Free Dreamless by Josephine Angelini

sight.
    She stared after Lucas, his name hanging in the back of her throat, pinching it closed. She wanted to call him back to her and demand some kind of explanation. If Lucas hated her, why apologize? Why protect her in the first place?
    “Len, snap out of it!” Claire yelled as she tugged on Helen’s arm. “There’s a fire!”
    Helen dragged her eyes away from the bit of sky that Lucas had disappeared into and looked around while Claire hauled her to her feet. There was smoke billowing up from the dry brush and she could hear the first shouts of alarm as people made their way from the track meet over to the edge of the woods.
    “Your lightning started it,” Hector explained briefly. “I have to go. I’m not supposed to be here.”
    “What was that?” Helen asked, raising her voice to stop Hector from leaving.
    “A battalion of the Hundred Cousins. Our dear uncle Tantalus wants revenge for Creon, and he won’t stop until I’m captured. I have no idea how they found me,” he replied, adding a foul curse at the end. “Stay safe, little cousin. I’ll be in touch.”
    “Wait!” Helen yelled after him, but just then several witnesses pushed through the trees to see to the fire, and Hector had to run away. “I was talking about that thing that was giving the orders . . .” She trailed off lamely as Hector’s back melted into the distance.
    Helen let Claire make up the cover story. It was almost too easy for Claire to convince everyone that there had been a freak storm. Lots of witnesses had seen lightning flashes and “dark clouds” mysteriously covering the woods. All Claire needed to do was cast herself and Helen as innocent bystanders who just happened to be the first to arrive at the scene. Helen couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw Zach grimace when Claire told her tall tale. She wondered whether Zach had seen the whole thing. But if he had, why didn’t he say anything?
    On the flight home, Helen and Claire had plenty of time to get freaked out about what had happened. They couldn’t risk being overheard by one of the teammates, but they kept glancing over at each other with worried eyes. Neither of them wanted to be alone that night so they made plans for Claire to come and sleep over at Helen’s house.
    As soon as Claire disembarked, she and Jason rushed to meet. He looked pale and tense, and they regarded each other with such obvious devotion it made Helen’s heart pinch.
    “Luke didn’t know if you’d been injured or not,” Jason choked out as he reached inside Claire’s jacket. Under the cover of her coat, he ran his softly glowing Healer’s hands lightly over Claire’s arms and ribs, checking her for broken bones or internal bleeding. “He said you got knocked down by a Scion. . . .”
    “She’s fine,” Helen said soothingly.
    “Of course you’d think she’s fine. You don’t have any concept of how easy it is for her to get hurt. You’re impervious,” Jason snapped back at Helen, his voice rising slightly with every sentence.
    “I’d never let anything happen . . .” Helen began incredulously, but Claire touched Helen’s arm and silenced her.
    “I’m okay, Jason,” Claire said patiently as she reached toward him with her other hand. She held on to both Jason and Helen, as if she was trying to use her arms to bridge the gap between them.
    It seemed that Jason put down a heavy burden as he nodded, finally accepting that Claire was safe, but as they turned to walk to Claire’s car, he glared at Helen, almost as if he didn’t trust her.
    On the way to the parking lot, Claire repeated the conversation they’d had with Hector, but she couldn’t give Jason much information.
    “I spent most of the time knocked on my ass. It was over really fast, though,” she finished sheepishly.
    “There was this creepy commander,” Helen told Jason. “He didn’t look right.”
    “Luke never said anything about that,” Jason said with a shake of his head.
    “Maybe