Fallen 2. Torment(34)

the cliff didn't drop a mile straight down into the jagged gray ocean.

It was raining by the time they got to town, a steady sideways drizzle just shy of a

real downpour. Most of the businesses on the main street were already closed up for the

night, and the town looked wet and a little desolate. Not exactly the scene she'd had in

mind for a happy makeup conversation.

Climbing down from the bus, Luce pulled the ski cap out of her backpack and

tugged it over her head. She could feel the chill of the rain on her nose and her fingertips.

She spotted a bent green metal sign and followed its arrow toward Noyo Point.

The point was a wide peninsula of land, not lush green like the terrain on

Shoreline's campus, but a mix of patchy grass and scabs of wet gray sand. The trees

thinned out here, their leaves stripped away by the fitful ocean wind. There was one lone

bench on a patch of mud all the way at the edge, about a hundred yards from the road.

That must have been where Daniel meant for them to meet. But Luce could see from

where she stood that he wasn't there yet. She looked down at her watch. She was five

minutes late.

60

Daniel was never late.

The rain seemed to settle on the tips of her hair instead of soaking into it the way

rain usually did. Not even Mother Nature knew what to do with a dyed-blond Luce. She

didn't feel like waiting for Daniel out in the open. There was a row of shops on the main

street. Luce hung back there, standing on a long wooden porch under a rusty metal

awning. FRED'S FISH, the closed shop's sign read in faded blue letters.

Fort Bragg wasn't quaint like Mendocino, the town where she and Daniel had

stopped before he'd flown her up the shoreline. It was more industrial, a real oldfashioned fishing village with rotting docks fitted into a curved inlet where the land

tapered down toward the water. While Luce waited, a boatful of fishermen were stepping

ashore. She watched the line of rail-thin, hardened men in their soaking-wet slickers

come up the rocky stairs from the docks below.

When they reached the street level, they walked alone or in silent clusters, past the

empty bench and the sad slanted trees, past the shut-up storefronts to a gravel parking lot

at the south edge of Noyo Point. They climbed into beat-up old trucks, turned over the

engines, and drove away, the sea of grim-set faces thinning until one stood out--and he

wasn't coming off any schooner. In fact, he seemed to have appeared suddenly out of the

fog. Luce jumped back against the metal shutter of the fish store and tried to catch her

breath.

Cam.

He was walking west along the gravel road right in front of her, flanked by two

dark-clad fishermen who didn't seem to notice his presence. He was dressed in slim black

jeans and a black leather jacket. His dark hair was shorter than when she'd last seen him,

shining in the rain. A hint of the black sunburst tattoo was visible on the side of his neck.

Against the colorless backdrop of the sky, his eyes were as intensely green as they had

ever been.

The last time she'd seen him, Cam had been standing at the front of a sickening

black army of demons, so callous and cruel and just plain ... evil. It had made her blood

run cold. She had a string of curses and accusations ready to fling at him, but it would be

better still if she could just avoid him altogether.

Too late. Cam's green gaze fell on her--and she froze. Not because he turned on

any of the fake charm that she'd come too close to falling for at Sword & Cross. But

because he looked genuinely alarmed to see her. He swerved, moving against the flow of

the few final straggling fishermen, and was at her side in an instant.

"What are you doing here?"

Cam looked more than alarmed, Luce decided--he looked almost afraid. His

shoulders were bunched up around his neck and his eyes wouldn't settle on anything for

longer than a second. He hadn't said a thing about her hair; it almost seemed as if he

hadn't noticed it. Luce was certain Cam was not supposed to know that she was out here

in California. Keeping her away from guys like him was the whole point of her

relocation. Now she'd blown that.

"I'm just--" She eyed the white gravel path behind Cam, cutting through the grass

bordering the cliff's edge. "I'm just going for a walk."

"You are not."

"Leave me alone." She tried to push past him. "I have nothing to say to you."

"Which would be fine, since we're not supposed to be talking to one another. But

61

you're not supposed to leave that school."

Suddenly she felt nervous, like he knew something she didn't. "How did you

know I'm even going to school here?"

Cam sighed. "I know everything, okay?"

"Then you're here to fight Daniel?"

Cam's green eyes narrowed. "Why would I--Wait, are you saying you're here to