Starcrossed

really don’t want you to suck my blood. It’s just so unsanitary!” Claire whined pitifully as she opened the window.
    She put a protective hand over her bare throat, but she still let Helen inside despite the danger, and that fact was not lost on Helen.
    “Oh, for the love of Pete, I’m not a frigging vampire, Gig! See? No fangs! No crazy eyes.” Helen lifted up her upper lip to expose entirely normal incisors, and then opened her eyes extra wide to show a complete lack of bloodlust.
    “All right! But it was a valid question, considering the circumstances!” Claire replied defensively as Helen wafted through the window and then transitioned into the gravity-state in front of her.
    “All right! I agree, it’s a valid concern,” Helen conceded, but something was wrong. “I just flew in your window. Why aren’t you more surprised?”
    “I’ve known you could fly since we were kids. I even pushed you off your roof once to make sure. Sorry about that, by the way,” she said sheepishly.
    “You did push me!” Helen breathed, suddenly remembering the whole incident in a flash.
    They had been maybe seven years old and goofing off on Helen’s widow’s walk. Helen fell, but she never hit the ground. She’d sort of settled to earth like a leaf falling from a tree. Claire swore up and down that Helen had slipped, but Helen never remembered losing her balance, and because of the way Claire looked at her for weeks afterward, Helen had suspected something fishy before putting it out of her mind. Now it all made sense. Helen stared at Claire, speechless.
    “What? I didn’t think you’d die or anything! Long story short—I saw you not fall down my stairs the day before when you actually did slip, so I needed to test my theory,” Claire said as if it all made perfect sense.
    “By pushing me off the roof?”
    “You have no idea how angry I’ve been with you since then for keeping it from me! You can fly , Lennie, and you never told me!” Claire yelled, completely shifting the argument away from herself, but Helen decided that she should allow it, considering Claire’s obvious hurt.
    “I didn’t know until a few weeks ago!” Helen insisted.
    “You are such a liar!” Claire said, jabbing a fist against her hip.
    “It’s true! My mom put a curse on me when I was a baby so I wouldn’t be able to use my . . . Aw, crap! It would be so much easier if I was a vampire. Then you’d just understand!” Helen huffed, frustrated and feeling misunderstood. She paced around for a bit, raking her fingers through her tangled hair, before she was able to put her thoughts in order.
    “Hergie made you read the Iliad , right? You remember how all the heroes had superhuman strength and they could do all kinds of things that normal people can’t?” she asked.
    “Yeah. That’s because they were demigods. But that wasn’t real,” Claire said like it was obvious. Then she got it. “Oh, my . . .”
    “I’m one of those heroes’ descendents. We’re called Scions, and I have a whole bunch of powers—stuff you wouldn’t believe. But I had no idea what I was or what I could do until just days ago. I wish I could tell you everything, but I don’t know what I can or can’t say. Please, Gig. I know it sounds insane, but I’ve never lied to you. You just have to believe me.”
    “Okay,” Claire said, nodding her head once and looking Helen directly in the eye, as if she finally felt like she was getting the respect she deserved. “I’ve had this mostly figured out for a while now, you know. You found out that you were a demigod—how cool is that by the way?—when the Delos family moved here. Because they’re like you. I knew that as soon as I saw them. I just didn’t know what you all were.”
    “See?” Helen said with a flustered smile. “That’s why I had to tell you, I need to be able to talk to you about all this so you can help me figure it out. But you can’t tell the Delos family I told you until I find out if that’s okay or not.”
    “It doesn’t matter. I can bluff, or pretend I guessed on my own. I sort of did, anyway,” Claire said with a satisfied smile. Then something occurred to her and made her switch to a more serious attitude. “Where have you been, by the way? And why are you such a damn mess?”
    Helen was about to explain what happened between her and Hector when Claire’s phone buzzed. Claire checked the text and then started typing in a response.
    “It’s Jason. I