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Excerpt: Five Midnights by Ann Dávila Cardinal

March 25, 2019March 19, 2024torforge

Five friends cursed. Five deadly fates. Five nights of retribución.

If Lupe Dávila and Javier Utierre can survive each other’s company, together they can solve a series of grisly murders sweeping though Puerto Rico. But the clues lead them out of the real world and into the realm of myths and legends. And if they want to catch the killer, they’ll have to step into the shadows to see what’s lurking there—murderer, or monster?

Ann Dávila Cardinal’s debut novel, Five Midnights, is based on the el Cuco myth set against the backdrop of modern day Puerto Rico. Please enjoy the following excerpt.

July 4, 11:30 P.M.

Vico

Vico woke up with a start, his body bathed in sweat, his heart beating faster than it did when he was high. While he slept the darkness had returned, a feeling that had followed him like a shadow for years, disappearing whenever he whipped around to see what was there. He pulled on a shirt and his shoes, grabbed the backpack from under his bed, and headed out into the night.

A chill moved through his body as he drove down the dark, narrow cobblestone streets of Old San Juan, his SUV barely squeezing by the parked cars that lined either side. He looked over at the backpack in the passenger seat. To all appearances it was a worthless, beat-up school pack. No one would guess the fortune of cocaína it held inside. He patted it as if it were a dog. He had to clear his head. This deal was too important to blow. He drove up Calle Norzagaray, the street that ran along the edges of El Rubí, the barrio where the deal would go down. His car buzzed by the restored Spanish villas on the left, where wealthy young families tucked their children into bed, their homes snuggled among the sixteenth-century fortifications that surrounded the island’s tip. On the right-hand side, over the waist-high wall, and down a fifty-foot drop lay El Rubí, where children went to bed with hand-me-down clothes and short futures.

He parked his car a few blocks away from the wall, his electronic lock beeping farewell at his back. His ride was too good to park close to El Rubí. He’d worked hard to build up his reputation and his bank account. He was the youngest player in the city, bought his first Cadillac Escalade at sixteen, his own condo in the Condado at seventeen. Now, on the eve of his eighteenth birthday, he was about to make the biggest deal of his life. His lieutenant, Keno, should have been with him, but at the last minute he got a call from Vico’s sister, Marisol, Keno’s on-and-off girlfriend, and backed out. Vico chuckled. Cabrón let himself be led around by his nose like a castrated bull.

He slung the backpack on one shoulder and lit a cigarette in front of the pink house that stood across from the entrance to El Rubí. The moon was rising high over the surf beyond El Morro as he crossed the street, the inky sky pushing it up over the buildings behind him. The dark night made it hard to see the crumbling stone steps, but he could’ve run them blindfolded. Vico had been going to El Rubí his whole life, since when he was little to visit his grandmother, but after he turned thirteen, to buy drogas with his friend Izzy, and now to sell them. Pana had to earn a living in the tanking economy.

He loved the way the decaying cement and wooden shacks were painted in bright colors. And the smell: salty ocean with notes of frying plantain, beer, garbage, and urine. Life. To him El Rubí was teeming with it, unlike his old neighborhood, where families stayed locked up in their gated homes, pretending everything was fine. Pretending fathers weren’t laid off, mothers didn’t die, and kids came right home to do their homework. In El Rubí everything was out in the open: fights, love, drugs . . . no worries about what the neighbors might think.

By the time he reached the bottom step, the moon was completely cut off by the buildings above, the only light the warm glow of his cigarette floating in front of him in the dark, and from the shadow under the stairs came a scraping sound. He turned around and peered through the dark. Nothing. He shrugged and threw what was left of his cigarette on the ground. I’m just jumpy, he assured himself. Half a mil riding on this deal. That’d make any pana nervous, verdad? He chuckled and turned back. With the money from this score he was going to throw one hell of an eighteenth birthday party tomorrow. Just then he heard a rumbling sound and a stone flew past his foot as if kicked. His chest filled with heat, his hand automatically reached in his pocket, the yellow skulls on his switchblade glowing even in the dark.

“¿Quién está ahí? Show yourself, pendejo, and maybe I won’t cut your heart from your chest!” Vico’s voice sounded more secure than he felt. Damn Keno! He should be here. Not that he couldn’t handle himself, he’d proven that again and again, but there was something about the sound that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He squinted into the dark and saw the glow of two yellow eyes. Vico stumbled backward, his pulse pounding behind his face. But just as quick they were gone. He shuddered. He must have imagined them. They’d been so strange and yet . . . familiar. He forced himself to turn around and continue walking, blade out just in case.

He hadn’t taken more than a step when a growl came from behind him. He wheeled around as a street dog with one ear and matted fur streaked out from the shadow beneath the stairs and took off down a side street, tail between his legs, ears pinned to his head. He let out a deep breath and chuckled. “A stupid sato. Scared of a mutt, ay Vico? I need a vacation, man,” he said as he folded his blade closed and tucked it away. He grabbed another cigarette from his shirt pocket. Maybe he would take a vacation after this. Head to Miami for a few weeks, lay low.

His lighter flared to life just before something big hit him like a linebacker from behind, knocking the air from his lungs. The backpack with all those neatly wrapped bricks of white powder slipped from his shoulder. He tried to reach for it but he was pinned upright. His left hand held the still flaming lighter, and he ran his right over his chest. When he pulled it away it felt sticky, wet. He looked down and, in the glow of the flame, he saw red on his palm and watched his shirt grow dark. Another shove hit him from the back. A long serrated claw emerged from his chest, as if it had pushed through from his nightmare. He was numb, his eyes wide, his mouth open in a silent scream as he realized his feet were leaving the ground, his sneakers dangling as he hung as if mounted on the claw. The lights of El Rubí faded as he was dragged backward. Ludovico tried to scream as he heard the sound of jaws snapping behind him. Then everything went dark.

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Excerpts

Sneak Peek: The Darkest Star by Jennifer Armentrout

August 17, 2018March 20, 2024torforge

In the world of the Lux, secrets thrive, lies shatter, and love is undeniable.

#1 New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout brings her trademark drama and intrigue to this new series with a girl caught up in a world she doesn’t understand, secrets long buried, a betrayal that could tear her life apart…and Armentrout’s most swoonworthy book boyfriend yet.

Seventeen-year-old Evie Dasher knows firsthand the devastating consequences of humanity’s war with the aliens. When she’s caught up in a raid at a notorious club known as one of the few places where humans and the surviving Luxen can mingle freely, she meets Luc, an unnaturally beautiful guy she initially assumes is a Luxen…but he is in fact something much more powerful. Her growing attraction for Luc will lead her deeper and deeper into a world she’d only heard about, a world where everything she thought she knew will be turned on its head…

The Darkest Star will be available on October 30th. Please enjoy this excerpt.

Chapter 1

If Mom ever found out I was sitting outside of Foretoken, she would kill me. Like, legit hide-my-body-in-a-deep-dark-grave kind of kill me. And my mom totally had the means to do so.

When she went from Momma baking brownies in the kitchen to Colonel Sylvia Dasher, she put the fear of God and then some in me.

But knowing just how much trouble I’d be in if I got caught obviously hadn’t stopped me, because here I was, sitting in Heidi’s car, applying yet another coat of lipstick with a shaky hand. Shoving the lipstick wand back into its tube, I watched fat raindrops bomb the windshield. My heart threw itself against my ribs as if it were determined to punch its way out.

I couldn’t believe I was here.

I’d rather be home, finding random things in my house to take pictures of and posting them on Instagram. Like those new gray-and-white vintage candleholders Mom had bought. They’d look amazing paired with the pale blue and pink pillows I had in my bedroom.

From the driver’s seat, Heidi Stein sighed heavily. “You’re second-guessing this.”

“Nuh-uh.” I eyed my final results in the little mirror in the visor. My lips were so red, it looked like I’d French-kissed an overripe strawberry.

Nice.

And my brown eyes were way too big for my roundish, freckled face. I looked scared, like I was about to walk naked into class twenty minutes late.

“Yeah, you are, Evie. I can see it etched into the five hundred coats of lipstick you just applied.”

Wincing, I glanced over at her. Heidi looked completely at ease in her strapless black dress and dark eye makeup. She had that cat-eye thing down, something I couldn’t re-create without looking like an abused raccoon. Heidi had done an amazing job on my eyes before we’d left her house, though, giving them a smoky, mysterious look. I thought I actually looked pretty good. Well, except for the whole looking-scared part, but . . .

“Is the red lipstick too much?” I asked. “Do I look bad?”

“I’d be into you if I liked blondes.” She grinned when I rolled my eyes. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

I peeked out the window at the dark, windowless building squeezed in between a closed boutique shop and a cigar store. My breath hitched in my throat.

FORETOKEN was written in black paint above the red double doors. I squinted. On second thought, the name of the club looked like it had been spray-painted on the gray cement. Classy.

Everyone who went to Centennial High knew of Foretoken, a club that was packed every night, even on Sundays, and was notorious for allowing outrageously fake IDs to slide by.

And Heidi and I were most definitely seventeen and 100 percent in possession of some fake-as-hell driver’s licenses that no one in their right mind would believe were real.

“Because I’m worried you’re not going to have fun.” Heidi poked my arm, drawing my attention. “Like you’ll get freaked out and call Zoe. And you know you can’t call April to come get you either. That girl is not allowed within a ten-block radius of this place.”

I drew in a shallow breath that felt like it went nowhere. “I’ll have fun. I swear. It’s just . . . I’ve never done this before.”

“Done what? Gone somewhere you weren’t supposed to? Because I know that’s not true.” She held up a finger, and the nail looked like it had been dipped in black ink. “You have no problem breaking and entering when it comes to climbing around abandoned buildings to take pictures.”

“That’s different.” I dropped the lipstick into my little wristlet. “You sure these IDs are going to work?”

She shot me a bland look. “Do you know how many times I’ve been here and had no problems? Yes, you do. You’re stalling.”

I was totally stalling.

Looking out the window again, I could barely suppress the shiver tiptoeing down my spine. Puddles were forming in the vacant street and there was no one on the sidewalks. It was like once the sun went down and Foretoken unlocked its doors, the streets emptied of everyone who exhibited an ounce of common sense.

Foretoken also had the reputation for something entirely different than allowing fake IDs.

Aliens were known to hang out here.

Like legit extraterrestrial beings that had come from trillions of light-years away. They called themselves the Luxen, and they looked like us—well, a better version of most of us. Their bone structure was often perfect, their skin airbrush-smooth, and their eye colors were shades that we humans couldn’t achieve without contacts.

And not all of them had come in peace.

Four years ago, we’d been invaded, totally Hollywood-movie-level invaded, and we’d almost lost the war—almost lost the entire planet to them. I’d never forget the statistic that had dominated the news once the TVs starting broadcasting again: 3 percent of the world’s population. That was 220 million people lost in the war, and my father had been one of them.

But over the last four years, the Luxen who hadn’t been on Team Kill All the Humans and had helped fight their own kind had been slowly integrated into our world—into our schools and jobs, government and military. They were everywhere now. I’d met plenty of them, so I didn’t know why coming here freaked me out so much.

But Foretoken wasn’t school or an office building, where the Luxen were typically outnumbered and heavily monitored. I had a sinking suspicion that humans were the minority beyond those red doors.

Heidi poked my arm again. “If you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to.”

I twisted in the seat toward her. One look at Heidi’s face told me that she was being genuine. She would turn the car on and we’d go back to her place if that were what I wanted. Probably end the night gorging ourselves on those cupcakes her mom had picked up from the bakery. We’d watch really bad romantic comedies until we passed out from a ridiculously high caloric intake, and that sounded . . . lovely.

But I didn’t want to bail on her.

Coming here meant a lot to Heidi. She could be herself without worrying about people getting all up in her business about who she was dancing with or checking out, whether it be a boy or another girl.

There was a reason why the Luxen were comfortable coming here. Foretoken was welcoming to everyone, no matter their sexuality, gender, race, or . . . species. They weren’t a human-only establishment, which was rare nowadays when it came to privately owned businesses.

Tonight was special, though. There was this girl Heidi had been talking to, and she wanted me to meet her. And I wanted to meet her, so I needed to stop acting like a dork who’d never been to a club before.

I could totally do this.

Smiling at Heidi, I poked her back. “No. I’m fine. I’m just being stupid.”

She stared at me a moment, cautious. “You sure?”

“Yes.” I nodded for extra emphasis. “Let’s do this.”

Another moment passed and then Heidi broke out in a wide smile. She leaned over, throwing her arms around me. “You’re the best.” She squeezed me tight, causing me to giggle. “Seriously.”

“I know.” I patted her arm. “I put the awe in awesome.”

She snort-laughed in my ear. “You are so weird.”

“I told you I am.” I untangled myself from her hug and then reached for the car door before I could chicken out. “Ready?”

“Yep,” she chirped.

I climbed out and immediately shrieked as cold rain hit the bare skin of my arms. I slammed the door shut and then darted across the dark street, my hands forming the weakest shield ever over my hair. I’d spent way too much time curling the long strands into waves for the rain to ruin it.

Water splashed over my heels, and when I hopped up on the sidewalk, I was surprised I hadn’t slipped and fallen face-first into the asphalt.

Heidi was right behind me, laughing as she rushed under the awning, shaking the mist of rain from her pin-straight crimson hair.

“Holy crap, this rain is cold,” I gasped. It felt more like the rain that fell in October than in early September.

“My makeup isn’t running down my face like I’m some chick about to be killed in a horror movie?” she asked, reaching for the door.

Laughing, I tugged on the hem of my strappy blue dress I normally wore leggings under. One wrong move and everyone would see the skull design on my undies. “No. Everything is where it should be.”

“Perfect.” She pulled on the massive red door with a grunt.

Violet light spilled outside, along with the heavy thump of music. A small entryway appeared, leading to another door, this one a deeper purple, but between that door and us was a man sitting on a stool.

A gigantic man.

A huge bald man wearing jean overalls and absolutely nothing else under them. Studs glinted from piercings all over his face—his eyebrows, under his eye, and his lips. A bolt went straight through his septum.

My eyes widened. Oh my word. . . .

“Hey, Mr. Clyde.” Heidi grinned, completely unfazed.

“Yo.” He looked from her to me. His head cocked to the side as his eyes narrowed slightly. That couldn’t be good. “IDs.”

I didn’t dare smile as I pulled my ID out of the little card slot on my wristlet. If I did smile, I would totally look like I was seventeen and close to peeing myself. So I didn’t even blink.

Clyde glanced at the IDs and then nodded toward the black door. I peeked at Heidi, and she winked.

For real?

That was all he was going to do?

Some of the tension leaked out of my neck and shoulders as I shoved my ID back into its slot. Well, that was exceptionally easy. I should do this more often.

“Thanks!” Heidi patted Clyde’s big, bulky shoulder as she went for the door.

I was still standing in front of him, like an idiot. “Th-thank you.”

Clyde raised a brow as he pinned me with a look that had me quickly wishing I’d just kept my mouth shut.

Heidi reached back, grabbed my hand, and yanked me forward as she opened the second door. I turned, and every one of my senses was immediately overwhelmed by, well, everything.

The thump of heavy drums poured from speakers, coming from every corner of a large room. The tempo was fast, the lyrics a blur as white light burst from the ceiling, shining over the dance floor for a few seconds before tossing it back into shadowy darkness.

People were everywhere, sitting at high, round tables and lounging on oversized couches and chairs under alcoves. The center of the floor was a mess of twisting, churning bodies, arms up and hair flying. Overlooking the throng of dancers was a raised stage shaped like a horseshoe. Rapidly flickering bulbs lit the edge of the stage, and dancers up there urged on the crowd below with their shouts and their hips.

“This place is pretty wild, isn’t it?” Heidi curled her arm around mine.

My wide gaze bounced from person to person as the scent of perfume and cologne mingled. “Yeah.”

“I so want to get on that stage.” Heidi grinned when my eyes widened. “That is my goal for the night.”

“Well, it’s always good to have goals,” I replied dryly. “But can’t you just walk up there?”

Her brows lifted and she laughed. “No. You have to be invited up there.”

“By who? God?”

She snorted. “Something like that—” She squeaked suddenly. “There she is.”

“Where?” Eager to see this girl, I scanned the crowd.

Heidi stepped into my side and slowly turned so our bodies were angled toward one of the large shadowy recesses behind the tables. “There.”

Soft candlelight lit the alcove, casting a glow over the area. I doubted candles were safe in a bar, but what did I know? More oversized chairs flanked a gold-trimmed, crushed red velvet couch that looked like an antique. Two of the chairs were occupied. I could see only profiles. One was a blond guy staring down at his phone. His jaw was clenched like he was trying to snap a walnut shell in two with his teeth.

Across from him was another guy with a shockingly blue Mohawk—like, Smurf blue. His head was thrown back, and even though I couldn’t hear him, I could tell he was letting out a laugh of the deep-belly variety. My gaze shifted to his left.

I saw her then.

Good Lord, girl was gorgeous.

Easily a head taller than Heidi and I, she had the most awesome haircut ever. Her dark hair was buzzed on one side and shoulder length on the other, showing off the sculpted angles of her face. I was so jealous of that haircut, because I didn’t have the courage or the face to pull something like that off. She looked a little bored as she eyed the dance floor. I started to turn back to Heidi, but then a tall figure cut in front of the girl and sat on the couch.

It was a man with sandy-blond hair cropped close to the skull. The haircut reminded me of what you saw from guys in the military. From what I could see of his profile, he appeared to be older than we were. Maybe in his midtwenties? A little older? He didn’t exactly look happy. His mouth was moving a mile a minute. My gaze shifted to who he’d sat down next to.

My lips parted on a soft inhale.

The reaction was startling and embarrassing. I sort of wanted to smack myself, but in my defense, the guy was stunning, the kind of beauty that almost didn’t seem real at first.

Messy brown hair toppled over his forehead in waves and curls. Even from where I was standing, I could tell that his face knew no bad angle, the kind of face that needed no filter. Impossibly high and broad cheekbones were paired with a carved, square jaw. His mouth really was a work of art, full and tipped up on one corner, forming a rather impressive smirk as he eyed the man who’d sat next to him. I was too far to away to see his eyes, but I imagined they were just as striking as the rest of him.

But the allure went beyond the physical.

Power and authority radiated from him, sending an odd shiver curling down my spine. Nothing about what he was wearing stood out—just dark jeans and a gray shirt with something written on it. Maybe it was the way he was sitting, thighs spread and one arm tossed over the back of the couch. Everything about the lazy sprawl looked arrogant and somehow misleading. He appeared as if he were seconds away from taking a nap even as the man beside him became more animated, but there was the distinct impression in the way his fingers tapped along the gold trim that said he could spring into action at any given second.

“Do you see her?” Heidi asked, startling me.

Goodness, did I forget Heidi was there or something? I had, which meant I needed to get a grip. Dude was hot, but come on. I was here for Heidi.

I dragged my gaze from the guy and then nodded. None of these people, except for the blond guy and the one who’d just sat down, looked old enough to be anywhere near this club. Then again, neither did we. “Is that her?”

“Yes. That’s Emery.” She squeezed my arm. “What do you think?”

“She’s really pretty.” I glanced over at Heidi. “Are you going to go over and talk to her?”

“I don’t know. I think I’m going to let her come to me.”

“Seriously?”

Heidi nodded as she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth. “The last three times, I approached her. I think I’m going to let her find her way to me this time. Like, see if it’s just a one-sided interest or not, you know?”

My brows rose as I stared at my friend. Heidi was not shy or patient, nor did she get nervous. That could only mean one thing. I clasped my hands together. “You’re really into her, aren’t you?”

“I like her,” Heidi said after a moment. A small grin appeared. “I just want to make sure she likes me.” She lifted a shoulder. “We’ve talked a little and danced, but she hasn’t asked for my number or asked to meet up outside of here.”

“Have you asked for hers?”

“No.”

“Will you?”

“Hoping she’ll make that move.” Heidi exhaled loudly. “I’m being stupid. I should just ask for hers and get it over with.”

“You’re not being stupid. I would be doing the same thing, but I think you should at least ask for her number tonight. That should be your goal.”

“True,” she replied, forehead creasing. “But that stage . . .”

“Stop with the stage.” I laughed.

The truth was, I wasn’t the best person to be dispensing relationship advice. I’d only ever been in one somewhat serious relationship, and Brandon and I had lasted a whopping three months, ending right before summer.

I broke up with him over text.

Yep.

I was that person.

As awful as it was to admit to even myself, I’d only gone out with Brandon because all my friends had been coupling off and, well, peer pressure was a bitch and I wanted to feel whatever it was they kept going on and on about every time they posted online or in their snaps. I wanted to be . . . I wanted to know what that felt like. I wanted to fall in love.

And all I did was fall into boredom.

I drew in a shallow breath as my gaze found its way back to the couch, the one with the guy with the messy bronze hair. He looked about my age. Maybe a year or two older. Instinct told me that anything to do with him would not be boring. “Who . . . who is that?”

Heidi seemed to know who I was talking about without my pointing him out. “His name is Luc.”

“Just Luc?”

“Yep.”

“No last name?”

She laughed as she spun me around, away from them. “Never heard his last name. He’s just Luc, but you see the blond guy who appears as friendly as a rabid porcupine?”

“The one looking at his phone?” I smiled, because that felt like a good description of the guy.

She started walking around the dance floor, pulling me with her. “He’s a Luxen.”

“Oh.” I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder to see if he was wearing a metal band around his wrist. I hadn’t noticed it when I saw the phone in his hands.

The band was known as a Disabler, a form of technology that neutralized the Luxen’s otherworldly talents, which were derived by what the Luxen called the Source. The Source. Still sounded completely made-up, but it was real and it was deadly dangerous. If they attempted to go all Luxen on someone, the Disabler stopped them by releasing shocks equivalent to being hit by a Taser. While that wasn’t pleasant for anyone, it was particularly painful and debilitating to the Luxen.

Not to mention, all public spaces were designed to immediately quell any incidents that may arise with the Luxen. The shiny reddish-black metal above every door and the specks in the ceilings of most establishments were some kind of aerosol weapons that had no effect on humans.

Luxen?

Whatever mist it dispensed supposedly caused extreme pain. I’d never seen it happen—thankfully—but my mom had. She’d told me it was one of the worst things she’d ever witnessed.

I doubted Foretoken had such a weapon installed.

Because I was nosy, I asked, “Is Luc a Luxen?”

“Probably. Never been close enough to him to tell for sure, but I’m guessing he is.” Their eye color was usually a dead giveaway, as was the Disabler. All registered Luxen were required to wear them.

We stopped near the stage, and Heidi slipped her arm free. “But the guy with the blue hair? He’s definitely human. I think his name is Kent or Ken.”

“Cool,” I murmured, curling an arm over my stomach. My wristlet dangled. “What about Emery?”

Heidi looked over my shoulder at Emery. Relations of the fun and naughty kind between humans and Luxen were illegal. No one could stop a Luxen and a human from getting together, but the two couldn’t marry and they faced hefty fines if their relationship was reported.

“She’s human,” Heidi answered.

I honestly couldn’t care less if a Luxen and human wanted to engage in a little bow-chicka-bow-wow. Not like it impacted me on any level, nor was it any of my business, but relief still swept through me. I was happy that Heidi wasn’t trying to get involved with someone she’d have to hide her relationship with while also risking paying thousands of dollars or going to jail if she couldn’t pay it. Heidi would be eighteen soon. The responsibility to pay such a ridiculous fine wouldn’t fall on her family.

I glanced up at the stage again, spotting the girl dancing closest to us. “Wow. She’s beautiful.”

Heidi followed my stare and nodded. The girl was older with a head full of shimmery blond hair. She spun and twisted, her body snakelike in its movements.

Arms in the air, hands clasped together, the girl whirled, and her skin was . . . it was fading and blurring around the edges, almost like she was disappearing right in front of us.

Luxen.

The girl was definitely on the away team. Luxen had this wild ability to assimilate our DNA and look like this, like humans, but that wasn’t their true appearance. When they were in their real form, they glowed like a high-watt lightbulb. I’d never seen what was under all the bright light, but my mom told me they had skin that was nearly translucent. Kind of like a jellyfish’s.

Heidi cast a grin over at me. “I’m going to dance. You coming?”

I hesitated as I looked at the teeming throng. I did love to dance . . . in the privacy of my bedroom, where I could look like a double-jointed Muppet. “I’m going to grab a water first.”

She pointed a finger at me. “You better join me.”

Maybe I would, but just not now. As I backed up, I watched her disappear onto the mass of twisting bodies, and then I wheeled around and moved along the edge of the stage. I made my way to the bar, squeezing between two occupied stools. The bartender was down at the other end of the bar, and I had no idea how to get his attention. Should I lift my hand and wave it around like I was hailing a cab? I didn’t think so. That would look stupid. How about the three-finger Hunger Games salute? I’d just seen the movie on TV last weekend. A marathon of all four movies had been playing, so I felt like I could pull it off. I volunteer for a glass of water.

Luckily, the bartender was slowly making his way to where I stood. I opened my wristlet and tapped on the screen of my phone. There was a missed text from Zoe. A call from April and—

An odd feeling started at the nape of my neck. It was like a breath with no air. It traveled down my spine, raising the tiny hairs all over my body. It felt like . . .

It felt like someone was standing right behind me.

I zipped up my tiny purse and then glanced over my shoulder, half expecting to come face-to-face with someone, but no one was there. At least not creepily close or anything. I scanned the crowd. There were so many people, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to me. The feeling, though, it only increased.

I swallowed hard as my gaze tracked over to that alcove.

The guy who’d sat down was gone, but the big guy in overalls—Mr. Clyde—was inside. He was leaning over that old-looking couch, speaking to Luc, and Luc was—oh God—he was staring straight at me. Anxiety burst open, spreading through my system like a noxious weed.

Did Clyde realize we had fake IDs?

Okay. Wait a second. He had to have known from the moment we came in that we had fake IDs, and even if he now had a problem with the IDs, why would he report that to Luc? I was being ridiculously paranoid—

“Yo. Need a drink?”

Twisting back to the bar, I nodded nervously. Bartender was a Luxen. Those bright green eyes were definitely not in the human color wheel. My gaze dipped. The silver band was tight around his wrist. “Just a, um, a water.”

“Coming up.” He grabbed a plastic cup, filling it up with water he poured from a bottle, and then shoved a clear straw into it. “No charge.”

“Thanks.” I took the cup and then slowly turned back around. What to do? What to do?

Sipping my drink, I ambled around the stage and stopped by a pillar that looked like a unicorn had puked glitter all over it. I stretched up on the tips of my toes and scanned the crowd until I found Heidi.

A wide smile broke out across my face. She wasn’t alone. Emery had come to her, and she was eyeing Heidi like I eyed tacos on most days.

That was what I wanted at some point in my life, for someone to look at me like I looked at tacos.

Heidi’s back was to me, her shoulders swaying as Emery’s arm swept around Heidi’s waist. I so wasn’t going to bust up their little dance party. I would wait until they were done. Meanwhile, I was going to do my best not to think about how I looked lurking by the edge of the dance floor. Since I knew I probably looked pretty dumb. Maybe even a little creepy. I took another drink. Wasn’t like standing here all night was a viable—

“Evie?”

I turned at the sound of a vaguely familiar voice. Shock splashed through me. A girl from school stood behind me. We had had class together last year. English. “Colleen?”

She smiled as she tilted her head. The tops of her cheekbones glittered. She had the smoky eye thing going on, just like me. “What in the world are you doing here?”

I lifted a shoulder. “Just hanging out. You?”

“With some friends.” Her brows knitted as she tucked several strands of blond hair behind her ear. “I didn’t know you hung out here.”

“Um, this is my first time.” I took a sip of water as I glanced over my shoulder. I didn’t know Colleen all that well, so I had no idea if this was something she did every weekend or if this was her first time here too. “Do you come here a lot?”

“Sometimes.” She smoothed a hand over the skirt of her dress. It was a slightly lighter blue than mine, and strapless. “I didn’t know you liked to come—” Her head jerked toward the dance floor, and her flushed cheeks deepened in color. I thought maybe someone had called her name. “I’ve got to go. You’ll be here for a while?”

I nodded, having no idea how long I’d be here.

“Cool.” She started backing up, grinning. “We should chat later. Okay?”

“Okay.” I wiggled my fingers at her and watched as she turned, slipping past the churning bodies along the edge of the dance floor. I knew that people from school came here, but I guess I hadn’t been expecting to see anyone, which was stupid—

A hand landed on my shoulder. Startled, I jumped and water splashed over my hands and hit the front of my dress. Wrenching forward, I pulled away from the grip and spun around, prepared to throat-punch whoever had grabbed me, like my mom had taught me. I froze, my stomach dropping as I found myself staring into the studded face of Mr. Clyde.

Oh, this couldn’t be good.

“Hi?” I said weakly.

“You need to come with me.” The hand on my shoulder grew heavier. “Now.”

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Excerpts

Excerpt: The Echo Room by Parker Peevyhouse

July 24, 2018March 20, 2024torforge

The only thing worse than being locked in is facing what you locked out.

Rett Ward knows how to hide. He’s had six years of practice at Walling Home, the state-run boarding school where he learned how to keep his head down to survive.

But when Rett wakes up locked in a small depot with no memory of how he got there, he can’t hide. Not from the stranger in the next room. Or from the fact that there’s someone else’s blood on his jumpsuit.

Worse, every time he tries to escape, he wakes up right back where he started. Same day, same stranger, same bloodstained jumpsuit.

As memories start to surface, Rett realizes that the logo on the walls is familiar, the stranger isn’t a stranger, and the blood on his jumpsuit belongs to someone—or something—banging on the door to get in.

The Echo Room will be available on September 11th – please enjoy this excerpt!

1

Someone is calling to me . . .

Rett woke to the cold press of metal beneath him and the knock of pain against the inside of his skull.

He opened his eyes. Metal room, blue with early morning light. The only window a skylight in the high ceiling.

He pushed himself upright. Diagonal yellow stripes banded the walls, constricting the room. The smell of dust and copper made the air heavy.

Where am I?

The place had an industrial feel to it: steel and dust and gloom. Cast in blue, like the prison panel he’d drawn in ballpoint pen for Epidemic X.

Cheerful.

His head throbbed. His skull was shrinking, or his brain was outgrowing it. He put a shaking hand to where the pain cut worst, and his fingers found the long, raised line of a scar. His stomach turned.

He got to his feet, pressed by the familiar weight of urgency that drove him from bed every morning: Look out for yourself, watch out.

He shouldn’t be here. He should be lining up for morning roll call with the other wards of Walling Home, wary of sharp looks cutting his way, sharper blades bristling under mattresses. Only scrap paper and a pen under his own mattress, along with the last remaining issue of his favorite comic.

Whatever this place is, I don’t think I want to be here. The room was empty. Stark, barren. But a pricking sense of caution kept him on his guard. He’d known other empty places, knew how quickly they could fill with dread. Like the entryway at Walling Home, where the tick of the clock had beat like a hammer against his heart as he’d watched his mother walk out the door and leave him behind.

His attention snapped back to the present as a sound broke through his thoughts. Someone calling to him?

No—somewhere, someone was singing.

He tensed, unnerved. What is this place?

A wave of dizziness hit him. He leaned against the wall, which slanted oddly, tilted back as if the room knew he needed to lie down. He struggled to clear his mind, to look around for some clue as to where he was. Skylight, stripes, metal floor.

A broad luminescent strip running along the wall.

He followed the glowing strip down a short corridor to a door with a huge sliding lock.

Bolted shut.

Panic shot through him. He hefted his weight against the lock but it didn’t so much as budge. He took a shaky step back to examine it. The lock was jammed, the metal bolt bent at one end. And there—on the floor: a fire extinguisher large enough to have done the damage. Rett tried to ignore the panic that flared again. There’s no way that bolt’s ever coming out of its housing.

An image glowed on the door, reflecting the dim light: overlapping, jagged lines. Spikes of pain, Rett thought absently while his head went on throbbing. Set above the spidery graph was a single word: SCATTER. And next to it, the number three inside a circle.

Scatter 3, Rett thought, testing the phrase for familiarity. A metallic taste filled his mouth and sent a fresh twinge of pain through his head. Scatter 3. Yes, there was something about those words. It would come back to him in a minute.

Or . . .

He could ask whoever belonged to the eerie voice still echoing through the place. The meditative tune pulled at Rett with an almost hypnotic power. He hesitated. Tried not to imagine himself as a doomed figure in one of the comics he had drawn while he huddled in closets or underneath stairwells at the boarding facility he called home. Boy, sixteen, ladder of bones, seen from behind as he slinks through an abandoned storage room, a warehouse for dust. Caption: He should’ve known he’d meet disaster . . .

He shook away the thought.

Whoever’s singing might be able to help me.

He stalked over the gritty floor, crossed the main room to an open doorway. Angled himself to peer through into a dim, cramped space. More luminescent strips picked up the low light and revealed a figure in a white jumpsuit like a glowing ghost. Rett’s foot scraped over the dirty floor, and the singing stopped. The figure turned sharply, peeling away from the shadows. A girl a few years older than he was, with short brown hair tucked behind her ears, gave him a startled stare. She was thin inside her overlarge jumpsuit, her face hollowed by shadows.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Rett said, his voice hoarse and strange to his own ears. He swallowed against the bolt of pain that shot through his head. His throat was paper-dry, his stomach unsteady. “I just—Can you tell me where I am?”

The girl stood frozen, unblinking, and Rett wondered if she, too, found the rustle of his voice misplaced in their cold-metal surroundings.

“My best guess is abandoned storage room,” Rett went on, “but I’m willing to believe something as strange as experimental detention facility if you say it with enough conviction.”

The girl winced. A hand went to her head.

She’s hurt, same as me. “Let me look,” he said. He could usually tell when a gash needed stitches and when it could be left alone—when it would leave a nice scar and when it would just go on bleeding forever. A handy skill born of experience. He’d seen scars on knuckles, good for proving readiness to fight, and gashes on arms and faces, worse for displaying the shame of failure. But head wounds bled forever if you didn’t put pressure on them.

The girl hesitated and then pushed her hair aside to reveal a long raised scar above her ear. No blood—an old wound. “It . . . looks okay,” Rett said, trying to keep his voice light. A mark like that was the badge of a terrible run-in. Don’t say that to her, he thought, but he knew the expression on his face must be saying it for him. My own head can’t look much better. “Do you know what this place is?” he asked, desperate to redirect his thoughts.

The girl shook her head, then swayed as if hit with the same dizziness that plagued Rett. He put out a hand to steady her, but she flinched away. Rett’s skin went hot with embarrassment. I wasn’t going to hurt you. He dropped his hand to his side. “What’s your name?” he asked quietly, trying not to make her nervous.

“Bryn.”

“I’m Rett.”

Her gaze traveled to his abdomen. Rett looked down. A wide smear of red-brown stained his jumpsuit. What—?

“Is that—blood?” Bryn asked in a halting voice.

Rett touched his stomach. He didn’t feel any pain. “Not mine,” he said. He met her gaze. Alarm flashed in her eyes. He took her fear like a punch to the gut. I swear I’m not a bad guy, he wanted to say. Instead he wilted back, gave her some space while confusion and humiliation roiled in his already churning gut.

“I’ll go look around,” he finally managed to say. “There must be someone else here.” He backed out of the room, muscles tight with alarm. Because he couldn’t say—he had no idea—how someone else’s blood had gotten onto his clothes.

5:46 A.M.

Rett stumbled through the main room, past the slanted walls striped with peeling yellow paint and dust-bathed metal. Down the short corridor that led to the bolted door. He staggered through a doorway to his right, into a narrow room so dark he could only just make out shelves stacked with white jumpsuits. He seized a jumpsuit, shuddering with relief at the sight of it. Peeled off the one he was wearing, yanked on the clean one. Stashed the bloodstained jumpsuit in a bin. Some of the red-brown had come off on his hands. The sight filled him with horror. He swiped his palms over the edge of shelf, trying to scrape off the stain.

Blood on my clothes, on my hands. His stomach curled. What happened? Why can’t I remember?

He tried to feel in his muscles whether he had been forced into a fight with someone. He’d once broken another boy’s hand at the government-run facility he’d lived in since age ten. Garrick was taller than him by a head, meaner than him by a full set of knuckles, and the sickening crack of his bones breaking still echoed in Rett’s memory.

Rett didn’t like to think about that day. Fighting never ended well. Using your head works better.

So why is there blood on my hands?

He turned to take inventory of the changing room, as if to prove to himself that he really did know how to use his head. Beneath the shelves, a bin held thick-soled boots. At the back of the closet, a shower head angled above a stall door. Rett felt like jumping into the stall and washing away the last of the blood that stained his skin. Or better yet, the dread that seemed to coat him like the dust that sheathed every surface of this strange place.

But the boots in the bin reminded him of something: there were boot prints on the floor where he’d woken up. Even though he himself was barefoot, and the slight girl in the other room wouldn’t have left prints so large.

Someone else is here.

He touched a hand involuntarily to the spot where blood had stained his jumpsuit.

Someone . . . He wiped his sweaty palms against the suit. Someone I must have hurt.

Where?

He crept out of the changing room, eyes on the floor. There they were: boot prints in the dust, smeared where Rett had walked through them barefoot. The trail led him back to the main room, where he stopped short.

One of the striped walls had been lifted into an overhead slot to reveal a room beyond like a space-age lounge. A low angled couch that had once been white but was now streaked gray with dust ran along three walls, taking up the whole space. I’m trapped in a creepy metal dollhouse, Rett thought as he surveyed the cross-sectioned room. A dollhouse with a lock.

“Bryn?” he called, his voice creaking with uncertainty. Did she lift the wall—or did someone else do that? A ladder set over the couch led to an opening in the ceiling, a square of darkness that pulled at him even while it made his scalp prickle. “Bryn? Are you up there?”

No answer but the ring of his own voice against the metal walls.

Rett’s heart beat faster as he stepped onto a ledge at the back of the couch and grabbed the rungs.

He eased his head up into the darkness. For a long, unnerving moment he could only blink against black nothingness. A latch clicked some distance in front of him. And then his eyes adjusted, and he could just make out a set of beds to either side of the room, and the back of Bryn’s white jumpsuit against a bank of metal drawers. What is she doing?

Rett ducked. She’ll think I’m spying on her. I am spying on her. He heard her coming toward the ladder, so he scrambled back toward the far end of the couch and tried to look as little as possible like the bloodstained villain she might be imagining him as. Relaxed into an easy slouch, kept his hands where she could see them.

Bryn jumped from the ladder and snapped her attention toward him. Her hands were shoved deep into the pockets of her jumpsuit. She took something from the drawer.

The intensity of her gaze was more than he could bear. “There’s someone else here,” he said.

Bryn’s gaze went to the phantom bloodstain on his abdomen. “Or there was,” she said.

Rett wanted to tell her he didn’t think he could have hurt anyone. But how could he explain what he couldn’t remember? If she’s hiding something from me, maybe I’m better off letting her be scared of me.

“You changed your clothes,” Bryn said.

Rett looked down at his jumpsuit. The logo of overlapping lines was the same as the one on the main door, the same as the one on Bryn’s jumpsuit. “Changing room’s full of these.” He hadn’t stopped thinking of what Bryn might have in her pockets. He pointed at the ladder. “Did you find anything up there?”

“No.” A flat, heavy no that echoed off the metal walls.

She’s lying.

But she moved her hands to cross her arms, and the pockets of her jumpsuit didn’t bulge at all. So maybe she really hadn’t found anything.

Then again, maybe she had found something and put it in the drawer.

The thought kicked Rett’s defenses into gear. Stealing, hiding—he knew how to watch out for those things. He’d had six years of practice at Walling Home.

He looked her over, head to toe, the way she kept examining him. Narrow frame, squared shoulders, hazel eyes that shone bright enough to startle as she stared back at him in unbearable scrutiny. “You don’t remember . . .” He wanted to say what happened here? But she tensed defensively, so he said, “how you got here?”

She hesitated. “My best guess is I was drugged. But I’m willing to believe something as strange as I sleepwalked. If you say it with enough conviction.”

Rett stared at her. Is she joking? Or does she think I’m bullshitting her? “The lock on the door is jammed.” He didn’t know what else to say.

Bryn’s gaze went toward the hallway that led to the heavy door. Had she already seen the lock? He imagined her creeping toward the door to examine it while he’d been in the closet sweating out his possible guilt and certain dread.

“Your name’s Rett?” Bryn gave him a look that made him feel like a dog in a kennel. She inched back like she thought he might bite. “Last name?”

Rett started to say, then corrected himself. “None, really. Ward.”

“As in, ward of the state?”

He gave a small nod. It wasn’t a fun thing to admit.

“Walling Home?” Bryn asked.

Rett nodded again, slowly, wondering how she had guessed which facility he belonged to.

“Me too,” Bryn said, so quiet he might have imagined it.

He straightened in surprise. Everything about her took on new meaning: her thin frame, her hard stare, the way she edged along the walls. She was like him—cautious, ready to bolt. He tried to decide if he recognized her. Yes, he’d seen her before, but the too-big jumpsuit made her look different.

He remembered something about her, a rumor . . . But it slipped out of his mind just as soon as he got hold of it.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked her.

Bryn’s eyes fluttered closed for the briefest of moments before she locked her wary gaze back on Rett. A fine layer of dust coated her skin. Rett rubbed a hand across his own cheek and felt grit. He looked down at his feet; they were black with dirt. I was outside,he thought, but he couldn’t remember more than the chill on his skin.

“I remember waking up in that office there, looking around,” Bryn said, back pressed against the side of the couch.

“Before that?”

“Nothing.” Bryn gripped her elbow, and her gaze slid away from him for the first time. “I can remember Walling Home.” Her expression darkened. “I wish I couldn’t.”

Images flashed through Rett’s mind: the dull gray of cafeteria tables, the crisscross of wire inside window glass. The other boys—lean, knobby with muscles—surging toward him in a blur of motion. Punishing him for being small, for being around when they were bored or bitter. He felt the weight of too-tight walls around him, stale air in his lungs—his worst moment at Walling, when he’d been trapped in an old firewood box. He could feel the rough lid against his fists even now, the scrape of it over his skin as he pounded . . .

He dragged in a rattling breath, trying to get his bearings. His throat was painfully dry. “I’d kill for some water right now.”

Bryn’s gaze flickered to his abdomen again.

Rett bit his lip. Could have found a better way to say that.

He turned his attention again to the chaotic pattern of heavy boot tread laid out over the floor of the main room—

And a trail of prints that disappeared under the far wall. Someone else is here, he thought again.

“What do you think’s under that wall?” he asked Bryn as he walked slowly toward it.

“There’s no latch to lift it.”

Rett bent to look closer. Bryn was right—there was only a rusty plate where a latch used to be.

“I can manage it.” Rett kicked at the wall with his heel until the wall bounced back enough that he could stick his foot underneath and pry it up. It lifted with a groan, and more easily than he had thought it would. Something—adrenaline, determination—was making him stronger and sturdier, if racked with pain and thirst.

Despite his newfound strength, the wall stuck halfway up. Rett turned to Bryn, checking to see if she felt any less hesitant than he did to duck blindly into the dim room beyond and find out what awaited them. He caught a flicker in her eyes that said he’d impressed her with his kick-and-lift trick. Should I tell her how I learned to get out of tight spots? he thought grimly.

He couldn’t very well hang back now and ruin the impression he’d given her, so he steeled himself and ducked under the wall.

Three banks of cabinets greeted him and then all Rett’s attention went to the floor.

“There’s a bunch of supplies in here,” he called.

Nylon ropes and tinted goggles and compasses spilled out of overturned bins. Rett crouched to examine a tangle of nylon backpacks. All empty. He wondered what he should be looking for. Anything, anything. He grabbed at the nearest bin, suddenly seized with a familiar fear. Just grab anything! But this wasn’t Walling Home, and he and Bryn weren’t going to have to fight over the last pair of donated shoes, the last spare blanket.

No, it’s worse, he thought. Or it might be. Trapped, and this was all they had.

The bin held ponchos folded into their hoods. Useless, unless it was going to suddenly start raining inside. Which he actually wouldn’t mind, given how all he could think about was water. Rett pulled down a larger bin already sticking out from a cabinet. It held mysterious green tubes that he couldn’t puzzle out. And empty water bottles—a cruel joke.

He opened another bin and cried out in surprise. The words DRINKING WATER were printed across a Mylar bag that he now realized was flat—empty. His spirits fell. He picked up the bag and was surprised to find it was wet.

Someone just emptied this bag.

Rett whirled around, half expecting to find another person crouching somewhere in the room with him.

He was alone. Bryn hadn’t even followed him in.

In fact, her muffled voice came from behind the half-lifted wall.

Is she . . .

. . . talking to someone?

“Bryn?” he called.

She went silent.

Rett ducked back into the main room. Bryn wasn’t there.

The light coming through the glass dome far overhead was brightening. He looked into the room where he’d first found Bryn. Only a desk with a pull-out stool, and an open door that gave a view of a toilet. No Bryn.

She’d hiding from me, he decided, and something hard dropped into his stomach. Then he remembered the boot prints on the floor. Should I be hiding, too?

He ducked back into the supply room and looked over the jumbled bins, the cabinet tops marked with boot prints . . .

A ladder set over a bank of cabinets caught his eye. It led to a dark recess. Rett’s nerves tingled. Someone climbed up there, he thought, eyeing the boot prints at the ladder’s base. The darkness grew sentient, watchful.

Rett grabbed the rungs with stiff fingers and forced himself to climb. He held his breath and eased his head through the opening in the ceiling, his heart pounding . . .

Total darkness. The smell of old dust. A distant sound of . . . something sliding nearer? He froze, strained to hear better. His skin prickled.

“Hello?” he said into the darkness, barely more than a whisper. He pulled himself up with shaking muscles and edged along the frame of a bed. “Is anyone here?” He wondered if the sound he’d heard before had been only the rasp of his own breathing.

Would I be able to sense it? If someone were crouched in an inky corner, or unconscious on the floor—would he know? He jabbed a foot into the darkness, testing for any hidden forms.

It touched something.

The something gave.

Rett yanked his foot back. His heartbeat thundered in his head.

“Hello?” he croaked.

He crept forward, reaching into the darkness.

It was just another bed, a plastic mattress on a low frame. There’s no one here.

No sooner had he thought it than the squeal of metal on metal rent the air.

Someone was sliding a panel shut from below. The square of light that was the opening over the ladder disappeared.

Rett’s heart flew into his throat. “Hey!” he called, his voice choked. He dropped to his knees and tugged on a metal handle attached to the sliding panel. The panel didn’t budge. “Hey!”

He heaved at the handle. He was trapped inside a disused firewood box crawling with spiders. Pleading with the boy who’d shut him inside. “Hey, let me out!” He shrank back, caught in the cramped darkness, fearful of wasting the air he had left . . .

Stop, he told himself, his breath coming in shuddering gasps. He made his muscles go loose, slowed his breathing. Then he tried the handle again, jerking it side-to-side, wriggling the panel free from whatever held it. He marveled again at the strength he seemed to have awakened within this strange place. At Walling, he was the skinny kid with more desperation than muscle, but here—one more wrenching tug, and he forced the panel open. Something clattered to the floor.

Rett dropped onto the cabinet top and sucked in cool, dusty air. The thing that had been wedged against the panel lay on the floor: a long metal pole with a leather loop—a walking stick.

Someone tried to trap me.

Rett’s heart fluttered. He jumped down from the cabinet. Bent to pick up the metal pole—then froze with his hand locked around it. A smudge of green paint glowed on the metal.

Glowing green paint. Rett’s gaze traveled to the bin of plastic tubes full of green liquid. Glow tubes? He picked one up and bent it until it cracked and its contents glowed.

He imagined the tube breaking open, the liquid spilling, staining a pair of hands glowing green, like the branding of a comic book villain.

A thought sparked in Rett’s mind. It burned so hot he forgot to worry about who might lurk on the other side of the wall he now ducked under.

At the end of the short hallway, the fire extinguisher still lay on the floor. Rett crouched to inspect what he had seen before but hadn’t registered: the extinguisher’s crown was covered in smudged green handprints. With Rett huddled over it, blocking most of the light, the handprints glowed.

Rett stood and inspected the heavy bolt on the door. Red paint from the extinguisher marked its wrenched end.

His pulse throbbed in his parched throat. Whoever had tried to trap him in the upper room had also jammed the only exit. Locked him in, as good as shutting a lid and clamping it down. But with no one to let him out when the air got stale.

Or when the water ran out.

He turned slowly, his mind buzzing.

Then—a flash of white jumpsuit. Bryn darted across the main room and slipped through the open doorway at the far end of the place.

Rett’s heart drummed. What is she doing?

He looked back at the jammed lock on the heavy door behind him. What has she done?

A new sound drifted out from the open doorway Bryn had gone through: the clatter of wood on metal, mixed with Bryn’s grunts of effort. Rett crept slowly toward it, drawn this time not by the hypnotic fascination he’d felt at the sound of her singing, but by dark curiosity.

“Bryn,” he whispered, as if he were only saying it to himself, testing the idea that she might be the one who had trapped them in this strange prison. And then louder, “Bryn?”

She appeared in the doorway, spectral in the white jumpsuit lit by the morning light.

Rett’s heart stopped.

At her sides, Bryn’s hands glowed green.

Rett tried to swallow the lump rising in his throat, but his mouth was too dry. His mind raced. Why would she jam the door—why trap herself in here?

“Did you—” Rett faltered. What had that clattering been? The sound of a door being forced open? “Did you find another way out?”

Bryn slowly shook her head. “Another room.”

Framed in the doorway, she seemed so slight, hardly large enough to fill out her jumpsuit. Rett remembered how startled she’d been when he’d first seen her, how ghostly and timid.

She’s just scared, he told himself. That’s why she trapped me in that room. She’s not going to hurt me.

But a long string of evidence from life in a boarding facility told him otherwise. Everyone in that place was the same—look out for yourself, even if it means hurting someone else.

It was what Rett had done, breaking that boy’s hand.

“You found another room?” Rett could hardly grasp what she’d said. His heart was a jackhammer working on his rib cage. “Is there . . . anyone in there?”

Bryn didn’t answer.

“I think there’s someone else here,” Rett tried again. “And . . . I heard you talking to someone a minute ago.”

Bryn tensed. “Someone else was here. That much is obvious.” Her hands curled at her sides. “What did you do to them?”

Rett flinched. “I didn’t—” He’d been stupid to let her be scared of him, stupid not to try to explain that he hadn’t hurt anyone.

But something didn’t make sense. “Who were you talking to?” he pressed. He took a step toward her. Her eyes widened with alarm.

And then her gaze shot to the ladder in the open lounge to Rett’s right.

Why?

In Rett’s mind, he saw her standing in the dark room at the top of the ladder, the room that mirrored the one he’d been trapped in, and he remembered hearing the drawer snick shut.

“What’s up there?” he asked Bryn. And then he thought of the muffled conversation he’d heard a few minutes ago, and he knew. “A phone?”

Bryn’s wooden expression told him he was right.

Rett went for the ladder.

Flew up the rungs before she could make a move to stop him.

Why would she hide this from me?

Why did she trap us in here?

The room above was so dark. A bed made a vague shape against one wall, a bunk bed against the other. Rett crept toward the bank of drawers, goaded on by a faintly glowing reflective strip on the floor. Already his eyes were adjusting to the low light.

He slid open a drawer. Nothing. He felt inside to be sure.

Opened another drawer. Empty.

Maybe she didn’t hide anything. Maybe she’s just as harmless as I am.

He yanked open a last drawer, expecting to find nothing.

Instead: a gun.

Gray against black darkness. His mind tried to reject the sight. The tube of the barrel, the angled lines of the grip and the guard. Strange proof that Bryn wasn’t harmless. He reached in to touch it, to know for sure that it was real, to calm the wild flutter in his chest—

A voice ruptured the silence: “Rett.” Bryn’s voice—so sharp, so close behind him it pierced his skull and sent his mind spinning into blackness.

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Excerpts

Sneak Peek: Anger Is a Gift by Mark Oshiro

April 1, 2018March 20, 2024torforge

Moss Jeffries is many things—considerate student, devoted son, loyal friend and affectionate boyfriend, enthusiastic nerd.

But sometimes Moss still wishes he could be someone else—someone without panic attacks, someone whose father was still alive, someone who hadn’t become a rallying point for a community because of one horrible night.

And most of all, he wishes he didn’t feel so stuck.

Moss can’t even escape at school—he and his friends are subject to the lack of funds and crumbling infrastructure at West Oakland High, as well as constant intimidation by the resource officer stationed in their halls. That was even before the new regulations—it seems sometimes that the students are treated more like criminals.

Something will have to change—but who will listen to a group of teens?

When tensions hit a fever pitch and tragedy strikes again, Moss must face a difficult choice: give in to fear and hate or realize that anger can actually be a gift.

Anger Is a Gift will be available on May 22nd. Please enjoy this sneak peek of the first chapters!

1

He saw the lights first. Blue and red, flashing in a regular pattern. Lots of them, scattered south of the station in the parking lot, and he couldn’t help himself.

Moss had boarded the train in San Francisco that afternoon expecting nothing out of the ordinary, just an afternoon with his best friend, Esperanza. The train was crowded, plenty of people eager to get back home at the end of the weekend. They’d been lucky to find an empty set of seats near one of the doors. Moss had leaned his bike up against the side of the car and scrambled to claim the spot next to Esperanza. But then their luck had worn off. The train now sat motionless, caught between the Embarcadero station and West Oakland, where both of them were bound. Moss closed his eyes and sighed.

“We’re never going to get off this train, I swear.”

He looked over at Esperanza, who had taken out her half of the headphones from her left ear. Moss could hear the tinny sound of Janelle Monáe as he removed his own earbud. His best friend’s head was thrown back over the seat in frustration. She removed her thick-framed glasses and began to rub her eyes. “This is it,” Esperanza said. “This is where we’ll be stuck for all eternity.”

“Well, we can’t be stuck here forever,” he replied. “They’ll do that . . . that thing they do where they just redirect us around a train.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Can they even do that here?”

Esperanza sighed while putting her glasses back on. “I don’t know,” she replied. “I haven’t ever been stuck inside the tube itself.”

“It’s giving me the creeps,” he said. “What happens if there’s an earthquake while we’re down here?”

She slapped Moss’s arm playfully. “Don’t say that! That practically guarantees it’s going to happen!”

“Then this really is like the start of all good apocalyptic nightmares,” he said.

“Well, we better get used to living here, Moss. There’s no escape for us. Our life as we know it is over! Which means we need to start planning out how we’ll design our new home.”

She stood up, grinning, her white blouse hanging loose on her body, and she gestured above the BART doors next to her. “We’ll definitely have to install some curtains here,” she explained. “I’m thinking . . . something that’s gray. To accent the dreariness of this place.”

Moss shook his head. “I am a man of high taste,” he said in the most grandiose voice he could manage. This was always their game. “I cannot rest my body on this filth.” He pretended to be deep in thought before exclaiming, “I’ve got it! Bunk beds. They’ll save us space and give the place a youthful atmosphere.”

Esperanza faked a swoon back into her seat. “Moss, you are just so full of good ideas. Plus, it speaks to the reality of the situation: We shall remain celibate for the rest of our lives, as I highly doubt that there are any cute girls for me on this train.”

“Hey, speak for yourself,” Moss shot back. “I’m pretty sure I saw a hella hot dude with a fixie a few cars down.”

“Gonna corner the hipster market on this train, then? Smart, Moss. Very smart.”

“You think so?” Moss shot back.

“Well, they’re young and ambitious. Lots of disposable income. Willing to gentrify your neighborhood at the drop of a cupcake.”

Moss laughed at that. “Well, it otherwise seems like there aren’t any cute guys in this whole city that I can stand for five minutes, so I’ll take what I can get.”

“That is surely a tragedy,” Esperanza said. “Well, after being confined to a train car until you wither away and die, but a tragedy nonetheless.”

The two of them went silent, as Moss often could in her presence. She didn’t expect him to make conversation, letting him fade back comfortably. Moss turned his attention to the vacant and detached stares about the train, a familiar sight on the BART no matter what day it was. It was late in the afternoon, though, and he saw the exhaustion on their faces, in the way they slouched their bodies. He and Esperanza had spent an afternoon at the mall in downtown San Francisco, pretending to be elegant and well-off shoppers, building an imaginary wardrobe full of clothes that they would probably never be able to afford. They had drifted from store to store, Esperanza a successful poet on her book tour and Moss a world-renowned fashion designer helping her with her wardrobe. The last time they’d gone out, Esperanza was a backup dancer for Beyoncé, and Moss played bass in her live show, and they had stopped in San Francisco on a world tour, casually drinking iced tea and wearing the most fierce pair of sunglasses they could find.

It felt good to pretend. Like Moss had another life, a future he could look forward to living.

The sudden crackle of the speakers in their car startled him. “We apologize for the delay,” said a voice that reminded Moss of his mother’s, “but there’s police activity ahead of us at the West Oakland station. I’m not sure if we’ll be stopping there, but I will let you know once I have any information. Hold tight.”

Esperanza sighed again, though her exasperation wasn’t an act this time. Moss reached out and began to fiddle with the tape on the handlebars of his bike, impatience rushing over him. He just wanted to get home.

He leaned into Esperanza’s shoulder, thankful that they were both the same height. “I don’t want to go to school tomorrow,” he said. “I know, I sound like the world’s most clichéd teenager, but I’m dreading it.” Moss paused. “You ever think it should be two days of school followed by five days off? That’s obviously the best schedule for learning.”

“Oh, come on, it’s not that bad,” Esperanza insisted, and rested her head on top of his. “We’ll get through it fine.”

The train jerked forward suddenly and a couple of people clapped. Moss watched a tall, lanky kid lurch forward and grab for the handhold that was attached to the wall just above Moss’s bike. When he grabbed the top bar instead, he balanced himself and winced. “Sorry, sorry,” he blurted out. “Got surprised, that’s all.”

“It’s okay,” Moss said. “No big deal, man.”

The guy ran his hand over the frame again. “This steel?”

Moss nodded, and he gave the boy a longer look. His hair was cropped short, his skin a deep golden brown, and he had that sort of lean muscle that came easy to some people through the gift of genetics. He’s cute, Moss thought, but probably tragically straight.

“Steel’s a good choice,” the boy said. “Better for the messed-up streets.”

Moss narrowed his eyes at that, surprised that this guy seemed to know what he was talking about. “Yeah, I know! Everyone wants those fast carbon ones, but those things hurt unless you’re on the nice roads.”

“Right?” The guy stuck his hand out. “Javier.”

Moss shook on it. “Moss,” he said. “And this is my friend Esperanza.”

While Javier shook Esperanza’s hand, he stared at Moss. “That’s an interesting name,” he said. “Is there a story behind it?”

The sound that came out of Esperanza was a cross between a bark and a yelp, and Moss glared at his best friend and clamped a hand over her mouth. “Yes?” he said, drawing it out. “Do you have something to say, Esperanza?”

“Oh, please, can I tell him? It’s so adorable.”

“Maybe Javier here doesn’t want to hear adorable,” said Moss, and he shot a quick glance at him. Javier was already nodding, however.

“Oh, I definitely want adorable,” he said, and with those words, it was as if this stranger had found Esperanza’s true calling. Moss watched her face light up in excitement; he dropped his hand, and she spread her own out in front of her.

“Picture it,” Esperanza said. “Moss is much younger and arguably a very cute toddler.”

“I dunno,” said Javier. “He’s pretty cute now.”

Moss’s mouth fell open, and he looked from Javier, who smirked at him, to Esperanza, who also smirked at him. “Wait, what?”

“Never mind,” said Esperanza. “Y’all can have a moment in a second, I promise. I’m telling a story here, remember?”

“Exactly,” said Javier. “And I wanna know what this story is!”

Moss’s heart jumped, thumping in his chest. He was caught off-guard, but Esperanza pushed past it, and he was thankful she did.

“So picture it,” she said again. “Moss is learning to speak. He keeps hearing his parents say his name over and over—Morris, Morris!” She leaned into Moss. “And Moss here keeps trying to say it back, as any studious young kid would. But it keeps coming out without those crucial r’s.”

“Moss,” said Javier, as if he was trying it out for the first time. “I get it! Man, that is cute.”

Esperanza stood and bowed. “It is my very favorite story to tell, and now I am gonna leave you two alone because clearly this is a moment.”

With that, she walked away from the two of them, drifting off toward the windows on the opposite side of the train. Javier gestured to the now-empty seat. “Mind if I sit?”

Another burst of nervous energy flushed through Moss’s body. “Yes,” he said. “I mean, no!” He blurted it out, then shook his head. “Please sit down,” he finally said, certain he had embarrassed himself beyond repair.

Javier did, his mouth curled up in a grimace. “I made you uncomfortable, didn’t I?”

“No, no, it’s okay, I just—”

“You’re probably straight,” Javier said, defeat in his voice. “I’m sorry, it just . . . I dunno, it just came out.”

Moss’s mouth fell open again for the second time in a matter of minutes. Then the laughter followed, and it washed away the terror of the interaction. “Oh, honey,” he said. “I could not be gayer.”

The dejection that lined Javier’s face disappeared, and it was replaced with a playful grin. “Well, you never know,” said Javier. “You gotta be careful sometimes.”

“Oh, most def,” said Moss. “Though I’ve never hit on someone in public like that before. You’re bold.”

“Me? Bold?” Javier laughed. “My mother would have a word or two with you about that.”

“You live in Oakland?” Moss asked, and he felt the train speed up a bit as it made its way through the tunnel underneath the bay.

“Yeah, closer to Fruitvale. You?”

“Next stop,” he said. “West Oakland. Well, assuming we can even get to that station.”

Lights from the outside world then filled the train car as it rose out of the ground and climbed the elevated track. As long as Moss had lived in West Oakland, he’d never tired of this specific view, so he pointed toward the windows. “Check it,” he said, and the port of Oakland began to pass by them. The sun was already setting beyond the San Francisco coast, so the cranes gleamed from the powerful lights that illuminated the structures. “They look so silly,” he told Javier, “but I love them. They look like children’s toys.”

“Or like a kid built them.”

“You know George Lucas modeled those AT-AT machines after them?”

“No way! You a Star Wars fan, too?”

“A li’l bit,” admitted Moss. “Minus most of the prequels. And you know I got my boy Finn’s back.”

“Dude,” said Javier. “Poe is my homeboy. Latinos in space, man! We made it!”

“That’s dope, dude.” Moss paused and gave Javier a once-over. “You all right, Javier. I admit this is not how I expected my afternoon to go.”

“Well, mine’s just starting. I’m going to that rally in West Oakland. Probably why there’s a delay.”

Moss let a beat go by, and he worried it was too obvious. The spike plunged into him, that familiar anxiety he worked so hard to keep at bay. A rally? That meant one thing.

“What for?” Moss asked, hoping to smooth over his reaction.

“You heard about Osner Young yet?” When Moss shook his head at that, Javier continued. “Older brother of some kid who goes to my school. Got shot a few blocks from the station, and police claim he had a gun pointed on them.” Javier shook his head. “Of course he was unarmed. They usually are.”

“Yeah,” Moss said, struggling to find anything significant to say, but unsure he could. How would I even begin talking to him about this? Moss thought.

“So I’m going to show my support,” Javier said. “I got some friends I’m meeting there.” Javier put his hand on Moss’s leg, and Moss wished this was all happening in a different context. “You should come!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Moss said, his gaze dropping down.

“Hey, I don’t mean to interrupt your little lovefest,” Esperanza said, coming up to the two of them, “but Moss . . . we need to be careful getting off at this station.”

“Why?” Javier said.

Esperanza looked from Javier to Moss, and he saw the worry flit across her face. The expression said it all. Cops, he thought. There must be cops. How does she know?

“Is something happening?” Javier rose and walked over to the windows, then whistled, and then Moss stood slowly.

“Is it what I think it is?”

She nodded. “You gonna be okay? I’ll leave the station in front of you if you want.”

Moss took a deep breath. “Lemme see how bad it is,” he said, and crossed the aisle, putting his face close to the windows. He tried to peer toward the front of the train as it approached the West Oakland station, but the angle was wrong. He could see his reflection better than anything outside the train, so he pressed his hands against the glass to block out the light from inside the car.

That’s when he saw them, the red and blue bolts of light, and that’s when the dread filled him, overflowed, squeezed his heart to dust. His hands started to sweat, and Moss backed away from the windows, nearly tripping over Esperanza. She grabbed his right arm to steady him as he stumbled.

“What is it?” Javier said. There it was, on his face. Worry. Confusion.

“Nothing,” Moss said. “It’s okay.”

“That’s a lot of cops,” Javier said, walking over to the window and shielding his own eyes as Moss had done. “Damn. What happened to the rally?”

The train began to slow down as it approached the station, and Moss sat down in the seat nearest the door, taking slow, deliberate breaths. His therapist had taught him this technique, for whenever Moss felt his anxiety getting the best of him. All over some lights, Moss thought. Just red and blue lights. That’s all they are.

He knew this. It didn’t matter.

The train came to a smooth stop at the West Oakland station. The platform was mostly empty, a relief. It meant a quicker exit, and that was the only hope Moss allowed himself. He stood next to Esperanza, who waited by the closest set of doors. “I’m here,” she said, her hand in his. “We’ll just put our heads down and get out of the station as quick as we can. That okay with you?”

He nodded to her, his heart in his throat. Moss wished he could reach inside of his brain and excise the part of it that tormented him. Instead, he had to deal with it every day. He let go of Esperanza and fetched his bike, wishing he hadn’t brought it, certain it would get in the way. They waited. And waited. And waited.

But the doors did not open, and a creeping anticipation snuck in. What if they were stuck here? What if the cops were coming up into the station? The sweat along his hairline just seemed to appear; Moss couldn’t remember it being there before.

“You okay?” Esperanza asked.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice soft, gripped in the fear of the unknown. “Just wanna get off the train.”

Moss caught sight of Javier, who was staring at the two of them. He saw it then, written all over him: pity. It’s starting again, Moss thought.

The orange light above the doors flashed, followed by a short chime, and then the doors slid open. Despite the small crowd, a young man rushed into the train car, promptly dumping half of his drink on Javier’s shirt. “Hey, what the hell?” Javier shouted, but the guy didn’t even look back.

“Well, that was awful,” said Javier, who was brushing off the front of his white T-shirt. They joined him on the platform.

“You could always call it modern art,” said Esperanza.

Javier chuckled. “I like her, Moss. I can see why y’all are friends.”

“He’s winning me over,” Esperanza said. “I hope you two exchanged numbers already. We should go, Moss.”

Javier pulled his phone out, but Moss waved it away. “Let’s get downstairs first,” he said. “I just wanna get out of the station before . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence. How do I finish that? How do I tell him?

They silently made their way down the stairs, the red and blue lights from the police cruisers on site bouncing off the walls. Two of the station operators stood outside their booth, their eyes locked on the scene to the south of them. Moss turned to head out of the north exit, his bike hoisted up on his shoulder, but Esperanza stopped and grabbed his free arm.

Signs were held high above the snarling crowd. One was of a photo of Osner Young, and it hit Moss: Osner could not have been more than a few years older than himself. His face was open in a joyous smile, and Moss recognized where the photo was taken: Martin’s barbershop, the one not far from where he lived.

There were more signs. STOP KILLING US, read one. There was a tall white man off to the right, his messy hair gray and black, who carried a poster that read, I STILL HAVE TO PROTEST THIS? Moss frowned at that one; it left him with a bad feeling, as if the guy was more concerned with being witty than caring. But then lining the sidewalk outside the station, blocking the entrance to the turnstiles, was a row of cops in riot gear. They stood with their batons hanging at their sides, their helmets gleaming in the lights of the parking lot. Moss had to get out as soon as possible.

“Come on,” Moss said, turning to walk away. “Please.”

He bumped right into someone. Moss excused himself, but the guy examined him, looking him up and down. “Morris?” The man gave him the same look again. Was he from Martin’s shop? How did this man know his name? “Yo, I haven’t seen you in years.How are you?”

Moss backed away. “Um . . . I think you have me confused with someone else,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

“Maybe you don’t remember me,” he said. “Last time was . . . damn, musta been five years ago. You were a kid still. It was at that rally outside City Hall!”

Please not now, Moss thought. He hunched down and tried to move toward the exit, but someone else stepped up, an older man with a crown of white hair. He looked more familiar, but Moss couldn’t place him now. “Hey, Moss,” the man said, raising a hand. “You here for the protest?”

Moss tried to form the words, but the darkness appeared. It started around the edges of his vision, it clutched at his chest, and he couldn’t see an escape route. He forgot about Esperanza, about Javier, about anything other than the brightness beyond the turnstiles of the station. He reached into his front pocket and pulled out his Clipper card, held it tightly. But there were more people in front of Moss, asking him about the rally, asking him about his mother, asking him to stay and protest with the others, asking him too many questions, asking too much of him always.

A woman rushed up to his side, her cornrows a tight and intricate pattern on her head. “Hey, we got Morris Jeffries’s son with us!” she shouted out. He tried to focus on her face, but it began to blur, to slide out of his vision, and then it seemed impossible to breathe.

“Please, I just need to go,” he slurred out, and then he was lost, the panic slipping over his whole body. He let go of his bike, heard it clatter against the floor, the echo reverberating in his head. He felt someone grab at him as he pitched forward onto the grey concrete of the BART station, and he hoped the darkness would consume him.

2

Moss’s hands slammed into the floor, and his Clipper card jarred out of his hand and flew across the concrete. He chased after it, but then couldn’t pick it up. His fingers felt wrong. Too big. Too round. Irritation flared in him, then turned to rage, and then he was screaming at a card on the floor that he couldn’t grab ahold of, and the terror spread. It washed out from his chest and up into his head, so total and so complete, as if he were under a waterfall that flowed the wrong way.

“Moss!” Esperanza shouted, and he felt his friend’s arms under his. She tried to pick him up, but he was too heavy, and the shame of it pushed him further under. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. It was all too much.

“Give him some space,” a voice said, deep and smoky. Moss felt a hand at the back of his head, and then an oxygen mask passed in front of him, and it was fastened behind his ears. “Breathe,” the voice said. “Just breathe deep for me, can you?”

Moss sucked the air in, and the coolness filled his mouth, spilled down his throat and into his lungs. Someone’s hand ran up and down his back, and it felt good. Comforting. He breathed deep again and slowly lifted his head, then shifted his weight backward. He sat on the cold concrete and sucked in another soothing breath. His vision was blurred; he hadn’t even realized that he’d been crying.

Esperanza knelt in front of him and reached out, grasping his shoulder. “You’re all right,” she said.

“How do you feel?”

Moss looked toward the sound of the voice. The man’s facial hair was delicately styled around his lips and chin. His nose was wide, as was his mouth, and when he smiled, Moss felt a pang hit him in the chest. The paramedic’s smile was inviting. Don’t be silly,he told himself.

“I’m okay, I guess,” Moss said, his voice muffled by the mask. “Thank you.”

“You get panic attacks often?” the man asked. “That one was pretty bad.”

Moss shook his head. “I’m usually better at stopping them,” he said, and the embarrassment pumped through his face. Oh god, did Javier see all of this? he thought. He began to look around him, and most of the people who had surrounded him had disappeared. But there was Javier, a few feet away, worry and concern all over his face.

“There’s no need to feel ashamed,” the man with the oxygen said. “I just want to make sure you’re okay. Is there anyone I can call?”

Moss fished in his right pocket and pulled out his phone. Who should I call? he thought. Shamika might be home, and he’d relied on her before when he needed help during the day. Was his mother home? It’s a Sunday, he reminded himself. The mail wasn’t delivered on Sundays. With relief pouring over him, Moss unlocked his phone, scrolled down to “Mama,” then handed it over to the EMT. When the man took it from Moss, his fingers grazed the side of Moss’s hand, and he felt that childlike giddiness again. Pathetic, he thought. Knock it off.

The man pressed the button to call his mom and lifted the phone to his ear, winking at Moss as he did. His mother must have answered on the first ring, as the man began talking shortly after that. “Ah, hello? I’m sorry if this seems alarming, but my name is Diego Santos, and I’m here with your son at the West Oakland BART station. No, no, he’s okay, I promise. He just had a panic attack.”

Pause. Diego handed the phone to Moss. “She wants to talk.”

Thanks, he mouthed to Diego, then took the phone. He lowered the mask. “Hello, Mama?”

“Moss, baby, are you okay?” Her voice wasn’t pitched higher, wasn’t full of terror. Just smooth. Interested. His heart rate began to slow down.

“Yes, Mama, I promise. It wasn’t that bad. I just got . . . flustered. That’s all.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing, Mama . . .” The sentence died before he could add any more.

“Morris Jeffries, Jr., you need to be honest with me.”

Damn, she used my full name, he thought. He relented. “I got recognized again.”

“By whom?” Her voice did spike higher this time.

“I dunno,” he said. “The first guy said he was there at that big rally at City Hall. You remember that one, right?”

There was silence for a few beats. He knew his mother was pissed. “Yeah, I do. He say anything else to you?”

“Not really. It wasn’t really his fault, Mama. There’s a rally here for some guy who got shot last week, and a bunch of people from the old days were here. They . . .” He paused and took a deep breath. “They surrounded me. I just freaked out a little.”

She swore. Loudly. He could tell she was holding the phone away from her. “Don’t repeat that, honey.” A pause, and then she swore again. “Or that.”

“I’m sorry, Mama, I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Oh, Moss, it’s not your fault, I swear. I just wish people were more sensitive, you know?”

“I know.”

“You need me to come get you, baby?”

“Nah, it’s not far. I’ll head home right now, I promise.”

She was quiet again. “We can talk more when you get home, okay?”

Moss agreed, telling his mom that he loved her, then hung up. When he looked up, both Esperanza and Diego wore expressions of concern.

“You sure you’re okay?” Diego asked, reaching down to take the oxygen mask from Moss. “I can stay if you need me.” He handed over Moss’s Clipper card.

“No, it’s okay,” Moss replied, and he made to stand up. Diego darted behind him and swiftly lifted him from the sitting position.

Diego clapped him on the back. “Whatever you say, jefe.” The man left an awkward pause in the air. “If you don’t mind me asking before I leave . . . what was that all about?” He gestured vaguely about the station. “That crowd that surrounded you.”

He saw Esperanza shake her head at Diego, and the EMT threw his hands up in a gesture of forfeit. “No worries, never mind. It’s not my business.”

This time, Moss reached out as Diego backed away. “No, it’s okay,” he said. He swallowed, hard, then cast a glance at Javier, who still stood off to the side. Moss could see the uncertainty in the other boy’s body, and Moss jerked his head, gesturing to Javier to join them. If this has to happen, he thought, it might as well be now.

He sucked in a lungful of air before starting. “I guess I got this hella weird celebrity status here,” he said. “Usually at rallies or protests cuz a lot of folks attended rallies for my dad years ago.”

“Rallies for what?” Javier asked.

Moss looked up at him, saw that the pity was still all over his handsome face. This is it, he told himself. Javier’s gonna run screaming in the other direction.

So he focused his gaze on Diego, hoping it would distract him enough. “My dad was shot by the Oakland police six years ago. They said it was a mistake.”

Diego ran his hand over his mouth, which hung open a bit in shock, and then his eyes went down to the ground. Shame. Then the pity came next. Moss was used to it at this point. People stumbled into this revelation all the time. He was surprised, though, that this time he wasn’t recognized by either of the men in front of him.

“I’m sorry, man,” Diego said. “I didn’t know.”

“Are you not from here?” Esperanza asked.

He shook his head. “Moved here from New York coupla months ago.”

“Well, that explains that,” said Esperanza. She turned to Javier. “But what about you?”

“Relatively new to the area, too,” said Javier. “Me and my mama got here like three or four years ago.”

Moss could still see the pity in Diego’s eyes as he spoke. “You know,” Diego said, “I lost a brotha back when I lived in Philly, in the eighties. Cops broke into the wrong house, he pulled a gun on them, they shot him right where he stood. He didn’t stand a chance.”

“Doesn’t sound too much different from my dad,” Moss admitted. “He was coming out of a convenience store, a little market not too far from here.” He pointed off to the side in the general direction of his home. “Had headphones in, didn’t hear the order from the cops to put his hands up. Got shot, and died right there.” His voice dropped. “Turns out they were at the wrong market. Wrong end of 12th Street.”

“It’s a messed-up world, man, that people can die like that,” Diego said.

“Yo, man, I’m sorry I asked you to go to the rally,” said Javier, his eyes downturned, a portrait of embarrassment. “I had no idea, and I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I’d known.”

Javier ran his hand down Moss’s arm, and Moss knew it was just to comfort him, but he still wanted more. That momentary connection made him feel, if even for a second, like he was less alone in the world. But it passed. Moss missed the sensation immediately.

Diego cleared his throat. “Well, I gotta get back to monitoring this,” he said, gesturing behind him to the rally. “Y’all take care of yourselves.”

They raised their hands to him and watched Diego disappear into the crowd beyond the line of cops, protest signs still raised, joining voices still punctuating the early-evening air. Moss leaned over and picked up his bike, which had been lying haphazardly on the concrete. When he looked back up, Javier was staring, his phone in his hand.

“So, I don’t know how to make a good segue here, so I’m just gonna go for this,” he said. “If you’re still interested . . . you wanna swap numbers?”

Responses flared in Moss’s mind. Even after all of that? he thought. But he gave Javier a weak smile instead. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

In another situation, Moss would have been overjoyed at the idea of a cute boy giving him his number. But he just wanted to be out of the station and in the arms of his mama. After giving Javier his number, Moss raised a hand to wave, then turned and walked north into West Oakland. Esperanza trailed behind him at first, but she caught up quickly, a sloppy grin plastered on her face.

He slowed down and shook his head at her. “What? What is it?”

“So he was cute,” she said. “Moss, you got your first number on the train! How does it feel? You’re practically an adult.”

He chuckled at that. “I dunno. I feel weird. Still wired, I guess.”

“You know we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she said. “We can just walk in silence, if you want.”

He smiled at her. “No, it’s okay,” he said. “I think that talking might be a good idea.”

She reached down and squeezed his hand. “What do you want to talk about? What would make you feel better?”

Moss loved this part of Esperanza. She understood that his ability to socialize after an attack was erratic at times, and she never pushed him to do anything he felt uncomfortable with. As they turned north on Chester, Moss pointed across the street. “There used to be a man there during the summer. Don’t know what happened to him. But my dad used to take us over here when it got super hot and the guy sold piraguas that were so good. You know what those are?”

She nodded her head. “Girl, just cuz I’m adopted doesn’t mean I don’t know about the culture,” she joked. “The Puerto Rican snow cone. I haven’t had one in ages, though.”

“This guy used to make ones with piña juice, and they were dope.” He went quiet. “I miss them.” Another beat. “And him.”

“I know,” she said. “And it doesn’t help when people constantly remind you that he’s gone.”

“Right?” Moss shook his head. “It’s like people want me to be this version of a person that isn’t me. Like, always ready to fight and march and rally, and I don’t even get to be myself.”

They found a silence again for a few moments, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was a routine of theirs, one that felt normal and intimate. How many times had Esperanza been there when Moss had an attack? How often had she helped fend off odd questions from strangers who recognized him? More than she should have had to deal with, but Moss appreciated it nonetheless.

He bumped into her and gestured with his head across the street. “We used to make up stories,” he said. “About all the people on the street whenever we walked home from the train station.”

“What kind of stories?” Esperanza asked.

“Weird stuff, sometimes.” He pointed at a flat, off-white house to his left. “Shamika lives there now, but years ago, there used to be this one dude who would always work on his cars in the driveway. And I was convinced that he was a robot.”

“Men who work on cars all the time are robots.”

“True,” he said, giggling. “Papa never discouraged me. He always made the stories weirder.”

He put his hand on Esperanza’s back and turned her slightly to the right. “You ever see the guy who lives there?” They stared at the muted brown home, a tall chain-link fence rising up around it. It looked like a miniature penitentiary. “We used to make up all kinds of stories about him especially. My dad said he was an alien from some distant galaxy, and that’s why he always yelled at everyone who walked too close to his fence.”

“Isn’t he the guy who got that garden up the street shut down?”

He huffed at her. “Probably. We never found out for sure. Apparently it violated some code no one’s ever heard of. Can’t have a garden in the hood!”

She sighed, and they fell back into a stillness. Moss examined each of the houses as he walked, trying to remember who lived in them, trying to remember the stories he used to make up with his father. There was Rosa’s home, with her three boys, Rafael, Luis, and Ramon, and her trim painted bright pink, a Big Wheel long abandoned in the front yard. The two oldest boys, Ramon and Luis, were usually in the middle of the street, kicking around a soccer ball. But last week, Moss had seen Rafael put on his mother’s heels on the front stoop and confidently walk down his driveway, pretending that the world was flashing cameras at him. Moss liked that memory, even if his father wasn’t in it.

Rosa’s family lived next door to Tariq and Eloisa, whose purple house leaned sadly but proudly to the right. They had tried to have a kid for years; then Tariq ended up putting his energy into adopting a blue-nose pit bull from the local shelter. Another memory: Morris letting Moss crouch down in Tariq’s yard while Ginger jumped all over him. Moss loved dogs, and petting Ginger always lifted him up.

They continued up Chester, past the barbershop where Martin did Moss’s fade, then past the only other duplex on the block, the one where a Korean family who owned three squawking chickens now lived on the bottom floor. Moss’s mother’s friend Jasmine lived by herself on the top floor. Moss had seen plenty of people visit Jasmine, but knew that she always lived alone. Moss liked her because she seemed so comfortable being by herself.

Over 11th now, right past the spot where a bunch of the older boys hung out. If you paid attention, you could see what they passed one another during their handshakes. Moss’s mother told him to avoid that corner at all costs, but no one was hanging around that afternoon. When Moss’s house finally came into view, he reached down to squeeze Esperanza’s hand back. His home was small, painted like yellowed eggshells. It had two bedrooms and an attic that unnerved Moss so much that he never would explore it. It sat plainly in between two other small homes, all of them rentals and with tiny but respectable yards, a rarity in this part of town. Moss had desperately wanted a dog, but they’d resigned themselves to the neighborhood cat instead, since they didn’t have time for a pet.

Moss stopped at the chain-link fence, and his mother crossed the yard toward them. Wanda Jeffries was taller than her son, and there were times he wished he had inherited her slender form. He definitely took after his dad in size, and some days, it was another reminder that Morris was no longer around. After Papa had died, Wanda had visited Martin’s shop and had one of the women cut off her long locs. It was a renewal, she had told Moss. When was that renewal going to come his way?

She opened the gate, and Moss fell gently into her arms, wrapping his arms around his mama and breathing into her chest. They stayed that way for a few seconds, and then she pulled away from him. “How you feelin’, baby?”

“Better,” he said. He smiled up at her. “Esperanza helped.”

His mother nodded at Esperanza. “Nice to see you, Esperanza. You staying the night again?”

“Yep,” she said. “Just one more night. My parents get back from their academic conference tomorrow.”

“You know you’re always welcome. And thanks for taking care of Moss.”

Esperanza beamed. “It’s the least I can do,” she said.

Moss looked up the street toward 12th, and his mother let go of him.

“You need to do it again?” Wanda asked.

Her face held no pity, just understanding. “Yeah,” he said. “Only for a few minutes. I’ll be back once I’m done.”

He let Esperanza move past him into the yard, and she winked at him. His mother took hold of his bike and wheeled it up the walkway. He watched them go up into his home, and then he continued up the street to 12th, where the market sat under two streetlights. Dawit, the owner, had painted it in the colors of the Ethiopian flag, all bright green, yellow, and red, and the beaming yellow star on a blue circle sat in the middle, right above the entrance. There were usually a group of men gossiping or playing craps outside, but not that evening, and Moss was grateful for that. As Moss crossed Twelfth Street, he could feel the sadness settle into his bones, pulling him forward and down. The door was propped open with a cinder brick, so he poked his head inside.

Dawit waved and cracked a sharp smile, his long face full of joy at seeing him. But they said nothing. Dawit knew the routine well, and so he went back to watching the soccer match on the tiny television that he kept behind the counter.

Moss sat on the single step outside the door. He reached down and ran a hand over it, remembering the sight of his father stepping out of the market, the paper bag in the crook of his arm. He remembered the excitement he felt as he waited across the street with his mother, wondering what treat Papa had gotten for them this time. Moss tried to forget the sound of the patrol car pulling up, the cop jumping out of the passenger seat and raising his gun, the shouting, the pop and the echo of the gun, the color of the blood. He had tried for many years.

It never worked. But if Moss sat there and concentrated, he could push away the horror and find what he had lost. He tried to forget those horrible images, overlay them with other ones. Today, Moss tried to remember something new, and he shuffled through his mind like a Rolodex. His father’s hugs. His smell. The way a T-shirt sat on his torso. His eyes, impossibly dark, almost black, those wells of kindness and familiarity.

The therapist, Constance, had taught Moss this technique, a way to calm himself whenever thoughts of his father or his anxiety or his terror started to get the best of him. She had gestured to the Rolodex on her desk during one of their earliest sessions, then turned the dial to flip through the contact cards. “Think of your mind as one of these,” she had said, and the sound of the device pleased Moss. “Each card is a memory of your father. Now, I know you were young when you lost him, but your mind is resilient, Moss. You still have a lot of him inside of you. More than you think.”

He was ten years old then, and in the six years that passed, he was still able to remember new things. It kept him going. So he focused again, turning them over in his mind, flipping from one to the next.

There. There it was.

I remember the way you used to give me that side-eye whenever I argued with Mama. You tried to get me to laugh every time. You knew it would trip me up.

He smiled. There. That’s what he needed. He remained there, comforted by the memory, and he must have been there longer than he was aware of. When his mother shuffled up to Dawit’s, Moss rose without a word, let her pull him into an embrace. They walked back home in silence, but just before he shut the gate, Moss looked back at the market.

His father wasn’t there.

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Lists

Books to Give the Teen and Young Readers On Your List

December 18, 2017May 3, 2024torforge

Welcome to the procrastinator’s club! If you’re one of those lucky or organized people who’ve already finished your shopping, that’s okay too–buy yourself a present as a reward for a job well done. The rest of us have no clue how you do it, because we’ve barely started. Luckily, we know the best last minute gift for nearly everyone: books. If you’re like us and looking for some last minute gifts, never fear–we’re here to help. Here are some recommendations for the teen and young readers in your life. And don’t forget to check out our Science Fiction and Fantasy lists as well!

Ban This Book by Alan Gratz

Middle Grade, Ages 8-12

You’re never too young to fight censorship. Do you have a budding activist on your shopping list? Check out Ban This Book, the story of shy and soft-spoken Amy Anne, who finds herself standing up to her school administration when her favorite book is challenged and taken off the library shelves.

Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson

Middle Grade, Ages 8-12

Are you shopping for a kid who loves Artemis Fowl? How about Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events? Look no further than #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson’s sharp, funny series of supernatural adventures about a boy whose superpower is breaking things. This is a great series for reluctant readers, who’ll desperately want to know if Alcatraz can do the impossible: defeat those evil librarians for good.

Strikeout of the Bleacher Weenies by David Lubar

Middle Grade, Ages 9-12

Does the kid on your list like the spooky stuff? Are they a fan of R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps series? Then they’re going to love David Lubar’s Weenies series! Each book is a collection of short, twisty, sometimes chilling stories designed to scare you, make you laugh, or just see the world in a whole new way. Read these stories–if you dare!

The Rains by Gregg Hurwitz

Young Adult, Age 13+

For the teenage Walking Dead fan in your life, we recommend this terrifying read from acclaimed thriller writer Gregg Hurwitz. Everyone over the age of 18 in Creek’s Cause has suddenly turned into deadly inhuman beings, killing everyone they can. Chance and his brother Patrick must try to figure out how the adults got infected–before Patrick’s 18th birthday, which is only days away. A brilliant reimagining of the classic zombie novel for all the zombie fans out there.

Metaltown by Kristen Simmons

Young Adult, Age 13+

If you’re shopping for a teen who loves to rebel, who loved Divergent and Under the Never Sky, then look no further than Kristen Simmons. In her most recent novel, Metaltown, the rules are simple: work hard, keep your head down, and watch your back. Looking out for yourself is the only way to survive…but Colin and Lena are sure there’s a better way. A story of friendship and rebellion, Metaltown is sure to capture any dystopia fan’s attention.

Seriously Wicked by Tina Connolly

Young Adult, Age 13+

For the teen witch in your life, we recommend Tina Connolly’s hilarious series about reluctant teen witch Camellia. Cam’s adopted mother is determined to turn Cam into a first rate wicked witch, but all Cam wants is a normal life. But when the witch summons a demon that takes over a guy in Cam’s school, Cam doesn’t have much of a choice–she’d better figure out this magic thing, fast, before the demon destroys the guy’s soul.

Truthwitch by Susan Dennard

Young Adult, Age 13+

Is the teen on your list basically surgically attached to her bestie? Are they constantly texting and Snapchatting even when they’re not together? Then Truthwitch is definitely the book for her–though if you want to win major points with the teen in your life, get a copy for her and a copy for her bestie! In Susan Dennard’s first Witchlands novel, all best friends Safiya and Iseult want is to be left alone to live their lives. Instead, they’re going to have to save the world–together.

What's New

Today Only: Tor Teen eBook Giveaway

December 13, 2017December 13, 2017torforge

Make room on your virtual shelves, because we’re giving you the chance to download Truthwitch for free!

Truthwitch is the first book in Susan Dennard’s New York Times bestselling Witchlands series, about two best friends who must use their magic to save the world from war and corruption.

For 24 hours only, sign up for our monthly Tor Teen newsletter and we’ll send you the ebook edition of Truthwitch for free!

This offer is available from 12:00 AM to 11:59 PM EST on December 13th. No purchase required.

Act fast and tell your friends!

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Excerpts

Sneak Peek: Sightwitch by Susan Dennard

December 1, 2017May 7, 2024torforge

Before Safi and Iseult battled a Bloodwitch…

Before Merik returned from the dead…

Ryber Fortiza was a Sightwitch Sister at a secluded convent, waiting to be called by her goddess into the depths of the mountain. There she would receive the gift of foretelling. But when that call never comes, Ryber finds herself the only Sister without the Sight.

Years pass and Ryber’s misfit pain becomes a dull ache, until one day, Sisters who already possess the Sight are summoned into the mountain, never to return. Soon enough, Ryber is the only Sister left. Now, it is up to her to save her Sisters, though she does not have the Sight—and though she does not know what might await her inside the mountain.

On her journey underground, she encounters a young captain named Kullen Ikray, who has no memory of who he is or how he got there. Together, the two journey ever deeper in search of answers, their road filled with horrors, and what they find at the end of that road will alter the fate of the Witchlands forever.

Sightwitch—available February 13—is an illustrated tale set in the Witchlands and told through Ryber’s journal entries and sketches. Please enjoy this excerpt.

Ryber Fortiza
Y18 D152
MEMORIES

Tanzi was summoned today.

It happened like it always does: we were at morning prayer in the observatory, hunched in our seats with eyes closed. I was sitting with the other Serving Sisters, a swathe of brown through the hall of silver Sightwitches. We might be all nationalities, all origins, all ages, but Serving Sisters always sat on one end. Full-fledged Sightwitch Sisters always sat on the other.

Clouds had gathered overnight. A flimsy light filtered through the stained glass in the observatory’s ceiling, casting the amphitheater rows in shadows.

We had just begun the Memory Vow. Head Sister Hilga stood beside the scrying pool at the room’s heart, her hands clasped at her belly and her eyes closed. Our voices bounced on the marble walls, eighty-seven throats sounding like a thousand.

As the final words in the Memory Vow—“Once seen, never forgotten. Once heard, never lost”—crossed our lips, a telltale flap of wings echoed out.

My heart dropped to my toes. As it always does when I hear that sound.

Please be for me, I begged, staring at the stained-glass dome overhead—at the constellation of bright stars. Please be coming for me, Sleeper. I follow all the Rules, I’ve learned all my lessons, and I have served you without complaint for thirteen years. Please, Sirmaya, Summon me.

I wanted to vomit. I wanted to shout. Surely, surely my day had finally come.

Then the spirit swift appeared, swirling out of the scrying pool. A black mist that coalesced into a sharp-tailed, graceful-winged figure, its feathers speckled with starlight. It circled once, with eyes that glowed golden, and a wintery, crisp smell wafted over me.

That smell meant a Summoning.

Pick me, I prayed, the tips of my fingers numb from clutching so tightly at my tunic. Pick me, pick me—

The spirit swift twirled past the telescope ledge above the back row of Sisters before winging down to the Serving Sisters, fourteen of us in brown. I swayed. My heart surged into my throat.

Two hops. It was almost to me, if aiming slightly more toward Tanzi. But there was still a chance it might change course. Still a chance it might twist back over to me . . .

It didn’t. It skipped over to Tanzi’s toes because, of course, the swift could not be here for me.

They are never here for me.

Seventeen years old, and my eyes are still their natural brown. Thirteen years at the Convent, and I’m still consigned to drab cotton.

Somehow, though, I managed to keep my throat from screaming, No! I wanted to shriek—Sirmaya knows I wanted to shriek it and that my eyes burned with tears. It wasn’t Tanzi’s fault, though, that the Goddess had picked her first.

And it wasn’t Tanzi’s fault that our loving Goddess never seemed to want me at all.

If I was going to blame anyone, I should blame Sister Rose and Sister Gwen, Sister Hancine and Sister Lindou. All those years growing up, they filled my head with stories, telling me that I would be a powerful Sightwitch one day. That I would be the next Head Sister with a power to rival even Hilga’s. No, they had never seen such visions with the Sight, but they were sure of it all the same.

Why did I still cling to those old tales when they were so clearly not true? If the Sleeper had truly wanted to give me the strongest Sight, then surely She would have done so by now.

So I didn’t cry and I didn’t scream. Instead, I forced a smile to my lips and gave Tanzi a hug. She looked so worried, I couldn’t not offer my Threadsister something. Her thick eyebrows had drawn into a single black line. Her russet skin was pinched with worry and guilt—an expression I never wanted to see on her face. If smiling would ease it, then smiling I could do.

“One of our ranks has been Summoned,” Sister Hilga intoned. The words she always said, words that were never spoken for me. “Praise be to Sirmaya.”

“Praise be to Sirmaya,” the Sisters murmured back. Except for me. Tanzi still hugged me so tight, so fierce.

So afraid.

“You’re not supposed to hug me,” I whispered. Hilga was already walking toward us, the Summoning bell pulled from her belt.

“Forget the rules for one second,” Tanzi hissed back. “And water my violets while I’m gone. Unless, of course, you get Summoned too.”

“Yes.” I held my smile as stiff as the stars in the stained glass. “Unless I get Summoned too.”

Empty words made of dust. We both knew it would never happen. Summonings are rare enough; two Sisters Summoned at once is practically unheard of. And with each day that passes, the less I think I will ever get called inside the mountain to earn the gift of Sight.

Then that was it. That was all Tanzi and I got for a good-bye before my Threadsister was tugged onward and the rest of us were assembling into rows. And finally me, last and alone, for our number does not break evenly.

Hilga rang the bell once, and its bright tinkle filled the observatory. Filled my ears, then hooked deep into my heart and yanked down. I hated the sound of that bell even more than the deeper bell that followed. The one in the belfry above the Crypts Chapel.

At the main bell’s single toll, we walked.

Little Trina, who is at least two hands shorter than I, glanced back at me. Pity clouded her blue eyes. Or maybe it wasn’t pity but rather a fear that she’d one day end up like me: seventeen and still pall-eyed. Seventeen and still dressed in brown.

Seventeen and still un-Summoned by our sleeping Goddess, Sirmaya.

I pretended not to see Trina staring, and when we began the Chant of Sending, I hummed the hollow tones louder than I ever hummed before. I wanted Tanzi to hear me, all the way at the front
of the line as we wound out of the observatory and up the trail into the evergreens.

Two of the Serving Sisters had cleared this path last week, but already white rubble clotted the pine-needle path. It sheds from the mountain each time she shakes herself.

I will have to clean it again tomorrow—just you wait. Hilga will come to me in the morning with that chore.

Except this time, there will be no Tanzi to help.

When at last we reached the chapel pressed against the mountain’s white face, the chant came to an end. Always the same rhythm, always the same timing.

We all stopped there, at the entrance into the Crypts, the Convent’s vast underground library. The chant was over, but its memory still hung in the air around us as we fanned into half circles around the arched entrance.

The spirit swift that had Summoned Tanzi swooped over us now, briefly multiplying into three aetherial birds. Then six. Then shrinking back into one before sailing through the open door.

When it had disappeared from sight, Hilga nodded at Tanzi. “From this day on, Tanzi Lamanaya will be no more. She will leave us as a Serving Sister and return with the Gift of Clear Eyes.”

“Praise be to the Sleeper,” we all murmured back—even me, though it made my stomach hurt to say it.

Tanzi smiled then. A brilliant, giddy one with no sign of her earlier fret.

And who could blame her? Even she, who waxed day in and day out about wanting to leave the Convent—even she wanted the Sight as badly as the rest of us.

And now she would get it. She’d been Summoned by the Sleeper, the most important moment in the life of a Sightwitch Sister. The only moment, really, that matters.

I tried to mimic her grin. Tried to show Tanzi that I was happy for her—because I was. A person can grieve for herself yet still revel in someone else’s good fortune.

Our eyes barely had time to connect before Hilga gripped Tanzi’s shoulder and turned her firmly away.

They walked, Tanzi and Hilga, step by measured step into the chapel. Into the mountain. Soon enough, they were lost to the shadows.

The next time I would see Tanzi, her eyes would no longer match mine.

The other Sisters turned away then and marched back to the observatory in their perfect lines.

I lingered behind, my gaze trapped on the words etched into the marble above the chapel entrance.

TWO OR MORE AT ALL TIMES,
FOR A LONE SISTER IS LOST.

We call it the Order of Two, and no matter your heritage, the letters shift and melt into whatever language you find easiest to read.

For me, that is Cartorran. My aunt took me from Illrya before I was old enough to learn its written language.

I cannot help but wonder, every time I see these letters, What do those words look like for someone who cannot read?

I shook my head. A useless question, and one that left me running to catch back up to the group.

The rest of my day unfolded in silence.

Tanzi’s half of the bed is cold now, as I write this. Only without her here do I realize adapted to her presence I am. Her sideways snorts when she thinks something’s funny. The constant cracking of her knuckles while she talks. Or even how she breathes heavy in her sleep, not quite a snore, but a sound I’m so accustomed to.

I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to wake up alone. And I don’t want to wake up wondering, yet again, why, why, why I am still without the Sight.

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eBook Deals / Fantasy Firsts

$2.99 eBook Sale: Seriously Wicked by Tina Connolly

September 26, 2017September 27, 2017torforge

Our Fantasy Firsts program continues today with an ebook sale! Seriously Wicked by Tina Connolly, the story of a reluctant teenage witch, is now only $2.99. This offer will only last for a limited time, so order your copy today!

About Seriously Wicked: Camellia’s adopted mother wants Cam to grow up to be just like her. Problem is, Mom’s a seriously wicked witch.

Savvy Cam has tons of practice thwarting the witch’s crazy schemes. But when the witch summons a demon to control the city, he gets loose—and into the cute new boy in Tenth Grade. Now Cam’s determined to stop the demon before he destroys the new boy’s soul. Which means she might have to try a spell of her own. But if she’s willing to work spells like the witch. . .will it mean she’s wicked too? With the demon squashing pixies, girls becoming zombies, and the school one spell away from exploding in phoenix flame, Cam has to realize that wicked doesn’t lie in your abilities, but in your choices.

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This sale ends November 3rd.

Excerpts

Sneak Peek: The Dark Intercept by Julia Keller

September 22, 2017March 20, 2024torforge

The Dark Intercept—available October 31st—is the beginning of a “riveting” (Emmy Laybourne) science fiction adventure that challenges the voluntary surrender of liberties for the perception of safety.

When the state controls your emotions, how hard will you fight to feel free?

In a radiant world of endless summer, the Intercept keeps the peace. Violet Crowley, the sixteen-year-old daughter of New Earth’s Founding Father, has spent her life in comfort and safety. Her days are easy thanks to the Intercept, a crime-prevention device that monitors emotion. But when her long-time crush, Danny Mayhew, gets into a dangerous altercation on Old Earth, Violet launches a secret investigation to find out what he’s hiding. An investigation that will lead her to question everything she’s ever known about Danny, her father, and the power of the Intercept.

Much like the device itself, The Dark Intercept will get under your skin. Please enjoy this excerpt.

1

Moment No. 327

She watched.

It was her job to watch, but Violet would have watched anyway. She leaned over her keyboard, slinging her body so far forward that her nose almost bumped the screen. Her heart was jumping around in her chest. She could feel the sweat pooling in her palms.

The short, dirty person zipping across the picture on her monitor was named Tommy Tolliver. His nickname was Tin Man.

Violet knew those things because the data showed up in a small square box next to his face on the screen. The information only stayed for a flicker of an instant before it was updated, but that was long enough. In livid orange letters, the box told her that he was sixteen years old and really, really scared.

So scared that he was running as fast as he could through the twisted filigree of streets on Old Earth. So scared that his pulse rate was leaping up and up, and his thoughts were a crazy gray tangle.

The cop who was chasing him was named Danny Mayhew. Violet didn’t need a box next to his face to tell her that. Which was a good thing, because there wasn’t one. The Intercept didn’t track cops. It only kicked in for the bad guys. Not the good guys.

Tin Man was fast. But Danny was also fast. In fact, Danny was a tick faster. Which meant he was catching up.

Violet sucked in a deep breath. She didn’t let it out again right away. She was too focused on the action in that strange and distant place to remember to breathe. When she did remember, the breath came out as a frustrated sigh. She used her thumb to flick impatiently at a triangular slice of dark blond hair that had drifted onto her forehead.

Oh, Danny, she thought. Not again. What are you doing down there, anyway?

Tin Man swerved into a filthy alley. It was always raining on Old Earth. Or at least it seemed to be on those not-very-frequent occasions when Violet was required to look down there. The rain draped the place in a greasy sheen, slickening the bricks.

Tin Man’s luck suddenly left him.

He slid. He slid hard, and he wasn’t able to catch himself before he crashed into a row of four garbage cans. They were the ancient gray aluminum kind, flimsy and dented. The kind you never saw on New Earth.

Tin Man bounced, teetered, and fell on his narrow butt. The computer connection was excellent and so Violet heard the whump sound crisply and clearly. She winced, even though it was happening to him and not to her, and even though it was happening thousands of miles away on Old Earth. She knew what it felt like to trip and fall on your butt. Everybody did, right?

Somehow, despite the fall, Tin Man managed to hold on to the ragged cloth sack he was carrying. The sack was tied off at the top by a little drawstring that looked like a brown shoelace. Violet watched him jam it into his front pocket with frantic fingers. He tried to scramble to his feet again, but he was trapped in a sticky makeshift maze of upended cans and still-wobbling lids, plus assorted smelly shreds and rotting lumps and gooey rinds. His feet kept skidding out from under him. His butt bounced against the grimy ground over and over again.

Tin Man felt helpless. Violet knew how he felt because a rolling ribbon of flashing numbers at the bottom of her screen told her.

It wasn’t that the Intercept could read his mind—or anyone’s mind. It couldn’t. It didn’t have to.

By riffling through the archives of his past emotions and using the algorithm to apply those emotions to the present situation, the Intercept extrapolated the probabilities of his current feeling and, in less than a trillionth of a second, selected the most likely one and sent it via numeric code to Violet’s computer. Tin Man knew he looked ludicrous—big tough gangster-boy, marooned in moist trash. That made him feel vulnerable and ridiculous, which in turn made him feel extremely pissed off.

And a pissed-off Tin Man was a dangerous Tin Man.

Violet leaned even closer to the screen.

Let him go, Danny, she thought. Just let him go.

And then she lectured herself: Yeah, right. Like that’s gonna happen. Get a clue, girl. Danny never backed off from a fight or gave up on a chase. Never had, never would. She understood, because she was the same way—but that didn’t make it any easier to watch.

Anxiety was skittering madly through Violet’s body. What would Tin Man do? Her throat felt dry and tight. She couldn’t remember the last time she had blinked. She was afraid to blink. Afraid she might miss whatever was going to happen next, because everything was happening so fast.

Tin Man groped in the waistband of his jeans, twisting and grunting and yanking. The slab gun had been digging into his skin while he ran, its louvered sides sharp as a shovel’s edge, its muzzle pricking him like a hypodermic. Violet could almost feel the slab gun against her own skin, even though she’d never touched one, much less hidden one in her pants.

Tin Man’s mind, according to the box that followed him on the screen, simmered with petty irritations as well as great fear, a fear that spread out over the rest of his thoughts like a black rainbow.

A holster would have made the gun easier to carry, but a holster would’ve been harder to hide, especially on a body as skinny as his. So Tin Man had carried it in his trousers, despite the very real risk that his body temperature would rise high enough to trigger the thing.

Violet had read about that. And she’d seen pictures, too—hideous, look-away-now pictures, filled with liquid and anguish. People sometimes forgot about the heat-sensitive firing filament, and in a terrible tenth of a second, the slab gun would blow a hole in their side so big that they could reach in and rearrange vital organs like cushions on a sofa.

Danny was coming up fast. Violet, right along with Tin Man, could hear the rapid and relentless smacksplat smacksplat smacksplat sounds of his boots as they struck the wet bricks.

Violet watched. She had to wait until the last possible second to intervene. Intervention had to be absolutely necessary. She couldn’t be wrong.

Tin Man was tensed and ready. There was only a thin grazing of light left in the alley, and so the cop, he surmised, most likely wouldn’t see the gray flank of the slab gun until its pulverizing ray had peeled back his skin and melted a portion of whatever it hit. Sometimes it happened so fast the victim didn’t even bleed. The heat of the light-pulse instantly cauterized the wound at the same time it created it.

Violet saw the numbers jump and squirm at the bottom of her screen, recording a probabilistic shift in Tin Man’s emotions. She interpreted the numbers instantly, reading his feelings as if he were writing them in a journal in real time:

Tin Man was confused. Why the hell had this cop shown up, anyway? Cops almost never came down to Old Earth anymore. For anything. New Earth didn’t bother to monitor it regularly. New Earth had given it up for lost, and Tin Man approved.

Lost was how he liked it. Lost let the monsters loose. And that was how Tin Man saw himself: as a monster. Old Earth had made him that way. Old Earth—and the people he needed to protect from its many perils.

A quick visual of the previous three minutes of Tin Man’s life popped up in the bottom corner of Violet’s screen. The pictures came from the squad of drones that patrolled Old Earth. She followed the video avidly, so that she’d have full information before Intercept Deployment:

In the fragile, moody pallor of dusk on Old Earth, Tin Man had been selling the day’s last bag of deckle. He hadn’t even bothered to divide the bag into smaller parcels. He didn’t need to. His customer was happy to snap up his entire supply of the pink powder, and to pay him well for it.

For the past several months, Tin Man had run a good, steady, efficient business in illegal drugs. He sold a lot of deckle. When the deckle ran out, he switched to tumult, and when tumult was hard to come by, he could always dig up a bit of trekinol. Trekinol was trash, but if nozzled directly into the heart, it could create a flutter. A baby buzz.

The transaction had been seconds away from completion. And then, from out of nowhere, the cop showed up.

Tin Man heard an official-sounding voice say, “What’s going on?” The customer heard the voice, too, and it caused him to jerk in the middle as if somebody had pulled an invisible string knotted around his waist. The customer vanished, twitching through the mud-colored twilight of Old Earth.

Tin Man also took off.

And then the cop, to Tin Man’s surprise, had followed him.

What the hell? was Tin Man’s irritated thought while he slammed across the dark and dismal streets. Nobody interfered with drug deals down here anymore. Nobody. It. Just. Wasn’t. Done. This cop, though, apparently had missed the memo.

Tin Man ran. The cop ran faster.

“Hey, wait!” the cop had yelled. “I just want to—”

Tin Man kept running.

The alley. The rain. The skid. The spill. And now, in a very short space of time, The End. For at least one of them.

But the question was: Which one?

Smacksplat. Stop. Danny hunched over Tin Man. He was panting, his black-booted feet spread wide, his body quivering, his hands grabbing the fabric that bunched at his knees. His blue tunic was flecked with mud. His dark hair was wet from rain and sweat. His face was pale.

Tin Man stared up at him, incredulous. All this trouble for a bag of deckle? New Earth didn’t care about Old Earth crimes anymore. Old Earth could do as it pleased, even if that meant the people down here ripped one another to shreds, or poisoned themselves with drugs, or whatever. Nobody cared.

What was wrong with this guy?

Tin Man didn’t wait for an answer. The cop had to die.

Tin Man wrenched the slab gun out of his trousers.

“Sector four,” Violet said.

She’d seen enough. All the official criteria had been met:

Imminent bodily threat to a New Earth citizen.

Lack of plausible escape parameters.

Reasonable expectation of negative outcome.

So now she had a job to do.

“Seventy-eighth parallel,” she added. “Old Earth zone sixteen.”

She gave her partner a quick sideways glance to make sure he was listening to her. Their workstation was one of a thousand two-person modules arranged across the glass-walled Protocol Hall, the nerve center of New Earth.

“Why’s he down there without authorization?” Rez said. “What the—”

“Sync up the parameters,” Violet declared, interrupting him. Rez’s screen was next to hers, but he’d been watching something else. Another sector. Or maybe playing a game. Whatever. “It’s my call.” Her voice was cold and steady. She’d gone through the checklist in her head. Twice, even. “And I’m calling it.”

“Copy that.” Reznik squinted, reading the swath of rich code that decorated the bottom of his screen, catching up with the information that Violet had been absorbing for the past few seconds. He laughed. “So—is that right? ‘Tin Man’? How’d he get such a stupid nickname?”

“Don’t know. It’s the alias of record.”

“What’s Danny doing down there, anyway?”

“You already asked me that. It’s irrelevant. Go on. Lock and load.”

Reznik shrugged. He fist-bumped four buttons in rushed succession on the console in front of him. His screen shifted to another variety of code. He punched another button—last week he’d actually cracked the red cover-cap on one of his console triggers, so violently emphatic were his gestures when he was in the throes of his official duties—and the orange-tinted code shimmied and wiggled as the algorithm automatically recalibrated itself in response to incoming data.

Reznik’s gaze followed the vapor trail of the code’s gyrations like a man in love. Code was a thing of beauty, like a really great song. That’s how he had described it once to Violet. He’d practically swooned when he said it. Sometimes, he would add, looking glassy-eyed and bewitched, he loathed the sluggishness of his brain when he beheld code. Compared to the cool sleekness of code, he told her, his brain was like a sweaty fat boy trying to climb a rope in gym class, all sagging butt and pitiful little grunts of doomed effort. Reznik didn’t have happy memories of gym class.

Violet occasionally wondered how his love of code registered in his Intercept file. Code recording his obsession with code: It would be like taking your finger and writing the word sand in the sand. He was totally smitten with code. Sometimes it got a little weird.

But no matter how obnoxious he was, Violet had to admit that Rez was a good person to have as a workstation partner. He knew all the shortcuts in the Intercept. He knew all the tricky little backdoor maneuvers that helped them do their jobs—as well as a few that had nothing to do with their jobs.

“Okay,” Rezink said. “Ready to rock ’n’ roll.” It was a funny-sounding phrase he’d picked up in Old Earth history class.

Violet did what she often did when she was nervous: She touched the small area in the crook of her left elbow. This was the spot where the Intercept chip had been inserted, slipped under the skin so swiftly and so delicately that she hadn’t even felt it. No one did. There was no scar, just a slight area of discoloration in the shape of a tiny crescent moon. Violet’s father, Ogden Crowley—Founding Father of New Earth—had insisted on that: Nobody should feel any pain during the installation. He’d ordered his staff to find a way. Because the Intercept wasn’t there to hurt. It was there to help.

And as always, they’d done it. People wanted to please Ogden Crowley. Violet had noticed that from the time she was a little girl.

“Ready,” Rez said. “Four. Seventy-eight. Sixteen. On my mark.”

“Copy that.”

“Mark.”

“Protocol initiated.” With two fingers, Violet depressed the black bar across the top of her keyboard. She felt a surge of relief. Everything was going to be okay.

Well—not for Tin Man. But that was his fault, not theirs.

She studied the screen. Tin Man tightened his grip on the handle of the slab gun. He aimed its ugly gray snout.

And then the Intercept pounced.

No sizzle, no crackle, no whoosh, no boom. No thunder. No lightning. Not even a click or a ding. For a second there was no outward sign that anything at all had happened.

But it had. Irrevocably.

Deep within the sprawling catacombs beneath their workstation, tucked snugly inside a computer system unfathomably vast, the Intercept was roused to invisible fury.

Tin Man was about to enter hell. But for Violet and Rez, it was just another day at work. Their job was essentially finished. There was nothing more for them to do. Except watch.

“Got any big plans for the weekend?” Rez said.

Violet shrugged. She had plenty of plans, but none to share with Reznik. He was always hinting around about wanting to hang out with her and Shura Lu, her best friend. Not gonna happen, Violet thought. Not meanly, just firmly. She wished he’d get a clue. Why was it that the guys you didn’t really care about were crazy about you, while a guy you did care about—in fact, a guy that you thought about a lot—kept you guessing about whether or not he even noticed that you were. . .

No. No. She elbowed the thought out of her mind. She wasn’t going to give the Intercept anything to work with. Nothing beyond her annoyance, at least. Nothing beyond her irritation that Danny had put himself in jeopardy. Again. What was going on with him?

Reznik didn’t seem to mind that Violet had ignored his question. He was used to it; she ignored him on a regular basis. It couldn’t dent his good mood. Their shift was almost over, and once it was, he could get back to doing what he loved to do, which was to use his computer savvy to explore the depths of the Intercept.

“Showtime,” he said.

In the crook of Tin Man’s left elbow they spotted a brief flash of blue. That meant the Intercept chip had just been activated. Their screens immediately shifted to the scene that was frantically flooding Tin Man’s brain, surging and grinding inside him.

Reznik leaned back in his chair and piled his big feet up on the desk they shared. He pretended to be eating popcorn from a bowl on his lap. He grinned and fluttered his fingers, as if he was digging in.

He tossed an imaginary kernel up in the air and caught it in his mouth, chewing with exaggerated vigor.

A small square in the lower right-hand corner of their screens continued to follow what was happening in the alley. The video was supplied by the drones making their grim, endless circles in the drab sky over Old Earth.

Reznik tossed another fake kernel up in the air. Snap, chew.

Violet rolled her eyes.

“Cut it out, Rez,” she snapped. “Don’t be a jerk.”

He snickered. Hopeless, Violet thought. Expecting Rez to act mature—that’s a lost cause. Totally.

They watched their screens. The Intercept had selected one of Tin Man’s memories from a decade ago and fed it back into his brain.

It was tearing him to pieces.

Molly Tolliver, aged five years, three days, four hours, twenty-two minutes, and eight seconds, lies in the ill-lit, foul-smelling room. She is too light to leave an indentation on the thin mattress. Her pale body, covered by a wispy blue rag that doubles as her dress, is cocooned in sweat.

An odor of decay rises from her. The vapors are thick and shimmering. Most of the bad scents are not produced organically by her body but by the artificial enzymes that have been pumped into her for three days now, in a frantic attempt to save her. The enzymes, as they break down, induce an accelerated tumble toward death. Sometimes—not often, but sometimes, or so the theory goes—the free fall of decay will reach a critical point and then use its accumulated energy to kick-start a rally in the opposite direction. You never know, someone had said about the fever’s lethal whimsy and the possibility of a turnaround. That someone was a fellow scavenger, sharing their hollowed-out, roofless house. Worth a shot.

It didn’t work. Now the stink is tremendous. It’s bigger than she Molly is long past being embarrassed by it. But for her family—which means her mother, Delia, and her older brother, whose real name is Tommy but who is mostly known by the nickname Molly gave him, Tin Man—the reality is that they cannot not notice the rancid smell. This isn’t fair. It isn’t right that their last memory of Molly is wreathed in a disgusting, vomit-calling smell, an abomination that’s like the mingling of dog shit and cat shit and rotten fruit and moldy basement and a shotgun-spray of farts. It’s disrespectful.

Tin Man blinks. He reaches out to touch his sister’s forehead, not knowing if her skin will be hot or cold.

It’s both.

How can it be both? He doesn’t know. But it is.

Before she got sick they were together all the time, he and Molly. They played, they ran, they chased each other across the broken streets of Old Earth, running and giggling, stealing what they could find to steal, darting through the wet, cold, smelly alleys. Molly was quick and small, and she could scoot into places that most people couldn’t, like a sleek letter opener sliding under the sealed flap of an envelope. That’s how Tin Man described it once to their mother. He knows about letter openers. He’s swiped a few from the smashed cabinets in the abandoned houses. There’s always junk left behind by the people rich enough to have scored a ticket to New Earth. Letters, packages, catalogs—they had made a big comeback in the mid-2280s. People realized that they missed running their hands across real paper. Missed folding it. Missed the elegant ritual of dealing with it. Thus letter openers became a hot item. The fancier, the better. Electronic mail is quicker, yes, but it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t seem to satisfy a certain longing in the soul. So on New Earth, the volume of Touch Mail is rising. And letter openers are easy to sell to New Earth tourists who sneak down here for a walk on the wild side.

A few days ago, Molly coughed. She covered her mouth. She pulled her hand away and looked at her small palm. Sticky orange webs of phlegm were strung between her fingers like cobwebs in a corner. This is Missip Fever—named after a river called the Mississippi, a river that dried up a long time ago. Notorious viruses are christened for the trickling remnants of once-mighty rivers along whose raggedy, germ-sown banks they first gain a deadly foothold.

It’s a week later and here she is.

Dying.

And doing it both too fast and too slow.

Tin Man watches. He draws back his hand, having grazed her forehead and found it both hot and cold. Inside his own body, he is aware of an excruciating pain, a pain made up of a savage mix of emotions: anguish, helplessness, fear, puzzlement. These feelings have squatted right down in the center of his brain and won’t budge. He’d swear his mind is exploding, over and over again, each explosion igniting the next one in line, and then the one after that. He can’t turn away from the pain any more than he can turn away from Molly.

The pain isn’t just inside him. The pain is him. He is all pain, everywhere.

His sister parts her tiny white lips. She whimpers softly, like a pet seeking treats. Watching her, hearing her, Tin Man feels as if every cell in his body is being dragged in a separate direction, fingernails scraping the ground as the cells twist and writhe, fighting their fate. He wants to scream. He wants to hit something, smash it, destroy He wants to cause physical pain to himself, so as to balance out the emotional pain, the pain in his head. He is silent. He does not move. He believes in nothing.

Molly Tolliver takes a small sip of breath.

Lets it out.

Takes another breath.

Lets it out.

Takes another breath.

This time, she doesn’t let it out. Her eyes are glassy, fixed.

She’s gone.

She is five years, three days, four hours, twenty-two minutes, and eleven seconds old.

As Tin Man squirmed on his backside in a filthy alley in the midst of a cold rain, his curled finger tensed against the crude trigger of his slab gun, he was engulfed by the memory.

The sadness raced across his brain, showing up from out of nowhere—or so it felt to him—as he aimed his weapon at the cop who had chased him here.

The remembered scene rushed at him: Molly in the bed, Molly stinking, Molly dying. The images attacked him like his worst enemy would. They pierced him, paralyzing his trigger finger and the rest of his body, too.

His sister’s waxy sunken cheeks.

Her eyes, orange and staring.

The sour smell of her—the smell of death, of ruined and rotting things, of the Absolute and Final End.

And then the realization that she was dead. Dead. He would never talk to her again. Never hear her laugh. Never watch her run.

Ever.

Ever.

All of it invaded him, overwhelmed him, plunging its tentacles deep into the tender pink core of his brain and rooting there, refusing to be dislodged.

Instantly Tin Man was sick. The nausea blotted and coated his throat, locking it shut, bubbling up in a thick bath of black acid. He was sheathed in pain. Shackled by it. His logical mind was swamped by what he was feeling. He was hurled aloft onto a gigantic and terrifying wave of toxic pain, a pain that roared and climbed and then twisted back around again, crashing down on him, smothering him, trapping him inside an endless, edgeless, boundless, all-over agony.

Tin Man couldn’t see. He couldn’t breathe. His body felt as if it were splitting into a hundred billion sharp-edged little pieces. He was hollowed out by the pain. Scraped raw by it. He was reeling and he was helpless.

Violet switched her attention from the Intercept feed—the record of what Tin Man was enduring inside his busy furnace of a brain—to the drone’s real-time recording of the drama in the alley.

Tin Man was sobbing. Spit foamed over his lips. He was shaking so badly that the slab gun vibrated right out of his hand, falling to the bricks with a sad little clatter.

Danny kicked it away, far out of Tin Man’s reach. He looked over at the drone that had dropped and roosted amid the greasy welter of garbage cans. Knowing they were watching him from New Earth, he smiled a crooked half smile. Not a smile of triumph—a smile of relief. He saluted the camera as he silently mouthed the word: Thanks.

Violet blushed. She felt the warmth rising in her cheeks. There was a small flash of blue in the crook of her left elbow.

It had all happened in a smattering of seconds.

Reznik grunted.

“I don’t like that guy,” he muttered.

Tell me something I don’t know, Violet thought. Reznik did his job—he would save Danny’s life when it needed saving—but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

“He’s just a big show-off,” Reznik added. “And a selfish jerk.”

She wasn’t going to argue with him. “We’re just about finished,” she said. “Then we can move on to another sector.”

“Great. As long as I don’t have to look at Mayhew’s stupid face anymore.”

The trouble was, of course, that Rez had a right to be resentful. Danny caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people. No question about it.

While Reznik punched in the resolution codes, Violet kept her eyes on the screen, zeroing in on Danny’s dark, wet face. Her feelings were all mixed up again. The quick rush of joy she’d felt when Danny smiled at her—okay, at both of them—had faded. Now she was back to being mad at him. But her anger, too, was changing just as fast as the joy had. It was dissipating into something else, another feeling. She didn’t want her anger to soften; he had broken rules, risked his life. Sometimes, though, an emotion had a mind of its own.

Part of her was afraid Danny would never know how she felt about him. Another part was afraid he already did.

And still another part was afraid, period. Afraid of having experienced the feeling in the first place.

Because the moment an emotion was born inside her, it wasn’t hers anymore. Well, it was hers—but not exclusively hers. Within the elegant infrastructure of the Intercept, a new entry in her file had just been created. A series of blunt facts had been inscribed upon an already crowded digital tablet:

CROWLEY, V. V. [VIOLET VERONICA]. Citizen No. 4612-97-8A-QRZ12.7. MOMENT OF RECOGNITION NO. 327 OF INTENSE AFFECTION FOR MAYHEW, D. A. [DANIEL ANDREW]. CITIZEN No. 7414-82-7D-QFP14.9.

SYMPTOMS: EXCESSIVE EXCRETION OF SWEAT IN PALMS, SHORTNESS OF BREATH, DIFFICULTY FOCUSING ON TASK. HEART RATE INCREASE FLUCTUATING BETWEEN 15 AND 19 PERCENT. BRIEF BUT INTENSE.

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Ryber Fortiza
Y18 D152
MEMORIES

TWO OR MORE AT ALL TIMES,
FOR A LONE SISTER IS LOST.