Torment - Lauren Kate [135]
He had failed her. He had failed.
How could it be? For weeks he’d run himself ragged, his only goal to keep her safe until the moment when he could no longer offer her protection. Now that moment had come and gone—and so had Luce.
Anything could happen to her. And she could be anywhere. He had never felt so hollow and ashamed.
“Why can’t we just find the Announcer she stepped through, put it back together, and go after her?”
The Nephilim boy. Miles. He was on his knees, combing the grass with his fingers. Like a moron.
“They don’t work that way,” Daniel snarled at him. “When you step into time, you take the Announcer with you. That’s why you never do it unless …”
Cam looked at Miles, almost pityingly. “Please tell me Luce knows more about Announcer travel than you do.”
“Shut up,” Shelby said, standing over Miles protectively. “If he hadn’t thrown Luce’s reflection, Phil would have taken her.”
Shelby looked guarded and afraid, out of place among the fallen angels. Years ago, she’d had a crush on Daniel—one he’d never requited, of course. But until tonight, he’d always thought well of the girl. Now she was just in the way.
“You said yourself Luce would be better off dead than with the Outcasts,” she said, still defending Miles.
“The Outcasts you all but invited here.” Arriane stepped into the conversation, turning on Shelby, whose face reddened.
“Why would you assume some Nephilim child could detect the Outcast?” Molly challenged Arriane. “You were at that school. You should have noticed something.”
“All of you: Quiet.” Daniel couldn’t think straight. The yard was crammed with angels, but Luce’s absence made it feel utterly empty.
He could hardly stand to look at anyone else. Shelby, for walking straight into the Outcast’s easy trap. Miles, for thinking he had some stake in Luce’s future. Cam, for what he’d tried to do—
Oh, that moment when Daniel thought he’d lost her to Cam’s starshot! His wings had felt too heavy to lift. Colder than death. In that instant, he’d given up all hope.
But it was only a trick of the eye. A thrown reflection, nothing special under ordinary circumstances, but tonight the last thing Daniel had been expecting. It had given him a horrible shock. One that had nearly killed him. Until the joy of her resurrection.
There was still hope.
As long as he could find her.
He’d been stunned, watching Luce open up the shadow. Awed and impressed and painfully attracted to her—but more than all of that, stunned. How many times had she done it before without his even knowing?
“What do you think?” Cam asked, coming up beside him. Their wings drew toward each other, that old magnetic force, and Daniel was too drained to pull away.
“I’m going after her,” he said.
“Good plan.” Cam sneered. “Just ‘go after her.’ Anywhere in time and space across the several thousand years. Why should you need a strategy?”
His sarcasm made Daniel want to tackle him a second time.
“I’m not asking for your help or your advice, Cam.”
Only two starshots remained in the yard: the one he’d picked up from the Outcast Molly had killed, and the one Cam had found on the beach at the beginning of the truce. There would have been a nice symmetry if Cam and Daniel had been working as enemies right now—two bows, two starshots, two immortal foes.
But no. Not yet. They had to eliminate too many others before they could turn on each other again.
“What Cam means”—Roland stood between them, speaking to Daniel in a low voice—“is that this might take some team effort. I’ve seen the way these kids flop through the Announcers. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, Daniel. She’s going to get into trouble pretty quick.”
“I know.”
“It’s not a sign of weakness to let us help,” Roland said.
“I can help,” Shelby called. She’d been whispering with Miles. “I think I might know where she is.”
“You?” Daniel asked. “You’ve helped enough. Both of you.”
“Daniel—”
“I know Luce better than anyone