Fallen - By Lauren Kate Page 0,25

place.

"Ooh, tell me tell me tell me," she taunted.

Arriane's face was so close to Luce's. It reminded Luce of yesterday, crouching over Arriane after she'd convulsed. They'd had a moment, hadn't they? And part of Luce badly wanted to be able to talk to someone. It had been such a long, stifling summer with her parents. She sighed, resting her forehead on the handle of her rake.

A salty, nervous taste filled her mouth, but she couldn't swallow it away. The last time she'd gone into these details, it had been because of a court order. She would just as soon have forgotten them, but the longer Arriane stared her down, the clearer the words grew, and the closer they came to the tip of her tongue.

"I was with a friend one night," she started to explain, taking a long, deep breath. "And something terrible happened." She closed her eyes, praying that the scene wouldn't play out in a burst under the red-black of her eyelids. "There was a fire. I made it out ... and he didn't."

Arriane yawned, much less horrified by the story than Luce was.

"Anyway," Luce went on, "afterwards, I couldn't remember the details, how it happened. What I could remember - what I told the judge, anyway - I guess they thought I was crazy." She tried to smile, but it felt forced.

To Luce's surprise, Arriane squeezed her shoulder. And for a second, her face looked really sincere. Then it changed back into its smirk.

"We're all so misunderstood, aren't we?" She poked Luce in the gut with her finger. "You know, Roland and I were just talking about how we don't have any pyromaniac friends. And everyone knows you need a good pyro to pull off any reform school prank worth the effort." She was scheming already. "Roland thought maybe that other new kid, Todd, but I'd rather cast my lot with you. We should all collaborate sometime."

Luce swallowed hard. She wasn't a pyro. But she was done talking about her past; she didn't even feel like defending herself.

"Ooh, wait until Roland hears," Arriane said, throwing down her rake. "You're like our dream come true."

Luce opened her mouth to protest, but Arriane had already taken off. Perfect, Luce thought, listening to the sound of Arriane's shoes squishing through the mud. Now it was only a matter of minutes before word traveled around the cemetery to Daniel.

Alone again, she looked up at the statue. Even though she'd already cleared a huge pile of moss and mulch, the angel looked dirtier than ever. The whole project felt so pointless. She doubted anyone ever came to visit this place anyway. She also doubted that any of the other detainees were still working.

Her eye just happened to fall on Daniel, who was working. He was very diligently using a wire brush to scrub some mold off the bronze inscription on a tomb. He'd even pushed up the sleeves of his sweater, and Luce could see his muscles straining as he went at it. She sighed, and - she couldn't help it - leaned her elbow against the stone angel to watch him.

He's always been such a hard worker.

Luce quickly shook her head. Where had that come from? She had no idea what it meant. And yet, she'd been the one who'd thought it. It was the kind of phrase that sometimes formed in her mind just before she drifted into sleep. Senseless babble she could never assign to anything outside her dreams. But here she was, wide-awake.

She needed to get a handle on this Daniel thing. She'd known him for one day, and already, she could feel herself slipping into a very strange and unfamiliar place.

"Probably best to stay away from him," a cold voice behind her said.

Luce whipped around to find Molly, in the same pose she'd found her in yesterday: hands on her hips, pierced nostrils flaring. Penn had told her that Sword & Cross's surprising ruling that allowed facial piercings came from the headmaster's own reluctance to remove the diamond stud in his ear.

"Who?" she asked Molly, knowing she sounded stupid.

Molly rolled her eyes. "Just trust me when I tell you that falling for Daniel would be a very, very bad idea."

Before Luce could answer, Molly was gone. But Daniel - it was almost as if he'd heard his name - was looking straight at her. Then walking straight at her.

She knew the sun had gone behind a cloud. If she could break his stare, she could look