Dreamless (Starcrossed 2)

Wait, “you’ll” find? What about “we’ll” find?

What part of “won’t survive” did you not get?

That’s only if I don’t dream.

You don’t dream?

Not when I descend.

Then you’re not descending anymore.

Helen thought that was a little bossy.

NOT really your decision, she texted back.

NOT going to argue came his defiant reply.

Hang on. You don’t control this.

N.O. Now go away. I have to drive.

For ten minutes, Helen sloshed around the tub, muttering to herself. There was something he was missing—a point that she knew she had to make—but she couldn’t see it just yet. She tried to get him to come back to the argument with all kinds of texts. She even threatened to lie down and descend immediately. After that, he came

back with a long reply, one of those texts that you have to pull over to type.

If you get back into bed, I swear to you, I’ll swim to Nantucket, kick in your door, and tell Jerry everything. You can explain to him why you want to die. Stay out of the UW. I’m not joking around anymore.

Threatening to tell her dad was just plain low—she’d told Orion that Jerry was a “no-fly zone,” and he’d promised never to violate that. But she had to admit, if she was really considering doing it, telling her dad was the only threat that would have stopped her. Orion knew her very well. She wondered how he’d managed that in such a relatively short amount of time. Helen smiled at the phone for a moment, and then forced herself to stop. She didn’t like being told what to do, but she did like that he cared enough to try.

I can’t descend, anyway, she finally admitted after a long lull in their exchange. Hades banished me and booted us both out of the UW because I threatened to take P away. Can you still go down?

Pretty sure. You’re banished? Wow. There really is such a thing as a good god. Strange that it’s Hades.

She knew he was just worried about her safety, but there was something really wrong with his logic. Helen started typing before she even knew what she was going to say. Her scattered brain finally hit on why she was so upset about being banished, and why she had argued with Orion so belligerently to begin with.

But remember the prophecy, she typed frantically. I’m the Descender—the only one who’s supposed to be able get rid of the Furies. If I don’t do this, how many more will suffer? You’d never see your dad again.

Helen bit her lip, agonizing over whether or not she should tell him what she was really thinking.

We’d never be able to see each other again. I don’t think I could handle that, she finally sent, adding in her thoughts, for what little time I have left, anyway.

There was a long pause where Orion didn’t respond, and Helen wondered if she’d just made a huge mistake. To take her mind off him, she sent an email to Cassandra and the rest of the Greek Geeks, explaining everything that had happened in the Underworld. Then she stared at the face of her dark phone until she heard her dad come upstairs, get in bed, and start snoring. Still, Orion didn’t text back.

Helen got out of the tub and dried off. She didn’t really know what she was going to do next, but she knew that she couldn’t go back to her frozen room. There was always the couch downstairs, but she decided that whether she lay down or not, it really didn’t matter. She’d lost track of how many weeks she’d gone without true rest, anyway.

She spent a very long time in the hot bathroom catching up on the grooming ritual that she’d neglected for ages. She clipped things that needed clipping and rubbed all of her bendy parts with gooey oils. When she was finished, Helen wiped the steam off the mirror over the sink and for the first time in ages, she took a good look at herself. The first thing she noticed was her mother’s necklace. It stood out in sharp relief against her flushed skin, glowing on her throat as if it had sucked power from all of her self-pampering. Then she looked up at her face.

It was the same face that so many people had died for eons ago, that so many were still dying for. Scions were still killing each other to avenge deaths that went back all the way to the walls of Troy—all the way back to the first woman to wear the exact face that Helen was looking at in the mirror.

Was any face worth all that? It didn’t make any sense. There had to be more to the story. All this suffering couldn’t be about one girl no matter how pretty she was. Something else had to be going on that wasn’t in the books.

She heard her phone buzz and rushed to grab it, knocking over half the toiletries on the sink as she did so. She snatched the assorted bottles and tubes out of the air before they had a chance to clatter noisily against the floor and wake her dad. Suppressing a nervous giggle, she put them silently back in their proper places, then looked at the message.

I’ve thought it over. If this is what it takes to keep you alive, then I’m ready for it, Orion answered, almost half an hour after they’d stopped texting. I’ll let you go, I’ll let this whole quest go, but I can’t let you die.

Helen slumped down on the edge of the tub in disbelief. Giving up would damn Orion to a life on the run, without a home or a family. He was willing to suffer all that—for her.

Or was it for her stupid face? After all, they barely knew each other. What could inspire that kind of self-sacrifice?