Tormen - By Lauren Kate Page 0,101

Steven's o ce on the other side of the wall, where they could hear their teachers arguing in low voices. "It's like they're coming up with a punishment before they've even heard our side of the story!" He bit his lower lip. "What is our side of the story, by the way?"

But Luce wasn't listening. "I really don't see what's so di cult," she said under her breath, more to herself than the others. "You just pick a side and move on."

"Huh?" Miles and Shelby said in unison.

"Sorry," Luce said. "It's just ... you know what Arriane was saying about tipping the scales the other night? I brought it up to Daniel, and he got all weird. Seriously, how is it not obvious that there's a right answer here and a wrong one?"

"It's obvious to me," Miles said. "There's a good choice and a bad choice."

"How can you say that?" Shelby asked. "That kind of thinking is exactly what got us into this mess in the rst place. Blind faith! Blanket acceptance of a practically obsolete dichotomy!" Her face was turning red and her voice had gotten loud enough that Francesca and Steven could probably hear. "I am so sick of all these angels and demons taking sides--blah blah blah, they're evil! No, they're evil! On and on--like they know what's best for everyone in the universe."

"So you're suggesting Daniel side with evil?" Miles sco ed. "Bring on the end of the world?"

"I don't give a damn what Daniel does," Shelby said. "And frankly, I nd it hard to believe that it's all up to him, anyway."

But it had to be. Luce couldn't think of any other explanation.

"Look, maybe the lines aren't as clear-cut as we're taught they are," Shelby continued. "I mean, who says Lucifer is so bad--"

"Um, everyone?" Miles said, looking to Luce for support.

"Wrong," Shelby barked. "A group of very persuasive angels trying to preserve the status quo. Just because they won a big battle a long time ago, they think it gives them the right."

Luce watched Shelby's eyebrows bunch up as she slumped against the rigid back of her chair. Her words made Luce think of something she'd heard somewhere else. ...

"The victors rewrite history," she murmured. That was what Cam had said to her that day at Noyo Point. Wasn't that what Shelby meant? That the losers ended up with a bad rap? Their viewpoints were both similar--only, Cam, of course, was legitimately evil. Right? And Shelby was just talking.

"Exactly." Shelby nodded at Luce. "Wait--what?"

Just then, Francesca and Steven walked through the door. Francesca lowered herself into the black swivel chair at her desk. Steven stood behind her, his hands resting lightly on the back of the chair. He looked as breezy in his jeans and crisp white shirt as Francesca looked severe in her tailored black dress with the rigid square-cut neckline.

It brought to Luce's mind Shelby's talk about blurred lines, and the connotations of words like angel and demon. Of course it was super cial to make judgments based solely on Steven's and Francesca's clothing, but then again, it wasn't just that. In a lot of ways, it was easy to forget which one of them was which.

"Who wants to go rst?" Francesca asked, resting her interlaced manicured hands on the marble desktop. "We know everything that happened, so don't even bother contesting those details. This is your chance to tell us why."

Luce inhaled deeply. Though she hadn't been prepared for Francesca to turn over the oor so soon, she didn't want Miles or Shelby trying to cover for her. "It was my fault," she said. "I wanted to--" She looked at Steven's drawn expression, then down at her lap. "I saw something in the Announcers, something from my past, and I wanted to see more."

"And so you went for a dangerous joyride--an unauthorized passage through an Announcer, imperiling two of your classmates who really should have known better--the day after another one of your classmates was kidnapped?" Francesca asked.

"That's not fair," Luce said. "You were the one downplaying what happened to Dawn. We thought we were just going to look into something, but--"

"But ...?" Steven prodded. "But you realize now how utterly moronic that line of thinking was?"

Luce gripped her chair's armrests, trying to ght back tears. Francesca was cross with all three of them, but it seemed that all of Steven's fury was coming down solely on Luce. It wasn't fair.

"Yes, okay, we snuck out of school and went to Vegas,"

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