Torment

To: [email protected] /* */

From: [email protected] /* */

Sent: Monday, 11/16 at 1:34 am

Subject: Trying Not to Take It Personally

Dear L,

Got your text, and rst things rst, I miss you too. But I've got a really out-of-left- eld suggestion: it's called you-and-I-catch-up. Crazy Callie and her wild ideas. I know you're

busy. I know you're under heavy surveillance and it's hard to sneak away. What I don't know is a single detail about your life. Who do you eat lunch with? Which class do you

like the most? What ever happened with that guy? See, I don't even know his name. I hate that.

I'm glad you got a phone, but don't text me to say you're going to call. Just call. I haven't heard your voice in ages. I ain't mad at ya. Yet.

Luce closed the email. It was next to impossible to piss Callie o . She'd never actually done it before. The fact that Callie didn't suspect that Luce was lying was only further proof of how distant they'd become. The shame Luce felt was heavy, settling right between her shoulders.

On to the next email:

To: [email protected] /* */

From: [email protected] /* */

Sent: Monday, 11/16 at 8:30 pm

Subject: Well, honey, we love you too

Luce Baby,

Your emails always brighten our days. How's the swim team going? Are you drying your hair now that it's cold outside? I know, I'm nagging, but I miss you.

Do you think Sword & Cross will grant you permission to leave campus for Thanksgiving next week? Dad could call the dean? We won't count our chickens yet, but your father

did go out and buy a Tofurky just in case. I've been lling up the extra freezer with pies. Do you still like the one with the sweet potatoes? We love you and we think about you

all the time.

Mom

Luce's hand hung frozen on her mouse. It was Tuesday morning. Thanksgiving was a week and a half away. It was the rst time that her favorite holiday had even crossed her mind. But as quickly as it had come in, Luce tried to banish it. There was no way Mr. Cole would let her go home for Thanksgiving.

She was about to click Respond when a blinking orange box at the bottom of the screen caught her attention. Miles was online. He'd been trying to chat with her.

Miles (8:08): Mornin', Miss Luce.

Miles (8:09): I am STARVING. Do you wake up as hungry as I wake up?

Miles (8:15): Wanna get breakfast? I'll swing by your room on my way. 5 min?

Luce looked at her clock. 8:21. There was a booming knock on her door. She was still in her pajamas. Still had bed head. She opened the door a little.

The morning sun poured onto the hallway's hardwood oors. It reminded Luce of coming down the always-sunlit wooden staircase at her parents' house for breakfast, the way the whole world looked brighter through the lens of one hallway lled with light.

Miles wasn't wearing his Dodgers cap today, so it was one of the few times she could clearly see his eyes. They were really deep blue, a nine- o'clock-in-summer sky blue. His hair was wet, dripping on the shoulders of his white T-shirt. Luce swallowed, unable to stop her mind from picturing him in the shower. He grinned at her, showing o a dimple and his super-white smile. He seemed so California today; Luce was surprised to realize how good he made it look.

"Hey." Luce wedged as much of her pajamaed body as she could behind the door. "I just saw your messages. I'm in for breakfast, but I'm not dressed yet."

"I can wait." Miles leaned against the hallway wall. His stomach growled loudly. He tried to cross his arms over his waist to cover the sound.

"I'll hurry." Luce laughed, closing the door. She stood before her closet, trying not to think about Thanksgiving or her parents or Callie or why so many important people were slipping away from her at once.

She yanked a long gray sweater from her dresser and threw it on over a pair of black jeans. She brushed her teeth, put on big silver hoop She yanked a long gray sweater from her dresser and threw it on over a pair of black jeans. She brushed her teeth, put on big silver hoop earrings and a squirt of hand lotion, grabbed her bag, and studied herself in the mirror.

She didn't look like a girl who was stuck in some bickering power struggle of a relationship, or a girl who couldn't go home to her family for Thanksgiving. At the moment, she just looked like a girl who was excited to open a door and nd a guy there who made her feel normal and happy and really sort of all-around wonderful.

A guy who was not her boyfriend.

She sighed, opening the door to Miles. His face lit up.

When they got outside, Luce realized the weather had changed. The sunlit morning air was just as brisk as it had been on the roof's ledge last night with Daniel. And it had felt icy then.

Miles held out his enormous khaki jacket to her, but she waved it away. "I just need some co ee to warm me up."

They sat at the same table where they had sat the week before. Immediately, a couple of student waiters rushed over. Both guys seemed to be friends with Miles and had an easy joking manner. Luce certainly never got this level of service when she sat with Shelby. While the guys red away with questions--how had Miles's fantasy football team done the night before, had he watched that YouTube clip of the guy pranking his girlfriend, did he have plans after class today--Luce looked around the terrace for her roommate but couldn't nd her.

Miles answered all the guys' questions but seemed uninterested in extending the conversation any further. He pointed at Luce. "This is Luce. She wants a big cup of your hottest co ee and ..."

"The scrambled eggs," Luce said, folding up the small menu that the Shoreline mess hall printed up each day.

"Same for me, guys, thanks." Miles handed back the two menus and turned full-focus on Luce. "Seems like I haven't seen you around much recently outside class. How are things?"

Miles's question surprised her. Maybe because she was already feeling like a guilt magnet this morning. She liked that there was no "Where have you been hiding?" or "Are you avoiding me?" tacked on at the end. Just a question: "How are things?"

She beamed at him, then somehow lost track of her smile and was almost wincing by the time she said, "Things are okay."

"Uh-oh."

Horrible ght with Daniel. Lying to my parents. Losing my best friend. Part of her wanted to unleash all of that on Miles, but she knew she shouldn't. Couldn't. That would be taking their friendship to a level she wasn't sure was a good idea. She'd never had a really close guy friend before, the kind of friend you shared everything with and relied on like a girlfriend. Wouldn't things get ... complicated?

"Miles," she nally said, "what do people do around here for Thanksgiving?"

"I don't know. I guess I've never stuck around to nd out. I wish I could sometimes. Thanksgiving at my house is obnoxiously enormous. At least a hundred people. Like ten courses. And it's black-tie."

"You're joking."

He shook his head. "I wish I were. Seriously. We have to hire parking attendants." After a pause: "Why do you ask--wait, do you need a place to go?"

"Uhh ..."

"You're coming." He laughed at her shocked expression. "Please. My brother's not coming home from college this year and he was my only lifeline. I can show you around Santa Barbara. We can ditch the turkey and get the world's best tacos at Super Rica." He raised an eyebrow. "It'll be so much less torturous to have you there with me. It might even be fun."

While Luce was mulling over his o er, she felt a hand on her back. She knew the touch by now--soothing to the point of having healing powers --Francesca's.

"I spoke to Daniel last night," Francesca said.

Luce tried not to react as Francesca leaned down. Had Daniel gone to see her after Luce had shut him out? The idea made her jealous, though she didn't really know why.

"He's worried about you." Francesca paused, seeming to search Luce's face. "I told him you're doing very well, considering your new surroundings. I told him I would make myself available to you for anything you need. Please understand that you should come to me with your questions." A sharpness entered her gaze, a hard, erce quality. Come to me instead of Steven seemed to lie there, unspoken.

And then Francesca left, as quickly as she'd appeared, the silk lining of her white wool coat swishing against her black pantyhose.

"So ... Thanksgiving," Miles nally said, rubbing his hands together.

"Okay, okay." Luce swallowed the rest of her co ee. "I'll think about it."

Shelby didn't show at the Nephilim lodge for that morning's class--a lecture on summoning angelic forebears, kind of like sending a celestial voice mail. By lunchtime, Luce was starting to get nervous. But heading into her math class, she nally spotted the familiar pu y red vest and practically sprinted toward it.

"Hey!" She tugged her roommate's thick blond ponytail. "Where've you been?"

Shelby turned around slowly. The look on her face took Luce back to her very rst day at Shoreline. Shelby's nostrils were ared and her eyebrows were hunched forward.

"Are you okay?" Luce asked.

"Fine." Shelby turned away and started ddling with the nearest locker, twirling a combination, then popping it open. Inside were a football helmet and about a case worth of empty Gatorade bottles. A poster of the Laker Girls was slapped on the inside of the door.

"Is that even your locker?" Luce asked. She didn't know a single Nephilim kid who used a locker, but Shelby was rooting through this one, tossing dirty sweat socks recklessly over her shoulder.

Shelby slammed the locker shut, then moved on to twirl the combination of the next one. "Now you're judging me?"

"No." Luce shook her head. "Shel, what is going on? You disappeared this morning, you missed class--"

"I'm here now, aren't I?" Shelby sighed. "Frankie and Steven are a lot more lax about letting a girl take a personal day than the humanoids over here."

"Why do you need a personal day? You were ne last night, until--" "Why do you need a personal day? You were ne last night, until--"

Until Daniel showed up.

Right around the time Daniel appeared at the window, Shelby had gone all pale and quiet and straight to bed and--

While Shelby stared at Luce as if her IQ had suddenly dropped by half, Luce became aware of the rest of the hall. Where the rust-colored lockers ended, the gray-carpeted walls were lined with girls: Dawn and Jasmine and Lilith. Preppy, cardiganed girls like Amy Branshaw from Luce's afternoon classes. Punky pierced girls who looked kind of like Arriane but were way less fun to talk to. A few girls Luce had never seen before. Girls with books clutched against their chests, gum popping in their mouths, and eyes darting at the carpet, at the wood-beamed ceiling, at each other. Anywhere but directly at Luce and Shelby. Though it was clear that all of them were eavesdropping.

A sick feeling in her stomach was starting to tell her why. It was the biggest collision of Nephilim and non-Nephilim Luce had seen so far at Shoreline. And every girl in this hallway had gured out before her:

Shelby and Luce were about to duke it out over a guy.

"Oh." Luce swallowed. "You and Daniel."