When the shadows came this time, Luce was expecting them. Then she started to think about it and counted a tally on her fingers. The shadows had been popping up at an increasingly alarming rate, and Luce couldn't figure out whether she was just nervous at Sword & Cross… or whether it meant something else. They'd never been this bad before…
They oozed overhead in the auditorium, then slithered along the sides of the movie screen, and finally traced the lines of the floorboards like spilled ink. Luce gripped the bottom of her chair and felt an ache of fear swell through her legs and arms. She tightened all the muscles in her body, but she couldn't keep from trembling. A squeeze on her left knee made her look over at Arriane.
"You okay?" Arriane mouthed.
Luce nodded and hugged her shoulders, pretending she was merely cold. She wished she was, but this particular chill had nothing to do with Sword & Cross's overzealous air conditioner.
She could feel the shadows tugging at her feet under her chair. They stayed like that, deadweight for the whole movie, and every minute dragged on like an eternity.
An hour later, Arriane pressed her eye up against the peephole of Cam's bronze-painted dorm room door. "Yoo-hoo," she sang, giggling. "The festivities are here!"
She produced a hot-pink feather boa from the same magic carpetbag the bag of popcorn had come from. "Give me a boost," she said to Luce, dangling her foot in the air.
Luce hooked her fingers together and positioned them under Arriane's black boot. She watched as Arriane pushed off the ground and used the boa to cover the face of the hallway surveillance camera while she reached around the back of the device and switched it off.
"That's not suspicious or anything," Penn said.
"Does your allegiance lie with the after-party?" Arriane shot back. "Or the red party?"
"I'm just saying there are smarter ways." Penn snorted as Arriane hopped down. Arriane slung the boa over Luce's shoulders, and Luce laughed and started to shimmy to the Motown song they could hear through the door. But when Luce offered the boa to Penn for a turn, she was surprised to see her still looking nervous. Penn was biting her nails and sweating at the brow. Penn wore six sweaters in the swampy southern September heat—she was never hot.
"What's wrong?" Luce whispered, leaning in.
Penn picked at the hem of her sleeve and shrugged. She looked like she was just about to answer when the door behind them opened up. A whoosh of cigarette smoke, blasting music, and suddenly Cam's open arms greeted them.
"You made it," he said, smiling at Luce. Even in the dim light, his lips had a berry-stained glow. When he folded her in for a hug, she felt tiny and safe. It lasted only a second; then he turned to nod hello at the other two girls, and Luce felt a little proud to have been the one who got the hug.
Behind Cam, the small, dark room was crammed with people. Roland was in one corner, at the turntable, holding up records to a black light. The couple Luce had seen on the quad a few days before cozied up against the window. The preppy boys with the white oxford shirts were all huddled up together, occasionally checking out the girls. Arriane wasted no time shooting across the room toward Cam's desk, which looked like it was doubling as a bar. Almost immediately, she had a champagne bottle between her legs and was laughing as she tried to pry off the cork.
Luce was baffled. She hadn't even known how to get booze at Dover, where the outside world had been a lot less off-limits. Cam had been back at Sword & Cross for only a few days, but already, he seemed to know how to smuggle everything he needed to throw a Dionysian soiree the entire school showed up to. And somehow everyone else inside thought this was normal.
Still standing at the threshold, she heard the pop, then the cheers from the rest of the crowd, then Arriane's voice calling out: "Lucindaaa, get in here. I'm about to make a toast."
Luce could feel the party's magnetism, but Penn looked much less ready to budge.
"You go ahead," she said, waving a hand at Luce.
"What's wrong? You don't want to go in?" The truth was, Luce was a little nervous herself. She had no idea what might go down at these things, and since she still wasn't sure how reliable Arriane was, it would definitely make her feel better to have Penn at her side.
But Penn frowned. "I'm… I'm out of my element. I do libraries… workshops on how to use PowerPoint. You want a file hacked into, I'm your girl. But this—" She stood on tiptoes and peered into the room. "I don't know. People in there just think I'm some kind of know-it-all."
Luce attempted her best give-me-a-break frown. "And they think I'm a slab of meat loaf, and we think they're all totally bananas." She laughed. "Can't we all just get along?"
Slowly Penn curled her lip, then took the feather boa and draped it around her shoulders. "Oh, all right," she said, clomping inside ahead of Luce.
Luce blinked as her eyes adjusted. A cacophony filled the room, but she could hear Arriane's laughing voice. Cam shut the door behind her and tugged Luce's hand so she'd hang back, away from the heart of the party.
"I'm really glad you came," he said, putting his hand on the small of her back and bending his head so she could hear him in the loud room. Those lips looked almost tasty, especially when they said things like "I jumped up every time someone knocked, hoping it'd be you."
Whatever had drawn Cam to her so quickly, Luce didn't want to do anything to mess it up. He was popular and unexpectedly thoughtful, and his attention made her feel more than flattered. It made her feel more comfortable in this strange new place. She knew if she tried to respond to his compliment, she'd stumble over the words. So she just laughed, which made him laugh, and then he pulled her in for another hug.
Suddenly there was no place to put her own hands but around his neck. She felt a little light-headed as Cam squeezed her, lifting her feet slightly off the ground.
When he put her back down. Luce turned to the rest of the party, and the first thing she saw was Daniel. But she didn't think he liked Cam. Still, he was sitting cross-legged on the bed, his white T-shirt glowing violet in the black light. As soon as her eyes found him, it was hard to look anywhere else. Which didn't make sense, because a gorgeous and friendly guy was standing right behind her, asking her what she'd like to drink. The other gorgeous, infinitely less friendly guy sitting across from her should not be the one she couldn't stop looking at. And he was staring at her. So intently, with a cryptic, squinting look in his eyes that Luce thought she'd never decode, even if she saw it a thousand times.
All she knew was the effect it had on her. Everyone else in the room went out of focus and she melted. She could have stared back all night if it hadn't been for Arriane, who had climbed on top of the desk and called out to Luce, her glass raised in the air.
"To Luce," she toasted, giving Luce a saintly smile. "Who was obviously zoning and missed my entire welcome speech and who will never know how utterly fabulous it was— wasn't it fabulous, Ro?" she leaned down to ask Roland, who patted her ankle affirmatively.
Cam slipped a plastic cup of champagne into Luce's hand. She blushed and tried to laugh it off as the whole rest of the party echoed, "To Luce! To Meat Loaf!"
At her side, Molly slithered up and whispered a shorter version in her ear: "To Luce, who will never know."
A few days before, Luce would have flinched away. Tonight, she simply rolled her eyes, then turned her back on Molly. The girl had never said a word that didn't leave Luce feeling bitten, but showing it seemed only to egg her on. So Luce just hunkered down to share the desk chair with Penn, who handed her a rope of black licorice.