed a friend.”
    “Zach . . .” Matt began to say, but the line went dead. He didn’t call Zach back.
    R u in bed?
    Helen almost dropped her phone when she saw that the text was from Orion, which would have been really bad, considering she was hundreds of feet in the air and he had no other way to contact her. Recovering from the nearly disastrous fumble, she hovered in midair and told herself to calm down as she typed a reply.
    Almost. Are you going to meet me? she wrote, wondering if her phone had an emoticon for “hopeful.”
    y. Need to c u. Driving 2 caves now.
    See you