Torment - Lauren Kate [68]
Luce tried not to react as Francesca leaned down. Had Daniel gone to see her after Luce had shut him out? The idea made her jealous, though she didn’t really know why.
“He’s worried about you.” Francesca paused, seeming to search Luce’s face. “I told him you’re doing very well, considering your new surroundings. I told him I would make myself available to you for anything you need. Please understand that you should come to me with your questions.” A sharpness entered her gaze, a hard, fierce quality. Come to me instead of Steven seemed to lie there, unspoken.
And then Francesca left, as quickly as she’d appeared, the silk lining of her white wool coat swishing against her black pantyhose.
“So … Thanksgiving,” Miles finally said, rubbing his hands together.
“Okay, okay.” Luce swallowed the rest of her coffee. “I’ll think about it.”
Shelby didn’t show at the Nephilim lodge for that morning’s class—a lecture on summoning angelic forebears, kind of like sending a celestial voice mail. By lunchtime, Luce was starting to get nervous. But heading into her math class, she finally spotted the familiar puffy red vest and practically sprinted toward it.
“Hey!” She tugged her roommate’s thick blond ponytail. “Where’ve you been?”
Shelby turned around slowly. The look on her face took Luce back to her very first day at Shoreline. Shelby’s nostrils were flared and her eyebrows were hunched forward.
“Are you okay?” Luce asked.
“Fine.” Shelby turned away and started fiddling with the nearest locker, twirling a combination, then popping it open. Inside were a football helmet and about a case worth of empty Gatorade bottles. A poster of the Laker Girls was slapped on the inside of the door.
“Is that even your locker?” Luce asked. She didn’t know a single Nephilim kid who used a locker, but Shelby was rooting through this one, tossing dirty sweat socks recklessly over her shoulder.
Shelby slammed the locker shut, then moved on to twirl the combination of the next one. “Now you’re judging me?”
“No.” Luce shook her head. “Shel, what is going on? You disappeared this morning, you missed class—”
“I’m here now, aren’t I?” Shelby sighed. “Frankie and Steven are a lot more lax about letting a girl take a personal day than the humanoids over here.”
“Why do you need a personal day? You were fine last night, until—”
Until Daniel showed up.
Right around the time Daniel appeared at the window, Shelby had gone all pale and quiet and straight to bed and—
While Shelby stared at Luce as if her IQ had suddenly dropped by half, Luce became aware of the rest of the hall. Where the rust-colored lockers ended, the gray-carpeted walls were lined with girls: Dawn and Jasmine and Lilith. Preppy, cardiganed girls like Amy Branshaw from Luce’s afternoon classes. Punky pierced girls who looked kind of like Arriane but were way less fun to talk to. A few girls Luce had never seen before. Girls with books clutched against their chests, gum popping in their mouths, and eyes darting at the carpet, at the wood-beamed ceiling, at each other. Anywhere but directly at Luce and Shelby. Though it was clear that all of them were eavesdropping.
A sick feeling in her stomach was starting to tell her why. It was the biggest collision of Nephilim and non-Nephilim Luce had seen so far at Shoreline. And every girl in this hallway had figured out before her:
Shelby and Luce were about to duke it out over a guy.
“Oh.” Luce swallowed. “You and Daniel.”
“Yeah. We. A long time ago.” Shelby wouldn’t look at her.
“Okay.” Luce focused on breathing. She could handle this. But the whispers flying around the wall of girls made her skin crawl, and she shuddered.
Shelby scoffed. “I’m sorry the idea disgusts you so much.”
“That’s not it.” But Luce did feel disgusted. Disgusted with herself. “I always … I thought I was the only—”
Shelby put her hands on her hips. “You thought every time you disappeared for seventeen years that Daniel just twiddled his thumbs? Earth to Luce, there is a Before You for Daniel. Or an In Between, or whatever.” She paused to give Luce a sideways