was too much for Luce, and this couple had about seventy years on her.
By then she was pressed against their living room window, crouching behind a spiny sagebrush cactus bush. Her ngers were dirty from gripping the windowsill. If their daughter had died when she was seventeen, they must have been mourning her for close to fty years. They'd be at peace with it by now. Wouldn't they? Luce popping up uninvited from behind a cactus plant would be the very last thing they needed.
Shelby would be disappointed. Luce herself was disappointed. It hurt to realize that this was as close as she was ever going to get to them. Hanging on the windowsill outside her former parents' house, she felt the tears roll down her cheeks. She didn't even know their names.
Chapter Eight
ELEVEN DAYS
I'm sorry I've been out of touch. Things at school have been busy, but I'm having a lot of good experiences. My favorite class these days is humanities. Right now I'm working on
an extra-credit assignment that takes up a lot of my time. I miss you guys and hope to see you soon. Thanks for being such great parents. I don't think I tell you that enough.
Love,
Luce
Luce clicked Send on her laptop and quickly switched her browser back to the online presentation Francesca was giving at the front of the room. Luce was still getting used to being at a school where they handed out computers, complete with wireless Internet, right in the middle of class. Sword & Cross had a total of seven student computers, all of which were in the library. Even if you managed to get your hands on the encrypted password to access the Web, every site was blocked except for a few dry academic research ones.
The email to her parents had been prompted by guilt. The night before, she'd had the strangest feeling that merely by driving out to the retirement community in Mount Shasta, she was cheating on her real parents, the ones who had raised her in this lifetime. Sure, at some point, these other parents had been real, too. But that was still too strange a thought for Luce to really absorb.
Shelby hadn't been one-tenth as pissed o as she could have been about driving Luce all the way up there for no reason. Instead, she just red up the Mercedes and drove to the nearest In-N-Out Burger so they could get a couple of o -the-menu grilled cheese sandwiches with special sauce.
"Do not give it a second thought," Shelby said, wiping her mouth with a napkin. "Do you know how many panic attacks my screwed-up family's given me? Believe me, I'm the last person who's going to judge you about this."
Now Luce looked across the classroom at Shelby and felt an intense gratitude for the girl who, a week before, had terri ed her. Shelby's thick blond hair was pulled back by a terry-cloth headband, and she was taking diligent notes on Francesca's lecture.
Every screen Luce could see in her peripheral vision was xed on the blue and gold PowerPoint presentation that Francesca was clicking through at a snail's pace. Even Dawn's. She looked especially spunky today in a hot-pink T-shirt dress and a high side ponytail. Was it possible she'd already recovered from what had happened on the boat? Or was she covering up the terror she must have felt--and maybe still felt?
Glancing over at Roland's monitor, Luce scrunched up her face. It didn't surprise her that he'd been mostly invisible since he arrived at Shoreline, but when he did turn up in class, she was actually upset to see her former reform school cohort following the rules.
At least Roland didn't look especially interested in the lecture on "Career Opportunities for Nephilim: How Your Special Skills Can Give You a Wing Up." In fact, the look on Roland's face was more disappointed than anything else. His mouth was set in a frown and he kept lightly shaking his head. Also strange was the fact that every time Francesca made eye contact with the students, she distinctly passed over Roland.
Luce pulled up the class chat room board to see whether Roland was logged on. It was supposed to be a tool for the class to bounce questions o each other, but the questions Luce had for Roland were not for class discussion. He knew something, something more than he'd let on the other day