Fallen (30 page)

He hadn’t been in class today. Neither had Daniel, so Luce assumed Mr. Cole had put them both on some sort of probation. Either that or they were nursing their wounds. But Luce had no doubt Cam would be waiting for her today.

She didn’t want to see him. Not at all. Thinking about his fists slamming into Daniel made her stomach lurch. But it was her fault they’d fought in the first place. She’d led Cam on—and whether she’d done it because she’d been confused or flattered or the tiniest bit interested didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was that she be direct with him today: There was nothing between them.

She took a deep breath, tugged her shirt down on her hips, and pushed open the bathroom door.

Approaching the gates, she couldn’t see him. But then, it was hard to see anything beyond the construction zone in the parking lot. Luce hadn’t been back to the school entrance since they’d started the renovations there, and she was surprised at how complicated it was to maneuver across the ripped-up parking lot. She sidestepped potholes and tried to duck under the radar of the construction crew, waving off the asphalt fumes that never seemed to dissipate.

There was no sign of Cam. For a second, she felt foolish, almost like she’d fallen for some kind of prank. The high metal gates were blistered with red rust. Luce looked through them at the dense grove of ancient elm trees across the road. She cracked her knuckles, thinking back to the time when Daniel had told her he hated it when she did that. But he wasn’t here to see her do it; no one was. Then she noticed a folded piece of paper with her name on it. It was staked to the thick, gray-trunked magnolia tree next to the broken call box.

Luce coughed from the fumes. Fresh air was one thing, but a black sedan picking her up from campus? To bring her to him, like he was some sort of monarch who could just arrange on a whim for women to be fetched? Where was he, anyway?

None of this was part of her plan. She’d agreed to meet Cam only to tell him that he was being too forward and she really couldn’t see herself getting involved with him. Because—although she’d never tell him—every time his fist had struck Daniel the night before, something inside her had flinched and started to boil. Clearly, she needed to nip this little thing with Cam in the bud. She had the gold serpent necklace in her pocket. It was time to give it back.

Except now she felt stupid for assuming that Cam just wanted to talk. Of course he’d have something more up his sleeve. He was that kind of guy.

The sound of car wheels slowing made Luce turn her head. A black sedan rolled to a stop in front of the gates. The tinted driver’s-side window rolled down and a hairy hand came out and picked up the receiver from the call box outside the gates. After a moment, the receiver was slammed back into its cradle and the driver just leaned on his horn.

At last, the great groaning metal gates parted and the car pulled forward, stopping in front of her. The doors softly unlocked. Was she really going to get into that car and drive who-knew-where to meet him?

The last time she’d stood at these gates had been to say goodbye to her parents. Missing them before they’d even pulled away, she’d waved from this very spot, next to the broken call box inside the gates—and, she remembered, she’d noticed one of the more high-tech security cameras. The kind with a motion detector, zooming in on her every move. Cam couldn’t have picked a worse spot for the car to pick her up.

All of a sudden, she saw visions of a basement solitary confinement cell. Damp cement walls and cockroaches running up her legs. No real light. The rumors were still spreading through campus about that couple, Jules and Phillip, who hadn’t been seen since they’d sneaked out. Did Cam think Luce wanted to see him so badly she’d risk just walking off campus in plain view of the reds?

The car was still humming on the driveway in front of her. After a moment, the driver—a sunglasses-sporting man with a thick neck and thinning hair—extended his hand. In it was a small white envelope. Luce hesitated a second before stepping forward to take it from his fingers.

Cam’s stationery. A heavy, creamy ivory card with his name letterpressed in decadent gold at the bottom left-hand corner.

Duct? Did he mean—? She dared a glance at the red. He did. A sharply cut black circle of duct tape had been placed cleanly over the lens of the camera. Luce didn’t know how these things worked or how long it would take the faculty to find out, but in a weird way, she was relieved that Cam had thought to take care of it. She couldn’t imagine Daniel thinking so far ahead.

Both Callie and her parents were expecting phone calls this evening. Luce had read Callie’s ten-page letter three times, and she had all the funny details memorized from her friend’s weekend trips to Nantucket, but she still wouldn’t have known how to answer any of Callie’s questions about her life at Sword & Cross. If she turned around and went inside to pick up the phone, she didn’t know how she’d begin to catch Callie or her parents up on the strange, dark twist the past few days had taken. Easier not to tell them at all, or not until she’d wrapped things up one way or another.

She slid into the sedan’s plush beige leather backseat and buckled up. The driver put the car in gear without a word.

“Where are we going?” she asked him.

“Little backwater place down the river. Mr. Briel likes the local color. Just sit back and relax, honey. You’ll see.”

Mr. Briel?
Who was this guy? Luce never liked being told to relax, especially when it felt like a warning not to
ask any more questions. Nonetheless, she crossed her arms over her chest, looked out the window, and tried to forget the driver’s tone when he called her “honey.”

Through the tinted windows, the trees outside and the gray paved road beneath them all looked brown. At the turning whose westward fork led to Thunderbolt, the black sedan turned east. They were following the river toward the shore. Every now and then, when their path and the river’s converged, Luce could see the brackish brown water twisting beside them. Twenty minutes later, the car slowed to a stop in front of a beat-up riverside bar.

It was made of gray, rotting wood, and a swollen, water logged sign over the front door read STYX in jagged red hand-painted letters. A strand of plastic pennants advertising beer had been stapled to the wood beam underneath the tin roof, a mediocre attempt at festivity. Luce studied the images silk-screened onto the plastic triangles—palm trees and tanned, bikini-clad girls with beer bottles at their grinning lips—and wondered when the last time had been when a real live girl had actually set foot in this place.

Two older punk rock guys sat smoking on a bench facing the water. Tired Mohawks drooped over their middle-aged foreheads, and their leather jackets had the ugly, dirty look of something they’d been wearing since punk was new. The blank expressions on their tan, slack faces made the whole scene feel even more desolate.

The swamp edging the two-lane highway had begun to overwhelm the asphalt, and the road just sort of petered out into swamp grass and mud. Luce had never been out this far in the river marshes.

As she sat, unsure what she’d do once she left the car, or whether that was even a good idea, the front door of Styx banged open and Cam sauntered out. He leaned coolly against the screen door, one leg crossed over the other. She knew he couldn’t see her through the tinted window of the car, but he raised his hand like he could and beckoned her toward him.

“Here goes nothing,” Luce muttered before thanking the driver. She opened the door and was greeted by a blast of salty wind as she climbed the three steps to the bar’s wooden porch.

Cam’s shaggy hair was loose around his face and he had a calm look in his green eyes. One sleeve of his black T-shirt was pushed up over his shoulder, and Luce could see the smooth cut of his bicep. She fingered the gold chain in her pocket.
Remember why you’re here
.

Cam’s face showed no sign of the fight the night before, which made her wonder, immediately, whether Daniel’s did.

Cam gave her an inquisitive look, running his tongue along his bottom lip. “I was just calculating how many consolation drinks I’d need if you stood me up today,” he said, opening his arms for a hug. Luce stepped into
them. Cam was a very hard person to say no to, even when she wasn’t totally sure what he was asking.

“I wouldn’t stand you up,” she said, then immediately felt guilty, knowing that her words came from a sense of duty, not the romance Cam would have preferred. She was there only because she was going to tell him she didn’t want to be involved with him. “So what is this place? And since when do you have a car service?”

“Stick with me, kid,” he said, seeming to take her questions as compliments, as if she liked being whisked off to bars that smelled like the inside of a sink drain.

She was so bad at this kind of thing. Callie always said Luce was incapable of brutal honesty and that was why she got herself stuck in so many crappy situations with guys whom she should have just told no. Luce was trembling. She had to get this off her chest. She fished in her pocket and pulled out the pendant. “Cam.”

“Oh good, you brought it.” He took the necklace from her hands and spun her around. “Let me help you put it on.”

“No, wait—”

“There,” he said. “It really suits you. Take a look.” He steered her along the creaking wooden floorboards to the window of the bar, where a number of bands had posted signs for shows.
THE OLD BABIES. DRIPPING WITH HATE. HOUSE CRACKERS
. Luce would rather have studied any of them than gaze at her reflection. “See?”

She couldn’t really make out her features in the mud-flecked windowpane, but the gold pendant gleamed on her warm skin. She pressed her hand to it. It
was
lovely. And so distinctive, with its tiny hand-sculpted serpent snaking up the middle. It wasn’t like anything you’d see at the boardwalk markets, where locals peddled overpriced crafts for tourists, state of Georgia souvenirs made in the Philippines. Behind her reflection in the window, the sky was a rich orange-Popsicle color, broken up by thin lines of pink cloud.

“About last night …,” Cam started to say. She could vaguely see his rosy lips moving in the glass over her shoulder.

“I wanted to talk to you about last night, too,” Luce said, standing at his side. She could see the very tips of the sunburst tattoo on the back of his neck.

“Come inside,” he said, guiding her back to the half-unhinged screen door. “We can talk in there.”

The interior of the bar was wood-paneled, with a few dim orange lamps providing the only light. All sizes and shapes of antlers were mounted on the wall, and a taxidermied cheetah was poised over the bar, looking ready to lunge at any moment. A faded composite picture with the words
PULASKI COUNTY MOOSE CLUB OFFICERS
1964-65 was the only other decoration on the wall, showcasing a hundred oval faces, smiling modestly above pastel bow ties. The jukebox was playing Ziggy Stardust, and an
older guy with a shaved head and leather pants was humming, dancing alone in the middle of a small raised stage. Besides Luce and Cam, he was the only other person in the place.

Cam pointed to two stools. The worn green leather cushions had split down the middle, the beige foam bursting out like massive pieces of popcorn. There was already a half-empty glass at the seat Cam claimed. The drink in it was light brown and watered down with ice, beaded with sweat.

“What’s that?” Luce asked.

“Georgia moonshine,” he said, taking a gulp. “I don’t recommend it to start.” When she squinted at him, he said, “I’ve been here all day.”

“Charming,” Luce said, fingering the gold necklace. “What are you, seventy? Sitting in a bar by yourself all day?”

He didn’t seem obviously drunk, but she didn’t like the idea of coming all the way out here to break things off with him, only to have him be too trashed to understand it. She was also starting to wonder how she’d get back to school. She didn’t even know where this place was.

“Ouch.” Cam rubbed his heart. “The beauty of being suspended from class, Luce, is that no one
misses
you during class. I thought I deserved a little recovery time.” He cocked his head. “What’s really bothering you? Is it
this place? Or the fight last night? Or the fact that we’re getting
no service?”
He raised his voice to shout the last words, loud enough to cause a huge, burly bartender to swing in from the kitchen door behind the bar. The barman had long, layered hair with bangs, and tattoos that looked like braided human hair running up and down his arms. He was all muscle and must have weighed three hundred pounds.

Cam turned to her and smiled. “What’s your poison?”

“I don’t care,” Luce said. “I don’t really have my own poison.”

“You were drinking champagne at my party,” Cam said. “See who’s paying attention?” He nudged her with his shoulder. “Your finest champagne over here,” he told the bartender, who threw back his head and let out a snide hacking laugh.

Making no attempt to card her or even to glance at her long enough to guess at her age, the bartender bent down to a small refrigerator with a sliding glass door. The bottles clinked as he dug and dug. After what seemed like a long time, he reemerged with a tiny bottle of Freixenet. It looked like it had something orange growing around its base.

“I accept no responsibility for this,” he said, handing it over.

Cam popped the cork and raised his eyebrows at
Luce. He poured the Freixenet ceremoniously into a wineglass.

“I wanted to apologize,” he said. “I know I’ve been coming on a little strong. And last night, what happened with Daniel, I don’t feel good about that.” He waited for Luce to nod before he went on. “Instead of getting mad, I should have just listened to you. You’re the one I care about, not him.”