Page 24 of We Are the Match

Helen

I have not laid charges in years now.

Not since Mama and I played on abandoned islands.

Not since my father decided he could not control my impulsiveness any more than he could control my ability to blow up a building.

A marina, once, because I was angry. An outbuilding on our own property, because my father screamed at my mother and me and it incensed me.

A cliff behind Altea’s very own house once, just because I was fifteen and I could.

But as I place explosives, as I use the solidox and sugar to make something that will bring a building down, I feel .

I am in my body.

I am here, feet firmly planted on this island Paris brought us to, the cool of the night chasing goose bumps up my arms, Paris beside me.

I feel.

I am here.

I am alive, for the first time in ten years.

I gather some of the discarded materials, pack them into an old, heavy workman’s bag. I have not had a bomb-making kit in so many years, and I—I am sure my father has supplies that I could use, but I find I would rather have materials all my own to rely on.

I lay the last charge and walk outside beside Paris.

She holds her lighter out to me, a hard metal shell with a P engraved on it, for all the world looking like her own symbol, the kind that would be emblazoned above a door if she was one of the Families.

“Paris,” I breathe, closing my fingers around the lighter.

She is looking at me strangely. “Oh, Princess,” she says softly. “I’ve never seen you quite like this.”

This—this is how I am meant to be. My fingers are dusty from the work, my jacket discarded beside me, sleeves rolled up.

“Mama would love to be here for this,” I blurt, because I cannot help it, because I am so alive it is all spilling out of me. “She would have helped us with this, Paris. She would have helped us with all of this.”

Something almost like guilt flickers in Paris’s eyes for a moment, her hand falling away from mine.

“If your father didn’t keep you locked in that mansion all your life,” Paris says. “Who would you become, Princess?”

If he didn’t stop me—if he was no longer in my way—I could be anything.

I could even, perhaps, be queen.

“I think there would be more of this, certainly.” I grin at her. I know I must look a sight, hair falling loose from the style Erin had chosen for me earlier, clothes askew. I must look much like I did after leaving Paris’s apartment.

I expect a smile in return, but Paris’s expression remains hard, her jaw set but her eyes holding an emotion—or many—that I cannot quite untangle.

She nods to me, and I light the charge.

And when the building flames and tilts and finally falls, nothing left but ash and dust, my pulse is thundering like the waves.

We are coated in its remnants, Paris and I, and when we step into the boat, she reaches for my hand. For a moment she opens her mouth as if to say something, and then shakes her head and shuts it again.

“Helen,” she says finally, after Tommy has started the boat and we are leaving the bomb-maker’s island behind us. “I think you’re right. If Lena could see you—she would be proud.”