The Fallen Sequence (7 page)

“Come on,” Randy said, more softly. “Let’s go turn you off.”

She extended her hand to Arriane and helped heave up her tiny, shaking body, turning back only once at the doorway to repeat her orders for Luce and Molly.

“Crack of dawn!”

“Looking forward to it,” Molly said sweetly, reaching down to pick up the plate of meat loaf that had slipped from her tray.

She dangled it over Luce’s head for a second, then turned the plate upside down and mashed the food into
her hair. Luce could hear the squish of her own mortification as all of Sword & Cross got its viewing of the meat-loaf-coated new girl.

“Priceless,” Molly said, pulling out the tiniest silver camera from the back pocket of her black jeans. “Say … meat loaf,” she sang, snapping a few close-up shots. “These will be
great
on my blog.”

“Nice hat,” someone jeered from the other side of the cafeteria. Then, with trepidation, Luce turned her eyes to Daniel, praying that somehow he had missed this whole scene. But no. He was shaking his head. He looked annoyed.

Until that moment, Luce had thought she had a chance at standing up and just shaking off the incident—literally. But seeing Daniel’s reaction—well, it finally made her crack.

She would
not
cry in front of any of these horrible people. She swallowed hard, got to her feet, and took off. She rushed toward the nearest door, eager to feel some cool air on her face.

Instead, the southern September humidity cloaked her, choking her, as soon as she got outside. The sky was that no-color color, a grayish brown so oppressively bland it was difficult even to find the sun. Luce slowed down, but got as far as the edge of the parking lot before she came to a complete stop.

She longed to see her battered old car there, to sink into the fraying cloth seat, rev the engine, crank up the
stereo, and peel the hell out of this place. But as she stood on the hot black pavement, reality set in: She was stuck here, and a pair of towering metal gates separated her from the world outside Sword & Cross. Besides, even if she’d had a way out … where was she going to go?

The sick feeling in her gut told her all she needed to know. She was already at the last stop, and things were looking pretty grim.

It was as depressing as it was true: Sword & Cross was all she had.

She dropped her face into her hands, knowing she had to go back. But when she lifted her head, the residue on her palm reminded her that she was still coated in Molly’s meat loaf. Ugh. First stop, the nearest bathroom.

Back inside, Luce ducked into the girls’ room just as the door was swinging open. Gabbe, who appeared even more blond and flawless now that Luce looked like she’d just gone Dumpster diving, squeezed past.

“Whoops, ’scuse me, honey,” she said. Her southern-accented voice was sweet, but her face crumpled up at the sight of Luce. “Oh God, you look terrible. What happened?”

What happened? As if the whole school didn’t already know. This girl was probably playing dumb so Luce would relive the whole mortifying scene.

“Wait five minutes,” Luce replied, with more of an edge in her voice than she meant. “I’m sure gossip spreads like the plague around here.”

“You want to borrow my foundation?” Gabbe asked, holding up a pastel blue cosmetics case. “You haven’t seen yourself yet, but you’re going to—”

“Thanks, but no.” Luce cut her off, pushing into the bathroom. Without looking at herself in the mirror, she turned on the faucet. She splashed cold water on her face and finally let it all out. Tears streaming, she pumped the soap dispenser and tried to use some of the cheap pink powdered hand soap to scrub off the meat loaf. But there was still the matter of her hair. And her clothes had definitely looked and smelled better. Not that she needed to worry about making a good first impression anymore.

The bathroom door cracked open and Luce scrambled against the wall like a trapped animal. When a stranger walked in, Luce stiffened and waited for the worst.

The girl had a squat build, accentuated by an abnormal amount of layered clothing. Her wide face was surrounded by curly brown hair, and her bright purple glasses wobbled when she sniffed. She looked fairly unassuming, but then, looks could be deceiving. Both her hands were tucked behind her back in a way that, after the day Luce had had, she just couldn’t trust.

“You know, you’re not supposed to be in here without a pass,” the girl said. Her even tone seemed to mean business.

“I know.” The look in the girl’s eyes confirmed Luce’s suspicion that it was absolutely impossible to
catch a break at this place. She started to sigh in surrender. “I just—”

“I’m kidding.” The girl laughed, rolling her eyes and relaxing her posture. “I snagged some shampoo from the locker room for you,” she said, bringing her hands around to display two innocent-looking plastic bottles of shampoo and conditioner. “Come on,” she said, pulling over a beat-up folding chair. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Sit here.”

A half-whimpering, half-laughing noise she’d never made before escaped from Luce’s lips. It sounded, she guessed, like relief. The girl was actually being nice to her—not just reform school nice, but regular-person nice! For no apparent reason. The shock of it was almost too great for Luce to stand. “Thanks?” Luce managed to say, still feeling a little bit guarded.

“Oh, and you probably need a change of clothes,” the girl said, looking down at her black sweater and pulling it over her head to expose an identical black sweater underneath.

When she saw the surprised look on Luce’s face, she said, “What? I have a hostile immune system. I have to wear a lot of layers.”

“Oh, well, will you be okay without this one?” Luce made herself ask, even though she would have done just about anything right then to get out of the meat cloak she was wearing.

“Of course,” the girl said, waving her off. “I’ve got
three more on under this. And a couple more in my locker. Be my guest. It pains me to see a vegetarian covered in meat. I’m very empathetic.”

Luce wondered how this stranger knew about her dietary preferences, but more than that, she had to ask: “Um, why are you being so nice?”

The girl laughed, sighed, then shook her head. “Not everyone at Sword & Cross is a whore or a jock.”

“Huh?” Luce said.

“Sword & Cross … Whores and Jocks. Lame nickname in town for this school. Obviously there aren’t really any jocks here. I won’t oppress your ears with some of the cruder nicknames they’ve come up with.”

Luce laughed.

“All I meant was, not everyone here is a complete jerk.”

“Just the majority?” Luce asked, hating it that she already sounded so negative. But it had been such a long morning, and she’d already been through so much, and maybe this girl wouldn’t judge her for being a little bit gruff.

To her surprise, the girl smiled. “Exactly. And they sure give the rest of us a bad name.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Pennyweather Van Syckle-Lockwood. You can call me Penn.”

“Got it,” Luce said, still too frazzled to realize that, in a former life, she might have stifled a laugh at this girl’s moniker. It sounded like she’d hopped straight off the
pages of a Dickens novel. Then again, there was something trustworthy about a girl with a name like that who could manage to introduce herself with a straight face. “I’m Lucinda Price.”

“And everybody calls you Luce,” Penn said. “And you transferred from Dover Prep in New Hampshire.”

“How’d you know that?” Luce asked slowly.

“Lucky guess?” Penn shrugged. “I’m kidding, I read your file, duh. It’s a hobby.”

Luce stared at her blankly. Maybe she’d been too hasty with that trustworthy judgment. How could Penn have access to her file?

Penn took over running the water. When it got warm, she motioned for Luce to lower her head into the sink.

“See, the thing is,” she explained, “I’m not actually crazy.” She pulled Luce up by her wet head. “No offense.” Then lowered her back down. “I’m the only kid at this school without a court mandate. And you might not think it, but being legally sane has its advantages. For example, I’m also the only kid they trust to be an office aide. Which is dumb on their part. I have access to a lot of confidential shit.”

“But if you don’t
have
to be here—”

“When your father’s the groundskeeper of the school, they kind of have to let you go for free. So …” Penn trailed off.

Penn’s father was the groundskeeper? From the looks
of the place, it hadn’t crossed Luce’s mind that they even
had
a groundskeeper.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Penn said, helping Luce shampoo the last of the gravy from her hair. “That the grounds aren’t exactly well kept?”

“No,” Luce lied. She was eager to stay on this girl’s good side and wanted to put out the be-my-friend vibe way more than she wanted to seem like she actually cared about how often someone mowed the lawn at Sword & Cross. “It’s, um, really nice.”

“Dad died two years ago,” Penn said quietly. “They got as far as sticking me with decaying old Headmaster Udell as my legal guardian, but, uh, they never really got around to hiring a replacement for Dad.”

“I’m sorry,” Luce said, lowering her voice, too. So someone else here knew what it was like to go through a major loss.

“It’s okay,” Penn said, squirting conditioner into her palm. “It’s actually a really good school. I like it here a lot.”

Now Luce’s head shot up, sending a spray of water across the bathroom. “You sure you’re not crazy?” she teased.

“I’m kidding. I hate it here. It totally sucks.”

“But you can’t bring yourself to leave,” Luce said, tilting her head, curious.

Penn bit her lip. “I know it’s morbid, but even if I weren’t stuck with Udell, I couldn’t. My dad’s here.” She
gestured toward the cemetery, invisible from here. “He’s all I’ve got.”

“Then I guess you’ve got more than some other people at this school,” Luce said, thinking of Arriane. Her mind rolled back to the way Arriane had gripped her hand on the quad today, the eager look in her blue eyes when she made Luce promise she’d swing by her dorm room tonight.

“She’s gonna be okay,” Penn said. “It wouldn’t be Monday if Arriane didn’t get carted off to the nurse after a fit.”

“But it wasn’t a fit,” Luce said. “It was that wristband. I saw it. It was shocking her.”

“We have a very broad definition of what makes for a ‘fit’ here at Sword & Cross. Your new enemy, Molly? She’s thrown some legendary fits. They keep saying they’re going to change her meds. Hopefully you’ll have the pleasure of witnessing at least one good freak-out before they do.”

Penn’s intel was pretty remarkable. It crossed Luce’s mind to ask her what the story was with Daniel, but the complicated intensity of her interest in him was probably best kept to a need-to-know basis. At least until she figured it out herself.

She felt Penn’s hands wringing the water from her hair.

“That’s the last of it,” Penn said. “I think you’re finally meat-free.”

Luce looked in the mirror and ran her hands through her hair. Penn was right. Except for the emotional scarring and the pain in her right foot, there was no evidence of her cafeteria brawl with Molly.

“I’m just glad you have short hair,” Penn said. “If it were still as long as it was in the picture in your file, this would have been a much lengthier operation.”

Luce gawked at her. “I’m going to have to keep an eye on you, aren’t I?”

Penn looped her arm through Luce’s and steered her out of the bathroom. “Just stay on my good side and no one gets hurt.”

Luce shot Penn a worried look, but Penn’s face gave nothing away. “You’re kidding, right?” Luce asked.

Penn smiled, suddenly cheery. “Come on, we gotta get to class. Aren’t you glad we’re in the same afternoon block?”

Luce laughed. “When are you going to stop knowing everything about me?”

“Not in the foreseeable future,” Penn said, tugging her down the hall and back toward the cinder-block classrooms. “You’ll learn to love it soon, I promise. I’m a very powerful friend to have.”

THREE

DRAWING DARK

L
uce meandered down the dank dormitory hallway toward her room, dragging her red Camp Gurid duffel bag with the broken strap in her wake. The walls here were the color of a dusty blackboard—and the whole place was strangely quiet, save for the dull hum of the yellow fluorescent lamps hanging from the water-stained drop-panel ceilings.

Mostly, Luce was surprised to see so many shut doors. Back at Dover, she’d always wished for more privacy, a
break from the hallwide dorm parties that sprang up at all hours. You couldn’t walk to your room without tripping over a powwow of girls sitting cross-legged in matching jeans, or a lip-locked couple pressed against the wall.

But at Sword & Cross … well, either everyone was already getting started on their thirty-page term papers … or else the socializing here was of a much more behind-closed-doors variety.

Speaking of which, the closed doors themselves were a sight to be seen. If the students at Sword & Cross got resourceful with their dress code violations, they were downright ingenious when it came to personalizing their spaces. Already Luce had walked by one door frame with a beaded curtain, and another with a motion-detecting welcome mat that encouraged her to “move the hell on” when she passed it.