Fallen 2. Torment(63)

frothy waves. "About what, exactly?"

Even as the words came out, Luce regretted where she was going. "I could take

your approach--not tell you anything, ever."

"I can't tell you whatever it is you want to know if you won't tell me what's

bothering you."

She thought about Shelby, but when she imagined playing the jealousy card, only

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to have him treat her like a child, Luce felt pathetic. Instead, she said, "I feel like we're

strangers. Like I don't know you any better than anyone else."

"Oh." His voice was quiet, but his face was so infuriatingly stoic, Luce wanted to

shake him. Nothing riled him up.

"You're holding me hostage out here, Daniel. I know nothing. I know no one. I'm

lonely. Every time I see you, you've put up some new wall, and you never let me in. You

never let me in. You dragged me all the way out here--"

She was thinking to California, but it was more than that. Her past, what limited

conception of it that she had, rolled out in her mind like the dropped reel of a movie,

unwinding onto the floor.

Daniel had dragged her much, much further than California. He'd dragged her

through centuries of fights like this one. Through agonizing deaths that caused pain to

everyone around her--like those nice old people she'd visited last week. Daniel had ruined

that couple's life. Killed their daughter. All because he'd been some hotshot angel who

saw something he wanted and went after it.

No, he hadn't just dragged her to California. He'd dragged her into a cursed

eternity. A burden that should have been his alone to bear. "I am suffering--me and

everyone who loves me--for your curse. For all time. Because of you."

He winced as though she'd struck him. "You want to go home," he said.

She kicked the sand. "I want to go back. I want you to take back whatever it was

you did to get me into this. I just want to live and die a normal life and break up with

normal people over normal things like toasters, not the supernatural secrets of the

universe that you don't even trust me with."

"Hold on." Daniel's face had gone completely white. His shoulders stiffened and

his hands were shaking. Even his wings, which moments ago had seemed so powerful,

looked frail. Luce wanted to reach out and touch them, as if somehow they would tell her

whether the pain she saw in his eyes was real. But she held her ground.

"Are we breaking up?" he asked, his voice weak and low.

"Are we even together, Daniel?"

He got to his feet and cupped her face. Before she could jerk away, she felt the

heat subside from her cheeks. She closed her eyes, trying to resist the magnetic force of

his touch, but it was so strong, stronger than anything else.

It erased her anger, left her identity in tatters. Who was she without him? Why did

the pull toward Daniel always defeat anything that pulled her away? Reason, sensibility,

self-preservation: None of them could ever compete. It must have been part of Daniel's

punishment. That she was bound to him forever, like a marionette to its puppeteer. She

knew she shouldn't want him with every fiber of her being, but she couldn't help herself.

Gazing at him, feeling his touch--the rest of the world faded into the background.

She just wished loving him didn't always have to be so hard.

"What's this business about wanting a toaster?" Daniel whispered in her ear.

"I guess I don't know what I want."

"I do." His eyes were intent, holding hers. "I want you."

"I know, but--"

"Nothing will ever change that. No matter what you hear. No matter what

happens."

"But I need more than to be wanted. I need for us to be together--actually

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together."

"Soon. I promise. All of this is only temporary."

"So you've said." Luce saw that the moon had risen overhead. It was brilliant

orange and waning, a quiet blaze. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

Daniel tucked her blond hair behind her ear, examining the lock for way too long.

"School," he said with a hesitancy that made her think he was being less than truthful. "I

asked Francesca to look after you, but I wanted to see for myself. Are you learning

anything? Are you having an okay time?"

She felt the sudden urge to brag to him about her work with the Announcers,

about her talk with Steven and the glimpses she'd had of her parents. But Daniel's face

looked more eager and open than she had seen it all evening. He seemed to be trying to

avoid a fight, so Luce decided to do the same.

She closed her eyes. She told him what he needed to hear. School was fine. She

was fine. Daniel's lips came down on hers again, briefly, hotly, until her whole body was