Torment

She pulled it out and opened the text Mr. Cole had just sent:



Call your parents. They think you got an A- on a history test I just gave. And that you're trying out for the swim team next week. Don't forget to act like everything's okay.



And a second one, a minute later:



Is everything okay?



Grouchily, Luce stu ed the phone in her backpack and started tramping through the thick mulch of redwood needles toward the edge of the forest, toward her dorm. The text made her wonder about the rest of the kids at Sword & Cross. Was Arriane still there, and if so, who was she sailing paper airplanes to during class? Had Molly found someone else to make her enemy now that Luce was gone? Or had both of them moved on since Luce and Daniel had left? Did Randy buy the story that Luce's parents had made her transfer? Luce sighed. She hated not telling her parents the truth, hated not being able to tell them how far away she felt, and how alone.



But a phone call? Every false word she said--A- on a made-up history test, tryouts for some bogus swim team--would only make her feel that much more homesick.



Mr. Cole must be out of his mind, telling her to call them and lie. But if she told her parents the truth--the real truth--they would think she was out of her mind. And if she didn't get in touch with them, they would know something was up. They'd drive out to Sword & Cross, nd her missing, and then what?



She could email them. Lying wouldn't be so hard by email. It would buy her a few days before she had to call. She would email them tonight.



She stepped out of the forest, onto the path, and gasped. It was night. She looked back at the lush, shaded woods. How long had she been in there with the shadow? She glanced at her watch. It was half past eight. She'd missed lunch. And her afternoon classes. And dinner. It had been so dark in the woods, she hadn't noticed time passing at all, but now it all slammed into her. She was tired, cold, and hungry.



After three wrong turns in the mazelike dorm, Luce nally found her door. Silently hoping that Shelby would be wherever it was she disappeared to at night, Luce slipped her huge, old-fashioned key into the lock and turned the knob.



The lights were o , but a re was burning in the hearth. Shelby was seated cross-legged on the oor, eyes closed, meditating. When Luce came in, one eye popped open, looking highly annoyed at the sight before it.



"Sorry," Luce whispered, sinking into the desk chair closest to the door. "Don't mind me. Pretend I'm not here."



For a little while, Shelby did just that. She closed her evil eye and went back to meditating, and the room was tranquil. Luce turned on the computer that came with her desk and stared at the screen, trying to compose in her head the most innocuous message possible to her parents --and, while she was at it, one to Callie, who'd been sending a steady stream of unread emails to Luce's in-box this past week.



Typing as slowly as she possibly could so her keyboard taps wouldn't give Shelby yet another reason to hate her, Luce wrote:



Dear Mom and Dad, I miss you guys so much. Just wanted to drop you a line. Life at Sword & Cross is good.



Her chest constricted as she strained to keep her ngers from typing: As far as I know, no one else has died this week.



Still doing ne in all my classes, she made herself write instead. Might even try out for the swim team!



Luce looked out the window at the clear, starry sky. She had to sign o fast. Otherwise, she'd lose it.



Wonder when this rainy weather will let up. ... Guess that's November in Georgia! Love, Luce



She copied the message into a new email to Callie, changed a few choice words, moved her mouse over the Send button, closed her eyes, double- clicked, and hung her head. She was a horrible fake of a daughter, a liar of a friend. And what had she been thinking? These were the blandest, most red- ag-worthy emails ever written. They were only going to freak people out.



Her stomach growled. A second time, more loudly. Shelby cleared her throat.



Luce spun around in her chair to face the girl, only to nd her in downward dog. Luce could feel the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. Luce spun around in her chair to face the girl, only to nd her in downward dog. Luce could feel the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. "I'm hungry, okay? Why don't you le a complaint, get me transferred to another room?"



Shelby calmly hopped forward on her yoga mat, swooped her arms into a prayer position and said, "I was just going to tell you about the box of organic mac and cheese in my sock drawer. No need for the waterworks. Jeez."



Eleven minutes later, Luce was sitting under a blanket on her bed with a steaming bowl of cheesy pasta, dry eyes, and a roommate who'd suddenly stopped hating her.



"I wasn't crying because I was hungry," Luce wanted to clarify, though the mac and cheese was so good, the gift so unexpectedly kind of Shelby, it almost brought fresh tears to her eyes. Luce wanted to open up to someone, and Shelby was, well, there. She hadn't thawed out all the way, but sharing her stash of food was a huge step for someone who'd barely spoken to Luce so far. "I, um, I'm having some family issues. It's just hard being away."



"Boo-hoo," Shelby said, chomping on her own bowl of macaroni. "Let me guess, your parents are still happily married."



"That's not fair," Luce said, sitting up. "You have no idea what I've been through."



"And you have some idea what I've been through?" Shelby stared Luce down. "Didn't think so. Look, here's me: Only child raised by a single mom. Daddy issues? Maybe. A pain in the ass to live with because I hate to share? Almost certainly. But what I can't stand is some sweet-faced, spoon-fed sweetheart with a happy home life and some fancy boyfriend showing up on my turf to moan about her poor long-distance love a air."



Luce sucked in her breath. "That's not it at all."



"Oh no? Enlighten me."



"I'm a fake," Luce said. "I'm ... lying to the people I love."



"Lying to your fancy boyfriend?" Shelby's eyes narrowed, in a way that made Luce think her roommate might actually be interested.



"No," Luce muttered. "I'm not even speaking to him."



Shelby leaned back on Luce's bed and propped her feet up so they rested on the underside of the top bunk. "Why not?"



"It's long, stupid, and complicated."



"Well, every girl with half a brain knows there's only one thing to do when you break up with your man--"



"No, we didn't break up--" Luce said, at the exact same time as Shelby said:



"Change your hair."



"Change my hair?"



"Fresh start," Shelby said. "I've dyed mine orange, chopped it o . Hell, once I even shaved it after this jerk really broke my heart."



There was a small oval mirror with an ornate wooden frame attached to the dresser across the room. From her position on the bed, Luce could see her re ection. She put down the bowl of pasta and stood up to move closer.



She had chopped her hair o after Trevor, but that was di erent. Most of it had been singed, anyway. And when she'd arrived at Sword & Cross, it had been Arriane's hair she cut. Yet Luce thought she understood what Shelby meant when she said "fresh start." You could turn into someone else, pretend you weren't the person who'd just been through so much heartache. Even though--thank God--Luce wasn't mourning the permanent loss of her relationship with Daniel, she was mourning all sorts of other losses. Penn, her family, the life she used to have before things got so complicated.



"You're really thinking about it, aren't you? Don't make me bust out the peroxide from under the sink."



Luce ran her ngers through her short black hair. What would Daniel think? But if he wanted her to be happy here until they could be together again, she had to let go of who she'd been at Sword & Cross.



She turned around to face Shelby. "Get the bottle."



Chapter Four



FIFTEEN DAYS



She wasn't that blond.



Luce wet her hands in the sink and tugged her short bleached waves. She'd made it through a full load of classes on Thursday, which included an unexpectedly sti two-hour safety lecture from Francesca to reiterate why the Announcers were not to be messed with casually (it almost seemed like she'd been addressing Luce directly); back-to-back pop quizzes in her "regular" biology and math classes in the main school building; and what felt like eight straight hours of aghast stares from her classmates, Nephilim and non-Neph kids alike.



Even though Shelby had acted cool about Luce's new look in the privacy of their dorm room the night before, she wasn't e usive with compliments the way Arriane was or reliably supportive the way Penn had been. Stepping out into the world this morning, Luce had been overcome by nerves. Miles had been the rst to see her, and he'd given her a thumbs-up. But he was so nice, he'd never let on if he really thought she looked terrible.



Of course, Dawn and Jasmine had ocked to her side right after humanities, eager to touch her hair, asking Luce who her inspiration had been.



"Very Gwen Stefani," Jasmine had said, nodding.



"No, it's Madge, right?" Dawn said. "Like, `Vogue' era." Before Luce could answer, Dawn gestured between Luce and herself. "But I guess we aren't Twinkies anymore."



"Twinkies?" Luce shook her head.



Jasmine squinted at Luce. "Come on, don't say you never noticed? You two look ... well, looked so much alike. You practically could have been sisters."



Now, standing alone before the main school building's bathroom mirror, Luce gazed at her re ection and thought about wide-eyed Dawn. They had similar coloring: pale skin, ushed lips, dark hair. But Dawn was smaller than she was. She wore bright colors six days a week. And she was way more chipper than Luce could ever be. A few super cial aspects aside, Luce and Dawn couldn't have been more di erent.



The bathroom door swung open and a wholesome-looking brunette in jeans and a yellow sweater entered. Luce recognized her from European history class. Amy Something. She leaned against the sink next to Luce and began to dget with her eyebrows.



"Why'd you do that to your hair?" she asked, eyeing Luce.



Luce blinked. It was one thing to talk about it with her sort-of friends at Shoreline, but she'd never even spoken to this girl before.



Shelby's answer, fresh start, popped into her mind, but who was she kidding? All that bottle of peroxide had done last night was make Luce look as phony on the outside as she already felt on the inside. Callie and her parents would hardly recognize her right now, which wasn't the point at all.



And Daniel. What would Daniel think? Luce suddenly felt so transparently fake; even a stranger could see through her.



"I don't know." She pushed past the girl and out the bathroom door. "I don't know why I did it."



Bleaching her hair wouldn't wash away the dark memories of the past few weeks. If she really wanted a fresh start, she'd have to make one. But how? There was so little she actually had control over at the moment. Her whole world was in the hands of Mr. Cole and Daniel. And they were both far away.



It was scary how quickly and how much she'd come to rely on Daniel, scarier still that she didn't know when she'd see him next. Compared to the bliss- lled days with him she'd been expecting in California, this was the loneliest she'd ever been.



She trudged across the campus, slowly realizing that the only time she'd felt any independence since she'd arrived at Shoreline had been ...