Fallen

The sunshine outside suddenly felt very far away. Even though Luce knew they were only a flight of stairs under the ground, it might as well have been a mile. She rubbed her bare arms. If she were a shadow, this basement was exactly where she'd be. There were no signs of them yet, but Luce knew that was never a good enough reason to feel safe.

Pe

"How long ago was that?" Luce asked.

"About a week…" Pe

Luce couldn't imagine what Sword & Cross would possibly need with all of these boxes. She lifted one lid and pulled out a thick file labeled REMEDIAL MEASURES. She swallowed dryly. Maybe she was better off not knowing.

"It's alphabetical by student," Pe

Luce followed the sound of rustling paperwork down a narrow aisle and soon found Pe

"It's so thin," she said, lifting her chin slightly so Luce could take it. "Normally, they're so much more, um…" She looked up at Luce and bit her lip. "Okay, now I sound like the crazy stalker girl. Let's just see what's inside."

There was only a single page in Daniel's file. A black-and-white scan of what must have been his student ID picture was pasted onto the upper right-hand corner. He was looking straight at the camera, at Luce, a faint smile on his lips. She couldn't help smiling back. He looked just the same as he had that night when—well, she couldn't quite think of when. The image of his expression was so sharp in her mind, but she couldn't pin down where she would have seen it.

"God, doesn't he look exactly the same?" Pe

That must have been what Luce had been thinking… that Daniel looked the same then as he did now. But she felt like she'd been thinking—or been about to think—something different, only now she couldn't remember what it was.

"'Parents: unknown, " Pe

"Orphanage?" Luce asked, pressing her hand to her heart.

"That's all there is. Everything else listed here is his—"

"Criminal history," Luce finished, reading along. "'Loitering on public beach after hours… vandalism of a shopping cart… jaywalking. "

Pe

Luce didn't like picturing Daniel getting arrested for anything. She liked it even less that, according to Sword & Cross, his whole life added up to little more than a list of petty crimes. All these boxes of paperwork down here, and this was all there was on Daniel.

"There has to be more," she said.

Footsteps overhead. Luce's and Pe

"The main office," Pe

A second later, a door deep within the room creaked open, and light from a hall illuminated a stairway. A clopping of shoes started down. Luce felt Pe

Luce had her eyes closed, expecting the worst, when a haunting, melodious hum filled the room. Someone was singing.

"Doooo da da da dooo," a female voice crooned softly. Luce craned her neck between two boxes of files and could see a thin older woman with a small flashlight strapped to her forehead like a coal miner. Miss Sophia. She was carrying two large boxes, one stacked on top of the other so the only part of her that was visible was her glowing forehead. Her airy steps made it look as if the boxes were full of feathers instead of heavy files.

Pe

"Just a couple more," she said, then something under her breath that Luce couldn't hear. A second later, Miss Sophia was gliding back up the stairs, gone as quickly as she'd appeared. Her hum lingered for just a moment in her wake.

When the door clicked shut, Pe

"What do we do?" Luce asked.

"You sneak back up the stairs," Pe

"What about you?"

"I'll put Daniel's file away and meet you by the bleachers. Miss Sophia won't get suspicious if she sees just me. I'm down here so much it's like a second dorm room."

Luce glanced at Daniel's file with a small pang of regret. She wasn't ready to leave yet. Right around the time she'd resigned herself to checking out Daniel's file, she'd also started thinking about Cam's. Daniel was so cryptic—and unfortunately, so was his file. Cam, on the other hand, seemed so open and easy to read that it made her curious. Luce wondered what else she might be able to find out about him that he might not otherwise share. But one look at Pe

"If there's more to find on Daniel, we'll find it," Pe

Luce moved quickly down the rank corridor, then pushed open the door to the stairs. The air at the base of the stairs was still humid, but she could feel it clear a little with each step she took. When she finally rounded the corner at the top of the stairs, she had to blink and rub her eyes to readjust to the bright sunlight flooding the hallway. She stumbled around the corner and through the whitewashed doors to the main lobby. There she froze.

Two black stiletto boots, crossed at the ankles, were propped up and sticking out of the phone booth, looking very Wicked Witch of the South. Luce was hurrying toward the front door, hoping not to be spotted, when she realized that the stiletto boots were attached to a pair of snakeskin leggings, which was attached to an unsmiling Molly. The tiny silver camera was resting in her hand. She raised her eyes to Luce, hung up the phone at her ear, and kicked her feet to the floor.

"Why do you look so guilty, Meat Loaf?" she asked, standing up with her hands on her hips. "Let me guess. You're still pla

This whole evil monster thing had to be an act. Molly had no way of knowing where Luce had just been. She didn't know anything about Luce. She had no cause to be so nasty. Since the first day of school, Luce had never done a thing to Molly—except try to stay away from her.

"Are you forgetting what a hellish disaster it was the last time you tried to force yourself on a guy who wasn't interested?" Molly's voice was as sharp as a knife. "What was his name again? Taylor? Truman?"

Trevor. How could Molly know about Trevor? This was it, her deepest, darkest secret. The one thing Luce wanted—needed— to keep under wraps at Sword & Cross. Now, not only did Evil Incarnate know all about it, she felt no shame bringing it up, cruelly, cavalierly—in the middle of the school's main office.