Page 149 of Stardusted

On autopilot, I started forward.

Just as another of those deadly pink beams exploded from the hallway.

Driving straight through the wreckage where Sky had landed.

The blast rippled out. I staggered back, pain slicing deep, as if that beam had driven into me, too. I couldn’t breathe. A delayed wave of blistering heat rolled over me, followed by slinking cold. Numbness.

The broken table ignited instantly. Red-hot flames burst to life and licked greedily at the wall, climbing up plaster and wood. Metal warped, and plastic melted and dripped. Steam and boiling chemicals hissed like some great beast.

Smoke and fire enveloped everything.

No. No way. I’d just watched him wieldlightning.I’d watched him take on an Enil and survive. He’d been a steady, immovable force through all this. He couldn’t be…

He couldn’t be…dead.

But if he’d survived the impact, there was no way he’d survived that.

Hungry flames climbed toward the ceiling. The table was nothing more than a lump of charred, blazing wreckage.

My pulse thudded. I needed to move. I knew that.

But I couldn’t.All I could do was stare at the blackening metal, the rapidly expanding fire. Precious seconds ticked past. Sky didn’t emerge from the destruction.

They’d killed him. Sky was dead.

An Enil lumbered from the sagging hallway’s mouth—no, two. Tall and spindly, they looked eerily similar except for the slight reddish sheen to one. Like villainous robot twins on stilts, made of multi-jointed, too-long limbs. Even their faces were elongated, blank metal plates set with unfeeling green eyes. I could make out their distorted speech over the roar of flames.

They split up, one going for the melted debris where Sky had landed. The other came for me.

God, was it even worth trying to run?

Flames rippled along the ceiling like orange waves, a tide sweeping closer. Alarms shrieked. Something popped, and water began to fall. Sprinklers, but too late to do much good.

The red-tinted Enil bore down on me. Its steps shook the floor. Water flowed into my eyes, running into my mouth and plastering my hair to my head. I watched it come. My hand’s glow was muted in the fiery light, but it was still there. Still a signal drawing them to me.

Sky had been right. I hadn’t listened. The midterm—it hadn’t been that important. Not worth dying over. Not worth losinghim.

Green eyes found mine through the haze. The advancing Enil threw aside a table like it was made of cardboard. The pressure in my chest caved my lungs.

Sky had told me to run. He’d bought me that chance with his life. If I stayed here, if I forfeited now…

Well, then he’d died for nothing.

Even if I didn’t stand a chance, the least I could do was make them work for it.

I turned and ran for the doors, feet sliding. The floor was a mess of waterlogged ash and chunks of plaster. I leapt over a chair, pumping my arms.

The air stirred—the only warning I had.

I threw myself to the side. Claws sliced through the place I’d just been and gouged deep into the floor instead, furrowing tile. Close.Too close.

The Enil were too fast. Too big. I didn’t stand a chance against two. I couldn’t make a dent in that metal armor. My flesh stood no chance against those talon-tipped fingers.

A reddish gleam flashed in my periphery, and I ducked instinctively, staggering sideways. My spine lit up as my backpack slammed into the wall, bouncing me into a vending machine forehead first. Hard enough that the whole thing swayed, and energy drinks, candy bars, and packs of gum rained down. Sucking in air through my teeth, I spun around, flattening against the machine’s front.

The Enil towered over me. Joints and gears spun and ground together as it leaned down, like it was getting a closer look at the specimen of helpless humanity. The green glow of its eyes filled my vision, and twisted, garbled speech spilled out of it. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know what it was saying. I shrank as far back as I could, but it was no use. There was nowhere to go.

Sleek swaths of welded metal and stitched-together parts shifted as it stepped closer. Close enough for me to smell the engine-grease, fried-electrical scent it gave off. Alien and somehow also familiar. A flattened, blue Ford logo bent acrossits chest. Bizarre, seeing something so recognizable forged to the front of this extraterrestrial robotic being.