Fallen - By Lauren Kate Page 0,123

Would anyone be looking for Penn yet? For Miss Sophia? What could any of them possibly think had happened? Everyone was paired up and speaking in hushed whispers. Luce longed to linger close to them and eavesdrop.

"Don't worry." Daniel squeezed her hand. "Just imitate any of the baffled looks on their faces. No one will give us a second thought."

Though Luce felt entirely conspicuous, he was right. None of the other students' eyes lingered on the two of them any longer than they did on anyone else.

At the gates of the cemetery, blue and white police lights flashed, reflecting in the leaves of the oak trees overhead. The entrance had been marked off with yellow hazard tape.

Luce saw Randy's black silhouette outlined against the sunrise ahead of them. She was pacing before the cemetery's entrance and shouting into a Bluetooth clipped to the collar of her shapeless polo shirt.

"I think you should wake him up," she yelled into the device. "There's been an incident at the school. I keep telling you ... I don't know."

"I should warn you," Daniel told her as he steered her away from Randy and the blinking lights of the cop cars, through the oak grove that bordered the cemetery on three sides. "It will look strange to you down there. Cam's style of warfare is messier than ours. It's not gory, it's just ... different."

Luce didn't think much could alarm her at this point. A few toppled statues certainly weren't going to set her off. They picked their way through the forest, brittle fall leaves crunching beneath their feet. Luce thought about how, the night before, these trees had been consumed by the thundering locust-shadow cloud. There was no trace of them now.

Soon, Daniel gestured to a badly bent segment of the cemetery's wrought iron fence.

"We can enter there without being seen. Well have to be quick about it."

Stepping out from the shelter of the trees, Luce slowly understood what Daniel meant about the cemetery looking different. They stood at the rim, not far from Penn's father's grave at the east corner, but it was impossible to see more than a few feet in front of them. The air above the grounds was so murky it might not even have qualified as air. It was thick and gray and gritty, and Luce had to fan her hands through it just to see in front of her face.

She rubbed her fingers together. "Is this - "

"Dust," Daniel said, taking her hand as they walked, He was able to see through it, didn't have to choke and cough it out of his lungs as Luce did. "In war, angels don't die. But their battles leave this thick carpet of dust in their wake."

"What happens to it?"

"Not much, besides the fact that it baffles mortals. It will settle eventually, and then they'll come out to study it by the carload. There's a crazy scientist in Pasadena who thinks it comes from UFO5."

Luce thought with a shudder about the unidentifiable flying black cloud of insectlike objects. That scientist might not be too far off.

"Penn's father was buried up here," she said, pointing as they neared his corner of the graveyard. As eerie as the dust was, she was relieved that the graves, statues, and trees within the cemetery all seemed to have been left standing. She got down on her knees and wiped away the pelt of dust from the grave she thought belonged to Penn's father. Her shaking fingers brushed clean the letters that nearly made her weep.

STANFORD LOCKWOOD

WORLD'S BEST FATHER

The space beside Mr. Lockwood's grave was bare. Luce stood up and stamped her foot woefully on the ground, hating that her friend would join him there. Hating that she couldn't even be present to give Penn a proper memorial.

People always talked about Heaven when someone died, how they were certain the deceased were there. Luce never felt like she'd known the rules, and now felt even less qualified to speak about what might or might not be.

She turned to Daniel, tears in her eyes. His face fell at the sight of her sorrow. "I'll take care of her, Luce," he said. "I know it's not the way you wanted, but we'll do the best we can."

The tears came harder. Luce was sniffling and sobbing and wanting Penn back so badly she thought she might collapse. "I can't leave her, Daniel. How can I?'"

Daniel gently wiped her tears with the back of his hand, "What happened to Penn