Starbright (The Starbright Series) (21 page)

             
Like about not becoming her friend.

Seth shifted uncomfortably under Bree’s penetrating stare
and gave me an uncertain glance. “So are you another one of Stella’s best friends?” he asked innocently.

             
Bree and I both let out a strangled laugh at the same time. She turned to stare at me for a second, malice thickening the air between us. I smoothed out my face and returned her glare with my sweetest smile, knowing I wasn’t taking the high road. She loathed when I was nice to her. She preferred outright honesty and the fact that she had made me her rival since the first day of kindergarten was not a secret. But, saving humanity and all, I was not really in a position to just come right out and say exactly how I felt about her.

             
“We’re, uh, friends,” I replied, shifting my gaze to Seth’s because I knew Bree’s reaction would be vile.

             
Tristan, Rigley and Lincoln burst into laughter at that and Piper, who had somehow not incited the same hatred in Bree as I did, shook her head like she knew better.

             
“If by friends you mean we go to the same school, happen to be in the same grade and unfortunately have to see each other daily….” Bree made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat and ripped open her lunch bag with extra force.
“Then yeah, we’re
friends
.”

             
Yikes. So
obviously
not best friends.

             
“So who’s going to Lincoln’s after the game tomorrow night?” Rigley moved
the conversation forward
.
Seth shot me an unsure glance
and then went back to his radioactive lunch
. Making high school enemies was so not on the list of acceptable Star-related activities….

             
“Oh I’ll be there,” Piper replied dryly, “with bells on.”

             
“
Really?” Lincoln spoke up for the first time, his clear skin turning pink with the question.

             
“Yes, really,” Piper nodded enthusiastically, “with actual bells on.”

             
Lincoln looked back down at his sack lunch a little dejected, but didn’t offer a response to Piper’s sarcasm.
I
noticed the hint of disappointment in Lincoln’s demeanor and tried to salvage the situation.

             
“Are your parents out of town again, Lincoln?”
I
asked, investigating the reason behind a Friday night, after-game party.
Weekend parties were not an uncommon affair in Mead, there wasn’t much else to do and most of the kids had older siblings more than willing to provide illegal-underage refreshments for a price. But a party in someone’s actual house was kind of uncommon. Usually, Friday night was spent with a circle of truck beds backed up around a bonfire. Those were easy to avoid. A house-party was a special occasion and not so easy to make excuses for.

             
“Yeah, Rigley refuses to waste an opportunity,” Lincoln replied, still staring at his lunch.

             
“So you girls going or what?” Rigley asked bluntly.

             
“I’m going!” Bree offered enthusiastically. “Liz and Kendall are too, as long as Kendall and Eli are still together…. Chances are they’ll break up before Friday night and then she won’t want to go. But there’s also a good chance they could break up
and
get back together before then too-“

             
“Anyway,” Piper cut her off before we could hear anymore scenarios that involved Kendall’s possible attendance.
“Let’s just count them all in for the party until we hear differently, k?”

             
Bree rolled her eyes, but didn’t continue speculating anymore high school romances.

             
The table fell silent for a moment before Tristan added
, “Not everyone is going to be drinking, and you can bring Seth.” Tristan nodded over to Seth who had somehow managed to eat most of the lunch on his plate. “It could be fun,” Tristan added
softly to me
.

             
“Maybe,”
I
conceded
, wondering how Seth would react to a bunch of drunken teenagers
pulling small town shenanigans like Tipsy-Cow-Tipping on a farm in
the middle of nowhere.

             
“Depends on if we win or lose,” Piper decided.

             
“Which
way?” Lincoln tried again and I had to hold back my
smile at his obvious interest in Piper.

             
“That depends too, my friend,” Piper answered noncommittally and then got up to throw the remains of her lunch away.

             
Something moved across the ceiling…. something long, thin and black.
A wisp of charcoal smoke moved
with purpose;
I
saw the Shadow out of the corner of
my
eye
, like a dark cloud in my peripheral
.
I
whipped
my
head around to catch the demon in action, but it
already
disappeared before
my
eyes
could find
it. And then again, from the other side of the cafeteria, a puff of evil that slithered along the wall, a sadistic snake shape that slipped away to nothing before
I
could focus on
my
enemy.

             
“Are you Ok, Stel?” Tristan asked, as he watched
me
whip
my
head back and forth
,
my
golden skin turning pale
.

             
“Fine,”
I
turned to give him a reassuring smile and when
I
did the Shadow was back on the ceiling
,
paused
and unmoving
as if watching
me
.

             
I
turned
my
head slower this time, sure
I
would miss the apparition, but there it stayed. The black tuft of smoke discolored the white tile
and sent the faint smell of
sulfur
burning my
n
ostrils
.
Goose bumps raised the hair on my forearms, and a sickening, nauseous feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. The Shadow didn’t move or flinch as I stared back, and although it did not have eyes per say, the head of the demon seemed to watch me intently, as if egging me on…. daring me to react.

             
I
watched the Shadow for a second before turning to Seth to get his attention. He had already seen it though, and stared intently at it.
I
felt his knee bounce up and down furiously as he tried to restrain his Warrior instinct and go after it
, his entire body tensed with the effort not to go to battle
.
I
wondered if there was a sword or dagger hidden in his casual outfit, a school sized one for school sized incidents.

             
Eventually
the
S
hadow
faded away, into the ceiling and the room returned to normal. The behavior was strange though, and
I
couldn’t help but wonder if the night when Seth appeared in
my
life, when Sidra died, if the nature of
this
war hadn’t changed in some way…. some terribly epic way that even Jupiter wouldn’t be able to
prepare
me
for.

             
Shadows were supposed to influence evil from a distance. They were called Shadows for a
reason;
they were never seen, only glimpsed at. And they were never out rightly threatening, only influential manipulators.

             
My
gaze fell back to Seth who
was watching me
closely as though
my
life were in immediate danger. His brilliant eyes glowed with his supernatural power and the warmth of his skin had picked up hues of gold.
I
smiled at him reassuringly, hoping to remind him he was in a room filled with humans, but it only softened his intensity a little.

             
Something was going on. And
we
needed to figure out what.

             
Preferably before
my
game tomorrow night.

Chapter Eight

             
“Hey, great game!” Tristan stopped
me
on
my
way to the locker room. The varsity
boys’ team
waited against the gym wall to start
warm-ups
while the varsity
girls’ team
cleaned up the rest of
our
discarded water cups and
towels and
cleared the gym floor.

             
“Thanks!”
I
gasped
, still breathless.
I
wiped
my still
sweaty forehead with the back of
my
hand
and placed both hands on
my
hips completely exhausted
without the benefit of
my
supernatural powers
. “They were good.” 

             
“Not as good as you,” Tristan laughed. He moved a basketball back and forth casually in his hands and kept his
intense
gaze on
me
.
His gaze was always intense lately, as if he had to watch me constantly or I would disappear into thin air. Sometimes his over protectiveness would get on my nerves, but this look, this new look wasn’t so much platonically possessive as it was…. I di
dn’t really know what it was.
I felt my blood heat inside my veins and found the need to defuse the moment with humor.

             
“Well, that’s a given,”
I
boasted sarcastically. “But seriously, they were tough. How is their guy’s team?”

             
“They’re rated number nine this year. They started out the season slow, but before break they killed Scribner-Snyder, who is rated higher than us…. so we will see. Lincoln and I have some tricks up our sleeves
though
, I think we’ll do pretty good tonight,” Tristan smiled widely, glancing ove
r at his opponents who were fil
ing out of the visitors’ locker room
in an adrenaline surging warm-up routine
.

             
“Of course you will,”
I
promised encouragingly. “Watch out for number seventeen though, his sister played middle too but she kept taking these random three-pointers and catching us off guard.”

             
“I saw that,” Tristan agreed, his eyes narrowing in focus. “Piper looked pretty pissed about it.”

             
“That’s because Piper is super possessive about her three-point record, even if they’re on the other team. Trust me, I haven’t even tried to take one since junior high,”
I
noticed the rest of
my
team had
disappeared
into the locker room and were probably waiting on
me
for the after-game pep talk from Coach. “I better go! Good luck though! I ex
pec
t to be pointed at after the best play of the game
!
Tonight I’
m thinking I want a 360 dunk, while you
….
bark like a dog.”

             
I
laughed at
our
pre-game tradition.
Before every one of our games, I
came up with ridiculous scenarios and if they were winning by a lot Tristan would try to incorporate them into the game in his own tamed down version. In his last game he had performed a tap-dancing jig while trying to throw the ball inbounds and then clucked like a chicken during a set of free throws
shot by the opposing team
.
His teammates thought he was crazy and his coach only tolerate
d his antics because he was
so good at winning games.

             
“What is with all these sounds now? It used to just be fancy moves
!
Next week I’m going to have to sing opera or recite the pledge of allegiance,” he shook his head at
me
, but was laughing
and I knew I had already won
.