Fallen 2. Torment(17)

that her whole reason for being here--the most important person in her life--was missing.

She wondered if Daniel was thinking about her. Did he miss her the way she missed him?

Luce chose a desk close to the windows, between Jasmine and a cute boy-next33

door kind of guy who was wearing cutoffs, a Dodgers cap, and a navy sweatshirt. A few

girls stood clustered near the door to the bathroom. One of them had curly hair and boxy

purple glasses. When Luce saw the girl's profile, she nearly bolted from her seat.

Penn.

But when the girl turned toward Luce, her face was a little squarer and her clothes

were a little tighter and her laugh was a little louder and Luce almost felt like her heart

was wilting. Of course it wasn't Penn. It never would be, ever again.

Luce could feel the other kids glancing at her--some of them outright stared. The

only one who didn't was Shelby, who gave Luce an acknowledging nod.

It wasn't a huge class, just twenty desks arranged on the risers, facing the two long

mahogany tables at the front. There were two dry-erase white boards behind the tables.

Two bookshelves on either side. Two trash cans. Two desk lamps. Two laptops, one on

each table. And the two teachers, Steven and Francesca, huddled near the front of the

room, whispering.

In a move Luce wasn't expecting, they turned and stared at her too, then glided to

the tables. Francesca sat on top of one, with one leg tucked beneath her and one of her

high heels skimming the wood floor. Steven leaned against the other table, opened a

heavy maroon leather portfolio, and rested his pen between his lips. For an older man, he

was good-looking, sure, but Luce almost wished he weren't. He reminded her of Cam,

and of how deceptive a demon's charm could be.

She waited for the rest of the class to take out textbooks she didn't have, to plunge

into some reading assignment she'd be behind on, so she could surrender to feeling

overwhelmed and just daydream about Daniel.

But none of that happened. And most of the kids were still sneaking glances at

her.

"By now you must all have noticed that we're welcoming a new student."

Francesca's voice was low and honey-thick, like a jazz singer's.

Steven smiled, showing a flash of brilliant white teeth. "Tell us, Luce, how are

you liking Shoreline so far?"

The color drained from Luce's face as the other students' desks made scraping

sounds on the floor. They were actually turning in their seats to focus on her.

She could feel her heart race and her palms grow damp. She shrank in her seat,

wishing she were just a normal kid at a normal school back home in normal Thunderbolt,

Georgia. At times over the past few days, she'd wished she'd never seen a shadow, never

gotten into the kind of trouble that left her dear friends dead, or got her involved with

Cam, or made it impossible for Daniel to be near her. But there was where her anxious,

tumbling mind always came to a full stop: How to be normal and still have Daniel? Who

was so very far from normal. It was impossible. So here she was, sucking it up.

"I guess I'm still getting used to Shoreline." Her voice wobbled, betraying her,

echoing off the sloped ceiling. "But it seems all right so far."

Steven laughed. "Well, Francesca and I thought to help you get used to it, we'd

change gears from our usual Tuesday-morning student presentations--"

From across the room, Shelby hooted, "Yes!" and Luce noticed that she had a

stack of notecards on her desk and a big poster at her feet that read APPARITIONS

AIN'T SO BAD. So Luce had just gotten her out of a presentation. That had to be worth

something in roommate points.

34

"What Steven means," Francesca chimed in, "is that we're going to play a game,

as an icebreaker." She slid down from her table and walked around the room, heels

clicking as she distributed a sheet of paper to each student.

Luce expected the chorus of groans that those words usually evoked from a

classroom of teens. But these kids all seemed so agreeable and well-adjusted. They were

actually just going to go with the flow.

When she laid the sheet on Luce's desk, Francesca said, "This should give you an

idea of who some of your classmates are, and what goals we work toward in this class."

Luce looked down at the paper. Lines had been drawn on the page, dividing it into

twenty boxes. Each box contained a phrase. It was a game she'd played before, once at

summer camp in western Georgia as a little kid, and again a couple of times in her classes

at Dover. The object was to go around the room and match a different student with each

phrase. Mostly, she was relieved; there were definitely more embarrassing icebreakers

out there. But when she looked more closely at the phrases--expecting normal things like