Torment Read Free Page A

Branson, Missouri, that time when her parents dragged her to see Yakov Smirnoff doing standup. And for the first time in days, she even briefly forgot the horrible things she’d seen at Sword & Cross. She was headed toward the only thing in the world that had the power to make her feel better. The only thing that could make her feel that all the anguish she’d been through—all the shadows, that unreal battle in the cemetery, and worst of all, the heartbreak of Penn’s death—might be worth surviving.
    There he was.
    Sitting exactly as she’d imagined he would, on the last in a block of sad gray chairs, next to an automatic sliding door that kept opening and closing behind him. For a second, Luce stood still and just enjoyed the view.
    Daniel was wearing flip-flops and dark jeans she’d never seen before, and a stretched-out red T-shirt that was ripped near the front pocket. He looked the same, yet somehow different. More rested than he had when they’d said goodbye the other day. And was it just that she’d missed him so much, or was his skin even more radiant than she remembered? He looked up and finally saw her. His smile practically gleamed.
    She took off running toward him. Within a second, his arms were around her, her face buried in his chest, and Luce let out the longest, deepest breath. Her mouth found his and they sank into a kiss. She went slack and happy in his arms.
    She hadn’t realized it until now, but a part of her had wondered whether she’d ever see him again, whether the whole thing might have been a dream. The love she felt, the love that Daniel reciprocated, all still felt so surreal.
    Still caught up in his kiss, Luce lightly pinched his bicep. Not a dream. For the first time in she didn’t even know how long, she felt like she was home.
    “You’re here,” he whispered into her ear.
    “ You’re here.”
    “We’re both here.”
    They laughed, still kissing, eating up every bit of the sweet awkwardness at seeing each other again. But when Luce was least expecting it, her laugh turned into a sniffle. She was looking for a way to say how hard the last few days had been for her—without him, without anyone, half asleep and groggily aware that everything had changed—but in Daniel’s arms now, she failed to find the words.
    “I know,” he said. “Let’s get your bag and get out of here.”
    Luce turned toward the baggage carousel and found her neighbor from the plane standing in front of her, the straps of her huge duffel gripped in his hands. “I saw this go by,” he said, a forced smile on his face, like he was hell-bent on proving his good intentions. “It’s yours, isn’t it?”
    Before Luce had time to answer, Daniel relieved the guy of the unwieldy bag, using only one hand. “Thanks, man. I’ll take it from here,” he said, decisively enough to end the conversation.
    The guy watched as Daniel slid his other hand around Luce’s waist and steered her away. This was the first time since Sword & Cross that Luce had been able to see Daniel as the world did, her first chance to wonder whether other people could tell, just by looking, that there was something extraordinary about him.
    Then they were through the sliding glass doors and she took her first real breath of the West Coast. The early-November air felt fresh and brisk and somehow healthy, not soggy and chilled like the Savannah air this afternoon when her plane had taken off. The sky was a brilliant bright blue, no clouds on the horizon. Everything looked new-minted and clean—even the parking lot held row after row of recently washed cars. A line of mountains framed it all, tawny brown with scraggly dots of green trees, one hill rolling into the next.
    She was not in Georgia anymore.
    “I can’t decide whether to be surprised,” Daniel teased. “I let you out from under my wing for two days and another guy swoops in.”
    Luce rolled her eyes. “Come on. We barely spoke. Really, I slept the whole flight.” She