by Lauren Kate
No apology at all.
Strange. Daniel could turn up anywhere, anytime. He was usually oblivious to the logistical realities that normal human beings had to deal with.
The letter felt cold and stiff in her hands. Her more reckless side was tempted to pretend she’d never received it. She was tired of arguing, tired of Daniel’s not trusting her with details. But that pesky in-love side of Luce wondered whether she was being too harsh on him. Because their relationship was worth the effort. She tried to remember the way his eyes had looked and his voice had sounded when he told her the story about the lifetime she’d spent in the California gold rush. The way he’d seen her through the window and fallen in love with her for something like the thousandth time.
That was the image she took with her when she left her dorm room minutes later to creep along the path toward Shoreline’s front gates, toward the bus stop where Daniel had instructed her to wait. An image of his pleading violet eyes tugged at her heart while she stood under a damp gray sky. She watched colorless cars materialize in the fog, peel around the hairpin turns on guardrail-less Highway 1, and vanish again.
When she looked back at Shoreline’s formidable campus in the distance, she remembered Jasmine’s words at the party: As long as we stay under their umbrella of surveillance, we can pretty much do as we please. Luce was stepping out from under the umbrella, but where was the harm? She wasn’t really a student there; and anyway, seeing Daniel again was worth the risk of getting caught.
A few minutes past the half hour, the number five bus pulled up to the stop.
The bus was old and gray and rickety, as was the driver who heaved the levered door open to let Luce board. She took an empty seat near the front. The bus smelled like cobwebs, or a rarely used attic. She had to clutch the cheap leatherette seat cushion as the bus barreled around the curves at fifty miles an hour, as if just inches beyond the road, the cliff didn’t drop a mile straight down into the jagged gray ocean.
It was raining by the time they got to town, a steady sideways drizzle just shy of a real downpour. Most of the businesses on the main street were already closed up for the night, and the town looked wet and a little desolate. Not exactly the scene she’d had in mind for a happy makeup conversation.
Climbing down from the bus, Luce pulled the ski cap out of her backpack and tugged it over her head. She could feel the chill of the rain on her nose and her fingertips. She spotted a bent green metal sign and followed its arrow toward Noyo Point.
The point was a wide peninsula of land, not lush green like the terrain on Shoreline’s campus, but a mix of patchy grass and scabs of wet gray sand. The trees thinned out here, their leaves stripped away by the fitful ocean wind. There was one lone bench on a patch of mud all the way at the edge, about a hundred yards from the road. That must have been where Daniel meant for them to meet. But Luce could see from where she stood that he wasn’t there yet. She looked down at her watch. She was five minutes late.
Daniel was never late.
The rain seemed to settle on the tips of her hair instead of soaking into it the way rain usually did. Not even Mother Nature knew what to do with a dyed-blond Luce. She didn’t feel like waiting for Daniel out in the open. There was a row of shops on the main street. Luce hung back there, standing on a long wooden porch under a rusty metal awning. FRED’S FISH, the closed shop’s sign read in faded blue letters.
Fort Bragg wasn’t quaint like Mendocino, the town where she and Daniel had stopped before he’d flown her up the shoreline. It was more industrial, a real old-fashioned fishing village with rotting docks fitted into a curved inlet where the land tapered down toward the water. While Luce waited, a boatful of fishermen were stepping ashore. She watched the line of rail-thin, hardened men in their soaking-wet slickers come up the rocky stairs from the docks below.
When they reached the street level, they walked alone or in silent clusters, past the empty bench and the sad slanted trees, past the shut-up storefronts to a gravel parking lot at the south edge of Noyo Point. They climbed into beat-up old trucks, turned over the engines, and drove away, the sea of grim-set faces thinning until one stood out—and he wasn’t coming off any schooner. In fact, he seemed to have appeared suddenly out of the fog. Luce jumped back against the metal shutter of the fish store and tried to catch her breath.
Cam.
He was walking west along the gravel road right in front of her, flanked by two dark-clad fishermen who didn’t seem to notice his presence. He was dressed in slim black jeans and a black leather jacket. His dark hair was shorter than when she’d last seen him, shining in the rain. A hint of the black sunburst tattoo was visible on the side of his neck. Against the colorless backdrop of the sky, his eyes were as intensely green as they had ever been.
The last time she’d seen him, Cam had been standing at the front of a sickening black army of demons, so callous and cruel and just plain … evil. It had made her blood run cold. She had a string of curses and accusations ready to fling at him, but it would be better still if she could just avoid him altogether.
Too late. Cam’s green gaze fell on her—and she froze. Not because he turned on any of the fake charm that she’d come too close to falling for at Sword & Cross. But because he looked genuinely alarmed to see her. He swerved, moving against the flow of the few final straggling fishermen, and was at her side in an instant.
“What are you doing here?”
Cam looked more than alarmed, Luce decided—he looked almost afraid. His shoulders were bunched up around his neck and his eyes wouldn’t settle on anything for longer than a second. He hadn’t said a thing about her hair; it almost seemed as if he hadn’t noticed it. Luce was certain Cam was not supposed to know that she was out here in California. Keeping her away from guys like him was the whole point of her relocation. Now she’d blown that.
“I’m just—” She eyed the white gravel path behind Cam, cutting through the grass bordering the cliff’s edge. “I’m just going for a walk.”
“You are not.”
“Leave me alone.” She tried to push past him. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Which would be fine, since we’re not supposed to be talking to one another. But you’re not supposed to leave that school.”
Suddenly she felt nervous, like he knew something she didn’t. “How did you know I’m even going to school here?”
Cam sighed. “I know everything, okay?”
“Then you’re here to fight Daniel?”
Cam’s green eyes narrowed. “Why would I—Wait, are you saying you’re here to see him?”
“Don’t sound so shocked. We are together.” It was like Cam still hadn’t gotten over that she’d picked Daniel instead of him.
Cam scratched his forehead, looking concerned. When he finally spoke, his words were rushed. “Did he send for you? Luce?”
She winced, buckling under the pressure of his gaze. “I got a letter.”
“Let me see it.”
Now Luce stiffened, examining Cam’s peculiar expression to try to understand what he knew. He looked about as uneasy as she felt. She didn’t budge.
“You were tricked. Grigori wouldn’t send for you right now.”
“You don’t know what he would do for me.” Luce turned away, wishing Cam had never seen her, wishing herself far away. She felt a childish need to brag to Cam that Daniel had visited her last night. But the bragging would end there. There wasn’t much glory in relaying the details of their argument.
“I know he would die if you died, Luce. If you want to live another day, you’d better show me the letter.”
“You would kill me over a piece of paper?”
“I wouldn’t, but whoever sent you that note probably intends to.”
“What?” Feeling it almost burning in her pocket, Luce resisted the urge to thrust the letter into his hands. Cam didn’t know what he was talking about. He couldn’t. But the longer he stared at her, the more she began to wonder about the strange
letter she was holding. That bus ticket, the directions. It had been weirdly technical and formulaic. Not like Daniel at all. She fished it out of her pocket, fingers trembling.
Cam snatched it from her, grimacing as he read. He muttered something under his breath as his eyes darted around the forest on the other side of the road. Luce looked around too, but she could see nothing suspicious about the few remaining fishermen loading their gear into rusty truck beds.
“Come on,” he said finally, grabbing her by the elbow. “It’s past time to get you back to school.”
She jerked away. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I hate you. What are you even doing here?”
He stepped around her in a circle. “I’m hunting.”
She sized him up, trying not to let on that he still made her nervous. Slim, punk-rock-dressed, gunless Cam. “Really?” She cocked her head. “Hunting what?”
Cam stared past her, toward the dusk-swept forest. He nodded once. “Her.”
Luce craned her neck to see who or what Cam was talking about, but before she could see anything, he pushed her sharply. There was a weird huff of air, and something silver zipped past her face.
“Get down!” Cam yelled, pressing hard on Luce’s shoulders. She sank to the porch floor, feeling his weight on top of her, smelling the dust on the wood planks.
“Get off me!” she shouted. As she writhed in disgust, cold fear pressed into her. Whoever was out there must be really bad. Otherwise she’d never be in a situation where Cam was the one protecting her.
A moment later, Cam was sprinting across the empty parking lot. He was racing toward a girl. A very pretty girl about Luce’s age, dressed in a long brown cloak. She had delicate features and white-blond hair pulled high into a ponytail, but something was strange about her eyes. They held a vacant expression that, even from this distance, struck Luce rigid with fear.
There was more: The girl was armed. She held a silver bow and was hurriedly nocking an arrow.
Cam barreled forward, his feet crunching on the gravel lot as he moved straight toward the girl, whose bizarre silver bow gleamed even in the fog. Like it was not of this earth.
Wresting her eyes away from the lunatic girl with the arrow, Luce rolled to her knees and scanned the parking lot to see whether anyone else looked as panicked as she felt. But the place was empty, eerily quiet.
Her lungs felt tight—she could hardly breathe. The girl moved almost like a machine, with no hesitation. And Cam was unarmed. The girl was pulling back on the bowstring and Cam was in point-blank range.
But it took her a split second too long. Cam plowed into her, knocking her onto her back. He brutally wrestled the bow out of her hands, snapping his elbow against her face until she let go. The girl yelped—a high, innocent sound—and recoiled on the ground as Cam turned the bow on her. She raised her open hand in supplication.
Then Cam loosed the arrow straight into her heart.
Across the parking lot, Luce cried out and bit down on her fist. Though she wanted to be far, far away, she found herself lumbering to her feet and jogging closer. Something was wrong. Luce expected to find the girl lying there bleeding, but this girl did not struggle, did not cry.
Because she was no longer there at all.
She, and the arrow that Cam had shot into her, had vanished.
Cam scoured the parking lot, snatching up the arrows the archer had spilled as if it was the most urgent task he’d ever performed. Luce crouched down where the girl had fallen. She traced the rough gravel with her finger, baffled and more terrified than she’d been a moment before. There was no sign that anyone had ever been there.
Cam returned to Luce’s side with three arrows in one hand and the silver bow in the other. Instinctively, Luce reached out to touch one. She’d never seen anything like it. For some reason, it sent a strange ripple of fascination through her. Goose bumps rose on her skin. Her head swam.
Cam jerked the arrows away. “Don’t. They’re deadly.”
They didn’t look deadly. In fact, the arrows didn’t even have heads. They were just silver sticks that dead-ended in a flat tip. And yet one had made that girl disappear.
Luce blinked a few times. “What just happened, Cam?” Her voice felt heavy. “Who was she?”
“She was an Outcast.” Cam wasn’t looking at her. He was fixated on the silver bow in his hands.
“A what?”
“The worst kind of angel. They sided with Satan during the revolt but wouldn’t actually set foot in the underworld.”
“Why not?”
“You know the type. Like those girls who want to be invited to the party but don’t actually plan to show up.” He grimaced. “As soon as the battle ended, they tried to backpedal up to Heaven pretty fast, but it was already too late. You only get one shot at those clouds.” He glanced at Luce. “Most of us do, anyway.”
“So, if they’re not with Heaven …” She was still getting used to talking concretely about these things. “Are they … with Hell?”
“Hardly. Though I remember when they came crawling back.” Cam gave a sinister laugh. “Usually, we’ll take just about anyone we can get, but even Satan has his limits. He cast them out permanently, struck them blind to add injury to insult.”
“But that girl wasn’t blind,” Luce whispered, recalling the way her bow had followed Cam’s every move. The only reason she hadn’t hit him was because he’d moved so fast. And yet Luce had known there was something off about that girl.
“She was. She just uses other senses to feel her way through the world. She can see after a fashion. It has its limitations and its benefits.”
His eyes never stopped combing the tree line. Luce clammed up at the thought of more Outcasts nested in the forest. More of those silver bows and arrows.
“Well, what happened to her? Where is she now?”
Cam stared at her. “She’s dead, Luce. Poof. Gone.”
Dead? Luce looked at the place on the ground where it had happened, now just as empty as the rest of the lot. She dropped her head, feeling dizzy. “I … I thought you couldn’t kill angels.”
“Only for lack of a good weapon.” He flashed the arrows at Luce one last time before wrapping them up in a cloth he pulled from his pocket and tucking them inside his leather jacket. “These things are hard to come by. Oh, stop trembling, I’m not going to kill you.” He turned away and started testing the doors of the cars in the lot, smirking when he spotted the rolled-down driver’s-side window of a gray-and-yellow truck. He reached inside and flipped the lock. “Be thankful you don’t have to walk back to school. Come on, get in.”
When Cam popped open the passenger-side door, Luce’s jaw dropped. She peered in through the open window and watched him jimmying the ignition. “You think I’m just going to get in some hot-wired car with you right after I watched you murder someone?”
“If I hadn’t killed her”—he fumbled around beneath the steering wheel—“she would have killed you, okay? Who do you think sent you that note? You were lured out of school to be murdered. Does that make it go down any easier?”
Luce leaned against the hood of the truck, not knowing what to do. She thought back to the conversation she’d had with Daniel, Arriane, and Gabbe right before she’d left Sword & Cross. They’d said Miss Sophia and the others in her sect might come after her. “But she didn’t look like—are the Outcasts part of the Elders?”
By then Cam had the engine running. He quickly hopped out, walked around, and hustled Luce into the passenger seat. “Move along, chop-chop. This is like herding a cat.” Finally he had her sitting and pulled her seat belt around her. “Unfortunately, Luce, you’ve got more than one kind of enemy. Which is why I’m taking you back to school where it’s safe. Right. Now.”
She didn’t think it would be smart to be alone in a car with Cam, but she wasn’t sure staying here on her own was any smarter. “Wait a minute,” she said as he turned back toward Shoreline. “If these Outcasts aren’t part of Heaven or Hel
l, whose side are they on?”
“The Outcasts are a sickening shade of gray. In case you hadn’t noticed, there are worse things out there than me.”
Luce folded her hands on her lap, anxious to get back to her dorm room, where she could feel—or at least pretend to feel—safe. Why should she believe Cam? She’d fallen for his lies too many times before.
“There’s nothing worse than you. What you want … what you tried to do at Sword and Cross was horrible and wrong.” She shook her head. “You’re just trying to trick me again.”
“I’m not.” His voice had less argument in it than she would have expected. He seemed thoughtful, even glum. By then, he had pulled into Shoreline’s long, arched driveway. “I never wanted to hurt you, Luce, never.”
“Is that why you called all those shadows to battle when I was in the cemetery?”
“Good and evil aren’t as clear-cut as you think.” He looked out the window toward the Shoreline buildings, which appeared dark and uninhabited. “You’re from the South, right? This time around, anyway. So you should understand the freedom that the victors have to rewrite history. Semantics, Luce. What you think of as evil—well, to my kind, it’s a simple problem of connotation.”
“Daniel doesn’t think so.” Luce wished she could have said she didn’t think so, but she didn’t know enough yet. She still felt like she was taking so much of Daniel’s explanations on faith.
Cam parked the truck on a patch of grass behind her dorm, got out, and walked around to open the passenger door. “Daniel and I are two sides of the same coin.” He offered his hand to help her down; she ignored him. “It must pain you to hear that.”
She wanted to say it couldn’t possibly be true, that there were no similarities between Cam and Daniel no matter how Cam tried to whitewash things. But in the week she’d been at Shoreline, Luce had seen and heard things that conflicted with what she’d once believed. She thought of Francesca and Steven. They were born of the same place: Once upon a time, before the war and the Fall, there had only been one side. Cam wasn’t the only one who claimed that the divide between angels and demons wasn’t entirely black and white.
