Of Starlight (15 page)

My sanity dangled over a precipice, and he was the only thing keeping me up. I could already feel myself slipping. At the same time, every second I spent with him twisted the knife a little deeper.

I killed his sister.

I still hadn’t told him.

I couldn’t tell him.

Emory pulled onto a dirt road, and the car bounced over potholes, the tires crunched on dirt and pebbles. He veered into the chaparral, and dry stalks blazed in his headlights before his bumper whacked them to the side. A cliff loomed ahead, and all at once the chaparral fell away, replaced by a panoramic view of the city lights.

His car pulled right up to the edge—and for a moment, I thought we would pitch over—before he shut off the engine. “It’s just a place we can talk,” he said, opening his door.

I climbed out too and stood next to him at the cliff edge, but the city’s beauty was lost on me. It might have dazzled another girl living another life, but not me. Not right now. The tall grass rustled nearby, and a dusty breeze lifted my hair and set me shivering.

“Can we get back in the car?” I said. “I can’t look at this right now.”

“Then close your eyes,” he said.

“It’s cold.”

“No, it’s not.”

“And I’m scared.”

“Of what? Field mice?”

I bristled at his comment. “I’m cold,” I said.

“Fine. Come on.” He put his hand on my lower back and guided me into the backseat of his convertible, then slid in after me, pulling the door shut behind him. As I shifted on the rear bench seat, my bare thighs stuck to the cold, cracked leather. His legs pressed against mine, and all at once, he was way too close, with nothing separating us. My heart gave a nervous thump, as if I’d never been with a boy before. But I didn’t pull away. Suddenly, all I wanted was to be close to him. Nothing else mattered.

I bit my lip and pushed back against him, letting my thigh slide against his. I felt his arm fall around my shoulders, and he kissed the top of my head, his lips brushing my scalp and lingering on my hair, drawing a shiver of pleasure down my spine. The heated spice of his cologne made me tipsy, and I looked up at him, breathing him in.

Lit up by the city lights, his hair glowed around him like a halo. I touched his jaw, mesmerized, and trailed my fingers along its length as I pulled him into a kiss. The smoky, minty taste of his mouth enveloped me like a drug, his lips demanding my single-minded focus. Bit by bit, everything else fell away. Before I knew it, he had scooped my legs up by the knees and pulled them over his lap, leaning into me to deepen the kiss. My fist tightened instinctively around his shirt, dragging him closer.

I ignored the tiny nagging at the back of my mind that said this was wrong. Right now, I didn’t care.

He pulled away from me before I was ready, leaving my lips feeling lonely and cold as a sharp ache spread through my chest. I clung to his shirt, afraid to let go.

He pushed his hand through his hair, his gaze tortured. “This . . . this feels irresponsible.”

“Why?” I breathed, hating the desperation in my voice.

“Because I need to know you’re okay. I need to know I’m not making this worse for you. But I am. I know I am.”

“Nuh-uh,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re not allowed to feel guilty. You’re perfect.”

He chuckled darkly. “Then you don’t know me.”

“Oh, really? Do you have a dark secret, Emory?” I teased. “Did you cheat on a spelling test in third grade? Did you accidentally step on a spider once when you were twelve? Please, you’re like the most pure, worthy person I know. I doubt you could hurt a fly without feeling remorse.”

His eyes flashed to mine. “What’s your dark secret, Leona?”

The question caught me off guard, and a shameful heat bloomed in my cheeks. I averted my eyes before he saw it, both needing and hating the reassurance of his arm around my back.

“Leona . . .” he said gently.

“You can have me,” I murmured. “All of me.”

I felt him peering down at me. “Be careful what you offer,” he said. “Because I will take it.”

I nodded, my throat dry. Too late for that.

Peeking at him, I glimpsed only concern in his gaze, zero judgment. Curled up in his arms, I felt safe for the first time. Maybe he would
forgive me, after all. As he watched me, I kissed him again, shyly, just a peck on the lips. When he kissed me back—hesitantly at first, but then harder—an electric giddiness unfurled in my stomach, leaving my heart racing. I broke off and rested my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, craving everything about him. Then it just bubbled out.

“I love you,” I whispered.

The confession jolted my heart, and I clamped my mouth shut as my nerves became hyperalert to every uncomfortable shift of his body beneath mine.

“Yeah . . . that’s what I was afraid of,” he said.

My body tensed up, and I squeezed my eyes shut, mortified. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes, you did,” he said.

Chapter 14

My eyelids peeled
open, unsticking painfully to reveal the alien landscape around me. From horizon to horizon, purple and bronze mountains jutted out of a sea of pink mist.

Dawn.

I tried to sit up, only to find an arm slung around my waist, pinning me down. I became aware of the sweaty heat all up and down my backside, and panic nipped at my mind. Emory. We’d fallen asleep spooning in the backseat of his car. I heaved the arm off me and shimmied away from him. He didn’t stir.

The bluish dawn gleamed off his jutting cheekbones and tinted his hair silver, casting him in an otherworldly shine, like an angel. He was so gorgeous it hurt, and my heart gave a funny quiver. Last night, I’d told him I loved him.

I bit my fingernails. Did I love him? Was that my ultimate punishment? To fall in love with him, so my guilt for his sister’s death could torture me forever? I deserved it.

I deserved this heartache.

And I deserved to be the prey of the monster inhabiting her body.

I deserved all of this.

Leaning over him, I kissed him on the cheek. Most likely it would be the last time I kissed him, but I didn’t linger. I’d already made up my mind. Quietly as I could, I unlatched the door and stepped out onto the cold dirt, still barefoot. The chilly morning air filled my lungs, heightened my senses. Despite last night, a calm washed over me. I didn’t deserve to feel stronger because of him, but I did. Last night I’d been a mess. Today I was ready.

I could beat her.

But this time would be different. This time, I would go to jail for killing Ashley Lacroix. Gladly.

I started back toward the road, driven by the all-consuming need to do my duty.

It was time to hunt a monster.

The sun had
just risen by the time I rounded the corner onto my street and halted, my senses on full alert. A straight shot now. Between trees, I glimpsed a section of my roof peeking above the neighbor’s house. She could be anywhere—sitting on the curb, lurking in the garden, standing in the driveway.

Waiting.

She would be waiting.

I proceeded more cautiously, cutting into the neighbors’ lawns so she wouldn’t see me approach if she happened to be looking up the street.

Where did she go at night?

After she’d climbed out the window, had she gone to look for me somewhere else? Or had she hidden somewhere on my property to lie in wait? If so, had she seen me sprint out to Emory’s car?

She could have gone back inside after I’d left the house, which meant I’d have to recheck everything.

I darted out from behind a juniper bush, sprinted along the curb, and flattened myself against a palm tree. Peeking out, I saw the front bumper of my red Corolla, which was parked just up the street from my house. Getting close now. I ran around the car and knelt at the driver’s side door—locked,
phew
—then hurried around to my lot, edging along the hedge until the front lawn came into view.

Nothing out of the ordinary, not that I would have seen anything.

A nervous fear electrified my skin.

I took a few deep breaths to build up the courage, then took off sprinting toward the front door, making a beeline across the grass, right out in the open. The journey seemed to take ages—all the while I braced myself for an invisible attack—and by the time I slammed into the door, panting, my mind had descended into panic. I grabbed the latch, yanked it hard. Locked.
No!

My palms slapped my pockets. Empty.

In my haste to leave the house last night, I’d forgotten my keys. Idiot.

The hidden key.

I lunged for the flagstone and hauled it up, but the key hadn’t been replaced. We had new locks. My panic built into sheer terror. I staggered to my feet and tore around to the back of the house, running for my life now. Wherever Ashley was hiding, she had surely seen me by now.

My fist wrenched the back door handle, but my sweaty hands slipped on the metal. Also locked. I peered behind me, growing desperate. I was a sitting duck. A rustle in the hedge yanked my gaze, and I froze. Just a bird.

My mom’s office . . . the cut screen! The same way Ashley got in. I hurled myself around to her window, where the flap of screen lifted in a gentle breeze. Reaching under it, I pushed the window all the way up, then kicked off the ground and scrambled clumsily inside, slamming the window shut behind me.

Inside . . . I was inside the house, but I still wasn’t safe. She could be in here with me. A weapon. I needed a weapon.

On my way into the hall, I caught the time on my mom’s glass clock—7:10 a.m. My parents would be up any minute. In the living room, I found what I was looking for.

The fireplace poker.

I hefted it and swung it around me, jabbed the pointy end into the corners. Nothing there. I darted back to my bedroom, probing the hall like a blind person. I paused in my doorway.

My keys sat on the bedside table next to my cell phone, right where I’d left them. My bedroom was as I left it. Or was it?

Fighting the urge to shudder, I stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind me, then went around the room swinging the poker like a baseball bat. I stabbed it under the bed, thrust it into the closet, and skewered a suspicious-looking pile of laundry before I finally let out my breath.

Bedroom secure.

I dug out the contact lens case of dark matter and pocketed it. For later. Time to call Megan.

She answered on the fourth ring, in the middle of brushing her teeth it sounded like. “Hello?”

“We have to kill her,” I said.

The sound of spitting. “Say again?”

“Ashley. She came over to my house last night, and she’s acting creepy as fuck. That thing is not her, it’s using her body. And we have to kill it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Can I come over to your house?” I said, glancing behind me at the door. “It’s not safe here.”

“Don’t bring that thing over here,” said Megan.

“I’ll drive. She won’t be able to follow.”

“Oh, like she doesn’t know where I live.”

“Right, so it doesn’t matter anyway,” I said. “I’m coming over. We need to come up with a plan.”

“So we’re going to kill her again? This time on purpose? Isn’t that . . . isn’t that kind of messed up?” As she spoke, footsteps thumped up the hall and paused at my bedroom.

“Shh,” I hissed, clamping my hand over the speaker. My pulse jittered.

The floor outside my door creaked. Then silence.

“Leona?” called a voice.

Just my mom.

“I’m talking to Megan,” I said.

“Was that you making all that noise last night?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“What were you doing?” she said. “It sounded like a herd of buffalo.”

“Mom, on the phone!” I yelled.

“Fine,” she said, exasperated. “We’re going to talk about this later, Leona.” At last, her footsteps shuffled off.

I rolled my eyes and went back to my call with Megan. “I’m coming over,” I said.

“What about school?” she said.

“
School?
Why don’t we paint a bull’s-eye on my forehead while we’re at it. Does that sound good?”

“Okay, Leona’s upset.”

“I’ll see you in ten minutes.
Bye
.” I hung up and grabbed my car keys, tugging on my tennis shoes without socks.

My parents were eating in the kitchen. I waved the keys on my way out and announced, “I’m going to school.”

“Where’s your backpack—?”

The door shut behind me, and I hurried into the street, glancing behind me every few seconds. My thumb found the unlock button on the key fob, and the car clicked. I tugged open a handle and slid inside, quickly pulling the door shut behind me. No gaps. I hit the lock button twenty times in a panicky flurry.

This car had become my sanctuary.

Once satisfied the car was locked, I let out a long sight and sank into the seat, closed my eyes. In the silence, my agitated nerves began to relax.

Time to go.

Keys in hand, I opened my eyes and sat forward, glimpsing the backseats in the rearview—brand new suede upholstery, never been used. I hesitated, my eyes frozen on the mirror.

Wait.

I tilted to the mirror to get a better view, and saw it again.

A strange, fist-sized dip marred the otherwise smooth fabric. Huh? One by one, the hairs rose on the back of my neck.

As I stared, the dip rose slowly, returning to a smooth surface.

Chapter 15

My heart thudded
against my sternum with enough force to shake me. Something had moved in the backseat, but now I saw nothing. Had I imagined it?

My gaze flicked across the rearview mirror, scanning for motion. I tilted the mirror again, aiming it down. Without warning, the seatbelt buckle tumbled to the side as the car’s weight shifted underneath me.

It was
her
.

I ducked and threw myself flat across the passenger seat, just in time. An invisible arm swept through my hair, barely missing me. My ribs crunched into the hard knob of the gearshift. But no pain. Adrenaline doused my body. I rolled onto the floor, wiggling down in front of the seats to escape her. Ashley was in the car with me.

She’d laid an ambush.

The seat squeaked to the side, and I heard her breathing fast behind me, coming for me. A hand closed on my arm, and I shrieked and shook her off, kicked blindly. My heel made contact with a limb, winning a satisfying yelp.

Freed, I scrambled toward the passenger door, toward my only escape. But the seatback shook as she vaulted over, landing in an invisible lump on the cushion to block my path. I swiveled and reversed directions, wriggling backward as the car keys dug into the palm of my clenched fist. But she moved too fast. Her arm looped around my neck and yanked me back onto the seat, crushing my windpipe and locking me in a chokehold.

Wheezing and gurgling, I scraped at her forearm with one open hand and one fist, trying to pry her off me. My fingernails cut into her skin, and for a moment I thought I might be able to tear the dark matter off her, but it had fused to her skin. My vision was already dimming. Blood quit flowing to my brain.

The keys . . . still in my hand. The pepper spray!

For an instant, the fog cleared, time seemed to slow, and I saw my thumb flip up the pink cap and slide over the button—just like Megan had showed me. With what little brain function I had left, I aimed the nozzle behind me and squeezed. The sprayer hissed, filling the car with sharp, stinging pepper. Instantly, my eyes burned and watered.

Not a chance I hit her face, but her body recoiled from the spray anyway. Her arm withdrew, and I pictured her cowering against the seat, covering her face. Thumb clenched on the trigger, I continued to spray the bottle behind me as I scrambled for the driver’s side door and wrenched it open. I sprawled face first onto the asphalt, rolled onto my back, and kicked the door shut behind me, then staggered to my feet. Still spraying, I backed away from the Corolla, jerking the jet of red mist back and forth. The car remained motionless.

Terrified gasps ripped at my lungs. The pepper spray sputtered in my hand, and the hiss fell away to a feeble trickle before going silent. Still I held on, sweeping it back and forth, knuckles white on the pink plastic. My body continued to twitch.

How had she gotten in the car? The locks had been engaged . . . I’d checked, hadn’t I?—the car keys, duh. They’d been sitting in plain view on my bedside table. She must have snuck back into my house last night, grabbed the keys and unlocked the car, then returned them to where she found them. She could lock the car from inside.

This wasn’t a dumb animal hunting me. Nor was it a human. It was something else, a creature that could deceive me and ambush me and outsmart me. I had to remember that.

At last, I let my thumb off the pepper spray trigger. No sound. Just the rustle of wind in trees. Just my own panting. Just the scuff of my tennies on asphalt as I retreated, shaking, into the middle of the street. Was she still in the car? Maybe I could lock her in—

The car rocked slightly, and the passenger door opened and slammed shut.

My body went rigid. I gaped at the vehicle, still wobbling on its suspension. I scanned the empty street, my pulse galloping. Not empty. The soft thudding of footsteps approached with startling speed.

Run!
I dropped the keys and bolted up the street, hurtling my body into a dead sprint. The wind howled in my ears, but so did her panting breath, racing up behind me. Each of her angry gasps lashed me like a whip, driving me faster.

I blew through the first stop sign and kept running, my lungs burning for air. At my top speed, she couldn’t gain on me.

Her footsteps fell away, but I knew it was a trap. She would follow farther back, where I couldn’t hear her, and when I slowed, she would strike. I kept running, but my legs were failing, my body about to collapse from exhaustion.

A hard object jabbed my upper thigh, wedged in the pocket of my shorts. The contact lens case . . .
dark matter
.

I had to.

I couldn’t beat her like this, her invisible and me visible. I had to put it on, but she couldn’t see me do it. Only then could I slip away from her. I still heard her keeping pace farther back, her bare footsteps like whispers to the clomp of my tennis shoes.

She didn’t have shoes. Of course!

I veered onto the next lawn, leaving the flat street and plowing right through a strip of landscaping—right into the spiny stalks of baby palm trees and the jagged branches of dry bushes. My rubber heels stomped over them painlessly.

I glanced back, just as another path cut through the garden, palm fronds whipping to the side.

Not good enough.

A family was loading up a minivan in the driveway. They paused to stare at me as I streaked past, jaws slack. I kept going, dragging my collapsing limbs into the backyard. A fence separated the lots. I hurdled it—a pathetic jump that grazed my heel—and flew through the huge leaves of a plumeria, bursting out on the other side. Staggering to regain my balance, I cut through another backyard, cringing at the softness of the grass. A rustle sounded behind me, Ashley still on my heels.

My gaze swept left and right, seeking out the most treacherous area possible. Back into the street. Then I saw it.

And almost laughed.

An entire front yard made entirely of cacti, towering spires of thorns, balls of needles packed into every square inch of ground. No way around it, either. Try to go through that barefoot. I gritted my teeth and charged straight through it, knowing it would hurt.

I managed three bounding steps into the thick of it, barbs crunching underfoot, before a knife-like thorn pierced my calf. My step faltered, and I pitched forward, throwing out my palm right into a cactus to searing pricks of pain. I ignored the sting and stumbled through it, scratching up my ankles. At last I emerged on the other side, wincing, and hobbled around the side of the house to kneel under an orange tree and catch my breath, my throat raspy. Shaking from the exertion, I undid the contact lens case and dipped my finger into the dark matter, then smeared it in sticky streaks across my arms and legs, which joined and spread, leaving my skin invisible and tingling.

Next I wrestled off my tank top, kicked off my shoes, and peeled off my shorts. I backed away from my clothes, while dark matter swallowed the last of my extremities. I looked down and saw only crunching, shifting gravel where my feet should have been. I pinched a lock of my hair between my fingers and held it in front of me. Nothing.

Now we were both invisible.

Leaves and twigs cracked nearby, and my head jerked to its source. A wall of bamboo separated the lot from the one next to it, now shaking from side to side. The stalks parted mysteriously before my eyes, then whipped back together.

Careful footsteps crunched on the gravel, and the whisper of heavy breathing passed right in front of me. Right through empty air.

She’d gone around.

I held my breath until she passed, staying perfectly still, then let it out slowly. She didn’t know I was invisible, which meant I had an edge. With my toe, I nudged aside a dried orange carcass and stepped carefully, putting distance between us.

Oblivious, Ashley’s footsteps slunk along the side of the house, dislodging pieces of gravel every few feet. She paused at my discarded clothes.

My tank top lifted into the air, exposing the open contact lens case underneath. She cast the shirt aside to pick up the case, which appeared to turn over in the air. Studying it.

A panicky shudder slipped through me.

She knew.

I took another petrified step backward, and the gravel made a loud scrape under my heel. I froze.

The contact lens case jerked in midair, meaning she’d suddenly turned. Then it dropped, and just like that, all sign of her vanished. Gone.

Silence.

Where?
My gaze darted across the gravel, and I listened, my ears tuned for the tiniest movement. Had she located me? A breeze swished the bamboo next to me, and a bird chirped in the distance, its cheerful tone grossly out of place. I had to slip away without her seeing. Near the house, the gravel gave way to concrete, which wouldn’t give away my footsteps. I lowered myself into a crouch and leapt onto it like a cat.

The force of my jump blasted two craters in the gravel, sending rocks skittering away. I landed on the concrete on my toes and gripped the underside of the wood siding to keep from falling backward. Behind me, where I’d dislodged the rocks, a flurry of movement ensued. Gravel scattered in a series of explosive footsteps. She’d just attacked and missed.

I craned my neck to peer behind me, hoping to glimpse the direction of her movement, but she’d moved on, presumably to solid ground where I couldn’t track her. I had to get out of here. Hugging the wall, I crept along the foundation, careful not to disturb a thing. A whoosh of air brushed my side, and the house shuddered under my palms, and I scooted right into her invisible body.

The impact knocked her off the wall, but as she fell away, her palm closed around my shoulder and she yanked me down with her. We collapsed in a tangle of invisible limbs. Kicking and clawing, I wiggled out of her grip and rolled away, then scrambled to my feet and sprinted back the way I’d come, barreling on the verge of a heart attack.

The wall of cacti loomed ahead of me.
Trapped
.

Ashley swooped up behind me. I dodged to the left. Her fingernails scraped down my back, drawing blood. She didn’t have a weapon, which meant she was going to kill me with her bare hands. If it came to a hand-to-hand grapple, I had no doubt I would lose.

I needed to get back to the street, out in the open, where I could run and hide. I skirted the clumps of cacti to get away from her, then veered back toward the side of the house, but her rasping breath moved in front of me and cut me off, then closed in, anticipating my feints.

She had me cornered.

I sidestepped her and raced back toward the landscaping, zigzagging this way and that. She veered after me, and her hand caught a clump of my hair and held it for an instant before I yanked free. I couldn’t get far enough away to outmaneuver her. She was right behind me, right on my heels, tracking me by sound . . .

An idea.

I broke away and ran in a straight line until I heard her coming up behind me. Then I dropped and skidded to a stop, tearing up my knees in the process. She didn’t have time to react. She tripped over me and I heard her crash into the gravel, but I didn’t see her land. I was already up and sprinting back toward the house. I dove into the bamboo, whacked through into the adjacent lot—a nice, soft lawn—and made a beeline for the street.

Over my own ragged breaths, I heard her panting behind me again. My God, she never quit. I hit the asphalt and veered left, running off pure adrenaline. My limbs wobbled, barely holding me up. Still she followed, her feet thudding on the street behind me. If I could hear her, she could hear me. I took the next right toward State Street, two blocks away, which would be busy with commuters at this hour. 

I jogged onto State Street just as a bus roared away from the curb to join the honking, growling, rushing traffic. No way could she follow me here. With my last ounce of stamina, I put on a final burst of speed and darted across the street, pausing at the median to look both ways. On the opposite sidewalk, I jogged back the way I’d come, hopefully throwing her off.

I cut through a random parking lot onto a cross street, took a left at the first stop sign, then a right, then another right, and finally another left.

At last, I stooped to gulp down air, fighting my body’s need to vomit. No phantom footsteps followed me. I’d lost her . . . I’d finally lost her. But I didn’t want to linger, in case she stumbled on me by chance. As soon as I could stand without getting the spins, I started walking. My sore feet carried me from street to street at random, making a path she would never be able to follow.

As the panic ebbed from my system, my brain began to function again. For now I had escaped, but I wasn’t safe. She would continue to hunt me, and eventually I would have to sleep. Eventually, she would find me.

By becoming invisible too, I’d evened the playing field, but I still had to kill her. And soon.

Today she’d attacked in broad daylight. She was getting more daring. How could I kill her? My thoughts slogged in hopeless circles.

How did you kill someone who couldn’t be seen?

We had detected each other by the sounds we made, by our footsteps. It wouldn’t be enough. After today, she would walk on tiptoe, I’d never hear her coming . . .

I felt my eyebrows pinch together, and I halted in the middle of the street.

Wait a minute.

Dark matter . . . it
could
be seen.