Lauren Kate: Torment

Luce had met some of the other non-gifted kids yesterday. After lunch, classes were held in the main building, a much less architecturally impressive structure where more traditional subjects were taught. Biology, geometry, European history. Some of those students seemed nice, but Luce felt an unspoken distance—all because she was on the gifted track—that thwarted the possibility of a conversation.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve gotten to be friends with some of those guys.” Miles pointed to a crowded table. “I’d pick Connor or Eddie G. for a game of touch football any day over any of the Nephilim. But seriously, do you think anyone over there could have handled what you did, and lived to tell about it?”

Luce rubbed her neck and felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes. Miss Sophia’s dagger was still fresh in her mind, and she could never think about that night without her heart aching over Penn. Her death had been so senseless. None of it was fair. “I barely lived,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” Miles said, wincing. “That part I heard about. It’s weird: Francesca and Steven are big on teaching us about the present and the future, but not really the past. Something to do with empowering us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ask me anything about the great battle that’s coming, and the role a strapping young Nephilim like myself might play in it. But the early stuff you were talking about? None of the lessons here ever really go into that. Speaking of which”—Miles pointed at the terrace, which was emptying out—“we should go. You want to do this again sometime?”

“Definitely.” And Luce meant it; she liked Miles. He was much easier to talk to than anyone else she’d met so far. He was friendly and had the kind of sense of humor that put Luce instantly at ease. But she was distracted by something he’d said. The battle that was coming. Daniel and Cam’s battle. Or a battle with Miss Sophia’s group of Elders? If even the Nephilim were preparing for it, where did that leave Luce?

Steven and Francesca had a way of dressing in complementary colors that made them look better outfitted for a photo shoot than a lecture. On Luce’s second day at Shoreline, Francesca was wearing three-inch golden gladiator heels and a mod pumpkin-colored A-line dress. It had a loose bow around her neck and matched, almost exactly, the orange tie that Steven wore with his ivory oxford shirt and navy blazer.

They were stunning to look at, and Luce was drawn to them, but not exactly in the couples-crush way Dawn had predicted the day before. Watching her teachers from her desk between Miles and Jasmine, Luce felt drawn to Francesca and Steven for reasons closer to her heart: They reminded her of her relationship with Daniel.

Though she’d never seen them actually touch, when they stood close together—which was almost always—the magnetism between them practically warped the walls. Of course that had something to do with their powers as fallen angels, but it must also have had to do with the unique way they connected. Luce couldn’t help resenting them. They were constant reminders of what she couldn’t have right now.

Most of the students had taken their seats. Dawn and Jasmine were going on to Luce about joining the steering committee so she could help them plan all these amazing social events. Luce had never been a big extracurricular girl. But these girls had been so nice to her, and Jasmine’s face looked so bright when she talked about a yacht trip they were planning later that week that Luce decided to give the committee a chance. She was adding her name to the roster when Steven stepped forward, tossed his blazer on the table behind him, and wordlessly spread his arms out at his sides.

As if summoned, a shard of deep black shadow seemed to part from the shadows of one of the redwoods right outside the window. It peeled itself off the grass, then took substance and whipped into the room through the open window. It was quick, and where it went the day blackened and the room fell into darkness.

Luce gasped out of habit, but she wasn’t the only one. In fact, most of the students inched back nervously in their desks as Steven begin to twirl the shadow. He just reached his hands in and began wrenching faster and faster, seeming to wrestle with something. Soon the shadow was spinning around in front of him so quickly it went blurry, like the spokes of a turning wheel. A thick gust of mildewy wind was emitted from its core, blowing Luce’s hair back from her face.

Steven manipulated the shadow, arms straining, from a messy, amorphous shape into a tight, black sphere, no bigger than a grapefruit.

“Class,” he said, coolly bouncing the levitating ball of blackness a few inches above his fingers, “meet the subject of today’s lesson.”

Francesca stepped forward and transferred the shadow to her hands. In her heels, she was nearly as tall as Steven. And, Luce imagined, she was just as skilled at dealing with the shadows.

“You’ve all seen the Announcers at some point,” she said, walking slowly along the half-moon of student desks so they could each get a better look. “And some of you,” she said, eyeing Luce, “even have some experience working with them. But do you really know what they are? Do you know what they can do?”

Gossips , Luce thought, remembering what Daniel had told her the night of the battle. She was still too new to Shoreline to feel comfortable calling out the answer, but none of the other students seemed to know. Slowly she raised her hand.

Francesca cocked her head. “Luce.”

“They carry messages,” she said, growing surer as she spoke, thinking back to Daniel’s assurance. “But they’re harmless.”

“Messengers, yes. But harmless?” Francesca glanced at Steven. Her tone betrayed nothing about whether Luce was right or wrong, which made Luce feel embarrassed.

The entire class was surprised when Francesca stepped back alongside Steven, took hold of one side of the shadow’s border while he gripped the other, and gave it a firm tug. “We call this glimpsing,” she said.

The shadow bulged and stretched out like a balloon being blown up. It made a thick glugging sound as its blackness distorted, showing colors more vivid than anything Luce had seen before. Deep chartreuse, glittering gold, marbleized swaths of pink and purple. A whole swirling world of color glowing brighter and more distinct behind a disappearing mesh of shadow. Steven and Francesca were still tugging, stepping backward slowly until the shadow was about the size and shape of a large projector screen. Then they stopped.

They gave no warning, no “What you are about to see,” and after a horrified moment, Luce knew why. There could be no preparation for this.

The tangle of colors separated, settled finally into a canvas of distinct shapes. They were looking at a city. An ancient stone-walled city … on fire. Overcrowded and polluted, consumed by angry flames. People cornered by the flames, their mouths dark emptinesses, raising their arms to the skies. And everywhere a shower of bright sparks and burning bits of fire, a rain of deadly light landing everywhere and igniting everything it touched.

Luce could practically smell the rot and doom coming through the shadow screen. It was horrific to look at, but the strangest part, by far, was that there wasn’t any sound. Other students around her were ducking their heads, as if they were trying to block out some wail, some screaming that to Luce was indistinguishable. There was nothing but clean silence as they watched more and more people die.

When she wasn’t sure her stomach could take much more, the focus of the image shifted, sort of zoomed out, and Luce could see it from a distance. Not one but two cities were burning. A strange idea came to her, softly, like a memory she’d always had but hadn’t thought of in a while. She knew what they were looking at: Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities in the Bible, two cities destroyed by God.