Read Of Starlight for Free Online

Sleepwalking . . . did I ever sleepwalk? I had woken up once clutching the meteorite with no memory of grabbing it. I could have done other things, too. Maybe dark matter had influenced Ashley like it had influenced me. Maybe it was dark matter that had sent her out to Foothill Road to die that fateful night three months ago.
    Maybe it wasn’t really my fault . . .
    I shook those desperate thoughts out of my head, all too familiar with the cycle. The what-if path only brought more pain.
    Once Megan and I were both invisible—and both clutching invisible phones—we stepped out of her car. A chilly breeze lifted my hair and swept it across my back, instantly unleashing shivers. I unclasped my hand from Megan’s and squeezed my arms to my chest, teeth chattering.
    It was only the second day of October, but I was feeling it.
    “Stop being a pansy, it’s not that cold,” said Megan’s voice, already drifting toward the party.
    I scrambled after her and groped around until I caught her hand again, which I gripped tightly. We came to a waist-high gate. High schoolers gathered in loud groups on the other side, no one looking our way.
    “Hold my phone,” said Megan, prying my fingers off her hand and replacing them around the device. Then she let go.
    “Megan!” I hissed.
    “Shh . . .” The gate rattled, followed by a grunt, a clumsy landing, and a loud, “Ow!”
    The heavy bass pouring from the house masked the sounds. No one looked over. I found her again, handed off the phones, and vaulted the gate myself. Then she dragged me across the yard, weaving between the groups and around a pair of kegs, where my toes sank in wet, trampled grass and sloshed through muddy pools of spilt beer.
    What the hell was I doing here?
    We reached the porch, just as someone pushed open the screen door. Megan hurried to catch it, yanking me up the steps. The screen swung shut, magically stopped mid-swing, and I was tugged into a humid living room. An obstacle course confronted us inside. Gesturing and shouting wildly over the music, drunk kids barreled about the room, colliding and squeezing past each other like the intermeshing teeth of so many gears.
    Not one of them could be allowed to touch us.
    I had two seconds to take it all in before Megan’s hand was roughly yanked out of my own, leaving me alone.
    “Megan,” I whispered.
    No reply.
    Typical. So fucking typical.
    I had my phone up, finger already on the screen, when I spotted Tina Wilkes in the kitchen pouring out drinks, all the way across the living room. Megan must have seen her. Bet that was where she went.
    But how to get to the kitchen . . .
    Hugging the wall, I slid into the party, squeezing behind a group of jocks. My hip bumped a side table, shaking a lamp and drawing a brief glance from a nearby girl. I took a deep breath to calm my speeding pulse, then darted around the table and backed against the wall again. No one saw, no one noticed.
    Tina Wilkes had been our friend last year, probably our best friend, aside from each other. We’d quit hanging with her at the beginning of summer, after Ashley. Murder had a way of doing that. She’d taken it as a snub, and now she talked crap on us to anyone who’d listen.
    I really, really couldn’t give less of a shit. I felt bad for her.
    But Megan took these things personally.
    I scooted another foot along the wall, turned the corner, and ran into the couch, a tangle of groping limbs . . . like the wriggling feelers of an amoeba.
    I had to go around.
    So I left the security of the wall and tiptoed into the center of the room, moving an inch at a time. My eyes scanned the bodies, calculating which ones might move into my path.
    It happened in a blink.
    A girl peeled away from a group to my left and came at me like a locomotive, oblivious to my presence.
    I jumped out of the way, right into the path of an oncoming boy, drinks in hand. I skirted around him, barely, and found myself careening through the