We don’t get to find out what Luce found out in her “Daniel Grigori” search, because for some reason we skip the whole rest of the week and go straight to Sunday morning.  (For the record, even with this book existing and tossing up lots of character profile hits, the second link on a google search for that is still the wikipedia entry on Watchers.)

Remembering Daniel’s worried eyes when he whispered her name that day, the near touch of their noses, the way she’d felt his fingertips on her neck—all of it made her feel hot.

If you know what I mean.  

Back on point.  Penn comes to Luce’s room, immediately starts snooping through all of her stuff (including her dresser drawers, wtf?), and then suggests that they stalk/invade the privacy of Daniel, because it’s obvious that Luce has a crush on him and apparently in Penn-land, that’s all the excuse you need.

This girl is suspicious as fuck.  She has no sense of boundaries, she’s invasive to a pathological degree, and she’s using her ill-gotten, snooped knowledge to ingratiate herself to Luce by fitting to her exact needs of the moment, which makes her seem like she’s trying to manipulate Luce into something.  Not to mention the fact that she’s a hypocritical, spiteful little brat.  “Only normal kid at the school” my ass.

don’t get all paranoid. You think I blab to anyone at this school besides you?”

Penn did have a point.

Yes, I do think Penn would blab to anyone and everyone at the school.  She started talking to Luce with literally zero motivation, so why would I assume she’d have higher standards for everyone else?

Her Internet search the other day had only amounted to typing, then deleting, then retyping Daniel’s name into the search field.

…what, for a whole hour?

Did she never hit ‘enter’?

There’s obsessed with boys and then there’s…whatever the fuck this is.

Penn, criminal in training and master destroyer of good reputations, decides that they should break into the confidential records to look up Daniel.  “For fun.”

At the edge of the commons, they passed a few kids lazing around on the bleachers in the clear late-morning sun. It was strange to see color on campus, on these students with whom Luce so closely identified the color black. But there was Roland in a pair of lime-green soccer shorts, dribbling a ball between his feet. And Gabbe in her purple gingham button-down shirt. Jules and Phillip—the tongue-ringed couple—were drawing on the knees of each other’s faded jeans. Todd Hammond sat apart from the rest of the kids on the bleachers, reading a comic book in a camouflage T-shirt.

First, pointing this out because it’s actually an appropriate time to mention everyone’s outfits.  When everyone normally wears black and then suddenly we get to see something different, that’s worth noting.  Second, these other kids seem like perfectly decent people and god I wish we could hang out with them instead of them instead of the Stalker Twins.  Why are they our heroes again?

“What about the reds?” Luce asked, remembering the omnipresent cameras. “I just stuck some dead batteries in a few of them on my way over to your room,” Penn said

WHY DO THESE CAMERAS EVEN EXIST?

When the key turned in the lock, Luce felt an unexpected shiver of excitement. Penn was right—this was way better than mapping out her family tree.

See?  Penn is all about corrupting the other kids.

If this is a “dumping ground” school, my new theory is that parents bring non-violent offenders and generally-acting-out kids here because they don’t know what the reasonable response is, and then here’s Penn, ready to take all their non-violent, non-illegal, only-vaguely-rebellious acts and turn them into outright criminals.  Presumably for shits and giggles.

Now, that theory doesn’t fit with some of what this book says (like all the kids are there by court mandate), but it does fit with others (like the fact that no one is actually burning the place down, despite the clear lack of supervision, and in general they just seem like normal kids with odd fashion sense).  The problem is that this school is not internally consistent, so no matter what we come up with it’s not going to fit perfectly.  The book’s own story doesn’t even fit.  So if nothing is going to fit, I’m just going to go with the one that amuses me the most.

If she were a shadow, this basement was exactly where she’d be.

Much like how the cameras are useless, these shadows don’t seem to serve a point, either.  Luce is supposed to be scared of them, but she’ll freely go into places that could have shadow-monsters in them and not show a trace of hesitation.  Even when they do show up, she easily ignores them.  They don’t change her actions in the slightest.

They find Daniel’s file.

“It’s so thin,” she said, lifting her chin slightly so Luce could take it. “Normally, they’re so much more, um …” She looked up at Luce and bit her lip. “Okay, now I sound like the crazy stalker girl.

Well, if it moves like a duck and quacks like a duck…

Daniel’s file is a single page.  Anyone else getting Hush, Hush flashbacks?  Anyway, his single page says that he’s an orphan from LA and he’s got a string of very minor misdemeanor charges.

Miss Sophia comes in the middle of their snooping to drop off boxes and they have to scatter to avoid being caught.

She wasn’t ready to leave yet. Right around the time she’d resigned herself to checking out Daniel’s file, she’d also started thinking about Cam’s. Daniel was so cryptic—and unfortunately, so was his file. Cam, on the other hand, seemed so open and easy to read that it made her curious.

LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE STARTED, PENN.

Molly is waiting for Luce when she sneaks out the back door, and she once again tells Luce to stay away from Daniel, then brings up what happened the last time Luce got close to a boy: Trevor died.

The one thing Luce wanted—needed—to keep under wraps at Sword & Cross. Now, not only did Evil Incarnate know all about it, she felt no shame bringing it up, cruelly, cavalierly

Evil Incarnate?  Seriously?  Molly is no more than your average high school…well, not even a bully, that takes an imbalance of power and repeated aggression, she’s just a normal high school kid with a short temper and general directionless anger.  And a weird desire to keep Luce and Daniel apart.  But Luce, our heroine who we’re stuck with, has decided that this deserves the title “Evil Incarnate”?

This girl has some seriously low standards for evil, which is amusing given how fast she jumped on the “let’s start stalking people” train.

Gabbe trotted down from the bleachers to meet Molly in the middle of the field. They were far enough away that Luce couldn’t make out their expressions when they both turned back to look at her. The ponytailed blond head craned toward the black pixie cut—the vilest tête-à-tête Luce had ever seen.

Why do you hate everyone, Luce?

Hm.  No.  That’s not quite right.  Molly and Gabbe are obviously in on something to do with Daniel, and Molly has expressed interest in keeping them apart.  Daniel has expressed interest in keeping them apart.  But Molly is a girl, let’s hate her, while Daniel is a cute boy, so let’s be obsessed with him instead.

Then she randomly gets hit in the head with a soccer ball, and Daniel comes over to check on her.  Within seconds, Luce manages to turn it into a conversation about girlfriends, and gets Daniel to say he doesn’t have a girlfriend, not Molly or Gabbe.

Quite randomly, Daniel suggests they go for a walk.  In the woods.  They very dense, secluded woods where no one can see them.

What is it with this book?

Also, note: Daniel knows Luce, and judging by that prologue, knows what will happen if he gets all kissy-times with Luce.  Shadow Monster Face Eating.  Now Luce is back in his life and instead of keeping the fuck away from her, he takes her to a secluded meadow in the woods.  Molly, if we assume she knows the same thing or at least something similar (she did act like she knew what was going on with that murderous statue), has Luce’s interests a lot more to heart than Daniel.

But she’s Evil Incarnate and he’s cute.

Fuck you, book.

There’s a lake in this forest/meadow, and they go swimming.  Why?  Because fuck you, that’s why.

After they get all wet together, Luce brings up the “but I swear I know you” thing again, Daniel brushes it off again, and then he tries to see if the whole “it’s not you, it’s me” line will make her leave him alone.

I think “no, I don’t want to go swimming with you in a secluded, beautiful, romantic meadow” would have worked better, but hey, maybe that’s just me.

Daniel had been so strange to her from the start. Flipping her off one day, before they’d even been introduced, then protecting her from the statue in the cemetery the next.

Right, because it’s totally impossible to flip someone off but also not want them to die.

Actually, that’s a pretty frightening insight into Luce’s morals…

And then they part ways and Luce mopes endlessly because that’s all Luce does.  She can Cally should get together and have a mope fest.