The Light and Fallen (8 page)

"We do. But in my experience, you should
follow what you're drawn to. I know you don't wanna hear it because
it runs against everything that seems logical to you, but it's time
to surrender. You're never gonna find your way if you can't be
guided."

"You don't understand," Lucian exploded.
"You're not the one with the responsibility for the future on your
shoulders!"

"You're right," Duncan said, his voice as
mellow as ever. "I'm not. But that doesn't make what I'm saying any
less true."

He picked up the plate of pancakes and set
them down on the table. "Breakfast?"

"No thanks." Lucian dropped his coffee cup in
the sink and stalked past Sofia and Duncan to the front door. "I
think I'll just go." He grabbed his bag from beside the door and
walked out, slamming the door behind him as hard as he could.

Another week passed before Lucian made a
decision. Duncan and Sofia hadn't said another word about Samara,
although he had apologized to them both for losing his temper. When
he passed her in the hallway at school or saw her getting out of
her car in the parking lot he considered Sofia's advice to stop
avoiding her, but he was torn. Part of him, the part that dreamed
about her every night, longed to go to her, but he was afraid of
what consequences might follow.

Finally, his English IV teacher forced him to
choose. "Now students," Ms. Bellise chirped in her nasal voice, "it
is time to explore the world of poetry.

"Yes!" she continued enthusiastically over
the groans of some of the more vocal students. She clasped her
hands to her chest and waved one arm in the air erratically. "Words
that excite, incite, and elevate!"

She grabbed a stack of papers off her desk
and swirled around the room, tossing them onto desks haphazardly.
"We will be working together in class to interpret some of these
marvelous compositions, but more importantly you will delve into
the depths of your very essence for our next assignment." She
gripped the papers in front of her and lowered her voice
dramatically. "Go out, young scholars, and find the poem that is a
mirror to your soul."

The lunch bell interrupted her speech, and
suddenly Ms. Bellise was all business. "Assignment is due at
midterm. Prepare a presentation and a written explanation and read
page 178 in your text for discussion tomorrow. Good day." She swept
out the door and left the class picking up assignment sheets that
had fallen onto the floor.

Lucian hadn't been back to the library since
the first day of school. He never saw Samara in the cafeteria, and
he assumed that she spent her lunch breaks there. He had stayed out
of library as a precaution against running into her, but now he had
an excuse to go.

He sat in his desk as the classroom emptied
and felt his heart racing. He thought about not going, he could use
the public library in East Wimberley instead, but really the
decision was already made. His brain overflowed with thoughts of
Samara; he couldn't move forward until he faced that fact head on.
Talking to her, finding her again, was inevitable.

Samara was sitting at the same table as
before when Lucian appeared in front of her. "Hi," he
whispered.

She looked up in surprise. "Hi!"

Lucian didn't answer. He just stood in front
of the table and stared down at her. He was wearing a dark green
sweater that stretched over his broad shoulders, and he shoved one
hand nervously through his dark hair. He reached for the chair in
front of him and pulled it out without moving his eyes from her
face. "Hi," he whispered again.

His eyes burned with a radiant intensity that
sent shivers down her spine, and her stomach started a slow swoop
into her toes. He slid into the chair, but he never took his eyes
off her face. Her breath caught in her throat as she tried to pull
air into her lungs; she felt like she was drowning. Everything
around her was narrowing down, disappearing, as she lost herself in
his eyes.

Finally she tore her gaze away and realized
that her fingertips were trembling. She slid her hands into her
lap, astounded at the effect that one simple word from his lips
could have on her. She kept her eyes down and took deep breaths,
trying to recover some sense of composure.

"Have you been avoiding me?" she asked. The
words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them, but to her
surprise, Lucian didn't deny it.

"Yes," he admitted. He rubbed his forehead
with his hand and sighed. "I've been trying, but it's been so
difficult."

"Why?"

"I don't know!" he exclaimed. "When I'm
around you I say things and do things that I don't understand. You
can't imagine how hard it's been to see you, but not allow myself
to talk to you."

Samara felt the trembling spread from her
fingertips through her whole body, and she tried to keep her voice
steady. "What changed?"

She heard a sharp intake of breath and could
see his knuckles turning white as he pressed his fingertips into
the edge of the table. "I ran out of reasons to stay away."

His words dropped into the still air between
them and Samara felt like she was being pulled irresistibly into
his orbit, a satellite affected by a greater force of gravity.

Lucian shook his head. "This is what I mean."
He gestured toward Samara. "Why am I saying these things to you?
Even I know this isn't normal!"

He shoved his chair away from the table. "I'm
sorry. I should just go."

Disappointment slammed into her as he pulled
away. She couldn't stand the idea that it might be months, if ever,
before he spoke to her again. "No!" she cried. She knew she was
throwing her dignity at his feet, but she didn't care. The thought
of him slipping away from her was far worse.

He hesitated and she reached across the table
and lay her hand on his arm. She could feel the tension in his
muscles as his body struggled against conflicting urges to stay and
to go. "Please," she said, "stay."

Her mind churned furiously, trying to produce
a reason more compelling than the fact that she craved his
presence. "I need your help." With her free hand she grabbed the
paper in front of her and slid it across the table.

Lucian's arm was on fire. Heat coursed up
through his elbow and into his shoulder. The skin directly beneath
Samara's hand felt like it was scorching, but he couldn't tear
himself away from her touch. Her lips were moving, but her words
were drowned out by the sound of blood rushing through his
body.

He squinted and tried to force himself to
focus on the paper in front of him, but he felt like he was seeing
everything through a shimmering haze of heat. The page was filled
with delicate, spidery cursive, punctuated by a large red D that
filled the top right hand corner. Samara's voice forced its way
into his brain, overriding the prevailing sensation of her touch.
"See!" she said.

Lucian could tell he was looking at a test,
but he was having trouble processing any information beyond that
fact. He concentrated on the words at the top of the page and tried
to deduce what Samara was showing him.

"Why Quantum?" he read in bewilderment.

Samara nodded. "I'm in Advanced Physics third
hour." She pointed to the grade on her paper and made a face. "I
thought I understood the material, but clearly I was wrong. Mr.
Higgs said we're going to be covering Quantum Mechanics for the
next two terms, so if I can't figure it out, I don't think I'll
pass the class."

Lucian was still confused. Her words were
swirling around in his head, and he knew he was missing the
critically important point. He gave up trying to comprehend and
stared at Samara blankly.

"I need a tutor," she clarified.

Lucian felt his temperature rise a few
degrees as he understood what Samara was offering him. She was
giving him a reason to stay. The logical part of him, the Dominion,
was telling him to walk away and not look back, but that small
voice was being drowned out by his newer, human side, by the part
of him that was dizzy with the desire to be near her.

Jack leaned against the library shelves and
pressed the back of his head against a row of books. He could see a
few girls hovering at the end of the row in his peripheral vision,
and he thought he recognized them from a party. He couldn't keep
from rolling his eyes as he saw them whispering together. That was
the problem with human girls. They were so clingy. Once they got a
scrap of attention, he couldn't shake them off.

He ignored the girls and continued
eavesdropping on the couple behind him. Samara's soft voice lilted
in a question, followed by Lucian's deeper reply. He turned his
head slightly to right and was able to see over the tops of the
books behind him to the corner table.

There they were, together. Their heads were
almost touching as they leaned over a textbook in the center of the
table. Lucian ran his finger over a diagram in the book as he
explained it to Samara. He spun the book around to face her, then
circled the table and sat next to her so that they were shoulder to
shoulder. Samara nudged Lucian's shoulder with her own and
laughed.

It was quite an interesting development, Jack
mused. He was supposed to be following Lucian, he wanted to learn
more about Samara, and here they both were, together. It was like
getting two gifts wrapped up into one neat little package.
Why
, he wondered,
would a Dominion even act this way
?
It wasn't like the Light to deviate from their missions, and unlike
him, Lucian didn't have to stay on Earth once his work was
done.

Samara was pretty, Jack conceded, in an
ordinary sort of way. There was nothing overtly outstanding about
her, but she did have a certain radiance that drew his attention.
He had to admit that after seeing her with Lucian, he was finding
her more and more attractive.

To Samara the next few weeks felt like a
dream. Every morning she rushed out of her third period class at
the sound of the lunch bell and raced to the library, always
half-doubting that Lucian would appear. Her pulse raced as she took
out her notebooks and pencils, and she tried to act nonchalant,
pretending the fate of her whole day wasn't resting on the few
moments between the time she arrived and the moment he turned the
corner.

The first glimpse of him always took her
breath away, and today was no exception. Lucian was wearing the
most ordinary clothes possible, a solid colored t-shirt and jeans,
but his casual clothes couldn't disguise the fact that he was the
most ravishing person she had ever seen. With, she conceded, the
exception of Jack. It was curious that the two of them, both so
extraordinary, had appeared at West Wimberley at the same time.

He slid into the empty seat beside her. She
could feel his body next to hers, closer than a breath, and turned
to smile in greeting. "Hi again," he said. He smiled down at her
and trailed a finger across the back of her hand as he slid her
textbook across the table.

She placed one hand on the cover of the book
and held it shut. "I have a question for you."

"Okay." He raised his eyebrows and waited
expectantly.

"Are you and Jack related?"

Lucian wrinkled his forehead. "Why do you
ask?"

"I've just heard a few of the girls say it. I
assumed it was a rumor, but you do resemble one another, in a way.
You don't exactly look the same, but you both stand out. You both
moved here and started school at the same time."

He hesitated for a moment before he answered.
"I guess you could say we're like stepbrothers."

"Then why don't I ever see you together?" she
pressed. "I've never even seen you talk to one another."

Lucian placed his hand flat on the table and
rolled one of the pencils underneath his palm. "We don't really get
along. We look at the world differently."

He gave Samara a disarming look. "Haven't you
been able to figure that out from listening to the girls?"

She nodded. "I hear he gets around more."

Lucian gave her a mischievous smile. "What do
the girls say about me?"

"Well," Samara giggled, "Carin thinks you
look like a sexy woodsman.

"They don't understand why you don't talk to
many people, or why you haven't gone out with anyone. This week,
they're talking about how they keep seeing you with me."

"What do you tell them?"

"I tell them the truth! I'm hopeless at
Physics."

"Speaking of hopeless," he said, "I have my
own assignment."

"You?" Samara teased. "I was starting to
think you knew everything."

Lucian melted her with a piercing look.
"You're wrong," he said. "Every minute I spend with you shows me
how much I still have to learn."

He leaned over and pulled out the assignment
page from Ms. Bellise. "I have to find a poem that captures my
essence. I don't even know what that means."

"Well," Samara mused, "I think your essence
is the most basic element of you. What gives order to your
heart."

Lucian frowned. "What if I'm not sure about
that right now?"

She shrugged. "I think you have lots of
company. To see yourself as you really are is a difficult
thing."

"Hmm…." He rested his hand against his chin
and studied Samara's face. "How do you suggest I go about figuring
that out?"

"Just pull some books and start reading.
Maybe something will speak to you."

She grabbed the Physics book from in front of
Lucian and flipped it open to Chapter 4. "Go," she urged. "I'll be
fine without you. I've been selfish taking all of your time for
myself." She tipped the book up and held it in front of her
face.