New post on Old Things

Edits are done with BROKEN, at least the first round. I'm hesitant to jump into my SecretBook until I know what's going on with further edits. The voices are so different, and I don't want to muddle things, so I opened up my favorite YA and started reading yesterday.

Is it sad to admit I got sucked in? I mean, I wrote it, I know what happens. The tension is high from the start, pace is a tight. It's a darker, more vicious world than BROKEN. To compare the two is like comparing apples to oranges. Sucked. Back. In. *sigh*

Chapter One

I bounce my gaze from the red Xs on my calendar, to the scuff mark on my white bedroom door, to the person walking along the shoreline outside. No amount of shuffling around my room puts me ahead of the pain I’ve been trying to outrun. My walls swim, the wood floor rocks. For one brief second I think about yelling for my dad, but I know there’s no help coming from him. He says this misery is all in my head. Well, I wish someone would tell the beast trying to claw its way out of me that it’s just a figment of my imagination.

My knuckles whiten in my grip on the window sill. Sick gurgles rise from my stomach, tight and rolling, threatening to throw back the burger and fries from dinner.

Outside, moonlight halos a guy standing on the beach, face tipped to my window like he can smell my agony. His eyes are feverish bright and boring into me. Go AWAY! I want to scream, but nothing’s coming through my locked jaws. I glare across the yards of beach sand, willing him to leave, but his eyes only open wider and he hunches suddenly like he’s hurting too.

Freak, I think and drop the mini-blinds.

Heat slashes across my body, burning under my skin and ripping free visions of being peeled from the inside. Muscle spasms tug on joints feeling like puzzle pieces in the wrong places. I suck in a rattling breath and stare in horror as my fingers convulse and curl. The lunar misery drives me to my knees, and I sink as the floor pitches and sways in my vision.

This pain eclipses what I’ve suffered before. Unbearable, like bombs going off in my chest and skull.

Daddy, I cry silently, Daddy help!

Somewhere downstairs Dad jacks the TV volume to drown out my moans.

Nerves on fire, every breath searing my lungs, I claw at my curtains for fresh air and snag the cord on the blinds. They rocket up into the housing, then rip from the window and clatter to the floor. My vision tunnels to the source of my personal hell. Hanging fat and full in the autumn night sky outside my window, the moon watches me slide toward a black out. Just before I lose consciousness a wolf’s howl shatters the night.