looked down and realized that I was flying, I fainted. I always knew
I was strange, that there was something wrong with me, but I
didn?t know . . .? Helen trailed off. Jason came back to her bedside
and touched her shoulder.
?Nobody blames you,? he said, but Helen waved a dismissive
hand.
?Yeah, you do. You all do. Because I started this when I attacked
Lucas in the hallway at school.?
?You didn?t start this,? Jason replied forcefully. ?This war started
thousands of years ago.? Helen gave him a confused look, but he
shook his head before she could ask any questions. ?Get some
sleep, and don?t worry about Lucas. Even compared to other Sons
of Apollo, he?s really tough.? Jason switched off the light on his way
out, but left the door open a tiny crack in case she needed to call
out for help in the middle of the night.
105/395
Helen snuggled into the down comforter and tried to relax, but
she was jittery with exhaustion and overwhelmed with the strangeness
of the room and the house. And the flying. She could
fly?there was no denying it now. She wasn?t just a gifted athlete
with paranoid notions about possibly being some kind of genetic
experiment. She could frigging fly, which is aerodynamically impossible
for a Homo sapiens, so she had to be something else. Something
other than human.
The only explanation was what Lucas had said, but that didn?t
make much sense, either. The Greek gods were myths, anthropomorphic
manifestations of powerful natural forces, not historical
figures with actual descendants?or so she?d been taught in eighth
grade. But now she wasn?t so sure. She thought of how it felt to fly,
how the air had become solid?a malleable object?and she knew