rooting for you." His eyes moved past her, out to sea. "Now, back to that water. It's frigid. Have you been in it? I know you like to swim."
It struck Luce that she'd been at Shoreline for three days, with the ocean always visible, the waves always audible, the salt air always coating everything, but she still hadn't set foot on the beach. And it wasn't like at Sword & Cross, where a laundry list of things were o -limits. She didn't know why it hadn't even occurred to her.
She shook her head.
"About all you can do with a beach that cold is build a bon re." Roland glanced at her. "You made any friends here yet?"
Luce shrugged. "A few."
"Bring them by tonight, after dark." He pointed to a narrow peninsula of sand at the foot of the rocky stairs. "Right down there."
She peered at Roland sideways. "What exactly do you have in mind?"
Roland grinned devilishly. "Don't worry, we'll keep it innocent. But you know how it is. I'm new in town; I'd like to make my presence known."
"Dude. Stomp down on my heel one more time, and I'm seriously going to have to break your ankle."
"Maybe if you weren't hogging the entire beam of the ashlight up there, Shel, the rest of us could see where we were going."
Luce tried to sti e her laugh as she followed a bickering Miles and Shelby across campus in the dark. It was almost eleven, and Shoreline was pitch-black and silent, except for the hoot of an owl. An orange gibbous moon was low in the sky, cloaked by a veil of fog. Between the three of them, they'd only been able to come up with one ashlight (Shelby's), so only one of them (Shelby) had a clear view of the path down to the water. For the other two, the grounds--which had seemed so lush and well tended in the daylight--were now booby-trapped with fallen bristlecones, thick-rooted ferns, and the backs of Shelby's feet.
When Roland had asked her to bring some friends tonight, Luce had gotten a sinking feeling in her stomach. There were no hall monitors at Shoreline, no terrifying security cameras recording the students' every move, so it wasn't the threat of getting caught that made her nervous. In fact, sneaking out of the dorm had been relatively easy. It was drawing a crowd that was a bigger challenge.
Dawn and Jasmine seemed like the most likely candidates for a party on the beach, but when Luce went by their fth- oor room, the hallway was dark and no one answered her knock. Back in her own room, Shelby had been tangled up in some sort of tantric yoga pose that hurt Luce just to look at. Luce hadn't wanted to break her roommate's erce concentration by inviting her to some unknown party--but then a loud knock at their door had made Shelby fall crossly from her pose anyway.
Miles, asking Luce if she wanted to get some ice cream.
Luce looked back and forth between Miles and Shelby and smiled. "I've got a better idea."
Ten minutes later, bundled up in hooded sweatshirts, a backward Dodgers cap (Miles), and wool socks with inpidual toe shapes sewn in so she could still wear her ip- ops (Shelby), and with a nervous feeling in the gut about mingling Roland with the Shoreline crew (Luce), the three of them tramped toward the blu 's edge.
"So who is this guy again?" Miles asked, pointing out a dip in the rocky path just before Luce would have gone ying.
"He's just ... a guy from my last school." Luce searched for a better description as the three of them started down the rocky stairs. Roland wasn't exactly her friend. And even though kids at Shoreline seemed pretty open-minded, she wasn't sure she should tell them which side of the fallen angel pide Roland fell on. "He was friends with Daniel," she said nally. "It'll probably be a pretty small party. I don't think he knows anyone here but me."
They could smell it before they could see it: the telltale hickory smoke of a good-sized bon re. Then, when they were almost at the foot of the steep stairs, they wound around a bend in the rocks and froze as the sparks from a wild orange blaze nally came into view.
There must have been a hundred people gathered on the beach.
The wind was wild, like an untamed animal, but it was no match for the rowdiness of the partygoers.