Excerpt from Vengeance [Dissidence 02] by Jamie Canosa!
Coming June 2013!
Chapter 1
It’s dark. I’m not talking twilight dark, or even midnight in the woods dark; no, it’s pitch black. The kind of darkness where you can’t really tell if your eyes are open or closed, and it doesn’t really matter either way because there’s obviously nothing to see.
I wonder if I’ve gone blind. There’s a terrifying thought.
Reaching out, I grope through the obscurity for anything to hold on to and stumble. The ground isn’t solid. It’s soft and almost bouncy, like trying to walk on air. If you could walk on air.
Where the heck am I? And how did I get here?
“Hello?” I test my voice and it comes out as a soft whisper. “Is anyone out there?”
Do I even want to know if someone is out there?
There’s no response. No sound of any kind. The silence is as thick as the darkness, and now I’m wondering if I have somehow gone both blind and deaf.
I stumble again and sprawl across the floor. It doesn’t hurt. In fact, it feels like I’m lying on a cloud—or what I assume a cloud would feel like had I ever actually touched one. My eyelids feel like they have tiny weights attached to them and I snuggle in, hoping my dreams will be better than this place.
I’ve nearly reached a state of unconscious bliss when I hear a voice coming from far away. It echoes around the empty space, and sounds vaguely familiar, but I’m already too far gone to remember why.
“Kaleigh! Kaleigh, wake up. Please, Kaleigh, open your eyes.” He sounds worried, but I’m not sure why. As I slip deeper into sleep, the voice becomes so faint that I’m no longer certain I heard it at all.
***
I must have slept because this time when I open my eyes-and I definitely opened them because now-the darkness is tinged with a pale, faintly blue light. Now what? Part of me—a rather large part, in fact—wants to just curl up and go back to sleep again, but curiosity gets the better of me, and I climb awkwardly to my feet on the floor of air.
Slowly, I shuffle towards the faint light, torn between wanting to know what it is and wanting to run and hide from it. When finding yourself alone in a strange place, the second option is probably the wisest. Of course, I’ve never been all that wise.
As I draw closer, the light intensifies; growing brighter, moving closer and closer until it completely encompasses me.
Is this what dying feels like? There’s supposed to be some kind of light involved in that, isn’t there?
That can’t be right though. I always thought that pain ceased when you died. At least, I liked to believe that for my father’s sake.
I wake to a world of screaming light, screaming sound, and screaming pain. Everything is too bright, too loud; just too much for me to handle. I slam my eyes shut against the harshness of it all, wanting to escape back to that place of quiet isolation; that place of peace.
I hurt . . . everywhere. I hurt so badly that I want to scream, but all that comes out is a pathetic moan.
“Kaleigh? It’s me. Com’mon, look at me.” A rough hand caresses my cheek, and then slides through my hair.
Slowly, I shuffle towards the faint light, torn between wanting to know what it is and wanting to run and hide from it. When finding yourself alone in a strange place, the second option is probably the wisest. Of course, I’ve never been all that wise.
As I draw closer, the light intensifies; growing brighter, moving closer and closer until it completely encompasses me.
Is this what dying feels like? There’s supposed to be some kind of light involved in that, isn’t there?
That can’t be right though. I always thought that pain ceased when you died. At least, I liked to believe that for my father’s sake.
I wake to a world of screaming light, screaming sound, and screaming pain. Everything is too bright, too loud; just too much for me to handle. I slam my eyes shut against the harshness of it all, wanting to escape back to that place of quiet isolation; that place of peace.
I hurt . . . everywhere. I hurt so badly that I want to scream, but all that comes out is a pathetic moan.
“Kaleigh? It’s me. Com’mon, look at me.” A rough hand caresses my cheek, and then slides through my hair.
Author bio:
Jamie Canosa is a full time author of YA literature, which she absolutely loves. When she's not writing or spending time with her family, she can usually be found with her nose in a book. She currently resides in upstate NY with her wonderful husband and three crazy kids . . . plus the dog, the bird, and the rabbit.
Her debut novel, Dissidence, was published in 2012 along with several novellas. including Temptation, the first in her Heart and Soul series.
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