Page 109 of We Are the Match
I shove open the door.
Lena stands where the headmaster always stood, hands still holding Helen’s. Lena is bent forward toward Helen, who is sitting in a simple wooden chair and making it look like a throne.
“Helen,” I say. “Helen, are you—”
It would be stupid to ask if she was all right, but it was on the tip of my tongue all the same.
Helen stares at me—past me, really, and I can see it in her eyes, the distance. She is far away from us, from me, from her own body.
I want to take her by the shoulders. I want to put my hands all over her until she cannothelpbut be present in her body, to feel everything she wants me to do to her.
Lena stares at me in disbelief. “You may leave now. I need to speak with my daughter.” Her voice is so gentle, so deadly.
I can see why Zarek loved her.
“I think I’ll stay, thanks,” I tell her, and I show my teeth when I grin.
“Paris,” Helen asks numbly. “Did you know?”
She stares at me as if she has never seen me before.
Lena’s gaze changes, just subtly, tilts toward anger—or even fear.
“She was gone,” Helen whispers. “I thought they killed her.”
“I must ask for privacy, Paris,” Lena says gently, squeezing Helen’s hands and then releasing them. “We have guards that will keep her safe, if it is her safety that concerns you.”
Helen gasps when my fingers brush her bare shoulders.
“Lena will tell you what she knows of me, I am sure,” I tell her. “But I would like to tell you what I may, first.”
Helen freezes. “You knew,” she whispers.
It is the worst kind of betrayal, as I knew it would be. I had hoped I could tell her away from all this, in some little cottage on the coast of a different country, far from the mess of the Families, safe.
But instead I am here.Home.
Lena holds up her hand for me to stop, and Helen’s gaze snaps to her.
“Mama,” Helen says, her voice faltering. “Mama, youdied.”
Lena shakes her head, eyes softening. “No, my love,” she says. “I am sorry. I am so very, very sorry. It was the only way to protect you. If your father knew I was alive—if he knew I wanted to be with you—he would have used you as a pawn in a war against me.”
Like she is using Helen now.
Like I intended to use Helen when I first met her.
“Helen, please,” I attempt again.
But just like when I tried to tell Helen about her mother, Helen cannot hear me.
“Why?” A tear spills down Helen’s marble cheek as she stares at Lena. “Mama, why did you leave me?Why did you leave me?”
My hand tightens on her shoulder, fingers digging in.Stay here with me,I am telling her.Do not go back. Do not lose yourself to her.
This time, pain cuts Lena’s face as surely as the scar reaching down her cheekbone does. “Baby,” she whispers. “Mybaby.” And then she is holding Helen tightly, pulling her away from me.
When Helen finally draws back, her body trembling, I surge forward to join her again, despite Lena’s glare.
