SCINTILLATE - Book #1 of The Light Key Trilogy

Chapter 3

My stomach fluttered nervously as I got dressed for school and saw how pronounced the silver light was around my entire body. With or without clothes, I glowed. I sparked. I looked freaking flammable. The shiny light was a part of me, moved with me, flared out from my torso when my anxiety erupted.

Something was definitely wrong with me, and I wanted to know what. The fever had to have affected my brain, and it was getting worse.

Exhibit A: the patrons in the busy Starbucks all had bodies shrouded in misty blankets of color. I stood in line before school and tried to gawk inconspicuously. Not an easy thing to do. I was sure that anyone who really looked at me would know I was an agitated mess. Good thing people don't really look at each other.

I fixated on the woman in front of me who, if you counted the misty blue-white fog around her, had a personal space boundary of about three feet, nearly touching my abdomen. I took a tiny step back.

It would be one thing if my eyes projected the light consistently, but no two people glowed exactly the same. I shifted from one leg to the other, eager to order my coffee and wait outside for my cousin, Mari. Preferably at a table where I could close my eyes for a couple of minutes and turn this off. I had to get my wits about me before school. Janelle might have had a point about not rushing it.

The room suddenly grew cold.

Icy air spread across my back.

My eyes blinked heavily as my energy plunged. People faded in and out of focus, and I swayed on my feet, my legs rubbery. A heaviness spread through me, as though an iron anchor had been cast inside my body. I rolled my gaze over my shoulder, that simple movement causing my stomach to lurch. Behind me, the same dark eyes that had stared coldly in the hospital stared at me again.

The man, who was shrouded in a solid cloak of white light, stood a few feet away, and an invisible rope of taut energy stretched between us. It was as though he were tugging on it, pulling me out of myself. I felt the same weightlessness, the same sense of bleeding invisibly as I had in the hospital. But when I opened my mouth to cry out, I was unable to make any sound. Feeling a snap of release, I pitched forward, and the man walked out of the building into the bright morning.

My heart thumped as I waved off people's offers to call someone for me and stumbled out into the morning sun. I looked up and down the street for the man before collapsing into a metal patio chair. Breathing deeply, I willed myself to calm down and think rationally. What in the hell was that? I had thought, maybe, the hospital incident had been a delusion brought on by fever, delirium. But that was the same man, affecting me in the same terrifying way. I was sure of it. The same man who had frightened me by whispering about fire and sparks.

He never touched me. So why did I feel as if I'd been severely violated?

Mari smiled as she marched toward me, her pace exact, like she had gone through boot camp as a toddler. I watched shimmering gold light dance off her olive shoulders and wondered if it was the screwy vision thing or her shiny shirt reflecting in the sun. Mari had a sequin addiction. All attempts at intervention were unsuccessful.

She looked at me from behind the curtain of her short black bob. "Why are you staring at me with crazy eyes?"

I blinked. "Uh, because only you could pull off combat boots with a sequined tank."

"Thanks. Seriously though, your mouth is talking fashion," Mari said, leveling her gaze at me, "but you look like you were just visited by a clown carrying a doll, with slasher music playing."

"Shhhh, it's only seven a.m., and I've already had more bizarre than I can handle," I answered in a quivering voice.

"Okay, let's get our caffeine, and you can tell me all about it while we walk to school. Dun's waiting for us. Are you okay to go to school? You look like hammered crap."