Starcrossed

the cage. “I’m fine, guys. Nothing to worry about,” she said as cheerfully as she could, getting up yet again. Hector did not appreciate her tone.
    “Why won’t you take this seriously?” he shouted at Helen. She bent down to spit out the taste of the blood in her mouth, and Hector reeled back and punched her again in the head.
    “Stop it!” screamed Cassandra from someplace beyond Helen’s vision. “She isn’t a natural fighter, okay? When are you going to get that through your thick skull?”
    Helen felt terrible—she knew she must be a bloody mess to get someone who didn’t even like her that upset.
    By the time Helen had struggled back up to her knees, Cassandra was no longer in the practice room where the Scions kept their punching bags and fight cage. Helen swallowed a mouthful of spit and blood and instantly regretted it when she choked on one of her own teeth.
    “May I have some water, please?” she asked Ariadne, who was standing over her with a damp cloth.
    On the other side of the cage, Helen saw Jason standing between Lucas and Hector. Jason’s shirt was half torn off and blood was running from a cut on his head, but still he fought to keep the two larger Delos boys from ripping each other up like wrapping paper on Christmas morning. Hector was yelling at Lucas, pleading his case.
    “She can take anything. Anything! I hit her harder than I’ve ever hit anyone and she stood right back up! But she won’t hit back !” Hector roared, his voice cracking with passion. He saw Helen looking at him and pointed an accusing finger at her. “You think you can just stand back and let Luke do all your fighting for you? You’re stronger than all of us combined, but you’re too good to fight, Princess?”
    Jason wrapped both his arms around his brother and held on as Hector bucked and struggled.
    “I’m not trying to get hit!” Helen lisped through her broken and rapidly regrowing teeth. Ariadne put her own arms around Helen and held her as she stared daggers at her big brother.
    “How dare you, Hector? She wasn’t raised like we were, always at each other’s throats. It just isn’t in her,” she scolded.
    Hector seemed chastened by his sister’s tone and finally stopped struggling against Jason’s restraint. He slumped against his brother for a moment and then abruptly pushed him away. Then, with one easy leap he jumped over the fifteen-foot-high fence surrounding the fight mat and landed with an intentionally loud slap.
    “She’d better get it in her. Because I don’t want any of the people I love to die defending her lazy ass,” he rasped. As he walked out of the fight room, Lucas ran to Helen.
    “I’m so sorry.” He reached out and took Helen from Ariadne’s arms. “You don’t ever have to fight him again.”
    “Why not?” Helen asked, pushing off his chest, her speech still slurred from taking too many knocks to the head. “I may not be a natural fighter, but he’s right. I need to learn this or someone else could get hurt. Someone like my father, or Claire, or Kate . . . Those women are still after me. They could hurt anyone I care about.”
    Lucas caught her as she fell over. He looked over her mashed-up face inch by inch as he carried her out of the cage and into a back area that served as both locker room and medical facility.
    He sat her on top of a stainless-steel table and left her for just a moment to gather some gauze, a basin of water, and, strangely, a juice box and a jar of raw honey. He didn’t say a word, but gestured for her to open her mouth, which she did, and then he started drizzling honey onto her tongue. As soon as her taste buds registered the oily sweet sunshine taste, she understood. Honey was the perfect health food for demigods. A feral need kicked in, and she grabbed his wrist with both her hands and held on until she was licking the jar clean.
    When the honey was gone she finally caught her breath. She looked up and met Lucas’s eyes, and nodded at his inquisitive look, as if to say that she was better now. Without a word, Lucas pushed a plastic straw into the juice box and gave it to Helen to hold on to as he started in on her cuts with the gauze and some hot water.
    Helen was having a hard time seeing straight. Everything was out of focus, and her eyes couldn’t seem to get hold of Lucas. It was strange. Her vision kept sliding off his shape, as if it was too slippery for her gaze. She tried to watch Lucas’s expression as he