Torment - Lauren Kate [59]
That was when she noticed the figure leaning up against the other side of the redwood tree. Also hidden from the view of the students on the deck.
Cam was smoking a cigarette, humming to himself like he didn’t have a care in the world. Except that he was covered entirely in blood and gore. His hair was matted to his forehead, his arms were scratched and bruised. His T-shirt was wet and stained with sweat, and his jeans were splattered too. He looked filthy and disgusting, as though he’d just emerged from battle. Only, there was no one else around—no bodies, no anything. Just Cam.
He winked at her.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered. “What did you do?” Her head swam from the sick reek coming off his bloodied clothes.
“Oh, just saved your life. Again. How many times does this make?” He tapped ash off his cigarette. “Today it was Miss Sophia’s crew, and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. Bloody monsters. They’re after you, too, you know. Word has gotten out that you’re here. And that you like to wander into that dark forest unchaperoned.” He pointed.
“You just killed them?” She was horrified, glancing up at the deck to see whether Shelby, or anyone, could see them. No.
“A couple of them, yes, just now, with my own two hands.” Cam showed off his palms, caked with something red and slimy that Luce really did not want to see. “I agree the woods are lovely, Luce, but they’re also full of things that want you dead. So do me a favor—”
“No. You don’t get to ask me for favors. Everything about you disgusts me.”
“Fine.” He rolled his eyes. “Then do it for Grigori. Stay on campus.” He flicked his cigarette onto the grass, rolled back his shoulders, and unfurled his wings. “I can’t always be here to watch over you. And God knows Grigori can’t.”
Cam’s wings were tall and narrow and pulled tight behind his shoulders, sleek and gold and flecked with brindled stripes of black. She wished they repulsed her, but they didn’t. Like Steven’s wings, Cam’s were jagged, rough—they too looked as though they’d survived a lifetime of fights. The black stripes gave Cam’s wings a dark, sensual quality. There was something magnetic about them.
But no. She loathed everything about Cam. She would forever.
Cam beat his wings once, lifting his feet off the ground. The wings’ flapping was tremendously loud and kicked back a swirl of wind that raised leaves from the ground.
“Thank you,” Luce said, crisply, before he coasted under the deck. Then he was gone in the shadows of the woods.
Cam was protecting her now? Where was Daniel? Wasn’t Shoreline supposed to be safe?
In Cam’s wake, the Announcer—the reason Luce had come down here in the first place—spiraled up from its shadow like a small black cyclone.
Closer. Then a little closer still.
Finally, the shadow wandered into the air just over her head.
“Shelby,” Luce whispered loudly. “Get down here.”
Shelby looked down at Luce. At the cyclone-shaped Announcer teetering over her. “What took you so long?” she asked, sprinting down the stairs just in time to watch the whole massive Announcer tumble down.
Straight into Luce’s arms.
Luce screamed—but luckily, Shelby clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Thank you,” Luce said, her words muffled against Shelby’s fingers.
The girls were still huddled three steps down from the deck, in plain view of anyone who might cross over to the shady side. Luce couldn’t straighten her knees under the weight of the shadow. It was the heaviest one she’d ever touched, and the coldest on her skin. It wasn’t black like most of the others, but a sickly greenish gray. Parts of it were still twitching, lighting up like bolts of distant lightning.
“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Shelby said.
“Come on,” Luce whispered. “I summoned it. Now it’s your turn to do the glimpsing.”
“My turn? Who said anything about me having a turn? You’re the one who dragged me down here.” Shelby waved her hands like the last thing on earth she wanted to do was touch the beast in Luce’s arms. “I know I said I’d help you track down your relatives, but whatever