Page 12 of Stardusted

My fingers shook as I fumbled with the jammed seatbelt. On the third try, it gave way with a loud click. I shoved the door openwith a trembling hand. The ding of the keys still in the ignition echoed loudly in the otherwise eerie quiet.

I half-fell out of the car, legs wobbling. My knee cracked against the doorframe, but I didn’t feel it. My limbs tingled with pins and needles as I dropped into a crouch and sucked in another shaky breath.

I should call someone. Make sure the car was okay. But I couldn’t. Not yet.

I had toknow.

My shoes sank into the damp leaves and wet ground as I crawled up the embankment, driven by that stupid, innate curiosity.

Surely I hadn’t seen what I thought I had.

I hesitated at the top, crouching just before the ridge. A spooky, flickering glow spilled from the other side, bathing the trees, the car, the crumpled, wet grass. I couldn’t see the source from here.

I’d seen it in the road, though.

Scrambled possibilities flitted through my brain, too fast to process. What if I’d imagined it? I could’ve mistaken a different light…a bright star, a meteor. Hell, even Starlink. Those satellites always looked creepy.

Or…or maybe I was concussed.

Maybe that shitty dinner shift had caused a mental break. Maybe I’d lost my mind. Nobody could blame me after the night I’d had.

Or maybe…just maybe, it’d been…real.

Panic swelled, and I braced my back against the back wheel well’s rusted metal, forcing myself to breathe. The static of Faith’s radio buzzed faintly, and the taillights bathed the pavement in red. The crimson glow illuminated the harsh, black skid marks that showed exactly where I’d swerved right off the asphalt.

That had beenbeforeI hit my head. Which ruled out a concussion.

A mental break was still in the running.

Also, I was delaying the inevitable. I had to look.

I stayed crouched there, though. Tall trees loomed over me like dark sentinels, and each pulse of light made their trunks ripple. A faint charge hung in the air, humming on my skin. The scent of ozone filled my lungs and mingled with the burned-rubber stench and Faith’s exhaust.

I had to see.

But my knees wouldn’t cooperate. My stomach twisted with nausea, fear, and something else. Something electric.

I wanted to run.

I wanted tolook.

“Come on, Rae,” I whispered, closing my eyes. “There is no try.”

With a grimace, I shoved up just enough to peek over the trunk, peeling open my lids.

And I gasped.

Because the road wasempty.

The ball of light was gone.

Chapter 4

WE’RE NOT SAYING THAT ACRONYM OUT LOUD

Iblinked. Once. Twice.

Nothing. No blazing orb of questionable origin. Not even a meteor impact crater. Nothing that explained why I’d swerved hard enough to leave those snaking black marks on the asphalt.