Fallen - Lauren Kate [98]
He rubbed his head and, moaning, began to pull himself into a crouch.
“How did you do that?” Luce’s eyes were wide.
Cam ignored her, turned toward the guy’s shorter, stockier friend, and said, “You next?”
The second guy raised his palms. “Not my fight, man,” he said, shrinking away.
Cam shrugged, stepped toward the first guy, and lifted him off the floor by the back of his T-shirt. His limbs dangled helplessly in the air, like a puppet’s. Then, with an easy toss of his wrist, Cam threw the guy against the wall. He almost seemed to stick there while Cam cut loose, pounding the guy and saying again and again, “I said go outside!”
“Enough!” Luce shouted, but neither one of them heard her or cared. Luce felt sick. She wanted to tear her eyes away from the bloody nose and gums of the guy pinned against the wall, from Cam’s almost superhuman strength. She wanted to tell him to forget it, that she’d find her own way back to school. She wanted, most of all, to get away from the gruesome shadow now coating the ceiling and dripping down the walls. She grabbed her bag and ran out into the night—
And right into someone’s arms.
“Are you okay?”
It was Daniel.
“How did you find me here?” she asked, unabashedly burying her face in his shoulder. Tears she didn’t want to deal with were welling up inside her.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Without looking back, she slipped her hand into his. Warmth spread up her arm and through her body. And then the tears began to flow. It wasn’t fair to feel so safe when the shadows were still so close.
Even Daniel seemed on edge. He was dragging her across the lot so quickly, she nearly had to sprint to keep up.
She didn’t want to glance back when she sensed the shadows spilling out of the door of the bar and brewing in the air. But then, she didn’t have to. They flowed in a steady stream over her head, sucking up all light in their path. It was as if the whole world were being torn to pieces right before her eyes. A rotting sulfur stench stuck in her nose, worse than anything she knew.
Daniel glanced up, too, and scowled, only he looked like he was merely trying to remember where he’d parked. But then the strangest thing happened. The shadows flinched backward, boiled away in black splatters that pooled and scattered.
Luce narrowed her eyes in disbelief. How had Daniel done that? He hadn’t done that, had he?
“What?” Daniel asked, distracted. He unlocked the passenger-side door of a white Taurus station wagon. “Something wrong?”
“We do not have time for me to list all of the many, many things that are wrong,” Luce said, sinking into the car seat. “Look.” She pointed toward the entrance to the bar. The screen door had just swung open on Cam. He must have knocked out the other guy, but he didn’t look like he was done fighting. His fists were clenched.
Daniel smirked and shook his head. Luce was fruitlessly stabbing her seat belt again and again at the buckle until he reached over and pushed her hands away. She held her breath as his fingers grazed her stomach. “There’s a trick,” he whispered, fitting the clasp into the base.
He started the car, then backed out slowly, taking his time as they drove past the door to the bar. Luce couldn’t think of a single thing to say to Cam, but it felt perfect when Daniel rolled down the window and simply said, “Good night, Cam.”
“Luce,” Cam said, walking toward the car. “Don’t do this. Don’t leave with him. It will end badly.” She couldn’t look at his eyes, which she knew were pleading for her to come back. “I’m sorry.”
Daniel ignored Cam entirely and just drove. The swamp looked cloudy in the twilight, and the woods in front of them looked even cloudier.
“You still haven’t told me how you found