Page 48 of Stardusted

And I finally let myself remember every single fantastical, horrifying, sanity-challenging detail.

There’d been no explosion.

There’d been arobotin the lab.

A giant, seven-foot-tall mechanical creature had wrecked the storage room and come after me. Chased me.Grabbedme.

I knew I wasn’t crazy. Because I hadproof. It throbbed beneath the sleeve of my hoodie every time I moved.

I needed to see it.

Even lifting the arm hurt. Wincing, I tugged the hoodie over my head anyway, tossing it into the passenger seat beside my dust-covered book bag. Bracing myself, I looked down and…

“Shit,” I hissed, extending my arm all the way.

A bruise had already formed, ugly and dark, in the unmistakable shape of a huge six-fingered hand. My pulse took off in a sprint, and sweat bloomed at my temples.

Real.

There was my undeniable proof thatit was real.I hadn’t imagined any of it.

Just like I hadn’t imagined what had run me off the road the other night.

I couldn’t deny anything anymore. Not with this purple mark on my skin completely wrecking any excuses I could come up with.

I lowered my arm and slumped back in the seat, every nerve buzzing. My body flooded with another round of adrenaline, like fight-or-flight hadn’t gotten the memo it was too damn late for either.

There’d been a roboticmonsterin the school lab.

An angry, robotic monster made of weird metal parts.

So…what now?

Was the university covering it up? The cops? Those creeps in the black suits? The guy in military dress? Didanyof them know how I’d ended up all the way back at the student stairwell, on the opposite side of the building from the lab?

Maybe I did need a tinfoil hat because a small part of me was starting to think maybe all of Kelly’s ridiculous theories were spot on after all.

I gripped the steering wheel with both hands, flinching when the motion tugged at my bruised flesh. Outside the window, campus life carried on. Students streamed down sidewalks and filled the lots, laughter and voices mixing with the low rumble of traffic. People headed in and out of classes. Just another weekday.

Police had been stringing caution tape across the entrance to the Finke building when I left…but the rest of the university carried on. Business as usual. The staff and administration must’ve been clinging to that illusion with both hands.

Buthow?

Normalcy had officially taken a nosedive the moment I was chased by Optimus Prime’s smaller,muchmeanercousin.

Everyone else moved like gravity still worked. Meanwhile, I was floating in orbit, watching my life spin out below. Watching my skepticism, my thoroughly vetted alternative explanation for all this chaos, dissolve just like the tablet had.

Glowing green eyes, too-sharp claws…

My lungs squeezed tight again, that lightheadedness creeping back in. Sweat blurred my vision. I fumbled with the ignition and jammed the window button, lowering it. Cool, bracing autumn air swept in, carrying the scent of imminent rain.

I gulped in a breath and held it.

It helped. A little. Just enough.

Steadier, I stared out the windshield, jaw tight, and finally said the word, the one I’d been choking on since I woke up on that hallway floor. Maybe even longer. Since the moment on the country road when the ground had smoldered under my palm.

“Aliens.”