Torment

Page 20

 

  Chapter Seven

  TWELVE DAYS

  "I dont get why youre being so weird," Shelby said to Luce the next morning. "Youve been here, what, six days? And youre Shorelines biggest hero. Maybe youre going to live up to your reputation after all. "

  The Sunday-morning sky was dotted with cumulus clouds. Luce and Shelby were walking along Shorelines 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, jelly sh, and rotting driftwood into the girls path.

  "It was nothing," Luce muttered, which wasnt 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 Dawns 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 wouldnt 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, its for all the students protection. Otherwise, if he only meant Luce . . .

  "Dawns okay," she said. "Thats 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 creeps 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 at of limestone, skipping a few stones expertly into the ocean. "Just some dude. I overheard Frankie talking to Kramer about it on the boat yesterday after all the hoopla. "

  Luce sat down next to Shelby and began to root around in the sand for stones.

  Someone was sneaking around Shoreline. What if it was Daniel?

  It would be just like him. So stubborn about keeping his own promise not to see her, but unable to stay away. The thought of him made her yearn for him that much more. She could feel herself almost on the brink of tears, which was crazy. Odds were the mystery creep wasnt even Daniel. It could be Cam. It could be anyone. It could be an Outcast.

  "Did Francesca seem worried?" she asked Shelby.

  "Wouldnt you be?"

  "Wait a minute. Is that why you didnt sneak out last night?" It was the rst night Luce hadnt been woken up by Shelby coming in through the window.

  "No. " Shelbys skipping arm was toned from all her yoga. Her next stone skipped six times in a wide arc, coming almost all the way back to them, like a boomerang.

  "Where do you go every night, anyway?"

  Shelby stu ed her hands in the pockets of her pu y red ski vest. She was staring at the gray waves so intensely that it was clear shed either seen something out there--or she was avoiding the question. Luce followed her gaze, almost relieved to see nothing in the water but gray-and-white waves all the way to the horizon.

  "Shelby. "

  "What? I dont go anywhere. "

  Luce started to stand up, annoyed that Shelby felt she couldnt tell her anything. Luce was brushing damp sand from the backs of her legs when Shelbys hand tugged her back down onto the rock.

  "Okay, I used to go see my sorry-ass boyfriend. " Shelby sighed heavily, pitching a rock artlessly into the water, nearly pelting a fat seagull swooping down for a sh. "Before he became my sorry-ass ex-boyfriend. "

  "Oh. Shel, Im sorry. " Luce chewed on her lip. "I didnt even know you had a boyfriend. "

  "I had to start keeping him at arms length. He got way too into the fact that I had a new roommate. Kept bugging me to let him come over late at night. Wanted to meet you. I dont know what kind of girl he thinks I am. No o ense, but threes a crowd in my book. "

  "Who is he?" Luce asked. "Does he go here?"

  "Phillip Aves. Hes a senior in the main school. "

  Luce didnt think she knew him.

  "That pale kid with the bleached-blond hair?" Shelby said. "Kind of looks like an albino David Bowie? You cant really miss him. " Her mouth twitched. "Unfortunately. "

  "Why didnt you tell me you broke up?"

  "I prefer downloading Vampire Weekend songs that I lip-sync to when youre not around. Better for my chakras. Besides"--she pointed a stubby

  nger at Luce--"youre the one being all moody and weird today. Daniel treating you wrong or something?"

  Luce leaned back on her elbows. "That would require us actually seeing each other, which apparently we arent allowed to do. "

  If Luce closed her eyes, she could let the sound of the waves take her back to the very rst night shed kissed Daniel. In this lifetime. The humid tangle of their bodies on that languishing Savannah boardwalk. The hungry pressure of his hands pulling her in. Everything seemed possible then. She opened her eyes. She was so far away from all of that now. She opened her eyes. She was so far away from all of that now.

  "So your sorry-ass ex-boyfriend--"

  "No. " Shelby made a zip-it motion with her ngers. "I dont want to talk about SAEB any more than I guess you want to talk about Daniel. Next. "

  That was fair. But it wasnt exactly that Luce didnt want to talk about Daniel. It was more like, if she started talking about Daniel, she might not be able to shut up. She already sounded like a broken record in her own mind--cycling on repeat through the total of oh, four physical experiences shed had with him in this life. (She chose only to start counting once he stopped pretending she didnt exist. ) Imagine how quickly she would bore Shelby, whod probably had tons of boyfriends, tons of experience. Compared to Luces next to none.

  One kiss she could barely remember with a boy whod burst into ames. A handful of very hot moments with Daniel. That just about summed it up. Luce was certainly no expert when it came to love.

  Again she felt the unfairness of her situation: Daniel had all these great memories of them together to fall back on when things got rough. She had nothing.

  Until she looked up at her roommate.

  "Shelby?"

  Shelby had her pu y red hood pulled over her head and was poking a stick into the wet sand. "I told you I dont want to talk about him. "

  "I know. I was wondering, remember when you mentioned that you knew how to glimpse your past lives?"

  This was what shed been about to ask Shelby when Dawn fell overboard.

  "I never said that. " The stick plunged deeper into the sand. Shelbys face was ushed and her thick blond hair was frizzing out of her ponytail.

  "Yes . . . you did. " Luce tilted her head. "You wrote it on my paper. That day when we were doing the icebreaker? You grabbed it out of my hands and said you could speak more than eighteen languages and glimpse past lives and which one did I need you to ll out--"

  "I remember what I said. But you misunderstood what I meant. "

  "Okay," Luce said slowly, "well--"

  "Just because I have glimpsed a past life before doesnt mean I know how to do it, and it doesnt mean it was my own. "

  "So, it wasnt yours?"

  "Hell no, reincarnation is for freaks. "

  Luce frowned and dug her hands into the wet sand, wanting to bury herself in it.

  "Hello, that was a joke. " Shelby nudged Luce playfully. "Tailored especially for the girl whos had to go through puberty a thousand times. " She grimaced. "Once was enough for me, thank you very much. "

  So Luce was That Girl. The girl whod had to go through puberty a thousand times. Shed never thought about it that way before. It was almost funny: From the outside, going through endless puberties seemed like the worst part of her lot. But it was so much more complicated than that. Luce started to say shed go through a thousand more pimples and hormone uctuations if she could look into her past lives and understand more about herself, but then she looked up at Shelby. "If it
wasnt yours, then whose past life did you glimpse?"

  "Why are you being so nosy? Damn. "

  Luce could feel her blood pressure rising. "Shelby, ohmigod, throw me a bone!"

  "Okay," Shelby said nally, making a chill-out motion with her hands. "I was at this party one night in Corona. Things got pretty crazy, half- naked s?ances and shit, and--well, thats not really the story. So I remember taking a walk to get some air. It was raining, hard to see where I was going. I turned the corner in an alleyway and there was this guy, kind of beat-up-looking. He was bent over a sphere of darkness. Id never seen anything like it, shaped like a globe, but glowing, kind of oating above his hands. He was crying. "

  "What was it?"

  "I didnt know then, but now I know it was an Announcer. "

  Luce was mesmerized. "And you saw some of the past life he was glimpsing? What was it like?"

  Shelby met Luces eyes and swallowed. "It was pretty gruesome, Luce. "

  "Im sorry," Luce said. "I was only asking because . . . "

  It felt like a big deal to admit what she was about to admit. Francesca would de nitely be opposed to this. But Luce needed answers, and she needed help. Shelbys help.

  "I need to glimpse some of my past lives," Luce said. "Or I need to at least try. Things have been happening recently that Im supposed to just accept because I dont know any better--only I could know better, a lot better, if I could just see where I come from. Where Ive been. Does that make any sense?"

  Shelby nodded.

  "I need to know what I had in the past with Daniel so I can feel surer of what I have with him now. " Luce took a breath. "That guy, the one in the alley . . . did you see what he did to the Announcer?"

  Shelby scrunched her shoulders. "He just sort of guided it into shape. I didnt even know what it was at the time, and I dont know how he tracked it down. Thats why Francesca and Stevens demonstration freaked me out so much. I saw what happened that one night, and Ive been trying to forget about it ever since. I had no idea that what I was seeing was an Announcer. "

  "If I could track down an Announcer, do you think you could guide it?"

  "No promises," Shelby said, "but Ill give it a shot. You know how to track them down?"

  "Not really, but how hard can it be? Theyve been haunting me all my life. "

  Shelby cupped her hand over Luces on the rock. "I want to help you, Luce, but its weird. Im scared. What if you see something you, you know, shouldnt?"

  "When you broke up with SAEB--"

  "I thought I told you not to--"

  "Just listen: Arent you glad you gured out whatever it was that made you break up with him, sooner rather than later? I mean, what if you got engaged or something and only then--"

  "Blech!" Shelby put up a hand to stop Luce. "Point taken. Now, come on, nd us a shadow. " Luce led Shelby back across the beach and up the steep stone stairs, where dashes of battered red and yellow verbenas had pushed up through the wet, sandy soil. They crossed the neat green terrace, trying not to interrupt a group of non-Nephilim students in a game of ultimate Frisbee. They passed their third-story dorm room window and wound around the back of the building. At the edge of the forest of redwoods, Luce pointed to a space between the trees. "Thats where I found one the last time. "