Fallen 2. Torment(56)

Luce laughed, but she was thinking that Steven's mini-lecture on Plato and giving

her The Republic tonight was the opposite of a power trip. Of course, there was no telling

Shelby that now, not when she'd dropped into her usual I'm-on-a-tirade-against-Shoreline

routine on Luce's bottom bunk.

"I mean, I know you have whatever going on with Daniel," Shelby continued,

"but seriously, what good has an angel ever done for me?"

Luce shrugged apologetically.

"I'll tell you: nothing. Nothing besides knock up my mom and then totally ditch

both of us before I was born. Real celestial behavior." Shelby snorted. "The kicker is, my

whole life, my mom's telling me I should be grateful. For what? These watered-down

powers and this enormous forehead I inherited from my dad? No thanks." She kicked the

top bunk glumly. "I'd give anything to just be normal."

"Really?" Luce had spent the whole week feeling inferior to her Nephilim

classmates. She knew the grass was always greener, but this she couldn't believe. What

advantage could Shelby possibly see in not having her Nephilim powers?

"Wait," Luce said, "the sorry-ass ex-boyfriend. Did he ..."

Shelby looked away. "We were meditating together, and, I don't know, somehow

during the mantra, I accidentally levitated. It wasn't even a big deal, I was, like, two

inches off the floor. But Phil wouldn't let it go. He started bugging me about what else I

could do, and asking all these weird questions."

"Like what?"

"I don't know," Shelby said. "Some stuff about you, actually. He wanted to know

if you'd taught me to levitate. Whether you could levitate too."

"Why me?"

"Probably more of his pervy roommate fantasies. Anyway, you should have seen

the look on his face that day. Like I was some sort of circus freak. I had no choice but to

break things off."

"That's awful." Luce squeezed Shelby's hand. "But it sounds like his problem, not

yours. I know the rest of the kids at Shoreline look at the Nephilim funny, but I've been to

a lot of high schools, and I'm starting to think that's just the way most kids' faces naturally

bend. Besides, no one's 'normal.' Phil must have had something freakish about him."

"Actually, there was something about his eyes. They were blue, but faded, almost

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washed out. He had to wear these special contacts so people wouldn't stare at him."

Shelby tossed her head to the side. "Plus, you know, that third nipple." She burst out

laughing, was red in the face by the time Luce joined in and practically in tears when a

light tapping on the windowpane shut both of them up.

"That better not be him." Shelby's voice instantly sobered as she hopped up from

the bed and flung open the window, knocking over a potted yucca in her haste.

"It's for you," she said, almost numbly.

Luce was at the window in a heartbeat, because by then, she could feel him.

Bracing her palms on the sill, she leaned forward into the brisk night air.

She was face to face, lip to lip, with Daniel.

For the briefest moment, she thought he was looking past her, into the room, at

Shelby, but then he was kissing her, cupping the back of her head with his soft hands and

pulling her to him, taking her breath away. A week's worth of warmth flowed through

her, along with an unspoken apology for the harsh words they'd said the other night on

the beach.

"Hello," he whispered.

"Hello."

Daniel was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. She could see the cowlick in his

hair. His tremendous pearl-white wings beat gently behind him, probing the black night,

luring her in. They seemed to beat in the sky almost in time with her heart. She wanted to

touch them, to bury herself in them the way she had the other night on the beach. It was a

stunning thing to see him floating outside her third-story window.

He took her hand and pulled her over the windowsill and out into the air and his

arms. But then he set her down on a wide, flat ledge under the window that she'd never

noticed before.

She always felt the urge to cry when she was happiest. "You're not supposed to be

here. But I'm so glad you are."

"Prove it," he said, smiling as he pulled her back against his chest so that his head

was just over her shoulder. He looped one arm around her waist. Warmth radiated from

his wings. When she looked over her shoulder, all she could see was white; the world was

white, all softly textured and aglow with moonlight. And then Daniel's great wings began

to beat--Her stomach dropped a little and she knew she was being lifted--no, rocketed,

straight into the sky. The ledge below them grew smaller and the stars above shone