Fallen 2. Torment(37)

back toward Shoreline. "If these Outcasts aren't part of Heaven or Hell, whose side are

they on?"

"The Outcasts are a sickening shade of gray. In case you hadn't noticed, there are

worse things out there than me."

Luce folded her hands on her lap, anxious to get back to her dorm room, where

she could feel--or at least pretend to feel--safe. Why should she believe Cam? She'd

fallen for his lies too many times before.

"There's nothing worse than you. What you want ... what you tried to do at Sword

and Cross was horrible and wrong." She shook her head. "You're just trying to trick me

again."

"I'm not." His voice had less argument in it than she would have expected. He

seemed thoughtful, even glum. By then, he had pulled into Shoreline's long, arched

driveway. "I never wanted to hurt you, Luce, never."

"Is that why you called all those shadows to battle when I was in the cemetery?"

"Good and evil aren't as clear-cut as you think." He looked out the window

toward the Shoreline buildings, which appeared dark and uninhabited. "You're from the

South, right? This time around, anyway. So you should understand the freedom that the

victors have to rewrite history. Semantics, Luce. What you think of as evil--well, to my

kind, it's a simple problem of connotation."

"Daniel doesn't think so." Luce wished she could have said she didn't think so, but

she didn't know enough yet. She still felt like she was taking so much of Daniel's

explanations on faith.

Cam parked the truck on a patch of grass behind her dorm, got out, and walked

around to open the passenger door. "Daniel and I are two sides of the same coin." He

offered his hand to help her down; she ignored him. "It must pain you to hear that."

She wanted to say it couldn't possibly be true, that there were no similarities

between Cam and Daniel no matter how Cam tried to whitewash things. But in the week

she'd been at Shoreline, Luce had seen and heard things that conflicted with what she'd

once believed. She thought of Francesca and Steven. They were born of the same place:

Once upon a time, before the war and the Fall, there had only been one side. Cam wasn't

the only one who claimed that the divide between angels and demons wasn't entirely

black and white.

The light was on in her window. Luce imagined Shelby on the orange area rug,

her legs crossed in the lotus position, meditating. How could Luce go in and pretend she

hadn't just seen an angel die? Or that everything that had happened this week hadn't left

her riddled with doubts?

"Let's keep this evening's happenings between us, shall we?" Cam said. "And

going forward, do us all a favor and stay on campus, where you won't get into trouble."

She pushed past him, out of the beam of the stolen truck's headlights and into the

shadows cloaking the walls of her dorm.

Cam got back into the truck, revving the engine obnoxiously. But before he pulled

away, he rolled down the window and called out to Luce, "You're welcome."

She turned around. "For what?"

He grinned and hit the gas. "For saving your life."

65





SIX

THIRTEEN DAYS

"It's here, " a loud voice sang outside Luce's door early the next morning.

Someone was knocking. "It's finally here!"

The knocking grew more insistent. Luce didn't know what time it was, other than

way too early for all the giggling she could hear on the other side of the door.

" Your friends," Shelby called from the top bunk.

Luce groaned and slid out of bed. She glanced up at Shelby, who was propped up

on her stomach on the top bunk, already fully dressed in jeans and a puffy red vest, doing

the Saturday crossword.

"Do you ever sleep?" Luce muttered, reaching into her closet to yank on the

purple tartan robe her mother had sewn for her thirteenth birthday. It still fit her--sort of.

She pressed her face against the peephole and saw the convex smiling faces of

Dawn and Jasmine. They were geared up with bright scarves and fuzzy earmuffs.

Jasmine raised a cup holder with four coffees as Dawn, who had a large brown paper bag

in her hand, knocked again.

"Are you going to shoo them away or should I call campus security?" Shelby

asked.

Ignoring her, Luce swung open the door and the two girls flooded past her into the

room, talking a mile a minute.

"Finally." Jasmine laughed, handing Luce a cup of coffee before plopping down

on the unmade bottom bunk. "We have so much to discuss."

Neither Dawn nor Jasmine had ever come over before, but Luce was enjoying the

way they acted right at home. It reminded her of Penn, who'd "borrowed" the spare key to

Luce's room so she could barrel in whenever the need arose.