Fallen 2. Torment(87)

catch you later, Luce."

Shelby looked like she couldn't get out of their dorm room quickly enough.

Miles's eyes looked stormy, and they stayed fixed on Luce until Arriane practically threw

him into the hall, slamming the door behind them with a great boom.

Then Daniel came to Luce. She closed her eyes and let the brush of his nearness

warm her. She breathed him in, glad to be home. Not home to Shoreline, but the home

that Daniel made her feel. Even when she was in the strangest of places. Even when their

relationship was a mess.

As it seemed to be now.

He wasn't kissing her yet, wasn't even taking her in his arms. It surprised her that

she wanted him to do those things, even after all she had seen. The absence of his touch

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caused a pain deep within her chest. When she opened her eyes he was standing there,

only inches away, poring over every part of her with his violet eyes.

"You scared me."

She'd never heard him say that. She was used to being the one who was afraid.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Luce shook her head. Daniel took her hand and guided her wordlessly to the

window, out of the warm room near the fire and back into the cold night, onto the rough

ledge under the window where he'd come to her before.

The moon was oblong and low in the sky. The owls were asleep in the redwoods.

From up here Luce could see the waves breaking smoothly on the shore; on the other side

of campus, a single light on high in the Nephilim lodge, but she couldn't tell whether it

was Francesca's or Steven's.

She and Daniel sat down on the ledge and dangled their legs. They leaned against

the slight slope of the roof behind them and looked up at the stars, which were dim in the

sky, as if cloaked by the thinnest sheen of cloud. It wasn't long before Luce began to cry.

Because he was mad at her or she was mad at him. Because her body had just

been through so much, in and out of Announcers, across state lines, into the recent past

and right back here. Because her heart and her head were tangled up and confused, and

being close to Daniel mucked everything up even more. Because Miles and Shelby

seemed to hate him. Because of the plain horror on Vera's face when she recognized

Luce. Because of all the tears that her sister must have cried for her, and because Luce

had hurt her all over again by showing up at her blackjack table. Because of all of her

other bereaved families, sunk into sadness because their daughters had the bad luck to be

the reincarnation of a stupid girl in love. Because thinking of those families made Luce

desperately miss her parents back in Thunderbolt. Because she was responsible for

Dawn's kidnapping. Because she was seventeen, and still alive, against thousands of

years' worth of odds. Because she knew enough to fear what the future would bring.

Because in the meantime it was three-thirty in the morning, and she hadn't slept in days,

and she didn't know what else to do.

Now he held her, encasing her body in his warmth, drawing her into him and

rocking her in his arms. She sobbed and hiccupped and wished for a tissue to blow her

nose. She wondered how it was possible to feel so bad about so many things at once.

"Shhh," Daniel whispered. "Shhh."

A day ago, she'd been sick watching Daniel love her into oblivion in that

Announcer. The inescapable violence sewn into their relationship had seemed

insurmountable. But now, especially after talking with Arriane, Luce could feel

something big coming on. Something shifting--maybe the whole world shifting--with

Luce and Daniel hovering right on the edge. It was all around them, in the ether, and it

affected the way she saw herself, and Daniel, too.

The helpless looks she'd seen in his eyes in those just-before-dying moments:

Now they felt like--they were-- the past. It reminded her of the way he'd looked at her

after their first kiss in this life on the marshy beach near Sword & Cross. The taste of his

lips on hers, the feel of his breath on her neck, his strong hands wrapped around her: It

had all been so wonderful--except for the fear in his eyes.

But Daniel hadn't looked at her like that in a while. The way he looked at her now

surrendered nothing. He looked at her as if she were going to stick around, almost as if

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she had to. Things were different in this life. Everyone was saying it, and Luce could feel

it, too: a revelation growing ever larger inside her. She'd watched herself die, and she'd

survived it. Daniel didn't have to shoulder his punishment alone anymore. It was

something they could do together.

"I want to say something," she said into his shirt, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. "I

want to talk before you say anything."

She could feel his chin brushing the top of her head. He was nodding.