Torment (25 page)

Shelby looked at the boy, swallowed hard, and tucked into her breakfast. “Nothing to do with me,” she mumbled.

“Save it,” Arriane said to the boy. “You can put it on the fist sandwich I’m about to serve you.” Luce watched wide-eyed as tiny Arriane stood up and wiped her hands on her jeans. “BRB, guys. Oh, and Luce, remind me to berate you for this when I get back.” Before Luce could ask what this guy had to do with her, Arriane had grabbed him by the earlobe, twisted hard, and slammed his head down on the glass display counter near the bar.

The noise shattered the lazy, late-night quiet of the restaurant. The guy yelped like a child as Arriane twisted his ear the other way and climbed on top of him. Bellowing in pain, he started bucking his lean body until he’d flung Arriane off and onto the glass case.

She rolled along its length and came to a stop at the end, knocking over a towering lemon meringue pie, then leaped to her feet on the bar. She somersaulted back toward him and caught him in a headlock with her legs, then set to work pounding his face with her small fists.

“Arriane!” the waitress shrieked. “Not my pies! I try to be tolerant! But I have my livelihood to look after!”

“Aw, fine!” Arriane shouted. “We’ll take it to the kitchen.” She released the guy, slid to the floor, and booted him with her platform heel. He blindly stumbled toward the door that led to the diner’s kitchen. “Come on, you three,” she called to their table. “Might as well learn something.”

Miles and Shelby threw down their napkins, reminding Luce of the way kids at Dover used to drop everything and run screaming through the halls yelling “Fight! Fight!” anytime there was the slightest rumor of a scuffle.

Luce followed behind, a little more hesitantly. If Arriane was suggesting that this guy had showed up because of her, it raised a lot of other hairy questions. What about the people who’d taken Dawn? And that arrow-shooting Outcast girl Cam had killed at Noyo Point?

A loud slam sounded from inside the kitchen and three terrified men in dirty aprons rushed out. By the time Luce made it past them through the swinging door, Arriane was holding down the boy with her foot on his head while Miles and Shelby tied him up with the kind of twine used to secure a tenderloin. His empty eyes stared up at Luce, but also through her.

They’d gagged him with a kitchen rag, so when Arriane taunted, “You want to chill out for a little bit? In the meat cooler?” the boy could only groan. He’d stopped putting up any kind of fight.

Grabbing him by the collar, Arriane dragged him across the floor and into the walk-in refrigerator, gave him a few more kicks for good measure, then calmly shut the door. She dusted off her hands and turned to Luce with a ticked-off look on her face.

“Who’s after me, Arriane?” Luce’s voice was shaking.

“A lot of people, babe.”

“Was that”—Luce thought back to her meeting with Cam—“an Outcast?”

Arriane cleared her throat. Shelby coughed.

“Daniel said he couldn’t be with me because he attracted too much attention. He said I’d be safe at Shoreline, but they came there, too—”

“Only because they traced you leaving campus.
You
attract attention too, Luce. And when you’re out in the world tearing up casinos and the like, we can sense it. That goes for the bad guys, too. That’s why you’re at that school in the first place.”

“What?” It was Shelby. “You guys are just hiding her with us? What about our safety? What if these Outcasts people just showed up on campus?”

Miles said nothing, just looked with alarm from Luce to Arriane.

“You didn’t understand that the Nephilim camouflage you?” Arriane asked. “Daniel didn’t tell you about their—whatever, protective coloration?”

Luce’s mind rolled back to the night Daniel dropped her off at Shoreline. “Maybe he did say something about a shield, but—” There had been so many other things racing through her mind that night. It had been enough to try to process Daniel’s leaving her. Now she felt a queasy wave of guilt. “I didn’t understand. He didn’t elaborate, just kept saying I had to stay on campus. I thought he was being too protective.”

“Daniel knows what he’s doing.” Arriane shrugged. “Most of the time.” She poked her tongue at the corner of her mouth thoughtfully. “Okay, sometimes. Every now and then.”

“So you mean whoever’s after her can’t see her when she’s with a bunch of Nephilim?” This was Miles, who seemed to have found his tongue again.

“Actually, the Outcasts can’t see at all,” Arriane said. “They were blinded during the Revolt. I was getting to that part of the story—it’s good! The putting out of eyes and all that Oedipal jazz.” She sighed. “Oh, well. Yeah, the Outcasts. They can see the burning of your soul—which is a lot more difficult to discern when you’re with a bunch of other Nephilim.”

Miles’s eyes grew wide. Shelby was chewing nervously on her nails.

“So that’s how they mistook Dawn for me.”

“It’s how meat-cooler boy found you tonight, anyway,” Arriane said. “Hell, it’s how I found you too. You’re like a candle in a dark cave out here.” She grabbed a can of whipped cream from the counter and shot a squirt into her mouth. “I like a little nondairy pick-me-up after a brawl.” She yawned, which made Luce look up at the green digital clock on the counter. It was two-thirty in the morning.

“Well, as much as I love kicking asses and taking names, it’s way past curfew for you three.” Arriane whistled through her teeth and a thick blob of an Announcer bled out from the shadows under the prep tables. “I never do this, okay? If anyone asks, I
never
do this. Traveling by Announcers is ver-ry dangerous. Hear that, hero?” She bopped Miles on his forehead, then flicked her fingers open. The shadow bounced instantly into a perfect door shape in the middle of the kitchen. “But I’m on the clock here and it’s the fastest way to get you guys home and to safety.”

“Nice,” Miles said, like he was taking notes.

Arriane shook her head at him. “Don’t get any ideas. I’m taking you back to school, where you will stay”—she made eye contact with each of them—“or you’re going to have to answer to me.”

“You’re coming with us?” Shelby asked, finally showing just a little glimmer of awe toward Arriane.

“Looks that way.” Arriane winked at Luce. “You’ve turned into some kind of firecracker. Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you.”

Stepping through with Arriane was even smoother than it had been on the way to Vegas. It felt like coming inside after being out in the sun: The light was a little dimmer when you walked through the door, but you blinked a few times and got used to it.

Luce was almost disappointed to find herself back in her dorm room after the flash and excitement of Las Vegas. But then she thought of Dawn, and of Vera.
Almost
disappointed. Her eyes settled on all the familiar signs that they were back: two unmade bunk beds, the clutter of plants on the windowsill, Shelby’s yoga mats stacked in the corner, Steven’s copy of Plato’s
Republic
sitting bookmarked on Luce’s desk—and one thing she was not expecting to see.

Daniel, dressed all in black, tending a blazing fire in the hearth.

“Aaaugh!” Shelby screamed, tumbling back into Miles’s arms. “You scared the hell out of me! And in my own place of sanctuary. Not cool, Daniel.” She shot Luce a dirty look, like she’d had something to do with his appearance.

Daniel ignored Shelby, just said calmly to Luce, “Welcome back.”

She didn’t know whether to run to him or burst into tears. “Daniel—”

“
Daniel?
” Arriane gasped. Her eyes widened as if she’d seen a ghost.

Daniel froze, clearly not having expected to encounter Arriane, either. “I—I just need her for a moment. Then I’ll go.” He sounded guilty, even scared.

“Right,” Arriane said, gripping Miles and Shelby by the scruffs of their neck. “We were just leaving.
None
of us saw you here.” She herded the others before her. “We’ll catch you later, Luce.”

Shelby looked like she couldn’t get out of their dorm room quickly enough. Miles’s eyes looked stormy, and they stayed fixed on Luce until Arriane practically threw him into the hall, slamming the door behind them with a great boom.

Then Daniel came to Luce. She closed her eyes and let the brush of his nearness warm her. She breathed him in, glad to be home. Not home to Shoreline, but the home that Daniel made her feel. Even when she was in the strangest of places. Even when their relationship was a mess.

As it seemed to be now.

He wasn’t kissing her yet, wasn’t even taking her in his arms. It surprised her that she wanted him to do those things, even after all she had seen. The absence of his touch caused a pain deep within her chest. When she opened her eyes he was standing there, only inches away, poring over every part of her with his violet eyes.

“You scared me.”

She’d never heard him say that.
She
was used to being the one who was afraid.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Luce shook her head. Daniel took her hand and guided her wordlessly to the window, out of the warm room near the fire and back into the cold night, onto the rough ledge under the window where he’d come to her before.

The moon was oblong and low in the sky. The owls were asleep in the redwoods. From up here Luce could see the waves breaking smoothly on the shore; on the other side of campus, a single light on high in the Nephilim lodge, but she couldn’t tell whether it was Francesca’s or Steven’s.

She and Daniel sat down on the ledge and dangled their legs. They leaned against the slight slope of the roof behind them and looked up at the stars, which were dim in the sky, as if cloaked by the thinnest sheen of cloud. It wasn’t long before Luce began to cry.

Because he was mad at her or she was mad at him. Because her body had just been through so much, in and out of Announcers, across state lines, into the recent past and right back here. Because her heart and her head were tangled up and confused, and being close to Daniel mucked everything up even more. Because Miles and Shelby seemed to hate him. Because of the plain horror on Vera’s face when she recognized Luce. Because of all the tears that her sister must have cried for her, and because Luce had hurt her all over again by showing up at her blackjack table. Because of all of her other bereaved families, sunk into sadness because their daughters had the bad luck to be the reincarnation of a stupid girl in love. Because thinking of those families made Luce desperately miss her parents back in Thunderbolt. Because she was responsible for Dawn’s kidnapping. Because she was seventeen, and still alive, against thousands of years’ worth of odds. Because she knew enough to fear what the future would bring. Because in the meantime it was three-thirty in the morning, and she hadn’t slept in days, and she didn’t know what else to do.

Now he held her, encasing her body in his warmth, drawing her into him and rocking her in his arms. She sobbed and hiccupped and wished for a tissue to blow her nose. She wondered how it was possible to feel so bad about so many things at once.

“Shhh,” Daniel whispered. “Shhh.”

A day ago, she’d been sick watching Daniel love her into oblivion in that Announcer. The inescapable violence sewn into their relationship had seemed insurmountable. But now, especially after talking with Arriane, Luce could feel something big coming on. Something shifting—maybe the whole world shifting—with Luce and Daniel hovering right on the edge. It was all around them, in the ether, and it affected the way she saw herself, and Daniel, too.

The helpless looks she’d seen in his eyes in those just-before-dying moments: Now they felt like—they
were—
the past. It reminded her of the way he’d looked at her after their first kiss in this life on the marshy beach near Sword & Cross. The taste of his lips on hers, the feel of his breath on her neck, his strong hands wrapped around her: It had all been so wonderful—except for the fear in his eyes.

But Daniel hadn’t looked at her like that in a while. The way he looked at her now surrendered nothing. He looked at her as if she were going to stick around, almost as if she had to. Things were different in this life. Everyone was saying it, and Luce could feel it, too: a revelation growing ever larger inside her. She’d watched herself die, and she’d survived it. Daniel didn’t have to shoulder his punishment alone anymore. It was something they could do together.

“I want to say something,” she said into his shirt, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “I want to talk before you say anything.”

She could feel his chin brushing the top of her head. He was nodding.

“I know you have to be careful about what you tell me. I know I’ve died before. But I’m not going anywhere this time, Daniel, I can feel it. At least, not without a fight.” She tried to smile. “I think it will help us both to stop treating me like a fragile piece of glass. So I’m asking you, as your friend, as your girlfriend, as, you know, the love of your life, to let me in a little more. Otherwise I just feel isolated and anxious and—”

He caught her chin with his finger and tilted her head up. He was eyeing her curiously. She waited for him to interrupt, but he didn’t.