Read Online Torment by Lauren Kate - Free Book Online Page A

and slightly lopsided smile felt like an open door, an invitation to talk about some of the things she hadn’t been able to tell anyone yet. As much as it sucked, Luce understood why Daniel and Mr. Cole had forbidden her to reach out to Callie or her parents. But Daniel and Mr. Cole were the ones who had enrolled her at Shoreline. They were the ones who’d said she’d be okay here. So she couldn’t see any reason to keep her story a secret from someone like Miles. Especially since he already knew some version of the truth.
    “It’s a long story,” she said. “Literally. And I still don’t know all of it. But basically, Daniel is an important angel. I guess he was kind of a big deal before the Fall.” She swallowed, not wanting to meet Miles’s eyes. She felt nervous. “At least, he was until he fell in love with me.”
    It all began to pour out of her. Everything from her first day at Sword & Cross, to how Arriane and Gabbe took care of her, to how Molly and Cam taunted her, to the gut-wrenching feeling of seeing a photograph of herself in a former life. Penn’s death and how it devastated her. The surreal battle in the cemetery. Luce left out some of the Daniel details, private moments they’d shared together … but by the time she finished, she thought she’d given Miles a pretty complete picture of what had happened—and hopefully dispelled the myth of her intrigue for at least one person.
    At the end, she felt lighter. “Wow. I’ve never actually told this stuff to anyone. Feels really good to say it aloud. Like it’s more real now that I’ve admitted it to someone else.”
    “You can keep going if you want to,” he said.
    “I know I’m only here for a short time,” she said. “And in a way, I think Shoreline will help me to get used to people—I mean angels like Daniel. And Nephilim like you. But I still can’t help feeling out of place. Like I’m posing as something I’m not.”
    Miles had been nodding and agreeing with Luce the whole time she told her story, but now he shook his head. “No way—the fact that you’re mortal makes the whole thing even more impressive.”
    Luce glanced around the terrace. For the first time, she noticed a clear line dividing the tables of the Nephilim kids from the rest of the student body. The Nephilim claimed all the tables on the west side, closest to the water. There were fewer of them, no more than twenty, but they took up a lot more tables, sometimes with just one kid at a table that could have seated six, while the rest of the kids had to cram into the remaining east-side tables. Take Shelby, for example, who sat alone, battling the fierce wind over the paper she was trying to read. There was a lot of musical chairs, but not one of the non-Nephilim seemed to consider crossing over to sit with the “gifted” kids.
    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