Page 47 of Stardusted

I was. The adrenaline had nowhere left to go. It crawled under my skin, leaving me jittery and twitchy. I reached up and let him pull me to my feet. The EMT rose with me, reaching to steady me if needed.

The hallway tilted like a funhouse. I managed to stay upright, though. My body ached but nothing felt broken, just bruised. My head throbbed. My knees screamed. I was going to be a walking patchwork quilt tomorrow.

But I was alive.

For now, that was enough.

“I’m sure this has something to do with the solar flare,” the professor said, patting my arm awkwardly before letting go. “There’s just…” I didn’t miss his glance toward the suits. “There’s been extra security. I was working on a project that had some important people’s attention.”

But then he exhaled a long, quiet sigh. “Sadly, everything in the clean lab is destroyed. Invaluable artifacts. We’ll have to start over. I’m glad no one was seriously hurt, but it’s still a tragedy.”

The tablet.

I swallowed hard, his words muffled. Was this shock? I didn’t know, but the memories were playing on a loop.

That strange stone. Thatthinghidden inside. The bright white light.

Could that have been part of his project? It had to be.

Could it have been why that creature was here?

God, this was like putting together a thousand-piece puzzle without the box to look at.

The professor bent and retrieved my book bag, handing it to me. “Now, what did you need to see me for, Rae?”

It took me a second to process the question.

Oh, right. I’d said I was here to find him.

And I had been.

But the questions I’d had didn’t matter anymore. Whatever he’d been working on, whatever had been going on here, I had a solid feeling it was gone now.

I’d watched that strange artifact crumble.

I’d seen something emerge that defied explanation.

Pushing the memory aside, I cleared my throat. “Oh. It was nothing. I had a question about a chapter for, uh, a different class I thought you could help with, but…” I forced a weak laugh and slid one bag strap over my shoulder.

My arm twinged. Right where those cold, inhuman fingers had gripped me. A reminder. A bruise that didn’t just live on the surface.

“It’s not important now,” I said.

Nothing was.

This changed everything.

Chapter 13

I SURVIVED A KILLER ROBOT, AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS BRUISE

Itwasn’t until much, much later—after I’d given Officer Brown my contact info and signed some liability waiver for the university, andafterI’d recapped my lie twice and submitted to one last EMT checkup (while resisting her push for a hospital visitagain)—that I managed to escape.

I sat in the parking lot a full twenty minutes without starting Faith’s engine.

Mulling over, for one, how I was racking up near-death experiences like they were free drink stamps at the college coffee shop. And they were getting more and more…out of this world.

The afternoon sun had finally broken through the low-hanging clouds, warming the air and chasing away some of the chill. I was still shivering, though, when I tilted my head back against the seat and finally let myselfbreathe.