Page 11 of Stardusted

“See? Just the solar flare,” I muttered, pressing a button to change the station. Static.

The next station. More static.

I frowned, turned the volume down, and tightened my hands on the wheel. It was nothing. Electromagnetic interference.

Chalk it up to science.

Could also be my shitty car’s even shittier antenna. Either way, nothing beyond the realms of normalcy here. Nothing to put theextrain extraterrestrial.

The road narrowed and sloped into a dense cluster of trees, branches crowding the edges of the pavement like reaching fingers. The crescent moon vanished behind them, leaving my headlights to carve through the black.

The path curved sharply ahead, and I slowed, glancing once at my rearview. Still empty. Still alone. A tingle of unease prickled between my shoulder blades.

But then I clicked my tongue in annoyance. Screw Kelly and her stupid conspiracy theories. Screw Tony and his smug little grin.

Screw that dumb conversation with Sky, of all people, for…well, being the rotten cherry on top.

Aliens weren’t scary. They weren’t even real. What were they going to do, mess with my Spotify queue?

I snorted at my own joke. Loudly.

And that was when the sky lit up.

A blinding sphere of multicolored fire exploded through a gap in the trees, as if the sun had suddenly risen again and then decided to drop from the sky. It careened to a stop in the middle of the road ahead, hovering.

Glowing pink, green, yellow, blue.

In front of my windshield.Right on top of me.

Time slowed.

My heart stopped beating as I slammed on the brakes.

Faith’s tires shrieked in protest, the wheel shuddering violently in my grip. I let out a short scream and braced myselfas the back end fishtailed, the car veering sideways across the road. Air punched from my lungs. My shoulder mashed into the door, and the seatbelt cinched tight across my chest, biting deep. I caught a blur of those lights, rainbows of flickering color, then Faith lurched with a bone-rattling crunch and ground to a halt in a spray of gravel. The jolt flung me forward into the steering wheel.

For a moment, I couldn’t move. I hung there, lungs heaving, ears ringing with static and my own frantic heartbeat.

I didn’t know how much time passed before I lifted my head. Still wheezing, I blinked hard and squinted out the windshield.

Faith sat crooked, her front end in the ditch, back tires on the shoulder, headlights spearing through a patch of red-leaved oaks. Beyond them, broken stalks of corn jutted up like jagged teeth in the dark.

I’d just wrecked my car. Something had flown out in front of me.

Butwhat?

Adrenaline surged, snapping me into motion. My chest ached as I drew a deeper breath and threw the car into park. Where was my phone? Had I tossed it into my purse?

I twisted to look over my shoulder. Then froze.

The ball of light was still there.

Blazing, suspended in midair over the road, it pulsed in steady rhythm—pink, blue, yellow, green—glowing too brightly for me to stare at it directly. Still, I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t blink.

Couldn’t breathe.

It was silent. Motionless. Radiating like a fallen star.

“No freaking way,” I whispered.