Fallen - Lauren Kate [44]
“Besides.” He smiled, flashing her a white arch of teeth. “It’s just about lunchtime, and I’ve got a picnic.”
Lunchtime? Luce hadn’t even had breakfast yet. But her stomach was growling—and the idea of being reamed by Mr. Cole for missing all but the last twenty minutes of morning classes seemed less and less appealing the longer she stood next to Cam.
She nodded at the bag he was holding. “Did you pack enough for two?”
Steering Luce with a broad hand on the small of her back, Cam led her across the commons, past the library and the dismal dorm. At the metal gates to the cemetery, he stopped.
“I know this is a weird place for a picnic,” he explained, “but it’s the best spot I know to dip out of sight for a little while. On campus, anyway. Sometimes I just can’t breathe in there.” He gestured toward the building.
Luce could definitely relate to that. She felt both stifled and exposed almost all the time at this place. But Cam seemed like the last person who would share that new-student syndrome. He was so … collected. After that party last night, and now the forbidden espresso in his hand, she would never have guessed he’d feel suffocated, too. Or that he’d pick her to share the feeling with.
Past his head, she could see the rest of the run-down campus. From here, there wasn’t much of a difference between one side of the cemetery gates and the other.
Luce decided to go with it. “Just promise to save me if any statues topple over.”
“No,” Cam said with a seriousness that effectively erased her joke. “That won’t happen again.”
Her eyes fell on the spot where only days earlier, she and Daniel had come close to ending up in the cemetery themselves. But the marble angel that had toppled over them was gone, its pedestal bare.
“Come on,” Cam said, tugging her along with him. They sidestepped overgrown patches of weeds, and Cam kept turning to help her over mounds of dirt burrowed out by who-knew-what.
At one point, Luce nearly lost her balance and grabbed on to one of the headstones to steady herself. It was a large, polished slab with one rough, unfinished side.
“I’ve always liked that one,” Cam said, gesturing at the pinkish headstone under her fingers. Luce crossed around to the front of the plot to read the inscription.
“‘Joseph Miley,’” she read aloud. “‘1821 to 1865. Bravely served in the War of Northern Aggression. Survived three bullets and five horses felled from under him before meeting his final peace.’”
Luce cracked her knuckles. Maybe Cam only liked it because its polished pinkish stone stood out among the mostly gray ones? Or because of the intricate whorls in the crest along the top? She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Yeah.” Cam shrugged. “I just like how the headstone explains the way he died. It’s honest, you know? Usually, people don’t want to go there.”
Luce looked away. She knew that all too well from the inscrutable epitaph on Trevor’s tombstone.
“Think how much more interesting this place would be if everyone’s cause of death was chiseled in.” He pointed to a small grave a few plots down from Joseph Miley’s. “How do you think she died?”
“Um, scarlet fever?” Luce guessed, wandering over.
She traced the dates with her fingers. The girl buried here had been younger than Luce when she died. Luce didn’t really want to think too hard about how it might have happened.
Cam tilted his head, considering. “Maybe,” he said. “Either that or a mysterious barn fire while young Betsy was taking an innocent ‘nap’ with the neighbor boy.”
Luce started to pretend to act offended, but instead Cam’s expectant face made her laugh. It had been a long time since she’d just goofed off with a guy. Sure, this scene was a bit more morbid than the typical movie theater parking lot flirtations she was used to, but so were the students at Sword & Cross. For better or worse, Luce was one of them now.
She followed Cam to the bottom of the bowl-like graveyard and the more ornate tombs and mausoleums. On the slope above, the headstones seemed