Starbright (The Starbright Series) (2 page)

             
And as soon as
I
decided these were regular
S
hadows, which
had no idea
I
was anything special
,
another one flittered across
my
peripheral.
I
swallowed the lump that had taken
up
an annoying residence in
my
throat and felt the passenger’s seat for
my
cell phone.
I thought I
laid it out before
I
started the car, but after blindly feeling around
my
worn upholstery
decided it must still be hiding inside
my
over-sized bag.

             
I
strengthened the grip of
my
left hand and thrust
my
right hand into the black hole of all
my
important possessions, hoping to come out victorious in three seconds or less. Defender of the last planet or not,
I
was hopelessly unorganized.
My
purse was a cluttered mess of unknown objects and somewhere, hidden in the melee was
my
cell phone.

             
I liked to believe I
was brave. Or at least
I
would be one day. But tonight, all
I
wanted to do was call Annabelle, wake her up and forcefully let her know
I
would be home in ten minutes
, just to hear her
reassuring voice
.
I
thought about calling Tristan too and demanding to know why he thought
we
needed to watch an entire trilogy all in one night!

             
Lip gloss. Gum. Floss. Wallet.
Candy bar.

             
Where was
my
cell phone?

             
The road
was
dangerously icy and
my
constant shivering did nothing to balance out
my
driving.
I
sucked in a frozen breath and then glanced down at
my
purse, hoping to be able to spot the phone right away.

             
Not there.

             
At least not right where
I
could see it in the one point five seconds
I
allowed
my
self to look.
I
heaved an irritated sigh and turned
my
eyes back to the road. Apparently that second and a half was way too long because standing in the middle of the road was a giant buck, poised and stilled only ten feet away.

             
I
panicked. S
omewhere in the rational-thinking part of
my
brain,
I
knew
I
was supposed to hit the animal;
that it was safer
to collide with the deer
than slamming on
my
brake
s in the middle of the night on an iced over country road. But
my
animal-loving instinct took over and
my
foot pressed furiously against the brake pedal
while
my
hands jerked the steering wheel hurriedly to the right.

             
The next few seconds became a blur as
my
J
eep spun wildly out of control without even pretending to slow down. Belatedly
I
released
my
foot and tried to pump the brake but it was too late,
the
tail end flipped
around to the front and then the
front flipped around again and hit the snow bank at an alarming speed
and bounced off
.

             
As if in slow motion,
my
passenger’s side rammed into the iced over snow bank and then flipped over what felt like several times until
I
smashed to the frozen field far beyond the road.
My J
eep hit the ground with an ear splitting cry of metal crushed against a rock hard surface.

             
I
exhaled violently,
the
seatbelt cutting
into my
awkwardly hanging neck and waist.
I
felt unconsciousness threating to sweep
me
away as the broken bones in
my
right hand, where it had been crushed between
my
body and the armrest in the impact, screamed angrily at
me
.

             
If
I were human I
would already be unconscious.

             
If
I
were human,
I
would have a lot more to worry about than a broken wrist.

             
I
wiggled
my
feet and tried
moving my
arms, just to make sure there were no other issues, before reaching over with
my
left hand and unbuckling
the
safety restraint.
I
fell gruffly against the impacted
passenger side
door and let out a fierce cry of pain.

             
I
sat up and rubbed
my
shoulder that now felt displaced but not broken.
Climbing
into position
I
bent
my
knees and braced
my
hands, one strongly, the other gingerly, against the car around
me
and thrust
my
legs forward into the already
cracked
windshield.

             
The
fractured glass
moved against the force of
my
legs, but it took several more tries before
I
removed it completely. When
I
crawled carefully through the now gaping hole
,
the windshield remained intact, but definitely
fissured
and hung awkwardly across the sideways front hood, still attached near the driver’s side.

             
I
slid down the rusted green paint of
my
J
eep and landed softly in the snow. The night was still outside of
the
crash, silent and subdued. The snow that blanketed the landscape muffled the usual night sound
s
and the absence of animals, even winter ones, felt eerily dangerous.

             
Out of the corner of
my
eye
I
saw one move. A
S
hadow. The Darkness.

             
But it wasn’t possible. They didn’t know
I
existed, let alone that
I
lived here, in the middle of nowhere.
I
brushed
my
fear away and simultaneously readied
my
self for an altercation.
I
shouldn’t be afraid.
I
couldn’t be afraid.

             
These were mere minions besides. And even if
I
wasn’t prepared to go
into
hand to hand combat with them, if they really knew who
I
was they would be more afraid of
me than I
was of them.

             
Or at least that’s what
I
promised
myself
.

             
I lifted my
head in search of the buck
that
caused all this trouble to begin with but he was nowhere in sight. Either he was frightened off by
my
car turning in wild circ
les just to avoid him, or he
never existed in the first place, just an apparition that turned to the smoky wisps of evil.

             
But that would mean a purposeful attack. And that couldn’t be. There was just no way they could know who
I
was.

             
Unless…. Unless,
my
parents had fallen.

             
I
froze for a moment
, my hands
clenched at my sides
, my chest a shallow cavity filled with a heart that refused to beat and lungs that refused to breathe
and played through that possibility in
my
mind. They had been gone for several weeks, on a mission that specifically required their skill set.
I
hadn’t heard from them since they left, and so it was entirely possible that they failed.

             
That they fell.

             
I
gazed into the sky, willing the clouds to move out of
my
way so
I
could find them. If they were gone,
I
would be able to tell immediately, their bright lights would be blank in a sky full of their fellow soldiers. The sky was too overcast though, even with
my
powerful eyesight and ability to cut through darkness, the clouds were too heavy and clustered to see through.

             
I
cursed uncharacteristically under
my
breath and then again when
I
realized
my
phone was still somewhere
unknown in the dark abyss of
my
J
eep. As
I
wedged one of
my
booted feet into the space of
my
car
,
where the hood made room for
my
windshield wipers
,
I
decided that even if
my
parents were gone, there was no amount of torture or distress that would have prompted them to give up
my
location. They worked their whole lives to keep
me
a secret, to prepare
me
for the day when
I
would remain here alone, and on top of that, they loved
me
. There was no way it was them.

             
I
ignored the clustering Darkness as
I
pushed
my
self up and through the broken
windshield,
reaching for
my
spilled purse,
whose
contents littered the crushed passenger’s side door. The
Shadows
weren’t trying to hide
anymore;
they were coming for
me
, gathering around
me
as if waiting for the
command to
attack.
I
reached down hurriedly, ripping
my
coat against the rough edges of the broken windshield, but
I
managed to gather at least the important stuff into
my
purse before hauling it back with
me
and hopping down from the J
eep.

             
I
tossed the
purse that
now only held
my wallet and
cellphone and a few random items that managed to survive the spill, onto the snowy ground and lifted
my
head to meet
my
enemy. The
y
moved around
me
like a slow tornado of darkness. As separate entities they appeared like slender gusts of black wind, but united they became a solid wall of evil. Even
my
keen eye sight could not see through them,
or
my
superheated blood feel anything beyond their oppressive iciness.

             
I
had never seen so many Shadows in one place.
I
had never even heard of them organizing themselves into a unified attack. They worked separately and secretly; their purpose was to influence mankind, to spread the Darkness
like a disease
to every corner of this planet, not to outright attack it. The deer had to be them. And even in that instance, their work was not so much of a surprise. But surrounding
me
now was something so unheard of that
I
was more taken aback than actually frightened.