Torment (Fallen 2)

"Don't you want to spend Thanksgiving with your fam?"

Luce was waiting for the catch. "What about--"

"Don't worry." Arriane tweaked Luce's nose. "It was Mr. Cole's idea. We've got to keep up the ruse that you're still just down the road from your parents. This seemed the simplest and most fun way to go about it."

"But when he texted me yesterday, all he said was--"

"He didn't want to get your hopes up until he had every little thing taken care of, including"--Arriane curtseyed--"the perfect escort. One of them, anyway. Roland should be here any second."

A knock on the door.

"He's so good." Arriane pointed to the red dress still in Luce's hand. "Throw that baby on."

Luce quickly shimmied into the dress, then ducked into the bathroom to brush her teeth and hair. Arriane had presented her with one of those rare Jump!--How high? situations. You didn't bother with questions. You just leaped.

She emerged from the bathroom, expecting to see Roland and Arriane doing something Roland-and-Arriane-esque, like one of them standing on top of her suitcase while the other tried to zip it up.

But it wasn't Roland who had knocked.

It was Steven and Francesca.

Shit.

The words I can explain formed on the tip of Luce's tongue. Only, she had no idea how to talk herself out of this situation. She looked to Arriane for help. Arriane was still tossing Luce's sneakers into the suitcase. Didn't she know the kind of major trouble they were about to be in?

When Francesca stepped forward, Luce braced herself. But then the wide bell sleeves of Francesca's crimson turtleneck engulfed Luce in an unexpected hug. "We came to wish you well."

"Of course, we'll miss you tomorrow at what we with tongue in cheek refer to as the Dinner for the Displaced," Steven said, taking Francesca's hand and prying her away from Luce. "But it's always best for a student to be with family."

"I don't understand," Luce said. "You knew about this? I thought I was grounded until further notice."

"We spoke with Mr. Cole this morning," Francesca said.

"And you weren't grounded as punishment, Luce," Steven explained. "It was the only way we could ensure you'd be safe under our charge. But you're in good hands with Arriane."

Never one to overstay her welcome, Francesca was already steering Steven toward the door. "We hear your parents are anxious to see you. Something about your mother lling up a freezer with pies." She winked at Luce, and both she and Steven waved, and then they were gone.

Luce's heart swelled at the prospect of getting home to her family.

But not before it went out to Miles and Shelby. They'd be crestfallen if she went home to Thunderbolt and abandoned them here. She didn't even know where Shelby was. She couldn't leave without--

Roland stuck his head through Luce's open door. He looked professional in his pinstriped blazer and crisp white collared shirt. His black-and- gold dreads were shorter, spikier, making his dark, deep-set eyes even more striking.

"Is the coast clear?" he asked, shooting Luce his familiar devilish grin. "We've got a hanger-on." He nodded at someone behind him--who appeared a moment later with du el bag in hand.

Miles.

He ashed Luce a wonderfully unembarrassed grin and took a seat on the edge of her bed. An image of introducing him to her parents ran though Luce's mind. He'd take o his baseball cap, shake both of their hands, compliment her mom's half- nished needlepoint ... though Luce's mind. He'd take o his baseball cap, shake both of their hands, compliment her mom's half- nished needlepoint ...

"Roland, what part of `top-secret mission' don't you understand?" Arriane asked.

"It's my fault," Miles admitted. "I saw Roland heading over here ... and I forced it out of him. That's why he's late."

"As soon as this guy heard the words Luce and Georgia"--Roland jerked his thumb at Miles--"it took him about a nanosecond to pack."

"We kind of had a Thanksgiving deal," Miles said, looking only at Luce. "I couldn't let her break it."

"No." Luce bit back a smile. "He couldn't."

"Mmm-hmm." Arriane raised an eyebrow. "I just wonder what Francesca would have to say about this. Whether someone should run it by your parents rst, Miles--"

"Aw, come on, Arriane." Roland waved his hand dismissively. "Since when do you check in with authority? I'll look out for the kid. He won't get into any trouble."

"Get into any trouble where?" Shelby barged into the room, her yoga mat swinging from a string across her back. "Where are we going?"

"Luce's house in Georgia for Thanksgiving," Miles said.

In the hallway behind Shelby, a bleached-blond head hovered. Shelby's ex-boyfriend. His skin was ghost-white, and Shelby was right: There was something odd about his eyes. How pale they were.

"For the last time, I said goodbye, Phil." Shelby quickly shut the door in his face.

"Who was that?" Roland asked.

"My skeeze-and-a-half ex-boyfriend."

"Seems like an interesting guy," Roland said, staring at the door, distracted.

"Interesting?" Shelby snorted. "A restraining order would be interesting." She took one look at Luce's suitcase, then at Miles's du el, then haphazardly started throwing her belongings into a squat black trunk.

Arriane threw up her hands. "Can't you do anything without an entourage?" she asked Luce. Then, turning to Roland, "I assume you want to take responsibility for this one, too?"

"That's the holiday spirit!" Roland laughed. "We're going to the Prices' for Thanksgiving," he told Shelby, whose face lit up. "The more the merrier."

Luce couldn't believe how perfectly everything was working out. Thanksgiving with her family and Callie and Arriane and Roland and Shelby and Miles. She couldn't have scripted this any better.

Only one thing nagged at her. And it seriously nagged.

"What about Daniel?"

She meant: Does he know about this trip already? and What's the real story between him and Cam? and Is he still mad at me about that kiss? and Is it wrong that Miles is coming too? and also What are the odds of Daniel showing up at my parents' house tomorrow even though he says he can't see me?

Arriane cleared her throat. "Yes, what about Daniel?" she repeated quietly. "Time will tell."

"So do we have plane tickets or something?" Shelby asked. "Because if we're ying, I need to pack my serenity kit, essential oils, and heating pad. You don't want to see me at thirty- ve thousand feet without them."

Roland snapped his ngers.

Near his feet, the shadow cast by the open door peeled itself o the hardwood planks, rising the way a trapdoor might to lead down to a basement. A gust of cold swept up from the oor, followed by a bleak blast of darkness. It smelled like wet hay as it shrank into a small, compact sphere. But then, at a nod from Roland, it ballooned into a tall black portal. It looked like the sort of door that would lead to a restaurant kitchen, the swinging kind with a round glass window in the top. Only, this one was made out of dark Announcer fog, and all that was visible through the window was a darker, swirling blackness.

"That looks just like the one I read about in the book," Miles said, clearly impressed. "All I could manage was a weird sort of trapezoidal window." He smiled at Luce. "But we still made it work."

"Stick with me, kid," Roland said, "and you'll see what it's like to travel in style."

Arriane rolled her eyes. "He's such a show-o ."

Luce cocked her head at Arriane. "But I thought you said--"

"I know." Arriane put up a hand. "I know I repeated that whole spiel about how dangerous Announcer travel is. And I don't want to be one of those sucky do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do angels. But we all agreed--Francesca and Steven, Mr. Cole, everyone--"

Everyone? Luce couldn't group them together without seeing a glaring missing piece. Where was Daniel in all of this?

"Besides." Arriane smiled proudly. "We're in the presence of a master. Ro's one of the very best Announcer travelers." And then, in a whispered aside to Roland, "Don't let it go to your head."

Roland swung open the Announcer's door. It groaned and creaked on shadow hinges and swung open onto a dank, yawning pit of emptiness.

"Um ... what is it again that makes traveling by Announcer so dangerous?" Miles asked.

Arriane pointed around the room, at the shadow under the desk lamp, behind Shelby's yoga mat. All of the shadows were quivering. "An untrained eye might not know which Announcer to step through. And believe us, there are always uninvited lurkers, waiting for someone to accidentally open them."

Luce remembered the sickly brown shadow she'd tripped over. The uninvited lurker that had given her the nightmarish glimpse of Cam and Daniel on the beach.

"If you pick the wrong Announcer, it's very easy to get lost," Roland explained. "To not have any idea where--or when--you're stepping through to. But as long as you stick with us, you don't have anything to worry about."

Nervously, Luce pointed into the belly of the Announcer. She didn't remember the other shadows they'd stepped through looking quite so murky and dark. Or maybe she just hadn't known the consequences until now. "We're not just going to pop up in the middle of my parents' kitchen, are we? Because I think my mom might pass out from the shock--"

"Please." Arriane clucked her tongue, guiding Luce, then Miles, and then Shelby to stand before the Announcer. "Have a little faith." It was like pushing through a murky wet fog, clammy and unpleasant. It slid and coiled over Luce's skin and stuck in her lungs when she breathed. An echo of ceaseless white noise lled up the tunnel like a waterfall. The two other times Luce had traveled by Announcer, she'd felt lumbering and hurried, catapulting though darkness to come out somewhere light. This was di erent. She'd lost track of where and when she was, even of who she was and where she was going.

Then there was a strong hand yanking her out.

When Roland let her go, the echoing waterfall trickled to a drip, and a whi of chlorine lled her nose. A ping board. A familiar one, under a lofty arched ceiling lined with broken stained-glass panels. The sun had passed over the high windows, but its light still cast faint colored prisms onto the surface of an Olympic-size pool. Along the walls, candles ickered in stone recesses, throwing o a dim, useless light. She'd recognize this church-gymnasium anywhere.

"Oh my God," Luce whispered. "We're back at Sword and Cross."

Arriane scanned the room quickly and without a ection. "As far as your parents are concerned when they pick us up tomorrow morning, you've been here all along. Got it?"

Arriane acted as if returning to Sword & Cross for the night was no di erent than checking into a nondescript motel. The jolt back to this part of her life, however, hit Luce like a slap across the face. She hadn't liked it here. Sword & Cross was a miserable place, but it was a place where things had happened to her. She'd fallen in love here, had watched a close friend die. More than anywhere else, this was a place where she had changed.