Torment - Lauren Kate [109]
She was talking about Daniel.
“You look at me and Steven,” Francesca went on, “—and I know we can be confusing. Do I love him? Yes. But when the final battle comes, I’ll have to kill him. That’s just our reality. We both know exactly where we stand.”
“But you don’t trust him?”
“I trust him to be true to his nature, which is a demon’s. You need to trust that those around you will be true to their natures. Even when it may appear that they are betraying who they are.”
“What if it’s not that easy?”
“You’re strong, Luce, independent of anything or anyone else. The way you responded yesterday in my office, I could see it in you. And it made me very … glad.”
Luce didn’t feel strong. She felt foolish. Daniel was an angel, so his true nature had to be good. She was supposed to blindly accept that? And what about her true nature? Not as black-and-white. Was Luce the reason things between them were so complicated? Long after she’d stepped into her room and closed the door behind her, she couldn’t get Francesca’s words out of her head.
About an hour later, a knock on the window made Luce jump as she sat staring at the dwindling fire in the hearth. Before she could even get up, there was a second knock on the pane, but this time it sounded more hesitant. Luce rose from the floor and went to the window. What was Daniel doing here again? After making such a huge deal about how unsafe it was to see each other, why did he keep turning up?
She didn’t even know what Daniel wanted from her—other than to torment her, the way she’d seen him torment those other versions of her in the Announcers. Or, as he put it, loved so many versions of her. Tonight all she wanted from him was to be left alone.
She flung open the wooden shutters, then pushed up the pane, knocking over yet another one of Shelby’s thousand plants. She braced her hands on the sill, then plunged her head into the night, ready to rip into Daniel.
But it wasn’t Daniel standing on the ledge in the moonlight.
It was Miles.
He’d changed out of his fancy clothes, but he’d left off the Dodgers cap. Most of his body was in shadow, but the outline of his broad shoulders was clear against the deep blue night. His shy smile brought an answering smile to her face. He was holding a gold cornucopia full of orange lilies plucked from one of the Harvest Fest centerpieces.
“Miles,” Luce said. The word felt funny in her mouth. It was tinged with pleasant surprise, when a moment ago she’d been so prepared to be nasty. Her heartbeat picked up, and she couldn’t stop grinning.
“How crazy is it that I can walk from the ledge outside my window to yours?”
Luce shook her head, stunned too. She’d never even been to Miles’s room on the boys’ side of the dorm. She didn’t even know where it was.
“See?” His smile broadened. “If you hadn’t been grounded, we never would have known. It’s really pretty out here, Luce; you should come out. You’re not scared of heights or anything?”
Luce wanted to go out on the ledge with Miles. She just didn’t want to be reminded of the times she’d been out there with Daniel. The two of them were so different. Miles—dependable, sweet, concerned. Daniel—the love of her life. If only it were that simple. It seemed unfair, and impossible, to compare them.
“How come you’re not at the beach with everyone?” she asked.
“Not everyone’s down at the beach.” Miles smiled. “You’re here.” He waved the cornucopia of flowers in the air. “I brought these for you from the dinner. Shelby’s got all those plants on her side of the room. I thought you could put these on your desk.”
Miles shoved the wicker horn through the window at her. It was brimming with the glossy orange flowers. Their black stamens shivered in the wind. They weren’t perfect, a few were even wilting, but they were so much lovelier than the larger-than-life peonies Francesca had made bloom. Sometimes beautiful things come into our lives out of nowhere.
This was maybe the nicest thing anyone had done for her at Shoreline—up there with the time Miles had broken into Steven’s office to steal