Starcrossed

pulled himself smoothly out of the hole and started talking strategy with Hector. After a few moments of getting his breathing right, Lucas rolled his head to the side so he could look back at Helen.
    “I think the worst is over,” he said, squeezing her hand. She hadn’t realized that they had joined hands, but it felt right to her. She squeezed back gently and smiled. He looked horrible. Much worse than Helen could have guessed.
    “Piece of cake,” she said blithely, trying to distract him. “So what are you doing next Friday night?”
    “What have you got in mind?”
    “We could try hitting each other with cars,” she suggested cheerfully.
    “Did that last weekend with Jase,” he said with mock regret.
    “Go to the zoo and throw ourselves to the lions?” she fired back quickly, desperate to keep him focused on her rather than his caved-in chest.
    “The Romans sort of wore that one out. Got anything original?”
    “I’ll think of something,” she warned him.
    “Can’t wait,” he breathed, and then turned his face away as he rode another shivering wave of pain.
    “Hey! Little help?” Helen yelled, her voice sliding up to a shriek as she watched Lucas shake. “Lucas isn’t doing so hot!”
    “No, he isn’t doing so hot ,” Cassandra said in a hoarse, bitter voice from somewhere around Helen’s feet. Helen hadn’t realized that anyone was in the hole with them while she and Lucas held hands and cracked jokes, but she had the feeling that Cassandra didn’t like what she had seen.
    “Lower the boards down, it’s time to move them,” Cassandra called up to her father, as if she was the one in charge.
    Helen’s eyes widened in shock that any fourteen-year-old would speak like that to her elders, let alone be obeyed, but the boards were quickly lowered down without a word of comment. Jason and Ariadne eased Helen and Lucas onto the long planks and told them to hold still. The twins ran their glowing hands an inch above Lucas’s body, and Helen saw him grit his teeth as they sped up his healing. Just when she thought Lucas was about to start screaming, the twins stopped, looked at each other in silent communication, and then nodded exhaustedly. They had both lost so much color their cheeks looked gray to Helen, but they also seemed strangely happy, like nothing gave either of them more pleasure than helping someone else. Helen tried to thank them, but Ariadne told her to save her strength.
    Helen and Lucas were kept level as they were raised out of the crater and loaded side by side in the back of the same giant SUV that Helen had had so many uncharitable thoughts about. Now that it was her ambulance, she made a silent promise to never rag on big trucks again.
    Castor was behind the wheel and anxious to get moving. The longer they stayed on the beach, the higher the sun got, and the more opportunity there was for them to be discovered. Cassandra came with them, but Jason, Ariadne, and Hector stayed behind to fill in the crater and leave the beach looking as normal as possible.
    “Can’t we just put a lump of rock in the middle and pretend it was an asteroid?” Helen heard Hector ask, exhausted.
    “Do you think that would work?” Jason put in, perking up at the prospect of seeing his bed an hour or so sooner.
    “No,” Cassandra said decisively. “This part of the island is a nature preserve. There are scientists all over the place. They would know the rock didn’t come from space.”
    Jason and Hector gave identical groans and immediately went back to work. Again, Cassandra’s opinion went unquestioned. Helen had always tacitly assumed that Lucas was the leader of the kids and that his father, Castor, was the leader of the whole family, but now she thought maybe there was another, less traditional dynamic at work in the Delos family. When Cassandra spoke, everyone listened—including Castor. And apparently, Cassandra didn’t need the influence of the Furies to dislike Helen. Which reminded her . . .
    “I don’t see the Furies!” Helen suddenly exclaimed out loud.
    “None of us do,” replied Castor in a pensive voice. Helen heard a leathery squeak as he twisted around in his seat to look back at them. “We’ll figure it out later. You two need your rest for now.”
    She couldn’t argue with that; in fact, she could barely keep her eyes open. As soon as she heard the soporific purr of the engine she nodded off exactly like a fussy baby on a car trip.
    She woke up in a