Goddess (Starcrossed)

herself to have girl friends.
    Andy stayed away from people as a rule. It was for their own good. Her kind were too dangerous for mortals to be around.
    Somehow, after several classes, she managed to get rid of Susan and her entourage. Susan had looked at her with a mixture of worry and longing when Andy made it quite clear that she was ditching them. Andy felt bad about it. Susan was pretty and popular and seemed like a genuinely good person. That was exactly why Andy had to nip this relationship in the bud. She didn’t want to hurt someone as awesome as Susan just so she could have a friend. Susan deserved better than that.
    It was after 9:00 p.m. when Andy’s astronomy class ended, and she made her way past Paramecium Pond to her dorm. Her nose itched. She took her hand out of her pocket, letting go of the fob for just a moment, and felt thick, muscular arms grip across her chest from behind.
    “Run,” he whispered in her ear. “I love to chase.”
     
    Helen dreamed of dolphins, but this was no happy little dream about visiting SeaWorld. The dolphin Helen saw did not do flips or tricks. The dolphin in the dream was hunting a girl about Helen’s age. The girl tried to swim away from it, but the dolphin kept pushing her down beneath the surface, hitting her with its flippers and tail until she bled.
    The girl swam for a buoy, bobbing out in the middle of nowhere, gasping and crying as she struggled through the waves. The dolphin attacked, but this time, instead of flippers, a man’s arms wrapped around the girl and squeezed.
    Helen’s eyes snapped open and she gasped for air, feeling like a vise had clamped down on her chest. She awoke to darkness.
    How many days had she been fading in and out? she wondered. She remembered her mother cleaning off the worst of the blood and dirt with a wet sponge, Kate spoon-feeding her soup, and Claire dividing an orange between her and a puce-colored Ariadne. She remembered Orion’s scars, and her heart squeezed painfully for him all over again.
    Helen remembered other things, too—things that had never happened to her, like tying a toga ( Chiton , she remembered. The Greeks wore chitons, and the Romans wore togas ) and carding wool. Helen Hamilton was damn sure she’d never tied a chiton or carded wool in her entire life, but she remembered doing both.
    Those “visions” of Helen of Troy always felt like memories, and now that she was fully awake, Helen was pretty sure that’s exactly what they were. But how could she remember someone else’s memories? It was impossible. And considering how horrible these borrowed memories were, what Helen really wanted to know was how she could make them stop.
    “Lennie?” whispered Claire, somewhere by Helen’s feet.
    Helen looked down and saw Claire poking her head up over the back of the fainting couch that Ariadne had at the foot of the bed. Usually, Ariadne just threw her clothes over it, so Helen thought of it more as a place to pile outfits than something to sit on.
    “Are you awake for real or just visiting for a sec?” Claire asked. Even in the bleached predawn light coming through the window, Helen could see the worry in Claire’s eyes.
    “I’m awake, Gig.” Helen sat up painfully. “How long have I been out?”
    “About two days.”
    That was it? To Helen, it felt like weeks. She looked over at Ariadne, still sleeping. “Is she going to be okay?” Helen asked.
    “Yeah,” Claire answered, sitting all the way up. “She and Jason are going to be fine.”
    “Orion? Lucas?”
    “They’re all right—beat up, but getting better.” Claire looked away, and her brow furrowed.
    “My dad?”
    “He’s been awake a couple of times, but only for a few seconds. Ari and Jason are doing their best.”
    That wasn’t the response Helen had been hoping for. She nodded and swallowed the lump in her throat. Her father wasn’t a Scion, and he’d come closer to death than any of them. It was going to take him a lot longer to recover. Helen pushed the thought that he might never fully recover out of her mind and looked at Claire.
    “How are you?” Helen asked, seeing the sad look on her best friend’s face.
    “Wicked tired. You?”
    “Starving.” Helen swung her legs out of bed, and Claire got up to help her. The two friends wobbled downstairs together to raid the refrigerator. Even though Helen knew she had to eat as much as she could shove down in order to help her body rebuild itself while she healed, she