Of Starlight (14 page)

Then I waited.

My eyes darted across the front door—from the latch to the peephole to the hinges—peeled for any sign of movement. A clock ticked in the kitchen. I rested my chin between my knees, breathing shallowly.

I let myself nod off.

I woke up abruptly, and the back of my head banged into the wall. I stared around the dark foyer, fear dripping down my spine as my lungs drew panicky gasps. My limbs ached from being folded up. It had to be past midnight.

The front door gave a tiny creak.

I clamped my hand over my mouth, stifling my breath.

Then the door wobbled, followed by a metallic crunching sound in the doorknob—the sound of a key being shoved into a lock that didn’t fit. The latch made a frustrated clacking.

Ashley was here.

Chapter 13

The door quit
rattling, leaving a silence that made my scalp bristle. I rose to my feet, back flush against the wall. She was right outside my house, on the front porch . . . doing
what?

Fear buzzed in my fingertips.

What do I do?

Through the windows, I saw nothing. Blackness. The porch light hadn’t come on, since she hadn’t triggered the motion detector. My brain processed frantically. What would she do next?

She’d try the back door.

I darted through the dining room and into the kitchen, stepping on the balls of my feet. Dark windows slunk by, nothing visible outside. No movement—

The back door wobbled and jiggled.

I froze, one foot in the air. After a moment, she gave up. I stood perfectly still, listening. She had tried the front door and the back door. By now she would realize the locks had been changed. Would she try anything else? Or would she give up?

If I woke my parents . . . my dad would see the doors rattling on their own, and he would know what to do—No, no, no, he’d call the police, who would be useless. And first I’d have to take off the dark matter to wake them up, leaving me vulnerable. By then she could be anywhere. I had to stay on her now, while I knew where she was.

A dull thudding came from the bathroom, sending a quiver through my heart. I glanced down to make sure I was still invisible, then crept forward and peeked inside. The sound came from the window, like she was shoving it with her palms, trying to open it.

Locked.

The sound cut off, and I heard a bush crunch outside the bathroom as she stepped down. Then silence. Just my own pounding heart. She was trying the windows . . . which were all locked. They latched on the inside and couldn’t be opened from the outside. I’d checked them on Saturday morning.

But what if my parents had opened them to get some air? The week had been unusually hot.

Idiot. Why hadn’t I checked before going to bed? I slid out of the bathroom doorway, making sure not to bump the door, and darted around the house to double-check. The windows in the kitchen and dining room were all closed. So were the ones in the living room. I ducked up the hallway and paused at my mom’s office. The door hung open a crack, not wide enough to fit through. I licked my lips and gave it a tiny nudge—praying Ashley didn’t see—and shimmied the rest of the way through.

My gaze honed in on the east-facing window . . . the two inch gap between the window and sill. Crap. I raced around my mom’s desk and grabbed the frame. Had she spotted it? I tensed my arms, ready to shove it down.

Something moved on the other side.

I stopped breathing, just as the screen pushed in. I caught the glimmer of metal—a key, the hidden key—pushing in from outside. Floating in midair, the key ripped through the screen and began to saw sideways, then up, opening a flap large enough to fit a person.

She was coming in.

Now I heard a girl’s breathing on the other side, a steady inhale and exhale, so close I could feel the heat of her breath on my thighs.

I lifted my hands off the frame and backed away, terrified. I couldn’t shut the window. She would realize I was invisible and I would lose my only edge. I backed into my mom’s desk, and the soft thud made me cringe.

But she was outside, with all the sounds of wind and traffic and raccoons. She didn’t hear.

The flap of screen lifted, ever so slowly, and the window slid up, one screech at a time. She was coming in through the office. She was coming inside.
Oh God.

Before she heard me, I fled back into the hall, only to halt in the face of the long, dark corridor. I stared at the row of pitch black doorways, sick with dread. Where could I hide?

A thump came from my mom’s office.

Feet landing hard on carpet.

She was inside.

I darted into my bedroom, glanced around, ran to the bed. Under the bed? Too obvious. Slow, creaking footsteps moved down the hall, coming straight for my room. No time. Heart in my throat, I scampered into the closet and tucked myself between two dresses, then gripped the sliding doors and eased them shut, trying to lift as much weight off the rollers as I could.

Through the gap, I saw my bedroom door swing inward, and I pulled my hand back.

The doorway was empty. Nothing there.

But then footsteps moved into the room. I was trapped in the closet.
Stupid, stupid, stupid
. I should have gone to the living room, where she wouldn’t check. Peeking out, I could see my bed, my fake sleeping body.

The floorboards in front of my bed squeaked.

Then nothing.

Silence.

I stared out, eyes wide. She was standing in front of my bed, watching me sleep.
Ew
. I suppressed the urge to shudder.

The hoodie floated up into the air and dropped to the side, and the blankets peeled back, revealing my lumpy clothes.

More silence.

What was she thinking right now?

I tried to swallow, but it didn’t quite take.

Movement across the room. My eyes flicked to a dirty pair of jeans, depressing under an invisible foot before rebounding. She was walking around. I heard her. My backpack lifted off the ground, and the zippers opened, rummaging through my stuff. Nothing in there. She dropped the backpack and went for my smartphone next. Hovering in midair, the screen flashed with my recent text threads.

She wouldn’t find anything. Megan and I had long been in the habit of censoring our text messages. My browser popped up next. Old Google searches I’d done on dark matter, Rincon Systems, Air Force Space Command. Each one scrolled all the way to the bottom. She was reading . . . learning about me.

A shiver finally shook its way out of my body, and my teeth knocked together—
click
. I clamped my hand over my mouth, horrified. The phone jerked a little, meaning she’d turned around.

The phone drifted back to the ground and her footsteps approached the closet. I bit off a whimper, all my nerves sick with fear.

Then the closet door slid back.

I squeezed my
eyes shut, squeezed my palm tighter over my mouth, and willed my body not to tremble. My thundering pulse sounded like it was right inside my head and far off at the same time. I didn’t breathe. I could feel her there, feel her looking in at me, hear her breathing. One move and I was dead.

Would she reach in?

My lungs began to ache, desperate for oxygen. But she was still there. She would hear me inhale.
Please go away . . . please go away . . .

The floor outside the closet squeaked a little, and her footsteps shuffled out of the bedroom, to my immense relief. Was she leaving? I let out a shaky breath, along with all my pent-up tension, and nearly collapsed on my rubbery knees.

A muted bumping sound came from my mom’s office, followed by silence. Had she left? I waited another five minutes, listening intently, but I heard nothing else. At last I stumbled out of the closet, shivering and helpless.

Emory.

I needed him right now.

I grabbed my phone, but my hand shook so badly I dropped it. Scrambling after it, I almost crushed it under my knees. At last I held the device upright, only to stare dumbly at it. On. How did I turn it on? My finger found the button, and the screen flashed on. Now what?

Swipe.

Swipe to unlock.

I dragged my finger across, almost too jerky to register. Then my fingers tapped buttons at random, I couldn’t focus, couldn’t think. I choked on a sob, and a tear hit the screen. I couldn’t even read the numbers. Just hazy figures. I was so cold.

“Emory,” I whimpered. “I want to call Emory.”

The phone did nothing.

Something surfaced from deep in my mind. Voice activation. I had to say something specific to wake it up. A special voice command I’d programmed in a long time ago.

“This is Leona,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even.

The phone chirped.

“Call Emory.”

A robotic female voice said, “Calling Emory Lacroix,” and I nearly died from relief. His face flashed on my screen as it began to ring. I closed my eyes and held it to my cheek, teeth chattering again.

“Everything okay?” he answered after the third ring. For some reason, I knew he’d pick up.

I shook my head. “No. Not really.”

“What’s wrong?” he said, alarmed.

“Can you come get me?” I whispered.

As I counted
off the minutes, wondering what was taking him so long, my brain slogged through what had happened, barely functioning. She’d broken into my house, she’d come for me.

And I’d just made a horrible mistake.

The bed, the clothes under the blankets . . . Ashley knew I’d wanted to fake her out. And she’d seen that we’d changed the locks, she’d seen my research on dark matter on my cell phone, which meant she now knew that I knew she was invisible.

She would be upping her game.

I hugged my legs to my chest, trembling violently. I knew what I had to do. I had known for a while now.

Yes, Leona
, said the voice in my head.

I had to kill Ashley before she killed me.

I had to kill her again.

“Tell me what
happened,” said Emory, when I slid into his convertible ten minutes later—top up, thank God.

“Drive . . . just drive,” I said, peeling off the last of the dark matter from my bare feet and scraping it into the contact lens case.

He watched me, but said nothing.

I’d thrown on a loose tank top and shorts, so I was immensely grateful for the heat in his car. My core was still ice cold.

He put the car in gear and gunned it up the street. Only when I counted four blocks between me and my house did I let myself relax. But I wasn’t about to tell him what had happened. Telling him would only make him worry and want to help me, which was the last thing I wanted. If Megan was right, I was still his sister’s murderer.

I was the reason this creature had possessed her body.

To have him save me from her, given the circumstances, would be the deepest shame. I would rather die.

“You going to tell me what happened?” he said.

“Can I just be with you right now?” I said.

“Never gotten a straight answer from you before,” he said, rolling down his window to spit out a piece of gum, filling the car with chilly gusts. “Don’t know why I thought I’d get one now.”

“Don’t be an ass,” I said, breaking into shivers all over again. “By the way, thanks for coming to get me. I just . . . I can’t be in my house right now.”

“So what am going to do with you?” he said, leaning forward to read street names. “It’s three in the morning on a Friday, and I know your parents don’t know you’re out with me.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I said, cradling my head in my hands. “Nothing matters anymore.”

“Not going to argue with that,” he said, scowling.

“I hate life, Emory.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I’m so sick of this,” I said. “I’m so sick of everything.”

“Except me, apparently.”

I peered sideways at him. “Why do you tolerate me? I’m depressing, and morbid, and I hate myself, and you’re cool and gorgeous and . . . and I’ve seen you when you’re happy and it’s amazing, and you light up everyone’s life . . .” I turned away, tears blurring my eyes, “but you’re not happy, and it’s my fault. It’s all my fault.”

His eyes squinted as he considered this. “You’re right, you’re not happy,” he said. “You are depressed, and you do hate yourself—but you’re real, Leona.” He pulled up to a stop sign, and his eyes flicked to mine. “I look at everyone else, and I see this shiny exterior and this fake smile, but that’s it. There’s nothing in here.” He made a fist and thumped his chest. “But you . . . you don’t smile, and I like that. Because all that’s been stripped away. When you look at me, it’s just raw . . . and it’s powerful—and yeah, it’s really sad sometimes—but you’re the only person who looks at me like that. And when you do, I can’t look away from you.”

His words left me in a fog. I had nothing to say.

“And you’re gorgeous too, FYI.”

“Uh . . . okay.” My breath quivered in my lungs, and I felt weightless for the tiniest instant before I plunged back down into my abyss. I blushed and faced forward, my heart throbbing painfully. A whisper of envy unfurled in me. I wanted to be that girl—tortured, but beautiful. Forlorn, but loveable. But I wasn’t. I was unforgiveable.

By him, most of all.

“I want to know what it was,” he said softly. “I want to know what did this to you. I remember noticing you in the halls last year, you with your sophomore clique. I remember writing you off as a shallow airhead. You’re not that girl anymore.”

“I wish I still was,” I murmured.

“I don’t,” he said.

“You will.”

We lapsed into silence, and only then did I notice he was taking me up a steep windy road into the hills, downshifting around the curves. His wrists gleamed under the passing streetlights, hard planes like carved marble. My gaze climbed to his forearm, where the rolled-up sleeves of his collared shirt were stretched tight around knotted, sinewy muscle—his throwing arm. I wanted to touch his skin . . . feel if he was real. Or a temptation meant to drive me insane.

He caught me staring at him and raised an eyebrow, and I jerked my head forward and tucked my hair behind my ear, instantly self-conscious.

Santa Barbara flashed below us, all glittery and lit up, before vanishing behind a switchback.

“Where are we going?” I said.

“Somewhere that’s not your house.”

“Good.”

Okay, but where
were
we going?

More importantly, what were we doing? Together. Driving into the hills at three in the morning?

“Are we, like . . .
dating?
” I said, fearing the answer even as a giddy flutter passed through me.

He shrugged. “I don’t really like to put a label on things.”

“No, no, no . . .
nooooo
,” I said, suddenly tensing up. “We can’t be dating.”

“Like I said, no labels.”

“Because if we
were
 . . .” I warned.

“You would know. Just chill. You’re overthinking. You said you just wanted to just be with me, so let’s just be, alright?”

“Yeah, but not like that.”

He slowed the car down. “You want to go home?”

“No.”

“You want me to keep going?”

“No.”

“Alright. We’re going to stop in the middle of the road.” He stopped in the middle of the road. “And we’re just going to sit here.”

We sat there.

“Okay, you proved your point,” I said. “I’m a mess and I have no idea what I want. Are you happy? Now can we go?”

He smirked and we started up again. I rested my head against the glass and let my hair shield me from view, feeling dizzy and sick.