Sunburst (Starbright Series) Read online

  “I see that you’re fine now,” he clarified. “But for you to miss school… it must have been pretty bad, yeah, Stel?”

  “It was pretty bad.”

  “Seth saved you?”

  “Seth saved me.”

  “And now that he’s gone? What are you going to do now?”

  His questions surprised me. I knew Tristan understood this part of my life better than I could ever hope, but I didn’t expect him to give Seth so much credit.

  “I get better,” I declared and in that moment I knew it was true. I had to get better, I had to be better. I couldn’t let something like this happen to me again and I absolutely couldn’t be caught off guard like that ever again. I would need weapons with me all the time. And I would have to start taking training seriously.

  If Jupiter would still even want to train me. There was a definite possibility with the loss of his protégé he would pack in his whole mission and find a different planet to inhabit.

  “I believe in you, Stel,” Tristan said seriously. It could have sounded cheesy, but it didn’t. It didn’t because I needed to hear those words. Up until this moment I didn’t have to believe in myself, mostly because I had Seth to believe in. But now it was up to me and only me.

  I needed all the support I could get.

  “Thank you,” I leaned forward and hugged him again.

  “We should get back before it rains,” Tristan sighed. He helped me down from the log I was perched on, taking my hand and leading me back through the forest.

  And I knew he was right. It was time to go back and get on with life.

  Seth had only been a part of my life for a few months, but it seemed almost impossible to go on without him. It felt…. wrong. But somehow I’d have to manage. Somehow I would have to force myself to move forward.

  I wondered if I would ever see him again- if we’d ever come face to face gain. He was Darkness now and I was Light. So I would have to. I would face Aliah. I would face Seven. And I supposed that meant I would face Seth. Only the next time I saw him, instead of fighting alongside him, I would be fighting against him.

  Which sucked.

  Because on top of everything else, Seth was good at what he did- killing.

  I just had to hope I wasn’t his next victim.

  Chapter Nine

  I was so behind with homework. And coach was pissed at me for just disappearing last Thursday- beyond pissed. She was subbing today for Mr. Wilks and had trapped me at the beginning of Physics to give me a ten minute lecture on never walking out on practice again. I tried to explain how deathly ill I was, but she wasn’t having it.

  And then she’d marked me tardy, even though she was the one talking to me- in her classroom!

  Today was not starting off well.

  Now in third hour English, our teacher, Mrs. Shannon, was late, which probably meant she was printing off a pop quiz. Great.

  “Still have the plague, Stella?” Rigley asked as he slid into his desk a few up from mine.

  “Mostly no,” I smiled at him.

  “Is it contagious?” he turned around in his desk and smirked at me.

  “Why? Are you worried about catching it?” Tristan asked sounding amused. Rigley, for all his stunts and shenanigans, was a notorious germaphobe. And he was terrified of getting sick.

  Rigley turned his attention on Tristan and his smirk grew, “Well with all the sharing of bodily fluids last night, I have been a little concerned I might come down with something.”

  Tristan opened his mouth to shut Rigley up but I cut him off, “I am also worried I’ll be coming down with something, but not of the flu variety.”

  The boys in the class erupted in “Oh’s!” and “Booms!”

  “I can’t believe you just said that,” Tristan laughed at me.

  “Me either,” Mrs. Shannon intoned dryly from the front of the classroom. A boy was standing next to her, smirking at me like he knew a secret or like my joke was highly amusing to him.

  My eyes skimmed over him and I felt him watching me in return. It was unsettling.

  But I couldn’t decide if it was so much his expression or his overall appearance that disturbed me. He was tall, and thin- almost too thin, but somehow muscled at the same time. He stomach was so flat that his jeans sat low on his waist, even with the help of his studded belt. He wore a simple, thin, worn-out white t-shirt that seemed indecent on him, somehow. His face was striking, but not classically handsome; he was all sharp lines and rough angles. His dark, almost black hair was much longer on top and cut close on the sides, but styled so it looked not styled. He was all kinds of contradiction, finished off with black boots that were untied and sloppy at the end of his dark, washed jeans.

  He wore expensive clothes, except for the t-shirt, but looked disheveled at the same time. He was too skinny to seem tough, but he was definitely dangerous. He wasn’t classically handsome, but I could already see the girls around me basically swooning at his feet. So much contradiction for just one guy.

  He didn’t or wouldn’t fit in here. Except maybe with Piper. And that thought gave me chills. I didn’t want him anywhere near Piper.

  I didn’t know why I felt that way, but I couldn’t help it.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Shannon,” I finally found my voice and apologized.

  “Ms. Day, just remember, people perceive you by the way you present yourself. Do you want people to think you spent last night swapping bodily fluids with Mr. Merritt?”

  “Uh, no, thank you,” I squeaked and then sunk down in my chair, hoping desperately to become invisible.

  “Then stop announcing it to the class,” she lectured.

  Oh, lord.

  “Class,” she called everyone’s attention to the front- and off me, thankfully. “We have a new student today. Ironically, we lost one yesterday. If you haven’t heard Seth Smith transferred and won’t be attending here any longer. In his wake, we’ve received Jude Michaels.” She turned to smile affectionately at Jude, but his attention was still on…. me.

  I avoided his dark gaze and let my attention fall to my desk. I wrote my name needlessly on a piece of notebook paper- doing anything to avoid his stare. I didn’t know why it bothered me so much, but I couldn’t stop my instincts from taking over.

  “Jude, have a seat please,” Mrs. Shannon asked him nicely. “Class, I expect you to give Jude a gracious welcome.”

  And then she went on with her lecture. I assumed Jude got settled in his seat alright, but I didn’t look at him. Not once. I paid perfect attention and answered when called on. Part of it was so I could ignore the new kid. The other part…. to prove to Mrs. Shannon that I was still the upstanding student she thought I was.

  At the end of class I collected my books and bag and left immediately while other students lingered so they could introduce themselves to Jude. Mead was so incredibly small that every new student carried celebrity appeal, a phenomenon that the student body loved to dissect and observe.

  And once the novelty wore off, the new student would be divided up into whatever clique or social group they belonged in, and we would all move on with our lives.

  “Not interested in meeting the new kid?” Tristan asked from my side as we made our way to our next class.

  “Not particularly,” I shrugged.

  “Any reason why?” he pressed with eyebrows raised.

  It wasn’t like me to be unfriendly.

  “No, I’m just…. I just feel out of it today,” I tried to smile at him, but it was the truth. I did feel out of it. And today was weird without Seth. It wasn’t like he’d gone to school with me very long, but while he was here I always knew he would be waiting for me in between classes and that he would break the boy-girl barrier at lunch. He was the only boy that sat on the girl side of the table and I loved that. And then I knew he would be waiting for me at home after practice too, so we could train.

  He was just this huge part of my life and suddenly he was gone.

  It left me feeling disoriente
d, heart broken, and a million other things I couldn’t name or hold onto long enough to identify. They flashed through me like strobe lights- blinding, a little bit nauseating and bright with white hot intensity.

  “Understandable,” Tristan agreed. He offered me a sympathetic smile and we kept walking, thoughts of Seth and the new kid far away.

  Fourth period was electives, so I was separated from most of my class while I met up with Piper and Bree in choir, where we sang our little hearts out, of course. And then we joined the boys for lunch.

  I wasn’t surprised to see Jude sitting amongst Tristan and his friends. They were naturally the guys that would make an effort to include anyone new, especially if that new person seemed at all athletic. They were constantly playing recruiters. And even though Jude looked a little fragile to me because of how skinny he was, I couldn’t deny the well-defined arm muscles he was rocking.

  It bothered me that he was sitting at our table though. And even more that he was sitting in Seth’s seat.

  I couldn’t explain it, but he seriously tingled my suspicious Spidey-senses. I didn’t like him and I didn’t like that he kept staring at me.

  What was his deal?

  “Ladies,” Rigley greeted with a half-grin. “Welcome.”

  “Choir get out late?” Tristan asked, meeting my eyes from across the table. His emerald gaze was gentle and concerned, and I was so thankful for that reassurance while I slid in next to Jude.

  “Yes,” I sighed. “We’re getting ready for Districts and it turns out we suck.”

  Piper burst out into laughter. “We do suck. That is a true story.”

  “Aren’t you always bad though?” Tristan grinned at us.

  “Only for the past…. twenty years,” I confirmed.

  “You’re in choir?”

  I turned to face Jude, the source of the question. He sounded disbelieving, he sounded like he knew me.

  Which he did not.

  A chill snaked over my spine and I turned to face him. I lifted my gaze, and met the darkest gray eyes I had ever seen. They were a deep charcoal and their color so vividly gray that they seemed almost fuzzy, like a snowy TV screen. I expected them for some reason to be lifeless and vacant, but they were very much alive, glimmering with secret amusement and a dry cynicism I didn’t understand.

  “Yes, I’m in choir,” I finally said. I realized I’d been staring at him for a while and suddenly felt awkward. I turned back to my turkey club sandwich.

  “I’m Jude.” He called my attention back to him and reached out a hand.

  “I’m Stella,” I answered without taking it. I didn’t want to shake his hand. I hated that he was sitting by me and that he had taken Seth’s seat. And maybe that wasn’t all his fault, but his timing was really bad.

  “I know,” he grinned at me and his eyes twinkled. He pushed his hand further in front of him and waited patiently for me to take it.

  I looked down at it and then back up at him. Ignoring his hand again, I leaned back and gestured behind me. “This is Piper and on the other side of her is Bree.”

  “Hi, Piper.” He reached around me and shook her hand. “Hi, Bree.” He leaned forward some more so that we were almost touching, but not totally invading my personal space, and shook Bree’s hand. Then he sat back and held his hand out to me again.

  What was with this guy and shaking people’s hand? Did he have a tic?

  I stared down at the hand wiggling in front of me and seriously considered biting it. I knew I was being rude, but I was honestly blown away by his insistence on shaking my hand when I clearly did not want to touch him.

  “For god’s sake, Stella, shake the man’s hand!” Piper exclaimed.

  And then I felt silly. Something was wrong with me. I was making way too big of a deal out of this. And I realized everyone’s eyes were on us, and how blown out of proportion I was making this.

  I offered an apologetic smile which only seemed to amuse him more, and then grasped his hand. And in that moment I knew exactly why I had reservations about him.

  He was Fallen.

  In my hometown. In my school. Near my friends.

  I felt my eyes go wide with shock. My grip tightened on his hand instinctively and I fought the urgent need to drag him out of here and run a sword through his neck, and then wiggle it around a little bit, just to make sure his death was nice, slow and torturous. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured it out before now. I couldn’t believe he was walking around school all morning, and I was playing off my instinct as a “weird vibe.”

  “It’s nice to finally meet you, Stella,” Jude smiled at me, ignoring his hand that was currently being squashed by mine. “And all your…. friends.”

  I gave a pained smile back and then released his hand as if it burned me. “What brings you to Mead? Are your parents farmers?”

  He chuckled but shook his head, “I’m staying with an uncle. I got into a bit of trouble at my last school. My parents sent me down here to sort me out.”

  It was subtle accents on different words like “uncle” or “down here” that forced me to roll my eyes.

  “So you’re a troublemaker?” Bree asked in what I was sure she thought was a coy voice from down the table.

  Jude’s eyes flicked past me and he grinned at her, “Definitely a troublemaker.”

  “And your uncle thinks Mead will fix you?” I asked dryly.

  “My uncle’s not interested in fixing me, Stella. Just…. containing me for a while.” His smile was unapologetic and his tone was knowing, as if he had this great big secret.

  Well, since he was Fallen, enrolled in high school, I imagined that he did.

  “Until you graduate?” I asked innocently.

  “Until you graduate,” he confirmed on a whisper as he leaned in.

  “Well, welcome to Mead,” Tristan interrupted awkwardly. I was sure he picked up on the strangeness of this guy and was not at all thrilled Jude seemed so familiar with me.

  Tristan and I had that in common.

  The rest of lunch went by without incident, except that I had somehow managed to share a meal with a Fallen. I picked at my food while my friends chatted up Jude and welcomed him into our circle of trust. It wasn’t like everyone here was super goody-goody. Tristan and Rigley regularly got into trouble and I had just been basically called a slut by my English teacher- although it was not true. But Jude added a whole new level of danger to the table, one that my friends were fascinated with instead of afraid of.

  I was going to have to kill this guy.

  The sooner the better.

  I excused myself a few minutes before the bell rang and ran to my locker for a weapon. This morning I pulled out a fitted black trench coat to wear to school today in order to keep my katanas close by. It was a little more Goth than I was used to, but I didn’t really have a choice if I wanted to smuggle in swords without having the school administrator call the FBI.

  I opened my locker door and had it abruptly slammed back into place, nearly catching my fingers in the motion.

  Jude.

  I hadn’t heard him come up behind me- unacceptable.

  I turned with my back pressed into the locker and faced my enemy. “What are you doing here?” I demanded on a growl.

  He smiled at me and put an arm over my head. If anyone walked by, it would look like he was hitting on me, but lunch was still in progress and we were alone in the hallway.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” he smirked.

  “Are you here to kill me?” I laughed lightly. “Because you won’t be the first one to try. I just need to know if I’m going to be late for next period.”

  His eyes narrowed on me and he leaned in. He smelled like cigarettes and mint. “You think you’re funny don’t you.”

  “Obviously.”

  His gaze traveled down the length of me, lingering on all my curves and exclusively female features before he lifted his eyes to mine again. “I think I’m starting to get it.”

  “Get what?�
�� I asked before I could stop myself.

  “I’m not here to kill you, Stella,” he confessed on a sigh. I expected him to back up, but he stayed hovering over me, way too closely. “I’m here to do the opposite.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I’m here to protect you- to make sure nothing happens to you.” His grin turned wicked and the sparkle in his eyes turned devious.

  “What does that mean?” I demanded, a bit exasperated.

  From start to finish so far, this did not make sense.

  “So your boyfriend defected yesterday, if I understand this correctly,” Jude intoned dryly. He stood up then and pulled a cigarette from a pack in his back pocket and slid it between his lips. With the tip of his finger and whatever was left of his fading Light, he lit it and then sucked in a long breath.

  “I feel like I remember hearing about this. What does that have to do with me?”

  “He signed a contract, Starling. Made a deal with the devil himself. Aliah gets his free will, bright white Light and eternal soul all in exchange for you. Seth stays with Aliah and your hot little body remains untouched until you’re eighteen.” He sucked in another long drag and blew it out over my head.

  Which was both oddly considerate and brazenly rebellious all at the same time.

  “I’m not understanding.” I shook my hair out. My head was starting to hurt with all the implications of his speech.

  “Your boy Seth gave himself up to Aliah in order to make sure we left you alone until you turn eighteen. But I have to warn you, Sweet, your birthday equals game on.”

  “And you’re part of the bargain?”

  “Contract,” he clarified. “I am.” He inhaled his shortening cigarette and stared at me intently.

  “Explain that part to me.”

  “Protective detail. I’m here to ensure nothing happens to you.”

  “All you have to do is keep your Fallen friends away from me. I should be just fine.” I pushed away from him and started walking down the hall. We were still alone while everyone was at lunch but I kept waiting for the teachers to converge on us in their version of a SWAT team, tackling us to the ground and shouting for us to hand over the cigarettes! My transcript would forever be blackened thanks to Jude and his literal inability to follow the rules.