Dreamless

Helen to release her entirely. He was so angry he couldn’t even look at Claire as he put her down on her own two feet. He rounded on Helen as soon as she touched down in front of him.
    “How could you be so selfish?” he asked in a strangled voice.
    “Selfish?” Helen squeaked incredulously. “ I’m selfish?”
    “Did you ever consider how badly you could have hurt Claire if you dropped her?” He got louder and more wound up with every word. “Do you have a concept for how long a broken leg hurts a full mortal even after it’s healed? It can cause them pain for the rest of their lives!”
    “Jason,” Claire tried to interrupt, but Helen was already yelling back at him.
    “She’s my best friend!” Helen howled. “I would never let anything bad happen to her!”
    “You can’t promise that. None of us can promise her that because of what we are!” he howled back.
    “Jase . . .” Ariadne put a calming hand on her twin’s arm. He shook it off roughly and then turned on her.
    “You’re no better, Ari. You won’t date Matt, but you think training him is going to help?” Condemnation seethed out of him. “How many times do we have to see it before we finally accept the truth? Full mortals don’t live for very long around Scions. Or hadn’t you noticed that we don’t have a mother?”
    “Jason! Enough!” Ariadne exclaimed. Shocked tears sprang to her eyes.
    But Jason was already done. In one quick motion, he whirled around, shied away from Claire’s reaching hands, and headed straight for the darkening beach. Claire backpedaled after him, giving Helen a pleading look. Helen mouthed the word “sorry” and in response, Claire sighed and shrugged, like there was nothing either of them could do. Then she left to chase Jason, who was rapidly retreating into the gathering shadows of the beach.
    “This is my mom, Aileen, and Aunt Noel when they were in college together in New York City,” Ariadne said. She removed a picture that was sandwiched between the pages of a book on a shelf over her bed, and jumped down to hand it to Helen.
    The photo showed two stunning young women behind a packed bar, pouring drinks. They had a sassy way about them that Helen admired right away, and they were laughing together uproariously as they served multicolored cocktails to the smeared waves of people in front of them.
    “Look at Noel!” Helen burst out in surprise. “Is she wearing leather pants?”
    “She sure is,” Ariadne said with a painful grimace. “I guess she and my mom were a little on the wild side when they were younger. They used to work in nightclubs and trendy restaurants all over the city to pay their tuition. That’s actually how they met my dad and Uncle Castor. In a nightclub .”
    “Your mom was very beautiful,” Helen said, and she meant it. Aileen was slender, but still curvy and ultrafeminine. She had the black hair and the deep golden-brown skin of a Latin American. “But she doesn’t . . .”
    “Look anything like us? No. Scions look like other Scions from history. We inherit nothing from our mortal parents,” Ariadne said sadly. “I think it would have been easier on my dad if he could look at us and see something of her living on. He loved her very much—still does to this day.”
    “Yeah, I know,” Helen mumbled, and she was surprised to realize that she did know. Somehow she could sense how deeply this stranger in the photo had been loved. Looking at the way Aileen and Noel were cracking each other up, Helen couldn’t help but think of herself and Claire. “They were really close, huh?”
    “Best friends since they were babies,” Ariadne said pointedly. “There’s a pattern, a cycle, to everything in our lives, Helen. Certain themes pop up over and over for Scions. Two brothers, or cousins who were raised like brothers, falling in love with two sisters, or almost sisters, is one of those cycles.”
    “And only one of these women is still alive,” Helen said quietly, finally understanding Jason’s overprotectiveness. “Well, Jason has nothing to worry about. I’d die before I’d let anything happen to Claire.”
    “Unfortunately, Scions don’t get to choose things like that,” Ariadne said with narrowed eyes. “My father would have died for my mother, but it doesn’t always end up in some heroic battle to save the person you love, you know. Sometimes, people just get killed. Especially around our kind.”
    “What happened to your mom?” All