Starcrossed (Starcrossed 1)

all night. She didn?t have an answer for him. Jerry was as angry as

he had ever had been with her. He demand

ed that she come home

immediately. He even yelled at her, which he hadn?t done since she

was a kid. Helen wasn?t used to disobeying her father, but she

found herself telling him that she was safe and that she wasn?t

coming home just yet. She hung up on him while he was still

sputtering.

She knew she was being unfair to him, but she didn?t know what

else to do. She hadn?t decided if she was going to tell her father

about Daphne?s return and then tell him that she was leaving to

live with her, or if it was kinder to just disappear. Daphne insisted

that a clean break would be better for everyone, including Jerry,

but Helen couldn?t quite bring herself to accept that. He might be

physically safer, but emotionally he would be destroyed. Helen

went through both scenarios in her head, and neither of them felt

right. Either way her father, the person who deserved to suffer the

least, was the one who would be hurt the most. Eventually, her

brooding was interrupted by Noel, who let Helen know that Claire

and Jason were awake.

Helen went upstairs to Jason?s room and pushed the door open a

crack. Daphne was sitting on the edge of the bed next to Claire,

holding her hand and looking down at her with a fretful tenderness.

Daphne had loved Claire when she was a baby, she had explained

to Helen the night before, and she had always worried for

Claire?s safety growing up alongside a Scion. In the hotel during

the storm, Daphne had removed Helen?s curse, and she had also

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explained that she had left Claire excluded from being able to trigger

the cramps, even though it could have exposed Helen, just in