.
When a Reaper crosses over using Bay-Lee's closet to issue her a warning, she knows she's in trouble. She's spent her life moving from town to town, a new idenity in each, fleeing from the monsters determined to kill her. Now one gives her a warning? Something is not right here. The next day she's given early admission to Van Helsing's school for hunters. This is it. Her plan is set in motion. Soon, she will have her revenge... if she lives long enough.
.
Someone with power is using wraiths to kill hunters on their birthdays and hers is coming up.
.
Excerpt: At some point during the night a stranger crawled into Bay-Lee’s bed while she snored softly, unaware. The mattress springs squeaked. He reclined on his side and stared down at her face in the moonlight. It bothered him that she continued to sleep. After all the stories he’d heard about this girl, he had expected more from her. Shouldn’t she be able to sense danger by now?
.
This was Van Helsing’s daughter? She looked insignificant, vulnerable beneath the green sheet. He could snap her neck so easily—and maybe he should. The world would continue on, undisturbed, but the dark cloud hanging over his life would finally dissipate.
.
Only a fraction of moonlight filtered through partially open curtains. It didn’t matter. Although he couldn’t see her clearly now, he’d seen pictures of the girl in Van’s office. Her features were burned into his retinas. Every time he went into the office he tried not to look at the photographs, but his gaze inadvertently drifted to them. He tried to tell himself it was done out of curiosity, that it was because she was Van Helsing’s daughter, but there was more to it.
.
There was something about her, something unsettling that inevitably pulled him back to stare at her reproduced image. She looked like an average girl. A pretty face was framed by dark hair, parted in the middle and layered. Her eyes, the darkest of browns, nearly black, hid a mountain of secrets. The girl had attitude to spare, and the camera caught it, freezing it for all to see. She wore a ‘bite me’ expression that would drive any vampire crazy.
.
Fortunately, he wasn’t a vampire.
.
Her mouth bothered him the most. The full lips haunted his dreams with a secretive smile curving at the ends. Her bottom lip begged to be nibbled on. Sometimes, when he wasn’t carefully controlling his thoughts, he wondered what she would taste like. In his dreams he kissed her again and again. He wondered what would happen if he kissed her in real life. Would it stir something in his soul? Would the prophecy come true? Would the world end?
.
Something huge lodged in his throat. He tried to swallow. It was a near miss, so he swallowed again. Kissing her shouldn’t even be a blip on the radar. This girl was the reason he didn’t have a home or a family. It was her fault he’d grown up on the outside looking in, her fault people whispered about him, and her fault he was destined to die young.
.
Bay-Lee stirred in her sleep. Mumbling, she pushed against his chest with one hand. “Go ‘way.”
Cute, like a box of kittens, for a second he forgot to hate her. His heart momentarily softened—not for long. The new sensation was enough to wipe the smile from his face. Delivering a mental kick to his brain, he reminded himself this girl was the last person in the world he could let his guard down around. She was worse than trouble. If he wasn’t careful, this seemingly harmless meeting would lead to total destruction.
.
Ready to wake her, he leaned in close to her face and whispered her name, her fake name. Like him, she was forced to live under an alias. Michelle.
.
Check out the other Carnies:
2 comments:
Very cool. Good luck with NaNo :)
Awesome start on NaNoWriMo. Can't wait to read more.
Post a Comment