Fallen - By Lauren Kate Page 0,56

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?"

"Nothing ... I don't know." Luce wanted to change the subject. "You make us sound very posh, Penn," she said, laughing as they trudged along the commons. "Other plans ... I thought you had fun at the party last week."

"If you'd ever get around to reading my recent correspondence, you'd see why we have more important things on our plate."

Luce emptied her pockets, rediscovered the five uneaten M&M's, and shared them with Penn, who expressed a very Penn-like sentiment that she hoped they had come from a sanitary place, but ate them anyway.

Luce unfolded the first of Penn's notes, which looked like a photocopied page from one of the files in the underground archive:

Gabrielle Givens

Cameron Briel

Lucinda Price

Todd Hammond

Previous locations:

All in the Northeast, except for T. Hammond

(Orlando, Florida)

Arriane Alter

Daniel Grigori

Mary Margaret Zane

Previous locations:

Los Angeles, California

Lucinda's group was noted as arriving at Sword & Cross on September 15 of this year. The second group had arrived March 15, three years earlier.

"Who's Mary Margaret Zane?" Luce asked, pointing.

"Only the very virtuous Molly," Penn said.

Molly's name was Mary Margaret? "No wonder she's so pissed off at the world," Luce said. "So where'd you get all this?"

"I dug it out from one of the boxes Miss Sophia brought down the other day," Penn said. "That's Miss Sophia's handwriting."

Luce looked up at her. "What does it mean? Why would she need to record this? I thought they had all our arrival dates separately in our files."

"They do. I can't figure it out, either," Penn said. "And I mean, even though you showed up at the same time as those other kids, it's not like you have anything in common with them."

"I couldn't have less in common with them," Luce said, envisioning the coy look Gabbe always had glued to her face.

Penn scratched her chin. "But when Arriane, Molly, and Daniel showed up, they already knew each other.

I think they came from the same halfway house in L.A."

Somewhere there was a key to Daniel's story. There had to be more to him than a halfway house in California. But thinking back to his reaction - that washed-out horror that Luce might take an interest in knowing anything about him - well, it made her feel like everything she and Penn were doing was futile and immature.

"What's the point of all of this?" Luce asked, suddenly annoyed.

"Why Miss Sophia would be collating all that information I can't figure out. Though Miss Sophia arrived at Sword & Cross the same day as Arriane, Daniel, and Molly ..." Penn trailed off. "Who knows? Maybe it doesn't mean anything. There's just so little mention of Daniel in the archives, I figured I'd show you everything I came up with. Hence exhibit B."

She pointed toward the second note in Luce's hand.

Luce sighed. Part of her wanted to quit the search and stop feeling embarrassed about Daniel. The pushier part of her still yearned to get to know him better ... which, strangely, was far easier to do when he wasn't technically present to give her new reasons to feel embarrassed.

She looked down at the note, a photocopy of an old-fashioned card from a library catalog.

Grigori, D.