Starbright (The Starbright Series) (15 page)

             
A few deep breaths later,
I
decided there was nothing
I
could do about
my
past training, but there was something
I
could do tomorrow and that was to get caught up as quickly as possible.
I
trusted Seth and Jupiter was growing on
me
, so all that was left was for
me
to throw herself into
my
training and trust the God-given genes and instincts
I
had been born with.

             
Shutting
my
mind off from
my
Star duties for the night,
I
showered quickly, relishing in the heat of the water and blow-dried
my
hair.
I
had just thrown baggy sweatpants and a red long-sleeved volleyball t-shirt courtesy of Mead High on when there was a tap on
my
window.
I
finished getting dressed by pulling on some long wool socks, some hard-soled slippers and some mittens before climbing out
my
bedroom window on to the
flat
roof and sitting down next to Tristan.

             
“Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight,” he
teased
softly, as
we
snuggled up next to each other
for warmth
.

             
“Stop it right now,”
I
warned
, unable to keep the smile off my
face.

             
“What?” Tristan asked innocently. He was dressed almost identically to
me
in baggy sweatpants and a red, Mead hooded-sweatshirt.
He had a black stocking cap pulled over his shaved head and thick gloves that he used when he went snowboarding on trips to Colorado.

             
“At least it wasn’t Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,”
I
admitted, warming
us
both up with
my
inner heat that radiated softly from
me, even when I wasn’t glowing
.

             
“Everything’s going to change now isn’t it?” Tristan asked, the tone of his voice changing dramatically. He was rarely serious except on his respective sports fields and
I
couldn’t stop
my
self from looking up into his forest green eyes and wanting to falsely reassure him.

             
But
I
couldn’t.
I could never
lie to him.

             
“Yes, everything is going to change,”
I
recalled
my
own thoughts only a few minutes ago and settled deeper next to him. “The Darkness has never launched an attack like that before, at least on
E
arth. We are suddenly playing with a different rulebook; I’m not sure what will happen next.”

             
“I meant, between us,” Tristan sighed.
I glanced over at him and the lines of his forehead at tightened. I knew it stressed him out when I talked about my future, he worried too much. But now he was stressing
me
out talking about our present
.
             

             
“Why would things change between us?”
I
asked, pinpricks of anxiety lifting the hairs on the back of
my
neck.

             
“Stella, we can’t stay best friends forever. You have bad guys to fight, and I have farms to…. farm,” he laughed at the
way
his life
sounded
stacked next to
mine
.

             
“We can stay best friends forever,”
I
replied seriously. “Or are you unclear with what “BFF” means?”
I
nudged him with
my
shoulder and he laughed. “Obviously we need those necklaces.”

             
“What necklaces?” Tristan asked.

             
“You know those ones you give to your friends in elementary? Like it’s usually a heart broken in two and one side says “best” and the other side says “friend.” And you give it to your best friend so that everyone knows where you stand.”
I
explained.

             
“No, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t think guys are ever supposed to give each other necklaces.”
Tristan grunted.

             
“Well, you don’t just give them. You also give
them back when you decide
you don’t want to be best friends with that person
anymore
. It’s a very emotionally involved process,”
I joked
, remembering how serious elementary life was once upon a time.
I wondered if I would feel the same way about high school in a few years.

             
“That sounds mean,” Tristan
observed playfully
.

             
“Well, girls can sometimes be mean,”
I
admitted.

             
“
I would never give your necklace back,” Tristan assured
me
with mock-seriousness.

             
“That’s because you’re not a girl,”
I
agreed.

             
“True,” Tristan laughed. “So nothing’s going to change?”

             
“Nothing,”
I
promised. “We will always be best friends.”

             
A pause hung in the air between
us
. There was both promise and prophecy in that statement and
I
took the moment to reflect.
We
sat huddled next to each other,
I was trying to keep Tristan as warm as possible without lighting completely up
.
We
sat staring at the wide open sky, like
we
had on so many other nights.
I
could name all the constellations, even
though I
referred to them as battle formations and
I
could name
almost all the closest Stars by name
.

Tristan could sit by
me
for hours listening to the mystery of the heavens be
ing
revealed to him.
I
wondered if he was the only human on
E
arth with
this secret knowledge and then
wondered if he was crazy for taking
me
seriously.
But he would never doubt me
;
he cared about me way too much
.

As a friend.

The world stood gazing at the sky, naming age-old constellations and seeing only balls of gas
and light
spread across the expanse of the universe.
I
saw fellow fighters, protecting the
last remaining vestige of life.
Stars were spread across the universe in endless beacons of life, warding off the Darkness that crowded every remaining space. Where the light could not or did not touch there was Darkness.
Humanity saw the physical properties of space, and I saw the metaphysical, a completely different, separate but the same, spiritual world.
The blackness of space was not all emptiness, but an
ancient
evil that would annihilate
E
arth as willingly as it had all the other planets and claim victory over the solar systems.

As long as there was life, there would be Darkness. And as long as there was Darkness, the Light would protect that life
with everything it possessed. The life on
E
arth would never be left to fight the Darkness alone.

“Ok, so tell me more about the Darkness,” Tristan broke into
my
thoughts, pulling
me
out of
my
self. “Tell me what to expect.”

“
What to expect?”
I
thought about his question, how to explain it to a human for a minute before responding. “It’s everywhere. Not just in the night, but everywhere. The Darkness is the evil that invades mankind and tries to consume the last of life from this universe,”
I
explained ominously and Tristan swallowed the rising lump in his throat. “You understand the concept of evil,
well
that is the Darkness. They are synonymous. I don’t know a better way of explaining it to you.”

“So that’s what you fought last night
, like
pure unadulterated
evil?” Tristan asked and
I
nodded. “So those Shadow-things, that’s
what the Darkness is
?” he tried to understand. No…. he tried to comprehend.

“Well, yes, they are part of the Darkness. When I say that, I mean it more as a concept I guess. So there are the Shadows, they are literally…. shadows…. and they are what influences mankind. They can do small amounts of destruction and what not, but they aren’t super dangerous unless they arrive in flocks like they did last night. They weren’t enough to really harm me, but if there would have been humans around
then the Shadows could have hurt them
. And then there are the Fallen. They are
A
ngels, or were once
A
ngels…. It’s like, Ok, you know the story of Lucifer, and how he was cast out of
H
eaven and a third of the
A
ngels were sent with him, right?”

“Like, from the Bible?” Tristan clarified.

“Yes, right, from the Bible,”
I
agreed, glad
I
didn’t’ have to go over that.
Tristan went to church with Annabelle most of the time, but I didn’t know how close he listened.
“Ok, so those Angles that make up his followers were the original Fallen. Lucifer is obviously the main bad guy, but over time he has added a lot more to his following.”

“You mean
A
ngels still
fall
from heaven?” Tristan asked, deciding he couldn’t take
any more
of this seriously. He trusted
me
, but
I knew this was
weird.

“Yes, absolute
ly. Like you, we have free will. Even if we’re born as an
A
ngel, it doesn’t mean we can’t become part of the Fallen,”
I
said solemnly.
I
had heard too many stories of
A
ngels being brought over to the evil side of the war to know better than believe it couldn’t happen. “My dad says that every species is called to both the light and the dark, to goodness and to evil, it’s how we live our lives that decide who our hearts choose to follow.”

“Deep, Stel,” Tristan teased sarcastically, nudging
me
with his shoulder.

“My dad said it, not me,”
I
defended herself. “Anyway, the Fallen are the
A
ngels that choose to serve Lucifer. They look just like
A
ngels, even can behave like us, but they are obviously evil.”

“Creepy,” Tristan shuddered, feeling a chill creep up his spine.
“So not even you can tell the difference?”

No one on
E
arth would guess
I
wasn’t human unless they had seen
me
glow. The thought that the same kind of species walked around
E
arth bent on destroying every last living life completely undetectable to the human eye raised the hairs on
my
arms, and churned
my
stomach uneasily.

“Well, I can tell that they’re not human. I have this like supernatural sense that lets me know when something is different….
b
ut if they were acting normal, or good, or whatever then
you
couldn’t necessarily tell that they were Fallen,”
I
explained, thinking again to the spy who had infiltrated the Elders.

“
Ok, what else?” Tristan shifted uncomfortably, wanting to move on.