Fallen - Lauren Kate [49]
“Look.” Penn put her hand on Luce’s shoulder. “If you really want to know about Daniel Grigori—”
“Shhh!” Luce hissed, jumping to close her door. She stuck her head into the hall and scanned the scene. The coast looked clear—but that didn’t mean anything. People at this school had a suspicious way of appearing out of nowhere. Cam in particular. And Luce would die if he—or anyone—found out how enamored of Daniel she was. Or, at this point, anyone but Penn.
Satisfied, Luce closed and locked the door and turned back to her friend. Penn was sitting cross-legged at the edge of Luce’s bed. She looked amused.
Luce locked her hands behind her back and dug her toe into the circular red rug near her door. “What makes you think I want to know anything about him?”
“Give me a break,” Penn said, laughing. “A, it’s totally obvious that you stare at Daniel Grigori all the time.”
“Shhh!” Luce said again.
“B,” Penn said, not dropping her voice, “I watched you stalk him online for an entire class the other day. Sue me—but you were being totally shameless. And C, don’t get all paranoid. You think I blab to anyone at this school besides you?”
Penn did have a point.
“I’m only saying,” she continued, “assuming hypothetically you did want to know more about a certain unnamed person, you could conceivably bark up a more fruitful tree.” Penn shrugged one shoulder. “You know, if you had help.”
“I’m listening,” Luce said, sinking down on the bed. Her Internet search the other day had only amounted to typing, then deleting, then retyping Daniel’s name into the search field.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Penn said. “I didn’t bring books with me today because I’m giving you”—she widened her eyes goofily—“a guided tour of the highly off-limits underground lair of Sword & Cross office records!”
Luce grimaced. “I don’t know. Prying into Daniel’s files? I’m not sure I need another reason to feel like a crazy stalker girl.”
“Ha.” Penn snickered. “And yes, you did just say that out loud. Come on, Luce. It’ll be fun. Besides, what else are you going to do on a perfectly sunny Saturday morning?”
It was a nice day—precisely the kind of nice that made you feel lonely if you didn’t have anything fun and outdoorsy planned. In the middle of the night, Luce had felt a cool front brush through her open window, and when she’d awoken this morning, the heat and humidity had all but disappeared.
She used to spend these golden early-fall days tearing up the neighborhood bike path with her friends. That was before she started avoiding the woodsy trail because of the shadows none of the other girls ever saw. Before her friends sat her down one day during recess and said their parents didn’t want them inviting her over anymore, in case she had an incident.
Truth was, Luce had been a little panicked about how she’d spend this first weekend at Sword & Cross. No classes, no terrorizing physical fitness tests, no social events on the docket. Just forty-eight endless hours of free time. An eternity. She’d had a queasy homesick feeling all morning—until Penn showed up.
“Okay.” Luce tried not to laugh when she said, “Take me to your secret lair.”
Penn practically skipped as she led Luce across the trampled grass of the commons to the main lobby near the school’s entrance. “You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for a partner in crime to bring down here with me.”
Luce smiled, glad Penn was more focused on having a friend to explore with than she was on, well, this … thing Luce had for Daniel.
At the edge of the commons, they passed a few kids lazing around on the bleachers in the clear late-morning sun. It was strange to see color on campus, on these students with whom Luce so closely identified the color black. But there was Roland in a pair of lime-green soccer shorts, dribbling a ball between his feet. And Gabbe in her purple gingham button-down shirt. Jules and Phillip—the tongue-ringed couple—were drawing on the knees of each other’s faded jeans. Todd Hammond sat apart from the rest of the kids on the bleachers, reading a