Dreamless

figure out why, because he certainly wasn’t going to stop guarding her. Not until he was certain that Automedon was gone for good.
    Claire and Helen started shrieking as they drove off, murdering one of Lucas’s favorite Bob Marley songs. Helen had the worst singing voice. It was one of the things he liked the most about her. Every time she warbled like a cat that just got stepped on, he wanted to pick her up and . . . yeah.
    Reminding himself that Helen was his cousin, he dropped his light-cloak and soared up into the air so he could switch on his phone and start his day. He had a text message waiting.
    I know you were down there w/us. And I think I know how u did it, read the text. We need to talk.
    Who is this? Lucas replied, already knowing who it was. Who else could it be, after all? But he didn’t want to give the guy an inch. He couldn’t. He was too angry.
    Orion.
    Making him text it was even worse. Seeing that guy’s name and picturing Helen say it just ate him up inside. The rage was getting worse every day, and he had to take a moment to stop himself from chucking his phone across the Atlantic.
    Great. What do you want? Lucas replied when his hands had unclenched enough to type. It was bad enough he had to let Helen go, but did he also have to get texts from the guy who got to spend every night with her?
    You need to be a dick—I get it. But there’s no time. Helen is dying.
    “You’re in a good mood!” Helen chirped.
    “I am!” Claire practically screamed.
    “Ooh, don’t tell me! Flushed cheeks, dewy eyes . . . Could you be love? Oh, yeah! ”
    Helen sang the final part of the Bob Marley song that Claire had been howling. It perfectly summed up Claire’s ecstatic mood, and Claire joined her for the “oh, yeah” part, answering Helen’s tacit question.
    “What can I say? He really is sort of a god.” Claire sighed and giggled gloriously as she careened down the street.
    “What happened?” Helen screeched, vicariously giddy. It felt so good to laugh again, Helen forgot about everything else in her life but Claire’s glowing face.
    “He FINALLY kissed me! Last night,” she practically sang. “He climbed up the side of my house ! Can you believe it?”
    “Um, yeah?” Helen grinned and shrugged.
    “Oh, right, I guess you can,” Claire said, waving it off good-naturedly. “So, anyway, I opened my window to yell at him and tell him that he was going to wake my grandma—you know how she can hear a dog fart two houses down. But he said he had to see me. That he couldn’t stay away from me anymore, and then he kissed me! Is that not the best first kiss ever?”
    “Finally! What took him so long?” Helen laughed. The laugh turned into a yelp as Claire stomped on the brakes to obey a stop sign. Horns honked at them from either side of the street.
    “Oh, I don’t know.” Claire drove on, ignoring the fact that she’d nearly caused a horrendous traffic accident. “He thinks I’m too fragile, that I don’t know the danger I’m in—blah, blah. Like I haven’t spent my entire life around a Scion. Ridiculous, right?”
    “Yeah. Ridiculous,” Helen said as she grimaced in fear at both Claire’s nonchalant attitude toward Scions and her daredevil driving. “You know what, Gig? Love doesn’t make you immune to car wrecks.”
    “I know that! God, you sound just like Jason ,” Claire responded, her entire being melting a bit as she said his name. She pulled into her parking spot in the school lot, shut off her car, and turned to Helen with a sigh. “I am so in love.”
    “Apparently!” Helen grinned. She knew she wasn’t Jason’s favorite person anymore, but regardless of how he’d been treating Helen, she could see that Claire needed her support in this. “Jason really is a great guy, Gig. I’m so happy for you two.”
    “But he’s not Japanese,” she said, her face falling. “How am I supposed to bring him home to my parents?”
    “Maybe they won’t mind so much,” Helen said with a shrug. “Hey, they got used to me, right?”
    Claire gave her a dubious look, held out her hand palm down, and tipped it left and right as if to say “fifty-fifty.”
    “Really?” Helen exclaimed. She couldn’t believe it. “We’ve been friends our entire freaking lives and your parents still don’t like me?”
    “My mom loves you! But, Lennie, you have to understand, you’re really tall and you smile a lot. That’s kind of not cool with Grandma.”
    “I can’t