Starcrossed

out in front of his house, and had to sneak in. It looked like Jerry, Kate, and Claire had all been forced to spend the night to wait out the storm, and that meant Jerry and Kate still didn’t know that Helen was missing. As far as they knew, Helen was safe at home and stranded there with all three Delos boys on the other side of the island. Lucas knew that lie wouldn’t hold up much longer, but he decided someone else was going to have to think up a new cover story to tell Jerry. He couldn’t control his emotions about Helen long enough to convince anyone she was still safe, let alone her father.
    Lucas flew in through his window and paced around his room for another hour. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he should eat or rest or dry off, but the only thought he could keep in his head was the thought of Helen. Cass would know it if she was injured, wouldn’t she?
    The houseguests woke and went downstairs. Lucas heard Claire’s phone buzzing with text alerts, and knew that the phones were back on. He listened from his room while Jerry and Kate tried to call Helen. When she didn’t answer either her cell or the phone at the Hamilton household, they got worried and decided to go back home to see if she was there. The roads were a mess, but even though that would slow them down, Lucas knew he only had a few more hours tops to find Helen before her dad realized she was missing and called the police. As soon as Jerry and Kate departed, Lucas met Hector and Jason on the stairs as all three of them came out from hiding in their rooms at the same time.
    “Bro, put a clean shirt on, at least!” Hector admonished as soon as he saw Lucas.
    “Leave it,” Lucas mumbled, shaking his head and trying to pass his cousins, but Jason stepped in front of him.
    “Don’t you think your mom is worried enough as it is? Go clean up before you come downstairs,” Jason said quietly.
    It was a guilt trip, pure and simple, but Jason was still right. Lucas nodded and pulled his shirt off over his head on his way to the bathroom. He washed, dressed, and met the rest of his family down in the kitchen. Even so, everyone stared at him when he walked in the room, and his mother looked like she had seen a ghost. Lucas checked his edges and realized that he was blurring himself. His mom always got upset when he did that because she knew that meant that he was upset. He made a conscious effort to let the light do what it wanted, and sat down in a corner, his eyes on Cassandra. Then the sound of bickering made him realize that Claire was there.
    “What are you still doing here?” Jason was saying in a dismayed voice. “Why didn’t you go back with them?”
    “I’m not going anywhere until we find Lennie,” Claire huffed back at him.
    “We?” Jason sputtered, but Claire held up an imperious hand and fished her vibrating phone out of her back pocket.
    “Guys?” Claire said, looking at the incoming number. “It’s Helen.”
    “Let me talk to her,” Lucas demanded as he jumped up out of his chair and held out his hand to take the phone.
    “She called me, not you,” Claire said gently.
    She answered her phone, immediately asking Helen several questions at once. Then Claire was quiet for a moment. She put the call on speakerphone.
    “Okay, Len, we can all hear you. What is it?” Claire asked, looking around at the rest of his family but avoiding eye contact with Lucas.
    “I’m with my mother, Daphne, and my mother only. We are not being coerced by any other individual, family, or House,” Helen announced to the room as smoothly as if she were playing a recording. “My mother and I are preparing to leave the island together, and we ask that you allow us to leave it in peace. I am not in any physical danger. You know all of this is true, because your Falsefinders can hear it in my voice. Good-bye. I will miss you all.”
    The line went silent. Lucas stared at the phone as Claire switched out of speaker mode, put her phone to her ear, and repeated Helen’s name a few times.
    “That wasn’t her,” Lucas insisted, shaking his head repeatedly. He felt something was off, like there was a lie lurking somewhere. Helen wasn’t supposed to leave him. Ever. “She’d never call me a ‘Falsefinder’ like that.”
    “Lucas, it was her,” Claire insisted, finally meeting Lucas’s eyes and giving him a sad look as she did so. “I know she sounded really weird, but it was Helen. You know that.”
    “Was she lying?” Castor