"It was torture," Luce answered. It had always annoyed Luce when smart girls pretended they weren't into something just because they assumed that was what a guy would want to hear. But Luce was not pretending; it really had been torture.
"Good," Daniel said, seeming pleased.
"You hated it, too?"
"No," he said cryptically, and Luce now wished she'd lied to sound more interested than she actually was.
"So… you liked it," she said, wanting to say something, anything to keep him there next to her, talking. "What did you like about it exactly?"
"Maybe 'like' isn't the right word." After a long pause, he said, "It's in my family… studying these things. I guess I can't help feeling a connection."
It took a moment for his words to fully register with Luce. Her mind traveled into the fusty old storage basement where she'd glimpsed Daniel's single-page file. The file that claimed that Daniel Grigori had spent most of his life in a Los Angeles County Orphanage.
"I didn't know you had any family," she said.
"Why would you?" Daniel scoffed.
"I don't know… So, I mean, you do?"
"The question is why you presume you know anything about my family—or me—at all?"
Luce felt her stomach plummet. She saw the Warning: Stalker Alert flash in Daniel's alarmed eyes. And she knew she'd botched things with him yet again.
"D." Roland came up from behind them and put his hand on Daniel's T-shirt-clad shoulder. "You want to stick around to see if there's another yearlong lecture, or are we going to roll?"
"Yeah," Daniel said softly, giving Luce a final sideways glance. "Let's get out of here."
Of course—obviously—she should have bolted several minutes ago. Like, at the first instinct to divulge any details of Daniel's file. A smart, normal person would have dodged the conversation, or changed the subject to something much less freakish, or at the very least, kept her big mouth shut.
CHAPTER 10. WHERE THERE'S SMOKE
"What are you waiting for?" Penn asked barely a second after Daniel had left with Roland. "Let's go." She tugged on Luce's hand.
"Go where?" Luce asked. Her heart was still pounding from the conversation with Daniel—and from the view of him leaving. The shape his sculpted shoulders cut out in the hall seemed to be bigger than Daniel himself.
Penn rapped lightly on the side of Luce's head. "Hello? The library, like I said in my note…" She took in Luce's blank expression. "You didn't get either one of my notes?" She slapped her leg, frustrated. "But I handed them to Todd to pass to Cam to pass to you."
"Pony Express." Cam wedged his way in front of Penn and presented Luce with two folded scraps of paper held between his index and middle finger.
"Give me a break. Did your horse die of exhaustion on the road?" Penn huffed, snagging the notes. "I gave you those like an hour ago. What took so long? You didn't read them—"
"Of course not." Cam pressed a hand to his broad chest, offended. He wore a thick black ring on his middle finger. "If you remember, Luce got in trouble for passing notes with Molly—"
"I was not passing notes with Molly—"
"Regardless," Cam said, lifting the notes back out of Penn's hand and delivering them, finally, to Luce. "I was only looking out for your best interests. Waiting for the right opportunity."
"Well, thank you." Luce tucked the notes into her pocket and gave Penn a what-are-ya-gonna-do shrug.
"Speaking of waiting for the right time," he said, "I was out the other day and saw this." He produced a small red velvet jewelry box and held it open for Luce to see.
Penn nudged around Luce's shoulder so she could get a look.
Inside, a thin gold chain held a small circular pendant with a carved line down its middle and a small serpent's head at the tip.
Luce looked up at him. Was he making fun of her?
He touched the pendant. "I thought, after the other day… I wanted to help you face your fear," he said, sounding almost nervous, afraid that she might not accept. Should she accept? "Only kidding. I just liked it. It's unique, it reminded me of you."
It was unique. And very beautiful, and it made Luce feel strangely unworthy.
"You went shopping?" she found herself asking, because it was easier to discuss how Cam had left campus than it would have been to ask Why me? "I thought the point of reform school is that we're all stuck here."
Cam lifted his chin slightly and smiled with his eyes. "There are ways," he said quietly. "I'll show you sometime. I could show you—tonight?"
"Cam, honey," a voice said behind him. It was Gabbe, tapping his shoulder. A thin section at the front of her hair was French-braided and pinned behind her ear, like a perfect little headband. Luce stared at it jealously.
"I need your help setting up," Gabbe purred.
Luce looked around and realized they were the only four people left in the classroom.
"Having a little party in my room later," Gabbe said, pressing her chin into Cam's shoulder to address Luce and Penn. "Y'all are coming, right?"
Gabbe, whose mouth always looked sticky with lip gloss, and whose blond hair never failed to swoosh right in the second a guy started talking to Luce. Even though Daniel had said there was nothing going on between them, Luce knew she was never going to be friends with this girl.
Then again, you didn't have to like someone to go to her party, especially when certain other people you did like would probably be there…
Or should she take Cam up on his offer? Was he really suggesting they sneak out? Only yesterday, a rumor had flown around the classroom when Jules and Phillip, the tongue-pierced couple, didn't show up for Miss Sophia's class. Apparently, they'd tried to leave campus in the middle of the night, a secret tryst gone wrong—and now they were in some type of solitary confinement whose location even Penn didn't know about.
The weirdest part was, Miss Sophia—who usually had no tolerance for whispering—hadn't shut the madly gossiping students up during her lesson. It was almost like the faculty wanted the students to imagine the worst possible punishment for breaking any of their dictatorial rules.
Luce swallowed, looking up at Cam. He offered his elbow, ignoring Gabbe and Penn entirely. "How about it, kid?" he asked, sounding so charmingly classic Hollywood that Luce forgot all about what had happened to Jules and Phillip.
"Sorry." Penn butted in, answering for both of them and steering Luce away by the elbow. "But we have other plans."
Cam looked at Penn like he was trying to figure out where she'd come from all of a sudden. He had a way of making Luce feel like a better, cooler version of herself. And she had a way of crossing his path right after Daniel had made her feel exactly the opposite. But Gabbe was still hovering beside him, and Penn's tug was growing stronger, so finally Luce just waved the hand still clutching Cam's gift. "Um, maybe next time! Thanks for the necklace!"
Leaving Cam and Gabbe confused in the classroom behind them, Penn and Luce booked it out of Augustine. It felt creepy to be alone in the dark building so late, and Luce could tell from the hurried slap of Penn's sandals on the stairs in front of her that she felt it, too.
Outside, it was windy. An owl crooned in its palmetto tree. When they passed under the oaks alongside the building, straggly tendrils of Spanish moss brushed them like tangled strands of hair.
"Maybe next time?" Penn mimicked Luce's voice. "What was that about?"