Torment - Lauren Kate [121]
Luce’s dad set down her duffel in the foyer, draping an easy arm around her shoulder. Luce watched their reflection in the narrow entryway mirror: father and daughter.
His rimless glasses slipped down on his nose as he kissed the crown of her back-to-black hair. “Welcome home, Lucie,” he said. “We missed you around here.”
Luce closed her eyes. “I missed you, too.” It was the first time in weeks she hadn’t lied to her parents.
The house was warm and full of intoxicating Thanksgiving scents. She inhaled and could instantly picture every foil-wrapped dish staying hot in the oven. Deep-fried turkey with mushroom stuffing—her dad’s specialty. Apple-cranberry sauce, light-as-air yeast rolls, and enough pumpkin-pecan pies—her mom’s—to feed the whole state. She must have been cooking all week.
Luce’s mom took hold of her wrists. Her hazel eyes were a little damp around the edges. “How are you, Luce?” she asked. “Are you all right?”
It was such a relief to be home. Luce could feel her eyes grow damp too. She nodded, folding into her mom for a hug.
Her mother’s chin-length dark hair was sculpted and sprayed, like she’d just been to the beauty parlor the day before. Which, knowing her, she probably had. She looked younger and prettier than Luce remembered. Compared to the elderly parents she’d tried to visit in Mount Shasta—even compared to Vera—Luce’s mom seemed happy and alive, untainted by sorrow.
It was because she’d never had to feel what the others had felt, losing a daughter. Losing Luce. Her parents had made their whole life around her. It would destroy them if she died.
She could not die the way she had in the past. She could not wreck her parents’ life this time around, now that she knew more about her past. She would do whatever it took to keep them happy.
Her mom gathered the coats and hats of the four other teenagers who were standing in her foyer. “I hope your friends brought their appetites.”
Shelby jerked her thumb at Miles. “Be careful what you wish for.”
It was just like Luce’s parents not to mind a carful of last-minute guests at their Thanksgiving table.
When her dad’s Chrysler New Yorker had rolled through Sword & Cross’s tall wrought iron gates just before noon, Luce had been waiting for him. She hadn’t been able to sleep at all the night before. Between the strangeness of being back at Sword & Cross and her nerves about mingling such an odd Thanksgiving crew the next day—her mind would not settle down.
Luckily, the morning had passed without incident; after giving her dad the longest, tightest hug she’d ever given someone, she’d mentioned that she had a few friends without places to go for the holiday.
Five minutes later, they were all in the car.
Now they were milling around Luce’s childhood home, picking up framed pictures of her at different awkward ages, gazing out the same French windows she’d been gazing out over bowls of cereal for more than a decade. It was kind of surreal. As Arriane bounded into the kitchen to help her mom whip some cream, Miles peppered her dad with questions about the enormous piece-of-junk telescope in his office. Luce felt a swell of pride in her parents for making everyone feel welcome.
The sound of a car horn outside made her jump.
She perched on the sagging couch and lifted a slat of the window blind. Outside, a red-and-white taxi was idling in front of the house, coughing exhaust into the cold fall air. The windows were tinted, but the passenger could be only one person.
Callie.
One of Callie’s knee-high red leather boots extended from the back door, planting itself on the concrete sidewalk. A second later, Luce’s best friend’s heart-shaped face came into view. Callie’s porcelain skin was flushed, her auburn hair shorter, cut at a sleek angle close to her chin. Her pale blue eyes glittered. For some reason, she kept glancing back inside the cab.
“Whatcha looking at?” Shelby asked, pulling up another slat so she