Torment - Lauren Kate [49]
The three of them collapsed inside the raft. Dawn had noticed nothing, and Luce wondered whether anyone watching from the boat had either. Steven looked at Luce as if she’d just seen him naked. She wanted to tell him it had been startling to see his wings; she hadn’t known until then that even the dark side of the fallen angels could be so breathtaking.
She reached for Dawn, partly expecting to see blood somewhere on her skin. It really felt like something had taken her in its jaws. But there was no sign of any wound.
“Are you okay?” Luce finally whispered.
Dawn shook her head, sending droplets of water flying off her hair. “I can swim, Luce. I’m a good swimmer. Something had me—something—”
“Is still down there,” Steven finished, picking up the paddle and hauling them back toward the yacht.
“What did it feel like?” Luce asked. “A shark or—”
Dawn shuddered. “Hands.”
“Hands?”
“Luce!” Steven barked.
She turned to him: He seemed like a different being than the one she’d been talking to minutes earlier on the deck. There was a hardness in his eyes she’d never seen before.
“What you did today was—” He broke off. His dripping face looked savage. Luce held her breath, waiting for it. Reckless. Stupid. Dangerous. “Very brave,” he finally said, his cheeks and forehead relaxing into their usual expression.
Luce exhaled, having a hard time even finding the voice to say thank you. She couldn’t take her eyes off Dawn’s trembling legs. And the rising thin red marks that looped around her ankles. Marks that looked like they’d been left by fingers.
“I’m sure you girls are scared,” Steven said quietly. “But there’s no reason to bring a general hysteria upon the whole school. Let me have a talk with Francesca. Until you hear from me: Not a word about this to anyone else. Dawn?”
The girl nodded, looking terrified.
“Luce?”
Her face twitched. She wasn’t sure about keeping this secret. Dawn had almost died.
“Luce.” Steven gripped her shoulder, removed his square-framed glasses, and stared into Luce’s hazel eyes with his own dark brown ones. As the life raft was winched up to the main deck, where the rest of the school waited, his breath was hot in her ear. “Not a word. To anyone. It’s for your own protection.”
SEVEN
TWELVE DAYS
“I don’t get why you’re being so weird,” Shelby said to Luce the next morning. “You’ve been here, what, six days? And you’re Shoreline’s biggest hero. Maybe you’re going to live up to your reputation after all.”
The Sunday-morning sky was dotted with cumulus clouds. Luce and Shelby were walking along Shoreline’s tiny beach, sharing an orange and a thermos of chai. A strong wind carried the earthy scent of old redwoods down from the woods. The tide was rough and high, kicking up long swaths of knotted black seaweed, jellyfish, and rotting driftwood into the girls’ path.
“It was nothing,” Luce muttered, which wasn’t exactly true. Jumping into that icy water after Dawn had certainly been something. But Steven—the severity of his tone, the force of his grip on her arm—had put a fear into Luce about ever speaking of Dawn’s rescue.
She eyed the salty foam left in the wake of a receding wave. She was trying not to look out at the deep, dark water beyond—so she wouldn’t have to think about hands down in its icy depths. For your own protection. Steven must have meant your in its plural form. As in, it’s for all the students’ protection. Otherwise, if he only meant Luce …
“Dawn’s okay,” she said. “That’s all that matters.”
“Um, yeah, because of you, Baywatch.”
“Do not start calling me Baywatch.”
“You prefer to think of yourself as a jack-of-all-trades kind of savior?” Shelby had the most deadpan way of teasing. “Frankie says some mystery creep’s been lurking around the school grounds the past two nights. You should give him what for—”
“What?” Luce almost spat out her chai. “Who is it?”
“I repeat: Mystery creep. They dunno.” Shelby took a seat on a weathered flat of limestone, skipping a few stones expertly into the ocean. “Just some dude.