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  hadn’t. He’d even fought someone else to save her. Helen had no

  doubt he wanted to kill her, but the fact remained that he’d never

  even raised his hand to her. If he’d hurt her at all it was because he

  had been defending himself from her abuse.

  Helen switched off her computer and went downstairs to look for

  her dad. When she couldn’t find him she went out to the car and

  grabbed her cell phone off the passenger seat. Jerry had left her a

  text saying that he was still at Kate’s. Helen looked at the time—it

  was 3:00 p.m. What could he possibly still be doing? A fantastic,

  although slightly nauseating, idea occurred to Helen.

  It would make sense for the two of them to hook up, she

  reasoned. They made each other laugh, they worked well together,

  and they obviously cared about each other. Kate was definitely a

  few years younger and could probably get any guy she wanted, but

  Helen didn’t think she’d ever find a better man than her father.

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  And Jerry definitely deserved a fresh start. He’d been treated horribly

  by Helen’s mother and he’d never gotten over her, which

  ticked Helen off to no end.

  She rubbed the charm on her necklace. For the hundredth time

  she considered taking the wretched thing off, but she knew she

  wouldn’t. Every time she’d tried to go without wearing it she obsessed

  over it, unable to stop picturing it in her head. Eventually,

  she’d give in and put it back on in order to regain some mental

  peace and quiet. She realized that this probably meant she had

  some serious mommy issues, but compared to all the other things

  that were wrong with her, that was the least of her problems. An

  image of Lucas’s face hovering over hers in the dark, his eyes

  scrunched tight, popped into her head. She had to think up a task

  to distract herself before she started throwing things, so she decided

  to go grocery shopping.

  Helen’s official term as kitchen slave—a system of alternating

  weeks that had started as soon as she was old enough to

  cook—began on Sunday morning, but there was nothing in the

  house for them to eat that night. She made a list, took the housekeeping

  cash out of the cookie-less cookie jar, and drove Kate’s car

  to the market. In the parking lot she saw a gigantic luxury SUV and

  shook her head disapprovingly at it. There were a lot of disgustingly

  rich people on the island who drove vehicles that were too big

  for the old cobblestone streets, but this SUV was especially annoying

  for some reason. It was a hybrid, so she couldn’t really get too

  wound up about the environment, but she felt herself getting irritated,

  anyway.

  Helen pulled a shopping cart out of the stand and wheeled it into

  the store. As she waved at a few kids from school who worked at

  the registers, she started to hear the Furies whispering. She debated

  running out . . . but everyone at school already thought she

  was crazy. If she ran out of the grocery store now like she had seen

  a ghost, there would be even more gossip.

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  She made herself push the cart on, keeping her head down to

  avoid seeing the Furies—but there was nothing she could do to

  block out their voices. She would just have to move fast and get it

  over with as quickly as possible. She allowed herself a moment of

  self-pity for the injustice of her situation. She didn’t deserve to be

  haunted like this. It wasn’t fair. Helen walked briskly through the

  store, picking only the few things she would need to get through a

  day or two of cooking. Her frantic thoughts were interrupted by

  voices, real voices, coming from the next aisle over.

  “She shouldn’t be here,” said a young, but strangely serious voice.

  Helen guessed it was Cassandra’s.

  “I know,” said a male voice, possibly Jason’s? “We have to find a

  way to get to her soon. I don’t think Luke can take it much longer.”

  Helen froze. What did they mean, “get to her”? She stood there

  thinking in slow motion until she realized they were coming

  around the end of the aisle. Trying to back up, she plowed into

  someone standing right behind her. The wailing of the Furies grew

  so loud it was painful.

  She spun around and had to tilt her head almost all the way back

  to find the face above the enormous male chest that confronted

  her. Under golden curls, bright blue eyes drilled down into Helen’s.

  It crossed her mind that he looked like a blond version of

  Michelangelo’s Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, newly released

  from plaster and walking around in three gigantic dimensions.

  Helen had never been so afraid of anyone in her entire life.

  She took an automatic step back and ran into her shopping cart.

  Her breath hitched painfully in the back of her throat as she

  stumbled to the side, her hands and feet clumsy with fear. There

  was a bright, momentary glimmer, and he twitched away from her,

  his body convulsing spasmodically.

  Helen smelled the nauseating combination of singed hair and

  ozone that always made her think that she had done something

  wrong. A brief thought of the Nantucket ferry flashed through her

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  mind as she studied the blond monster in front of her, trying to figure

  out what had happened. After a stunned second, he collected

  himself and leaned closer to Helen with an evil grin on his angelic

  face. He was near enough that Helen could feel the heat coming off

  his body.

  “Hector!” commanded a familiar voice. Helen had only a moment

  to register that it was Lucas before she felt him grab her arm and

  pull her away from the Goliath that was his cousin. Instantly furious

  instead of frightened, Helen rounded on Lucas and threw off

  his arm.

  “Don’t touch me,” she hissed. She felt light-headed. “Why can’t

  you just stay away from me?”

  “Why can’t you just stay at home?” he shot back at her. “Didn’t

  you have enough fun last night in the alley?”

  “I have errands to run! It’s not like I can hide in my bedroom for

  the rest of my life just because some woman . . .” Helen realized

  she was starting to yell. She stopped herself and lowered her voice.

  A thought occurred to her. “Are you still following me?”

  “You’re lucky that’s all I’m doing. Now go home,” he growled, and

  grabbed her arm again.

  “Careful, Luke,” Hector warned, but Lucas just smiled.

  “She can’t control it yet,” he replied.

  “Can’t control what?” Helen choked out furiously, her patience

  pushed past the limit.

  “Not here. Not now,” said Jason in a low, clipped voice. Lucas

  nodded in agreement and started pulling Helen toward the door.

  Helen ripped her arm out of Lucas’s grasp again. Undeterred, he

  just grabbed her by the hand and held it hard. Helen had two

  choices. She could put up a fight in front of the entire store, or she

  could go quietly holding the hand of the most despicable boy in the

  free world. She was so frustrated she could feel a repressed scream

  squeezing h
er lungs shut, but she had no choice.

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  Lucas frog-marched her past a chestnut-haired beauty that Helen

  guessed was the other cousin, Ariadne. She tried to smile at Helen

  compassionately even though she was clearly just as inflamed by

  the Furies as everyone else was. For a second, Helen considered

  smiling back, but she didn’t possess Ariadne’s self-control. She was

  too angry to manage it. Fleetingly, she thought that Ariadne had to

  be the nicest person in the world if she could attempt to be kind in

  that moment.

  “Don’t even look at my sister,” Lucas growled through gritted

  teeth, jerking brutally on Helen’s hand as they walked past tiny

  Cassandra. Cassandra opened her mouth to say something to her

  brother and quickly shut it, turning away.

  “I have no food in the house. What am I supposed to do for dinner?”

  Helen growled through her closed-off throat.

  “Do I look like I care?” he replied, dragging her out of the store.

  “You can’t treat me like this,” she said. He was leading her across

  the lot. “We hate each other. Fine. Why don’t we just stay away

  from each other then?”

  “And how has that worked out so far?” Lucas asked, sounding

  frustrated rather than sarcastic. “Do you always come to this same

  store at this same time every Saturday, or did you come today on a

  whim?”

  “No, never. It’s the busiest day of the week. But I needed groceries,”

  Helen sputtered. He laughed incredulously and squeezed her

  arm even harder.

  Helen suddenly realized how many random events and raw impulses

  had driven her decisions these last few days. When she

  thought about it, it was as if she had stopped choosing for herself

  days ago.

  “The Furies won’t allow us to avoid each other,” he said in a dead

  voice.

  “Then we can make a schedule or something . . .” Helen began,

  but she knew it was a lame suggestion and trailed off before he had

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  a chance to shoot it down. An ancient, supernatural force was compelling

  her to kill Lucas. It probably wasn’t going to be deterred by

  something as prosaic as a time-share.

  “My family hasn’t decided what we want to do about this, about

  you—yet. But we’ll be in touch,” Lucas said. They got to her car. He

  shoved her against the driver’s door, as if he couldn’t stop himself

  from trying to hurt her one last time. “Now go home and stay

  there,” he ordered again, and stood over her while she fumbled

  with the keys.

  For a moment as she backed out of her parking space she considered

  gunning the engine and hitting him with the car, but she

  didn’t want to mess up Kate’s paint job. Angry tears started pouring

  down her face as soon as she was out of the parking lot, and

  they didn’t stop until she was at home, splashing cold water on her

  face in the kitchen sink.

  She felt humiliated in a dozen different ways. Some of that humiliation

  she had brought on herself by attacking Lucas at school, but

  he seemed determined to belittle her. She wasn’t even allowed to

  go grocery shopping now. How was she going to explain that to her

  father?

  The thought of Jerry derailed any nascent plan of escape. She

  was hopelessly outnumbered, and unless she was willing to leave

  her father behind to fend for himself she had to wait until the

  Delos boys were done deciding how to handle her. She leaned

  against the kitchen sink and stared at the block of knives on the

  counter. If she had Lucas cornered the way he did her, she would

  have already picked out which knife to use. What she didn’t know

  was why. Why did they hate each other so much? What purpose

  could all that anger possibly serve?

  She suddenly thought about Hector, about the way he had smiled

  at her, and a carpet of goose bumps unrolled down her arms. If she

  was ever alone with him she knew he would kill her. Not just bully

  her like Lucas did, but actually, joyfully, kill her.

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  She was still leaning up against the sink half an hour later when

  her dad finally made it home. He froze midstep and looked around

  the kitchen, giving the entire room a fast once-over.

  “Did I do something wrong again?” he asked, his eyes wide.

  “Why do you keep asking me that?” Helen huffed.

  “Because the past few days every time I come home you look at

  me like I’ve forgotten your birthday or something equally

  unforgivable.”

  “Well, have you?”

  “No! I haven’t done anything! Nothing wrong,” he said with a

  straight face, but the red flush rising up his neck gave him away.

  “Should I ask about you and Kate or would I be too grossed out?”

  “Hey. There’s nothing going on there. We’re just going to be

  friends,” he said, his expression grim. Helen could tell there was a

  lot of backstory behind that decision, but she didn’t really want to

  hear it at the moment.

  “Your loss,” Helen responded with a disinterested shrug. Jerry’s

  head jerked up quickly, stunned by the bitterness in her voice.

  “You didn’t used to be so mean, Helen.”

  She crossed her arms and looked off to her left at absolutely

  nothing, too ashamed of herself to meet her father’s sad gaze. She

  could handle the fear of being pursued by vengeful spirits from

  Hades, but not if turned her into a bitch. Whatever the Delos family

  decided, she hoped they would do it quickly. She started to

  mumble an apology, but was saved from having to explain herself

  by a knock at the door. Jerry went to answer it and after a few moments

  he called out to Helen to come and join him.

  “What is it?” she asked, coming out of the kitchen. There was a

  delivery boy at the door with bags and bags of groceries.

  “He says these are for you,” Jerry said, holding out a note with

  Helen’s name on it.

  “I didn’t order these,” Helen said to the delivery boy.

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  “The order was made by a Mrs. Noel Delos to be delivered to a

  Miss Helen Hamilton. It’s all paid for,” he replied, anxious to be on

  his way.

  Jerry tipped the kid and took the groceries into the kitchen while

  Helen read the note.

  Miss Hamilton,

  I am so sorry for my son’s appalling behavior toward

  you at the market today, and I ask that you accept these

  few things I’ve sent, even if you are unable to accept an

  apology. I understand what it is to try to put dinner on the

  table with no groceries, although apparently my Lucas

  does not.

  Noel Delos

  Helen stared at the page for far longer than it took to read it. She

  was touched by the gesture. It was a ridiculously decent thing to

  do. Helen got the impression that there was something different

  about Noel Delos, but she had no idea what it was.

  “What does she mean, ‘appalling behavior,’ Lennie?” Jerry asked,

  reading over her shoulder. Helen could see outrage beginning to

  build in him. “What did that Lucas kid do to you now?”

  “No, Dad,
it’s okay. She’s exaggerating,” Helen said, trying to

  make as little of it as possible.

  “Then we can’t accept these. This is over a hundred dollars worth

  of groceries,” he argued.

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” Helen moaned at the ceiling. She took a

  deep breath and launched into an explanation. “Okay, you win. Lucas

  and I had another fight today at the market, but it was a small

  one. In comparison, at least. Anyway, the point is that he started it

  and I couldn’t go shopping like I needed to and one of the other

  Delos kids must have told his mom that I didn’t do my shopping

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  and she took it the wrong way and sent all these groceries because

  she’s obviously a really nice woman but I don’t want you to say

  anything to her and can we please, please, drop it?”

  “What the hell is it with you and this Lucas kid?” Jerry said after

  a moment, completely flabbergasted. Then a thought occurred to

  him. “Are you two dating?” he asked in a terrified voice. Helen

  burst out laughing.

  “No, we’re not dating. What we’re doing is trying to not kill each

  other. And that isn’t working out too well,” she responded, trusting

  that the absolute truth would be so inconceivable he would think it

  was a joke. She was right.

  He got a pained look. “You’ve never had a boyfriend. Is it time for

  us to have that talk about what men and woman do when they love

  each other?”

  “Absolutely not,” Helen replied firmly.

  “Good,” he said, relieved. They stood in awkward silence for a

  moment. “So . . . we can eat the groceries, right?”

  “Heck, yeah,” she said as she turned on her heel and made for the

  kitchen while Jerry practically ran to the living room and the dependable

  comfort of SportsCenter.

  As she put together some bruschetta with the amazing bufala

  mozzarella, fresh tomato, basil, and crazy-good Spanish olive oil

  Mrs. Delos had sent, she thought about her father and how oblivious

  he was to the forces pulling her life apart in hunks. With all

  that was happening to her, she knew she might not have many

  more nights of dinner and baseball to look forward to, but the

  thought didn’t bother her as much as it would have a week ago. If

  the Delos family wanted her, they could try and take her. She was

  sick of being angry all the time. Fight and kill or fight and die, she

  really didn’t care. As long as she could keep her father out of all of