Starbright (The Starbright Series) (39 page)

             
“She’s my best friend, but this is just getting awkward,” I mumbled to Tristan since Seth had politely engaged Bree into conversation over us.

             
“No kidding,” Tristan laughed awkwardly. “Come on you two before my eyes start bleeding.” Tristan threw a crumpled up napkin at them and successfully got their attention. Lincoln ducked his
head, his cheeks blushed bright red and he avoided everyone’s eye. Piper however, sat proudly up in her chair, her face glowing with excitement. I was so happy for her I could burst.

             
The pizza came and we all dove in.

             
“So what should we see tonight?” Tristan asked the table. “Zombies or aliens?”

             
“Is that all that’s out? How about we meet in the middle…. like a romantic comedy? Or just something that isn’t all about killing?” Bree argued, her distinct whine ting
e
ing her every syllable while she batted her eyes flirtatiously at Tristan.

             
I was definitely going to need something that involved killing.

             
“Let’s put it to a vote!” Piper declared democratically. She raised
her hand to signal Lincoln be the first to share his opinion
, and her bangles clanked down her wrist loudly.

             
Tristan turned his head to mumble something to me, but his words were lost when a purely evil feeling slithered over my skin. I froze in my chair as the Darkness entered the pizza restaurant. Before I even lifted my head
I instinctively felt that whatever presence joined us now was more incredibly evil than all of the Shadows I had fought put together. A cold terror settled in my stomach and spread through my veins like a sickness. The breath whooshed from my lungs and my fingers clenched against the table with the strength that promised to destroy my cover.
The world around me narrowed into a dark
ened
tunnel that sent my equilibrium reeling violently.

             
Tristan looked down at me with panicked eyes, but I gathered my senses enough to shake my head slightly in warning. All at once my sense
s
and instincts rushed back to me and I whipped my head toward a
partially hidden
, corner booth with the
mission
to
extinguish
whatever evil presence lingered in this world where it did not belong.

             
My gaze shifted t
o Seth next. He sat rigid in his chair
, his fists balled on the table, and his right knee bouncing up and down frantically. A wave of relief washed over me when I saw Seth’s reaction. I hadn’t realized how afraid I was that I was the only one who felt the
malevolent
presence until I saw how acutely aware of the evil Seth was.

             
“Earth to Stella!” Piper called. I looked up to see her arms waving at me while I stared seeing only the supernatural world around us.
“Zombies or Aliens?”

             
“Or love?” Bree squeaked.

             
“Uh, definitely zombies,” I mumbled, my eyes flicking back over to the booth in the
corner
. I couldn’t see what sat there, what
wickedness
had entered this place, but I could feel how the entire atmosphere of the restaurant sagged under the weighted presence of such concentrated
D
arkness.

             
“Zombies it is!” Tristan declared, standing up and clasping his hands together as if he had just won some big bet.

             
My stomach churned with anticipation for what was ahead of me tonight, and whatever it was did not include zombies,
or outrageously buttered popcorn,
but it was definitely akin to a horror movie. I turned to Seth, asking him silently with my eyes what we should do.

             
“I uh, I just got a text from my
grandpa
, I need to go make a call,” Seth explained super awkwardly before getting up to step outside.

             
He was so not good at lying, but it didn’t matter because at least he
had a
plan. Tristan’s eyes cut down to me, demanding I t
ell him what was going on. A
ll I could do was offer a weak smile and pray that the battle didn’t start until Seth got back.

             
“Is everything Ok, Stel?” Piper asked, picking up on the weird tension.

             
“I don’t think so,” I confessed, knowing Seth and I needed to split up from our group as soon as possible. “I’m not sure.”

             
I let my eyes float back to the booth in the corner where they stopped abruptly on the most attractive, most evil man I had ever seen. He was slender and tall, wearing an extremely expensive charcoal suit and a winni
ng smile that promised only terrible things
. His golden b
rown
hair was swept back from his eyes and he had a five o’clock shadow that could have seduced any woman. His piercing
bright green gaze was locked on me from across the space between us and I felt myself sink back from the waves of pure
malevolence
that
seeped
from him.

             
“Stella Day?” he laughed from across the restaurant like we knew each other intimately. “Stella? Is that you?”

             
I swallowed down the fear, anger, and wrenching disgust and plastered on a hardly believable smile. “Oh, hey,” I forced myself to answer, instinctively realizing I needed to play along in order to protect my friends.

             
“Saul, look who
’s
here,” he turned his head to address his accomplice as he stood from their booth. Saul, was a huge, muscular man with jet black hair and black eyes as if when he fell from
H
eaven, the Darkness not only tainted his soul, but his features as well.

             
Saul didn’t say anything to his friend, just grunted in my direction as if that was an appropriate response for a public place. But then his eyes raked over me as if he knew ever
y inch of me already.
A mixture of nausea and excitement for battle
rippled through me.
I would enjoy making this particular brand of evil extinct.

             
Seth walked back to the table at the exact moment I had decided to hell with the spectators and I was grateful for his reassuring presence. He put a hand on the small of my back and I felt his anger
as his hand trembled against me
. He stared down the two Fallen who watched us with unmasked, cruel delight as if he too couldn’t wait for the privacy of the back all
e
y.

             
“That was my
grandpa
, Stella,” Seth growled, his voice low and vibrating. “I need to get home right away.” He turned his head at the last minute and addressed our table wh
ere everyone
had fallen silent at the weirdness between us. “I’m sorry
guys;
you should get to the movie though.”

             
“But how will you get home?” Tristan demanded, not at all fooled by
Seth’s cover story
.

             
“Do you two need a ride back to that sweet little farm town?” The first Fallen asked from across the room. His eyes lit up with anticipation, paralyzing me in
his
hungry gaze.

             
I tried to pretend i
t
was perfectly normal for two mysterious men to butt into a group of teenager’s conversation from across the room. And then prayed my friends wouldn’t start asking questions.

             
“We do,” Seth answered. “Were you headed that direction?”

             
“Well, we’ve been meaning to pay Jupiter a visit
for a while now
, haven’t we Saul?” the first Fallen asked, and a protective tremble shook my core. “If you would just call him and let him know we’ll take you home so he doesn’t worry, we’d love to offer you a ride.”

             
“I can do that,” Seth replied robotically.

             
I tore my eyes from the Fallen’s gaze back to my friends. I was desperate to protect them, to save
them from this horrendous evil. “Is that Ok with you guys? These are old friends of our
families;
we can get a ride home with them.” I forced my lips to twist into a smile and my eyes to meet Piper’s and Tristan’s. Piper looked concerned while Tristan looked…. like he was going to fight this battle for me.

             
I needed to get them out of here.

             
“Are you sure you’re going to be Ok?” Piper asked as Seth hung up the phone and smiled reassuringly.

             
“Oh yeah, we go way back with these guys and my
grandpa
just told me how he cannot wait to see them again,” Seth promised, his voice sounding more controlled, but quietly scary.

             
“And you guys should go, or you’re going to miss the previews!” I declared, standing up so that my chair scraped against the floor loudly.

             
I held my arms up, shooing them to the door where I said goodbye to Piper and Lincoln and politely nodded to Bree. Tristan stopped though, right inside the door where nobody else could hear him.

             
“Who are they, Stella?” he demanded, his voice barely a whisper. When I didn’t respond he filled in the blanks. “Bad guys?”

             
I nodded my head seriously, “Yep, bad guys.”

             
“I’m not leaving you,” Tristan promised and my throat immediately tightened and closed with the fear that he was serious.

             
“Yes you are, Tristan,” I begged, my eyes meeting his and
pleading with
him to go. “They will hurt you if you stay, maybe even kill you
…. probably even kill
you
and I cannot let that happen. Go with Piper, I’ll call you when I get home.”

             
“No,” he growled, his arm slamming behind my head, pinning me against the wall. “I can’t leave you.”

             
I cupped his face with my hand and ran my thumb across his bottom lip, knowing that the evil I was going to face tonight was greater than anything I had met before. “You have to leave Tristan. I can’t worry about you while I face these guys, I won’t be at my strongest.
And you need to get Piper and Lincoln out of here. You’re the only one that knows what’s going on and you need to get them somewhere safe.
”

             
“What if something happens to you,” his voice broke from frustration and I hated that he knew what was going on, for the first time in my life I hated that he knew what I was and what I had to face.

             
“Nothing will happen to me,” I promised. “Nothing. Tristan I am the only hope this planet has, I am strong enough to defeat these guys, I swear to you. I’ll text you as soon as I’m on my way home.”

             
“This goes against everything I believe in, everything that’s in me,” his eyes held the deepest loss and even though I knew he believed I would win this fight, I also knew that it broke him not to be able to protect me.

             
“Please go,” I begged, my own soul feeling dangerously close to shattering. 

             
A deep growl rumbled inside of him and he pushed forcefully away from the wall and stalked out the front door. I watched him walk away from the restaurant realizing that may hav
e been the bravest thing he
ever had to do. His eyes found mine one more time before he climbed in Piper’s Durango and I promised him again with my expression that I would be fine. His expression hardened as if
he
knew I was lying to him and then he was in the car and gone.

             
My shoulders
fell
in relief for just a moment before I turned back to face the men that had followed Seth and I to the restaurant. Seth was watching Saul and the other Fallen, and I got the di
stinct impression he had yet to
take his eyes off of them.

             
“Well, should we take this carpool someplace a little more
private
?” The first Fallen asked, his voice mocking and amused.

             
“I’m going to kill you tonight,” Seth snarled, his
Adams
apple bobbing in his throat with the effort to swallow.