Fallen 2. Torment(33)

town of Fort Bragg. It didn't lift with the sunrise, and its gloom seeped into everything

and everyone. So all day Friday in school, Luce felt like she was being dragged along by

a slow-moving tide. The teachers were out of focus, noncommittal, and slow with their

lectures. The students sat in a heap of lethargy, struggling to stay awake though the long,

damp drone of the day.

By the time classes let out, the dreariness had penetrated Luce to her very core.

She didn't know what she was doing at this school that wasn't really hers, in this

temporary life that only highlighted her lack of a real, permanent one. All she wanted to

do was crawl into her bottom bunk and sleep it all away--not just the weather or her long

first week at Shoreline, but also the argument with Daniel and the jumble of questions

and anxieties that had shaken loose in her mind.

Sleep the night before had been impossible. In the darkest hours of the morning

she'd stumbled alone back to her dorm room. She'd tossed and turned without ever really

dozing off. Daniel's shutting her out no longer surprised her, but that didn't mean it had

gotten any easier. And that insulting, chauvinistic order he'd given her to stay on the

school grounds? What was this, the nineteenth century? It crossed her mind that maybe

Daniel had spoken to her like that centuries ago, but--like Jane Eyre or Elizabeth

Bennet--Luce was certain no former self of hers would ever have been cool with that.

And she certainly wasn't now.

She was still angry and annoyed after class, moving through the fog toward the

dorm. Her eyes were bleary and she was practically sleepwalking by the time her hand

clasped her doorknob. Tumbling into the dim, empty room, she almost didn't see the

envelope someone had slipped under the door.

It was cream-colored, flimsy and square, and when she flipped it over, she saw

her name typed on the front in small, blocky letters. She tore into it, wanting an apology

from him. Knowing she owed him one too.

The letter inside was typewritten on cream-colored paper and folded into thirds.

Dear Luce,

There's something I've been waiting too long to tell you. Meet me in town, near

Noyo Point, around six o'clock tonight? The #5 bus along Hwy 1 stops a quarter of a mile

south of Shoreline. Use this bus pass. I'll be waiting by the North Cliff. Can't wait to see

you.

Love, Daniel

59

Shaking the envelope, Luce felt a small slip of paper inside. She pulled out a thin

blue-and-white bus ticket with the number five printed on its front and a crude little map

of Fort Bragg drawn on its back. That was it. There was nothing else.

Luce couldn't figure it out. No mention of their argument on the beach. No

indication that Daniel even understood how erratic it was to practically vanish into thin

air one night, then expect her to travel at his whim the next.

No apology at all.

Strange. Daniel could turn up anywhere, anytime. He was usually oblivious to the

logistical realities that normal human beings had to deal with.

The letter felt cold and stiff in her hands. Her more reckless side was tempted to

pretend she'd never received it. She was tired of arguing, tired of Daniel's not trusting her

with details. But that pesky in-love side of Luce wondered whether she was being too

harsh on him. Because their relationship was worth the effort. She tried to remember the

way his eyes had looked and his voice had sounded when he told her the story about the

lifetime she'd spent in the California gold rush. The way he'd seen her through the

window and fallen in love with her for something like the thousandth time.

That was the image she took with her when she left her dorm room minutes later

to creep along the path toward Shoreline's front gates, toward the bus stop where Daniel

had instructed her to wait. An image of his pleading violet eyes tugged at her heart while

she stood under a damp gray sky. She watched colorless cars materialize in the fog, peel

around the hairpin turns on guardrail-less Highway 1, and vanish again.

When she looked back at Shoreline's formidable campus in the distance, she

remembered Jasmine's words at the party: As long as we stay under their umbrella of

surveillance, we can pretty much do as weplease. Luce was stepping out from under the

umbrella, but where was the harm? She wasn't really a student there; and anyway, seeing

Daniel again was worth the risk of getting caught.

A few minutes past the half hour, the number five bus pulled up to the stop.

The bus was old and gray and rickety, as was the driver who heaved the levered

door open to let Luce board. She took an empty seat near the front. The bus smelled like

cobwebs, or a rarely used attic. She had to clutch the cheap leatherette seat cushion as the

bus barreled around the curves at fifty miles an hour, as if just inches beyond the road,