Tormen - By Lauren Kate Page 0,41

could see from where she stood that he wasn't there yet. She looked down at her watch. She was ve minutes late.

Daniel was never late. Daniel was never late.

The rain seemed to settle on the tips of her hair instead of soaking into it the way rain usually did. Not even Mother Nature knew what to do with a dyed-blond Luce. She didn't feel like waiting for Daniel out in the open. There was a row of shops on the main street. Luce hung back there, standing on a long wooden porch under a rusty metal awning. FRED'S FISH, the closed shop's sign read in faded blue letters.

Fort Bragg wasn't quaint like Mendocino, the town where she and Daniel had stopped before he'd own her up the shoreline. It was more industrial, a real old-fashioned shing village with rotting docks tted into a curved inlet where the land tapered down toward the water. While Luce waited, a boatful of shermen were stepping ashore. She watched the line of rail-thin, hardened men in their soaking-wet slickers come up the rocky stairs from the docks below.

When they reached the street level, they walked alone or in silent clusters, past the empty bench and the sad slanted trees, past the shut-up storefronts to a gravel parking lot at the south edge of Noyo Point. They climbed into beat-up old trucks, turned over the engines, and drove away, the sea of grim-set faces thinning until one stood out--and he wasn't coming o any schooner. In fact, he seemed to have appeared suddenly out of the fog. Luce jumped back against the metal shutter of the sh store and tried to catch her breath.

Cam.

He was walking west along the gravel road right in front of her, anked by two dark-clad shermen who didn't seem to notice his presence. He was dressed in slim black jeans and a black leather jacket. His dark hair was shorter than when she'd last seen him, shining in the rain. A hint of the black sunburst tattoo was visible on the side of his neck. Against the colorless backdrop of the sky, his eyes were as intensely green as they had ever been.

The last time she'd seen him, Cam had been standing at the front of a sickening black army of demons, so callous and cruel and just plain ... evil. It had made her blood run cold. She had a string of curses and accusations ready to ing at him, but it would be better still if she could just avoid him altogether.

Too late. Cam's green gaze fell on her--and she froze. Not because he turned on any of the fake charm that she'd come too close to falling for at Sword & Cross. But because he looked genuinely alarmed to see her. He swerved, moving against the ow of the few nal straggling shermen, and was at her side in an instant.

"What are you doing here?"

Cam looked more than alarmed, Luce decided--he looked almost afraid. His shoulders were bunched up around his neck and his eyes wouldn't settle on anything for longer than a second. He hadn't said a thing about her hair; it almost seemed as if he hadn't noticed it. Luce was certain Cam was not supposed to know that she was out here in California. Keeping her away from guys like him was the whole point of her relocation. Now she'd blown that.

"I'm just--" She eyed the white gravel path behind Cam, cutting through the grass bordering the cli 's edge. "I'm just going for a walk."

"You are not."

"Leave me alone." She tried to push past him. "I have nothing to say to you."

"Which would be ne, since we're not supposed to be talking to one another. But you're not supposed to leave that school."

Suddenly she felt nervous, like he knew something she didn't. "How did you know I'm even going to school here?"

Cam sighed. "I know everything, okay?"

"Then you're here to ght Daniel?"

Cam's green eyes narrowed. "Why would I--Wait, are you saying you're here to see him?"

"Don't sound so shocked. We are together." It was like Cam still hadn't gotten over that she'd picked Daniel instead of him.

Cam scratched his forehead, looking concerned. When he nally spoke, his words were rushed. "Did he send for you? Luce?"

She winced, buckling under the pressure of his gaze. "I got a letter."

"Let me see it."

Now Luce sti ened, examining Cam's peculiar expression to try to understand what he knew. He looked about as uneasy as she felt.

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