Page 95 of We Are the Match
Erin’s eyes flick to me and then back to Helen. “Where to?” she asks.
Helen lifts the bag—the one Erin had held up when Helen asked earlier. “My father’s marina.”
“That’s madness,” I tell her sharply. “It will be crawling with guards.”
“It’s dark,” Erin offers. “And we may have some time yet before they find Milos.”
Helen offers no explanation and no apology, a far cry from the woman I met at the engagement party.
“And what’s the goal?” I snap. “If we delay our escape by an hour to go to the marina?”
“To blow it all to hell.”
Our black ship is as silent and swift as Zarek intended when he built this wing into their home.
When we reach the marina, Helen climbs out without a word to me. And that is when I see what is in the dusty kit she brought with her—solidox and sugar, taken from the warehouse we explored together. Other tools, too, the kind Zarek must have in his personal stores.
In this moment, she is more Lena’s daughter than Zarek’s. All queen, all bomb-maker.
The question eats at me as Helen works, laying charges in boat after boat after boat, carefully covering them with rope or crates so they will not be immediately visible if Zarek commandeers these boats to follow us.Who will you be when you learn Lena is alive?
Erin watches Helen, and she watches me.
When Helen returns, blood still stained beneath her fingernails, the detonator slipping into her silky pocket, she says nothing at all.
She stares straight ahead as we pull away, the boat cutting through the waves, the weight of what she has begun as heavy as that weighty golden apple, blown open at the beginning of all this.
“Erin,” she says finally. “When we reach Troy, where do you intend to go? Or will you make your escape with us?”
Erin turns.
In the gathering dark, her gaze meets mine.
“I have the same question myself,” I tell Erin.
Erin’s face remains impassable as Helen’s eyes flick back and forth between the two of us. “I will remain on Troy,” she answers finally. “Helen, there is someone—there is someone there who wants to see you.”
Her words land like a blow, even though they are addressed to Helen.
Eris left our group home. Eris was skilled with both weapons and explosives. Eris was loyal to—
Lena.
Rage licks at me like a flame, white-hot and unbearable. Even from afar, Lena has made sure there was someone to watch her daughter’s every move—or even control her.
“Tell her,” I say to Erin. “Tell her who you are. Where you are from.”
Helen’s eyes seek mine. “You know Erin? Who is she to you?”
When Erin is silent, I take Helen’s gaze in my own.
“I knew her as Eris back then.” My voice is soft. A skill I have finally learned: the dagger wrapped in silk.
Erin’s shoulders jerk at the mention of her old name.
“I didn’t recognize the name when you mentioned her, didn’t realize who she was until I met her today. But she was one of us, once. Bright and bold. She was a girl who loved flowers and makeup and dresses, was damn good at them. She was also a girl who loved rifles and bomb-making. And so they took her away to serve.”
Erin shifts and stirs, and then turns away from us, staring out over the sea. “I am a girl from Troy,” she says. “Taken from the group home, long before the bombs fell. Taken to be your attendant. Do you know why the island of Troy sings to you, Helen? Do you know what awaits you there?”
