Goddess (Starcrossed)

be moved without a Healer. I’m also guessing that right now the last thing she wants is for a man to put his hands on her, so that counts you out,” Ariadne replied firmly to Jason.
    “So, it’s Larry, Moe, and Curly to the rescue?” Hector said, rubbing his forehead like his brain hurt.
    “Very funny,” Helen said, insulted.
    He looked up at Helen, his eyes serious. “How are your bolts?”
    She held up a humming globe of power, cupped in the palm of her hand. It sizzled with compressed energy and threw heat out into the room in waves. “Better than ever,” she replied with a cocked eyebrow. “It feels almost effortless now. Like it isn’t draining me at all.”
    “Good,” Hector said, visibly relaxing now that he knew Helen could defend the three of them. “Apollo is probably lurking around somewhere near the hospital, so keep your eyes open.”
    “I will. But he’s not likely to get too close to me after what I did to his half brother,” she said darkly.
    Helen looked down at the ball of energy in her hand, remembering how she’d electrocuted Ares and imprisoned him in Tartarus after he’d tortured her. It felt good to know she’d defeated a god. When she looked up, everyone was staring at her.
    She closed her hand and extinguished the bolt.

THREE
    T he streets didn’t get bad until they got to the center of town. Helen gazed out the window of Ariadne’s Mini with a lump in her throat as they drove past the vandalized storefronts. The damage done during the Halloween riots was localized around the high school and the News Store, but that included a large area of downtown.
    Shop windows were broken, demolished cars were still sitting on the side of the road, and some places were even showing the signs of fire damage. Houses that belonged to Helen’s schoolmates and her neighbors—houses that were older than the country itself—had been torn up, covered with graffiti, and scorched. She wondered how many people she cared about had been hurt or even killed. How many of her friends were still dreadfully injured like her dad?
    “Claire? Did anyone we know . . . besides Zach?” Helen began, unsure of how to put it. She didn’t have to spell it out. Claire knew what she meant and nodded.
    “Hergie,” Claire said, her voice catching. “Smoke inhalation. He was trying to save books from the library fire at school.”
    There was nothing to say. Mr. Hergesheimer wasn’t a relative or even a friend, but still Helen had loved that grouchy old man. Now that he was gone, it was like a door closing. Nantucket would never be the same again.
    She swallowed and refocused on what they needed to do. Right now she knew she needed to get angry, not hysterical. Eris and Terror, the small gods who had created the riots, were still out there somewhere. Helen clenched her fists and reminded herself to be patient. She’d get her chance at them soon enough.
    During the long ride on the ferry from Nantucket to the mainland port at Hyannis the three girls took the opportunity to plan which hospitals they should try. Taking up a table by the concession stand at the center of the ferry, they scrolled through Matt’s iPad, checking out maps on the internet. By the time the ferry docked, Helen felt like they had a pretty solid list of possibilities.
    The first two hospitals, although closest to Wellesley College, proved to be dead ends. By the time they got to the third, most of the day was spent. As they pulled into the parking structure, Claire pointed at a police car parked near the entrance.
    “She’s here,” Claire said with a firm nod. “They’re watching her to see if the stalker comes back.”
    Ariadne parked and they went in, splitting up to save time. Helen went right to the trauma ward. She saw a uniformed police officer guarding a door at the very end of the hallway, and texted Ariadne and Claire to meet her.
    The officer was a man, and Helen needed him to let her into the room. She walked right up to him and smiled.
    “Hi,” she said warmly, and watched the officer’s face get hazy.
    Helen had seen a lot of men look at her like that—like they were staring at a shiny brass ring that was too bright for them to look at directly and too high up for them to ever reach. She had always hated this look, even though she knew that it gave her a manipulative kind of power. She’d sworn that she would never use it, but now the game had changed. Helen needed all the power she could get her hands on