The Fallen Sequence (55 page)

Having fun wasn’t usually such a simple thing. For so long, laughter had usually been closely followed by guilt, some nagging feeling that she wasn’t supposed to be enjoying herself for one reason or another. But somehow tonight she felt lighter. Without even realizing it, she’d been able to shrug off the darkness.

By the time Luce looped around for her fifth turn, the line was significantly shorter. Half the kids at the party had already gotten out, and everyone was crowded around either Miles or Roland, watching the last kids standing. At the back of the line, Luce was giddy and a little light-headed, so the hard grip she felt on her arm almost made her lose her balance.

She started to scream, then felt fingers clamp over her mouth.

“Shhh.”

Daniel was tugging her out of line and away from the party. His strong, warm hand sliding down her neck, his lips brushing the side of her cheek. For just a moment, the touch of his skin on hers, coupled with the bright violet glow of his eyes, and her days-old rising need to grab hold of him and never let go—it all made Luce divinely dizzy.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered. She meant to say
Thank God you’re here
or
It’s been so hard to be apart
or what she really meant,
I love you
. But there were also
You abandoned me
and
I thought it
wasn’t safe
and
What’s this about a truce?
all knocking around in her brain.

“I had to see you,” he said. As he led her behind a large volcanic rock on the beach, there was a conspiratorial smile on his face. The kind of smile that was contagious, finding its way onto Luce’s lips too. The kind of smile that acknowledged not just that they were breaking Daniel’s rule—but that they were enjoying doing it.

“When I got close enough to see this party, I noticed everyone dancing,” he said. “And I got a little jealous.”

“Jealous?” Luce asked. They were alone now. She threw her arms around his broad shoulders and looked deep into his violet eyes. “Why would you be jealous?”

“Because,” he said, rubbing his hands across her back. “Your dance card is full. For all eternity.”

Daniel held her right hand in his, wrapped her left around his shoulder, and started a slow two-step in the sand. They could still hear the music from the party, but from this side of the rock it felt like a private concert. Luce closed her eyes and melted against his chest, finding the place where her head fit into his shoulder like a puzzle piece.

“No, this isn’t quite right,” Daniel said after a moment. He pointed down at her feet. She noticed he was barefoot. “Take off your shoes,” he said, “and I’ll show you how angels dance.”

Luce slipped off her black flats and tossed them aside
on the beach. The sand between her toes was soft and cool. When Daniel pulled her close, her toes overlapped with his and she almost lost her balance, but his arms held her steady. When she looked down, her feet were on top of his. And when she looked up: the sight she yearned for night and day. Daniel unfurling his silver-white wings.

They filled her plane of vision, stretching twenty feet into the sky. Broad and beautiful, glowing in the night, they must have been the most glorious wings in all of Heaven. Underneath her own feet, Luce felt Daniel’s lift just barely off the ground. His wings beat lightly, almost like a heartbeat, holding both of them inches above the beach.

“Ready?” he asked.

Ready for what, she didn’t know. It didn’t matter.

Now they were moving backward in the air, as smoothly as figure skaters moved on ice. Daniel glided out over the water, holding her in his arms. Luce gasped as the first frothy wave skimmed their toes. Daniel laughed and lifted them a little higher in the sky. He dipped her backward. He spun them both around in circles. They were dancing.
On the ocean
.

The moon was like a spotlight, shining down on only them. Luce was laughing from sheer joy, laughing so much that Daniel started laughing too. She’d never felt lighter.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

His answer was a kiss. He kissed her softly at first. On her forehead, then on her nose, then finally found his way to her lips.

She kissed him back deeply and hungrily and a bit desperately, throwing her whole body into it. This was how she came home to Daniel, how she touched that easy love they’d shared for so long. For a moment, the whole world went quiet; then Luce came up gasping for air. She hadn’t even noticed they were back on the beach.

His hand cupped the back of her head, the ski cap she had tugged down over her ears. The cap concealing her bleached-blond hair. He pulled it off and a blast of ocean breeze hit her head. “What did you do to your hair?”

His voice was soft, but somehow it sounded like an accusation. Maybe it was because the song had ended, and the dance and the kiss had too, and now they were just two people standing on a beach. Daniel’s wings were arched back behind his shoulders, still visible but out of reach.

“Who cares about my hair?” All she cared about was holding him. Wasn’t that all he should care about too?

Luce reached to take back the ski cap. Her bare blond head felt too exposed, like a glowing red flag warning Daniel that she might be falling apart. As
soon as she started to turn away, Daniel put his arms around her.

“Hey,” he said, pulling her close again. “I’m sorry.”

She exhaled, drew into him, and let his touch wash over her. She tipped her head up to meet his eyes.

“Is it safe now?” she asked, wanting Daniel to be the one to bring up the truce. Could they finally be together? But the worn look in his eyes gave her the answer before he opened his mouth.

“I shouldn’t be here, but I worry about you.” He held her at arm’s length. “And from the looks of things, I’m right to worry.” He fingered a lock of her hair. “I don’t understand why you did this, Luce. It isn’t you.”

She pushed him away. It had always bothered her when people said that. “Well, I’m the one who dyed it, Daniel. So, technically, it
is
me. Maybe not the ‘me’ you want me to be—”

“That’s not fair. I don’t want you to be anyone other than who you are.”

“Which is who, Daniel? Because if you know the answer to that, feel free to clue me in.” Her voice grew louder as frustration overtook the passion slipping through her fingers. “I’m on my own here, trying to figure out why. Trying to figure out what I’m doing here with all these … when I’m not even …”

“When you’re not what?”

How had they gone so quickly from dancing on air to this?

“I don’t know. I’m just trying to take it day by day. Make friends, you know? Yesterday I joined a club, and we’re planning a yacht trip somewhere. Things like that.” What she really wanted to tell him about were the shadows. And especially what she’d done in the woods. But Daniel had narrowed his eyes like she’d already done something wrong.

“You’re not going on a yacht trip anywhere.”

“What?”

“You’ll stay right here on this campus until I say so.” He exhaled, sensing her rising anger. “I hate giving you these rules, Luce, but … I’m doing so much to keep you safe. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Literally.” Luce gritted her teeth. “Good or bad or otherwise. Seems like when you’re not around you don’t want me doing anything at all.”

“That’s not true.” He shook a finger at her. She’d never seen him lose his temper so quickly. Then he looked up at the sky, and Luce followed his gaze. A shadow zipped over their heads—like an all-black firework leaving a deadly, smoky tail. Daniel seemed to be able to read it instantly.

“I have to go,” he said.

“How shocking.” She turned away. “Turn up out of nowhere, pick a fight, then duck out. This must be real, true love.”

He grabbed her shoulders and shook them until she met his eyes. “It
is
true love,” he said, with such
desperation that Luce couldn’t tell whether it chipped away at or added to the pain in her heart. “You know it is.” His eyes burned violet—not with anger but with intense desire. The kind of look that made you love a person so much, you missed him even when he was standing right in front of you.

Daniel ducked his head to kiss her cheek, but she was too close to tears. Embarrassed, she turned away. She heard his sigh, and then: the beat of wings.

No
.

When she whipped her head around, Daniel was soaring across the sky, halfway between the ocean and the moon. His wings were lit bright white under a moonbeam. A moment later, it was hard to tell him apart from any of the stars in the sky.

FIVE

FOURTEEN DAYS

D
uring the night, a windless layer of fog moved in like an army, settling over the town of Fort Bragg. It didn’t lift with the sunrise, and its gloom seeped into everything and everyone. So all day Friday in school, Luce felt like she was being dragged along by a slow-moving tide. The teachers were out of focus, noncommittal, and slow with their lectures. The students sat in a heap of lethargy, struggling to stay awake though the long, damp drone of the day.

By the time classes let out, the dreariness had penetrated Luce to her very core. She didn’t know what she was doing at this school that wasn’t really hers, in this temporary life that only highlighted her lack of a real, permanent one. All she wanted to do was crawl into her bottom bunk and sleep it all away—not just the weather or her long first week at Shoreline, but also the argument with Daniel and the jumble of questions and anxieties that had shaken loose in her mind.

Sleep the night before had been impossible. In the darkest hours of the morning she’d stumbled alone back to her dorm room. She’d tossed and turned without ever really dozing off. Daniel’s shutting her out no longer surprised her, but that didn’t mean it had gotten any easier. And that insulting, chauvinistic
order
he’d given her to stay on the school grounds? What was this, the nineteenth century? It crossed her mind that maybe Daniel
had
spoken to her like that centuries ago, but—like Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet—Luce was certain no former self of hers would ever have been cool with that. And she certainly wasn’t now.

She was still angry and annoyed after class, moving through the fog toward the dorm. Her eyes were bleary and she was practically sleepwalking by the time her hand clasped her doorknob. Tumbling into the dim, empty room, she almost didn’t see the envelope someone had slipped under the door.

It was cream-colored, flimsy and square, and when she flipped it over, she saw her name typed on the front in small, blocky letters. She tore into it, wanting an apology from him. Knowing she owed him one too.

The letter inside was typewritten on cream-colored paper and folded into thirds.

Dear Luce,

There’s something I’ve been waiting too long to tell you. Meet me in town, near Noyo Point, around six o’clock tonight? The #5 bus along Hwy 1 stops a quarter of a mile south of Shoreline. Use this bus pass. I’ll be waiting by the North Cliff. Can’t wait to see you.

Love, Daniel

Shaking the envelope, Luce felt a small slip of paper inside. She pulled out a thin blue-and-white bus ticket with the number five printed on its front and a crude little map of Fort Bragg drawn on its back. That was it. There was nothing else.

Luce couldn’t figure it out. No mention of their argument on the beach. No indication that Daniel even understood how erratic it was to practically vanish into thin air one night, then expect her to travel at his whim the next.

No apology at all.

Strange. Daniel could turn up anywhere, anytime. He was usually oblivious to the logistical realities that normal human beings had to deal with.

The letter felt cold and stiff in her hands. Her more reckless side was tempted to pretend she’d never received it. She was tired of arguing, tired of Daniel’s not trusting her with details. But that pesky in-love side of Luce wondered whether she was being too harsh on him. Because their relationship was worth the effort. She tried to remember the way his eyes had looked and his voice had sounded when he told her the story about the lifetime she’d spent in the California gold rush. The way he’d seen her through the window and fallen in love with her for something like the thousandth time.

That was the image she took with her when she left her dorm room minutes later to creep along the path toward Shoreline’s front gates, toward the bus stop where Daniel had instructed her to wait. An image of his pleading violet eyes tugged at her heart while she stood under a damp gray sky. She watched colorless cars materialize in the fog, peel around the hairpin turns on guardrail-less Highway 1, and vanish again.

When she looked back at Shoreline’s formidable campus in the distance, she remembered Jasmine’s words at the party:
As long as we stay under their umbrella of surveillance, we can pretty much do as we
please
. Luce was stepping out from under the umbrella, but where was the harm? She wasn’t really a student there; and anyway, seeing Daniel again was worth the risk of getting caught.