The Fallen Sequence (34 page)

Her second kiss in as many days. Where Daniel’s kiss had been hungry and almost desperate, Cam’s kiss was gentle and too perfect, as if he had been practicing on a hundred girls before her.

And yet she felt something in her rise up, wanting her to respond, taking hold of the anger she’d felt only seconds before and blowing it away into nothing. Cam still had her tilted back in his arms, balancing all her weight on his knee. She felt safe in his strong, capable hands. And she needed to feel safe. It was such a change from, well, every moment when she wasn’t kissing Cam. She knew that she was forgetting something, someone—who? she couldn’t remember. There was only the kiss, and his lips, and—

Suddenly, she felt herself falling. She slammed into
the ground so hard the wind was knocked out of her. Raising herself up on her arms, she watched as, a few inches away, Cam’s face came into contact with the ground. She winced despite herself.

The early-evening sun cast a dusty light on two figures in the graveyard.

“How many times must you ruin this girl?” Luce heard the sad southern drawl.

Gabbe?
She looked up, blinking into the setting sun.

Gabbe and Daniel.

Gabbe rushed over to help her to her feet, but Daniel wouldn’t even look her in the eye.

Luce cursed herself under her breath. She couldn’t figure out what was worse—that Daniel had just seen her kissing Cam, or that—she was sure—Daniel was going to fight Cam again.

Cam stood up and faced them, ignoring Luce completely. “All right, which one of you is it going to be this time?” he snarled.

This time?

“Me,” Gabbe said, stepping forward with her hands on her hips. “That first little love tap was all me, Cam honey. What you going to do about it?”

Luce shook her head. Gabbe had to be joking. Surely this was some kind of game. But Cam didn’t seem to think anything was funny. He bared his teeth and rolled up his sleeves, raising his fists and moving forward.

“Again, Cam?” Luce scolded him. “You haven’t gotten in enough fights already this week?” As if that weren’t enough, he was actually going to hit a girl.

He shot her a sideways smile. “Third time’s the charm,” he said, his voice dripping malice. He turned back just as Gabbe came at him with a high kick to the jaw.

Luce scurried backward as Cam fell. His eyes were pinched shut and he was clutching his face. Standing over him, Gabbe looked as unfazed as if she’d just pulled a perfectly baked peach cobbler from the oven. She glanced down at her nails and sighed.

“Gonna be a shame to have to beat up on you just when I touched up my manicure. Oh well,” she said, proceeding to kick Cam repeatedly in the stomach, relishing each kick like a kid winning at an arcade game.

He staggered up into a crouch. Luce couldn’t see his face anymore—it was buried between his knees—but he was moaning in pain and choking on his own breath.

Luce stood and looked from Gabbe to Cam and back again, unable to make sense of what she was seeing. Cam was twice the size of her, but Gabbe seemed to have the upper hand. Just yesterday, Luce had seen Cam beat up that huge guy at the bar. And the other night, outside the library, Daniel and Cam had seemed evenly matched. Luce marveled at Gabbe, with her rainbow ribbon holding her hair back in a high ponytail. Now she had Cam
pinned to the ground and was twisting his arm back. “Uncle?” she taunted. “Just say the magic word, sugar. I’ll let you go.”

“Never,” Cam spat into the ground.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” she said, and shoved his head down into the dirt, hard.

Daniel put his hand on Luce’s neck. She relaxed against him and looked back, terrified to see his expression. He must hate her right now.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Cam, he—”

“Why would you come here to meet him?” Daniel sounded hurt and incensed at the same time. He grabbed her chin to make her look at him. His fingers were freezing against her skin. His eyes were all violet, no gray.

Luce’s lip quivered. “I thought I could take care of it. Be up-front with Cam so that you and I could just be together and not have to worry about anything else.”

Daniel snorted, and Luce realized how stupid she sounded.

“That kiss …,” she said, wringing her hands. She wanted to spit it from her mouth. “It was such a huge mistake.”

Daniel closed his eyes and turned away. Twice he opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. He gripped his hair in his hands and swayed. Watching him, Luce feared he might cry. Finally, he took her in his arms.

“Are you mad at me?” She buried her face in his chest and breathed in the sweet smell of his skin.

“I’m just glad we got here in time.”

The sound of Cam’s whimpers made both of them glance over. Then grimace. Daniel took Luce’s hand and tried to pull her away, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Gabbe, who had Cam in a headlock and wasn’t even winded. Cam looked battered and pathetic. It just didn’t make any sense.

“What’s going on, Daniel?” Luce whispered. “How can Gabbe kick the crap out of Cam? Why is he letting her?”

Daniel half sighed, half chuckled. “He’s not letting her. What you’re seeing is only a sample of what that girl can do.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand. How—”

Daniel stroked her cheek. “Will you take a walk with me?” he asked. “I’m going to try to explain things, but I think you should probably sit down.”

Luce had a few things of her own to come clean about to Daniel. Or, if not to come clean about, at least to throw out into the conversation, to see if he showed signs of thinking she was completely, verifiably deranged. That violet light, for one thing. And the dreams she couldn’t—didn’t want to—stop.

Daniel led her toward a part of the cemetery Luce had never seen before, a clear, flat space where two
peach trees had grown together. Their trunks bowed toward each other, forming the outline of a heart in the air below them.

He led her under the strange, gnarled coupling of the branches and took her hands, tracing her fingers with his.

The evening was quiet except for the song of crickets. Luce imagined all the other students in the dining hall. Spooning mashed potatoes onto their trays, slurping thick room-temperature milk through a straw. It was as if, all of a sudden, she and Daniel were on a different plane of being from the rest of the school. Everything but his hand around hers, his hair shining in the light of the setting sun, his warm gray eyes—everything else felt so far away.

“I don’t know where to start,” he said, pressing harder as he massaged her fingers, like he could rub the answer out. “There’s so much to tell you, and I have to get it right.”

As much as she wanted Daniel’s words to be a simple confession of love, Luce knew better. Daniel had something difficult to say, something that might explain a lot about him, but might also be hard for Luce to hear.

“Maybe do one of those I-have-good-news-and-bad-news kind of things?” she suggested.

“Good idea. Which do you want first?”

“Most people want the good news first.”

“Maybe so,” he said. “But you are worlds away from most people.”

“Okay, I’ll take the bad news first.”

He bit his lip. “Then promise me you won’t leave before I get to the good news?”

She had no plans to leave. Not now, now that he was no longer pushing her away. Not when he might be about to offer up some answers to the long list of questions she’d been obsessing over for the past few weeks.

He brought her hands to his chest and held them against his heart. “I’m going to tell you the truth,” he said. “You won’t believe me, but you deserve to know. Even if it kills you.”

“Okay.” A raw knot of pain took hold of Luce’s in-sides, and she could feel her knees start to shake. She was glad when Daniel made her sit down.

He paced back and forth, then took a deep breath. “In the Bible …”

Luce groaned. She couldn’t help it; she had a knee-jerk reaction to Sunday school talk. Besides, she wanted to discuss the two of them, not some moralistic parable. The Bible wasn’t going to hold the answers to any of the questions she had about Daniel.

“Just listen,” he said, shooting her a look. “In the Bible, you know how God makes a big deal about how everyone should love him with all their soul? How it has to be unconditional, and unrivaled?”

Luce shrugged. “I guess so.”

“Well—” Daniel seemed to be searching for the right words. “That request doesn’t only apply to people.”

“What do you mean? Who else? Animals?”

“Sometimes, sure,” Daniel said. “Like the serpent. He was damned after he tempted Eve. Cursed to slither on the ground forever.”

Luce shivered, thinking back to Cam. The snake. Their picnic. That necklace. She rubbed at her clean, bare neck, glad to be rid of it.

He ran his fingers down her hair, along her jawline, and into the hollow of her neck. She sighed, in a state of bliss.

“I’m trying to say … I guess you could say I’m damned, too, Luce. I’ve been damned for a long, long time.” He spoke as if the words tasted bitter. “I made a choice once, a choice that I believed in—that I still believe in, even though—”

“I don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head.

“Of course you don’t,” he said, dropping down onto the ground next to her. “And I don’t have the best track record at explaining it to you.” He scratched his head and lowered his voice, like he was speaking to himself. “But all I can do is try. Here goes nothing.”

“Okay,” she said. He was confusing her, and he’d barely even said anything yet. But she tried to act less lost than she felt.

“I fall in love,” he explained, taking her hands and holding them tightly. “Over and over again. And each time, it ends catastrophically.”

“Over and over again.” The words made her ill. Luce closed her eyes and withdrew her hands. He’d already told her this. That day at the lake. He’d had breakups. He’d been burned. Why bring up those other girls now? It had hurt then and it hurt even more now, like a sharp pain in her ribs. He squeezed her fingers.

“Look at me,” he pleaded. “Here’s where it gets hard.”

She opened her eyes.

“The person I fall in love with each time is you.”

She’d been holding her breath, and meant to exhale, but it came out as a sharp, cutting laugh.

“Right, Daniel,” she said, starting to stand up. “Wow, you really are damned. That sounds horrible.”

“Listen.” He pulled her back down with a force that made her shoulder throb. His eyes flashed violet and she could tell he was getting angry. Well, so was she.

Daniel looked up into the peach tree canopy, as if for help. “I’m begging you, let me explain.” His voice quaked. “The problem isn’t loving you.”

She took a deep breath. “What is it?” She willed herself to listen, to be stronger and not to feel hurt. Daniel looked like he was broken up enough for both of them.

“I get to live forever,” he said.

The trees rustled around them, and Luce noticed the faintest trickle of a shadow out of the corner of her eye. Not the sick, all-consuming swirl of blackness from the bar last night, but a warning. The shadow was keeping its distance, seething coldly around the corner, but it was waiting. For her. Luce felt a deep chill, down in her bones. She couldn’t shake the sensation that something colossal, black as night, something
final
was on its way.

“I’m sorry,” she said, dragging her eyes back to Daniel. “Could you, um, say that again?”

“I get to live forever,” he repeated. Luce was still lost, but he kept talking, a stream of words pouring out of his mouth. “I get to live, and to watch babies being born, and grow up, and fall in love. I watch them have babies of their own and grow old. I watch them die. I am condemned, Luce, to watch it all over again and again. Everyone but you.” His eyes were glassy. His voice dropped to a whisper. “You don’t get to fall in love—”

“But …,” she whispered back. “I’ve … fallen in love.”

“You don’t get to have babies and grow old, Luce.”

“Why not?”

“You come along every seventeen years.”

“Please—”

“We meet. We
always
meet, somehow we’re always thrown together, no matter where I go, no matter how I
try to distance myself from you. It never matters. You always find me.”

He was staring down at his clenched fists now, looking like he wanted to hit something, unable to raise his eyes.

“And every time we meet, you fall for me—”

“Daniel—”

“I can resist you or flee from you or try my hardest not to respond to you, but it makes no difference. You fall in love with me, and I with you.”

“Is that so terrible?”

“And it kills you.”

“Stop it!” she cried. “What are you trying to do? Scare me away?”

“No.” He snorted. “It wouldn’t work, anyway.”

“If you don’t want to be with me …,” she said, hoping that it was all an elaborate joke, a breakup speech to end all breakup speeches, and not the truth. It could not be the truth. “… there’s probably a more believable story to tell.”

“I know you can’t believe me. This is why I couldn’t tell you until now, when I
have
to tell you. Because I thought I understood the rules and … we kissed, and now I don’t understand anything.”

His words from the night before came back to her:
I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know what to do
.

“Because you kissed me.”

He nodded.

“You kissed me and when we were done, you were surprised.”

He nodded again, having the grace to look a little sheepish.

“You kissed me,” Luce continued, searching for a way to put it all together, “and you thought I wasn’t going to
survive
it?”

“Based on previous experience,” he said hoarsely. “Yes.”

“That’s just crazy,” she said.

“It’s not about the kiss this time, it’s about what it means. In some lives we can kiss, but in most we can’t.” He stroked her cheek, and she wrestled with how good it felt. “I must say, I prefer the lives where we can kiss.” He looked down. “Though it does make losing you that much harder.”