Archive for the ‘Excerpt Monday’ Category

Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You=2 0don’t have to be published to participate–just an writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site! or click on the banner above.

I’m going out on a limb here and posting part of the prologue for my current work-in-progress, The Cell. I haven’t shared this with many people yet, but I figured that maybe it was time…so here it is.

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Prologue — somewhere in the jungles of Cambodia

I stopped caring 368 scratch marks ago, but something compels me to keep track of the days. The little hashes on the wall give me false purpose and I pursue the routine task with vigor. But it doesn’t stop my mind from wandering into forbidden territory. How many more scratches will these walls hold? And, worse, what if I run out of space before death frees me.
 - from the journal of Oliver Shaw

Oliver Shaw craved death.  

Cold concrete pressed against his cheek. Each second that trickled past magnified his awareness, until he could no longer deny the wretched truth. You’re still alive. The words whispered across his foggy brain, taunting him—mocking him. His heart kicked out a stuttered beat. A bead of moisture leaked out from under his eyelids, loosening the dried blood that had crusted there. Flashes exploded in his head, the voices and faces of those he’d failed to save.

His stomach heaved. He sucked in a breath and choked on the sudden bile that filled his throat. God, the familiar stench of excrement and putrid food. Why did his gut choose to protest the smell now after more than a year of its constant companionship?

Open your eyes, you gutless coward.

He grit his teeth and dragged his eyelids open. A sliver of light speared into his retina, blinding him with a sharp ache to the back of his skull.

The light bulb.

That single fucking bulb. Always on. Always grounding him in its sick reality, never letting him forget his place, his sins. He bit down on his lip, letting the metallic taste of his blood fill his mouth. He couldn’t take another day in this hellhole—no, not even another hour.

He shifted. Cement scraped his bruised stomach. The movement set fire to the hundreds of cuts across his back. He stiffened and pulled a hiss through his teeth, concentrating on the tracks of dirt and dried blood covering his arms while he waited for the burning to dial down to an acute throb.

His kidneys ached from dehydration and repeated kicks to his lower back. A chunk of his long, matted black hair fell into his eyes. He tried to brush it aside, but his tingling hands refused to work properly. He flexed his fingers against the tattered fabric of his cast aside shirt until the digits cooperated in an awkward dance that pulled at his joints. Sliding his palms against the pitted concrete he combed the crevices hoping for a sharp piece of metal, a rusty nail, anything he could use to pierce the thick vein pulsing in his neck.

His fingers closed around a jagged rock. Relief spilled into his gut and diluted the gnawing hunger there. He inched over onto his back. Fresh blood oozed down his arm. He blinked the nasty laceration into focus, and a new clarity edged into his vision.

This wasn’t his cell.   

The wall was smooth where it should have been scarred, the floor more heavily pitted. Shadows clouded his brain, of his last caning, more brutal than the others, the ropes that had dug into his raw wrists and ankles, angry voices that jarred his skull—and then nothing. How long had he lain here, unconscious?

Irrational fear squeezed at his heart, making it race. He dug his knuckles into his coarse, tangled beard. How many days since his capture? They’d made him lose track. How could he—if he didn’t know—Oh, Jesus, he’d been holding onto his sanity by a thin thread and now those bastards had cut his only life line.

How many days? Five hundred? More? Less? God, he didn’t know. 

His breath choked past his lips, the garbled sound knocking some sense into him. Who cared? One day was the same as any other. His reasons for counting the days were long gone. He was a ghost and no one, not the United States Government which would deny his very existence, nor his family, of whom he had none, nor Catrina—

His throat tightened. He was the only one left. His captors delighted in reminding him of that fact, rubbing his nose in his own judgmental stupidity. He had nothing but his own self-righteous integrity to blame for his predicament. If he had only broken, like his teammates were willing to do, and let himself be used as propaganda against his own government, maybe they’d have allowed his friends a respectful death without suffering.

Their brutal butchering played through his mind twenty-four hours a day in a continuous reel until he was compelled to imagine a different outcome. One where he’d found a way to save them, rather than ending up chained to the wall and forced to watch.      

Now he glanced around the humid cell with its rusty tin walls, where the crumbling floor was saturated with large rotting leaves and God knew what other kinds of fetid waste. Everything in this place had been left to die, including him.

Too little. Too late.

He tightened his grip on the sharp stone and called upon every ounce of strength he still possessed to drag the sharpest point across his jugular. His breath huffed from his mouth. Warm, sticky moisture welled against his fingers in a trickle. He dug the rock deeper into his neck and waited for the rush of blood to wash over his hand.

Nothing.

“No.” The denial sprang past his lips in a rusty warble he no longer recognized as his own voice.

He squeezed his eyes shut, but the salty sting of tears still managed to leak onto his cheeks. He chucked the rock across the cell and heard its soft ping against the wall before it kissed concrete. He needed something better. Sharper.

He collapsed back against the nearest wall. His left hand slipped along the groove where wall met floor and his fingers plowed into soft mush. He lifted them into his line of vision. Red.  Staining their tips. He rolled his thumb across the substance, caught of whiff of the pungent smell.

Rotting fruit. A pomegranate. But the texture transported him. Took him back to another time when he’d swirled his fingers in brightly colored paints, his father silently working on a canvas at his elbow.

Paint the world not as it is, but as you want it to be.

 His illustrator father had been an expert in the art of escapism. And though Oliver had painted his little ten-year-old heart out to please his dad, he could never perfect that level of desperation.

He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled over to a pile of mottled fruit and vegetables near the door. The guards must’ve continued to throw his daily rations inside despite his condition. Flies swarmed around the fermenting pulp, but scattered when his toes plowed into a pile of mango. The juice stung the open gashes along his tender soles. He pushed the pain aside with a wince.

He bent and scooped a handful of red mush into his palm. Shuffling to the nearest wall, he dipped his fingers into the fruit then smeared them across the bumpy metal in a wide arc. He slashed at the wall again. And again.

When his palm was empty, he returned to the makeshift palette and scooped up more of the sticky goop. He squeezed guava between his fingers, scooped up eggplant, yams, okra and wet jungle leaves, his frantic movements creating a wash of color. Oranges, reds, browns, greens. Black. A landscape slowly took shape before his eyes.

He stepped back to observe what he had done. Sweat coated his face in a clammy film and several of the scabbed over wounds on his body had reopened allowing blood to trickle down his arms and legs. But he ignored the deep contusions and the shaking in every weak muscle, keeping his focus on the mural in front of him, desperate to remain rooted in an alternate reality.

Here, at last, was a place he could survive, a place where freedom didn’t scare him every bit as much as captivity.

His eyes fluttered closed and he collapsed to the ground.

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Links to other Excerpt Monday writers

Note: I have not personally screened these excerpts. Please heed the ratings and be aware that the links may contain material that is not typical of my site.

Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You=2 0don’t have to be published to participate–just an writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site! or click on the banner above.

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Once upon a time I dashed off a first chapter to enter into a contest from Harlequin American Romance. The characters popped into my head and took on a life of their own. But after I mailed off my entry, I immersed myself in writing suspense and never looked back. Nothing ever became of my contest entry, but I still love this story and hope to finish it one day.

Here’s the opening scene to The Reconstruction of Levi McKay:

Life in the fast lane had never moved so slow.

Levi McKay thunked his head against the leather seat of his Jaguar XJS and gunned the V-12 motor just to hear some noise. He’d made three wrong turns before stumbling upon the small rutted, sorry excuse for a driveway that led to an even sorrier excuse for a bridge strung across a deep ravine, before pulling up to the hulking Victorian house in front of him. Welcome to the Bates Motel.

He yanked the key out of the ignition, opened the door and unfolded himself from the low bucket seats with a groan. A sliver of sun sliced through the heavily wooded area that surrounded the house. A mosquito buzzed around his head and he slapped at it.

He listened for some sign of life—other than the chirping of birds, rustling of leaves and the lone mosquito that was out for his blood. But there was nothing. No thunderous roar of engines. No squealing of brakes. No shouts and jeers.

He took a deep, shaky breath, inhaling the warm, late afternoon breeze ripe with tree sap and leaves. The absence of fuel, burning rubber, and engine grease almost made him want to drop to his knees and cry like a newborn babe.

Curse Beau Braddock, anyway.  He glared at the note taped to the brass key in his hand. “You’ll love the house,” it said. “Three bedrooms, two baths, a huge kitchen, a fireplace to warm your butt, and five acres of nothing but nature. Get your head on straight. There’s always next season.”

Levi crumpled the note and shoved it in his pocket. This was supposed to be his season. His year to have NASCAR eating out of his hand and come away with the Cup. Instead, Beau had cut him from the team. Losing his ride was the equivalent of hacking off an arm. Only it hurt worse.

His hands shook as he reached for his cell phone. Why couldn’t he find his edge? Racing was his life. He was nothing without it. Nothing without the adrenaline rush and the frantic fast pace of the racing world. He flipped open his phone and pressed the one, speed-dialing Beau.

“Hey, Vi! You make it to Woodruff yet?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

Beau’s cigar induced throaty voice cackled. “Isn’t she a beaut?”

Levi fixed his gaze on the sagging porch. “She’s a train wreck. Where the heck did you dig this place up?”

Beau laughed again. “I’m addicted to Ebay. It was too sweet a deal to pass up.”

Levi eyed the house critically. “Have you seen this place?”

“When’s the last time you swung a hammer, Vi? College? Fixing that place up will help you get your head on straight. I’ll tell you what, if you patch that house up…if you prove that you’re done with your reckless ways, I’ll reconsider.”

Fix-? Did Beau honestly expect him to sit here for the next three and a half months, repairing floorboards and stripping the ugly, faded yellow paint, and the devil knew what else?

“Come on, Beau. You made your point. I know I’ve done poorly the last couple of races, but I’m at the top of my game. Don’t cut me out of the action now.”

Beau sighed. “Kid, I’m doing you a favor.”

Levi winced at Beau’s use of kid. Would he never rate above the scraggly twelve-year-old who’d come sniffing at Braddock Motorsports back door hungry for an escape?

“The driving I saw out there last week could’ve gotten you killed,” Beau continued. “It was reckless and immature. And you know it. Keep on that path and I’ll be burying you next to my son.”

“This isn’t about Bobby!” The words exploded from his lips in a heated rush. Levi clenched his shaking hand into a fist, but it didn’t help calm the tremors. “Geez, Beau…I…I don’t…How do you get over losing your best friend?” He swallowed back the lump in his throat. Bobby’s death on the track nearly two months ago still had the power to make Levi break into the shakes. Telling Beau otherwise was like trying to sell him a seven-cylinder engine. “I’ll never get over it, Beau. But don’t make me sit out because of it. This sport is everything to me. You know that.”

Static crackled the line for a moment, then Beau’s voice returned, gruffer and thicker than before. “My son never did understand the difference between glory and the love of the sport. There’s more to life than a one-and-a-half-mile track and a checkered flag. He never had the chance to learn that lesson.”

“I get it, Beau. I do. But, this is my year.”

Levi hated the pleading in his voice. He wasn’t some pansy that had to beg for a spot. He’d earned it with sweat and grease.

He grit his teeth. “Come on, Beau.”

“I’m sorry, Kid, you’re out for the rest of the season.” Silence opened wide on the line. “I couldn’t bear to lose another son.”

Levi’s throat closed. Beau thought of him as a son? He’d never…but then again, he’d been too angry over Beau’s constant butt kicking to realize Beau did it, not out of anger, but out of affection. He had to make Beau understand. Racing was all there was for him. It made him somebody, made his life full and gave him a place to belong, a family of sorts. Without it…who would he be? Who the hell could he really be?

“Beau…I’m lost without my ride.” His voice croaked, but he didn’t care. He had to lay himself out there, open. Surely Beau would realize…

“You’re more than your ride, Vi. Take the house. Fix it up and figure yourself out. I’m doing it for your own good.”

The phone clicked loudly in Levi’s ear. He fixed his glare on the weathered round turret protruding from the left side of the monstrosity. “The house is a piece of crap.” He chucked the phone across the front lawn.

He’d given Beau ten good years of racing–longer if he counted the years he worked for Braddock Motorsports, fixing cars and soaking up all the racing knowledge he could. His career couldn’t be over at age thirty-five.

No way was he going to spend upwards of three months in Woodruff, Illinois, home of snail pace and solitude. If Beau thought Levi’d lost his edge now, just wait until he congealed from the lack of excitement in this town.    

He strode across the lawn, scooped his cell phone from the grass and then stomped onto the flimsy porch. The key stuck in the rusty lock and refused to budge. He gripped the doorknob and applied more pressure to the key. It snapped in half. 

He cursed a blue streak and yanked on the doorknob. The brass knob came off in his hand. He wasn’t prepared for it and stumbled, his foot crashing through the weak board on the porch. He yanked his foot from the splintered wood, but momentum kept him from regaining his balance. His tailbone struck the top step and his back slid down the stairs like a washboard, his head landing in the grass.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. A single drop of cold rain struck his forehead.

He raised a fist to the sky. “Beau! You’re gonna pay for this!” 

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Links to other Excerpt Monday writers

Note: I have not personally screened these excerpts. Please heed the ratings and be aware that the links may contain material that is not typical of my site.

Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You=2 0don’t have to be published to participate–just an writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site! or click on the banner above.

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I feel in the mood to showcase a little action and danger (and cuss words! Oops!) this month. This excerpt is one of the new scenes I wrote when I completely revised, INTRUSION, my Golden Heart finaling manuscript.

Audra’s scream carried through the open window. The chilling sound vibrated down Cam’s spine, setting him off balance. His shoulder catapulted into the window with enough force to crack the pane. He tucked his head and struck the glass again, and again. Each one of Audra’s shrieks, each bump and crash went straight to his heart, fueling the blood pumping through his veins.

The fissures in the glass pricked through his t-shirt to scrape his skin, but adrenaline saturated his body and he kept ramming the window until it finally gave way. Shattered glass rained down on his head as he fell through the opening.

Sharp edges scraped across his face and neck. His chin hit the wood floor and jarred his teeth against his tongue. The tang of iron filled his mouth. He shook off the pain and rolled to his feet, but he’d forgotten to compensate for his left knee and it gave out on him, sending him sprawling back to the floor.

He popped back up, this time remembering to burden his right leg with most of his weight. His gaze found Audra, frozen, in the corner of the room between the bed and the wall with Walker, Nanodyne’s security guard, behind her, holding a knife at her throat.

“Make a move and I’ll slit her throat.”

Cam lifted his hands. Slowly. “Wasn’t that already the plan? Why else would you be here?”

Audra sucked in a breath. Her wide amber eyes glistened with unshed tears, and all the color had leached out of her pale cheeks making the strand of auburn hair against her cheek look almost blood-red in comparison. The scar beneath her right eye was stark white.

His chest tightened. He waited until she focused her gaze squarely on him. I will not let this bastard hurt you. A shudder rippled through her, and though he knew it wasn’t the right time or place to notice her curves beneath her gray tank top and those skimpy matching boxers edged in lace, he couldn’t help it. He was definitely going to hell. But not before he sent Frankenpitt there first.

He needed a distraction. Something that would get Audra out of harm’s way. He scanned the room, taking in the splintered door, the mattress hanging half off its frame, and the overturned nightstand near the bathroom door.

All of it was useless to him.

“Look, why don’t we settle this man to man?” He slid a step in Walker’s direction. “You don’t really want to kill a defenseless woman, do you?”

Walker’s eyes darted to Cam and he tightened his grip around the handle of the knife. “I have to kill her.”

“By whose order?” Cam kept his hands out in front of his body and took another step closer to Audra. “C’mon, Franken—err—Walker. We both know you’re a few beers shy of a six-pack. Who are you working for?”

Walker shook his head. “Back off or I slit her throat.”

Cam curled his lip. “You got me. Even if I lunge forward, your knife will end her life before I reach her.” He stopped, dropped his hands to his sides. “But, see, here’s where your logic fails. Because you kill her and she’s no longer a distraction to me. I can put one hundred percent of my attention into killing you.” He smiled and lunged. “Hell, I may even enjoy it.”

Walker reared backward and the knife jerked away from Audra’s throat. Cam folded his fingers into a fist and knocked Walker’s arm aside. He pushed Audra to the floor with his other arm, wincing when she cried out in pain.

“Go!” He shouted the command, but Walker grabbed him around the throat, strangling the word.

He heard Audra scramble to her feet and once he knew she was out of range, he dug his fingers into the security guard’s arm, twisting his body out of the way. His knee locked up in the tight space and he fell backward onto the mattress, taking Joe with him. The knife plunged into the pad beside him, narrowly missing his ear.

Joe grunted and yanked the blade out of the bed. He plunged it downward in a second attempt to skewer Cam’s heart. He rolled to the side, the mattress teetered, dumping him off. The back of his head slammed into the metal frame.

“Cam!” Audra screamed his name, but he didn’t have a chance to look at her before Walker fell on him again.

He grit his teeth and held the guard at bay, his hands wrapped around Walker’s shoulders. “Get out of here!”

Damn it, he hoped Audra was listening.

His sweaty palms slipped off Walker’s shoulders, an error that cost him the upper hand. Walker’s thick hand wrapped around Cam’s throat and squeezed. He gagged from the pressure, blinking away the dark, fuzzy spots that crowded his vision.

His hand crept up to claw at Joe’s grasp, but he couldn’t gain enough traction to pull it away from his windpipe. He reached up and flailed for the knife. The tip nicked his palm, letting him know he’d found his target. He grabbed the hilt, covering Joe’s hand with his own, and wrestled the knife to the side.

Bright light suddenly blinded him. He heard the whoosh of something cut through the air, then a loud crash. Joe’s weight fell to the side. Cam went with him, reversing their positions, and in one fluid arc he plunged the knife downward. The resistance of muscle and bone gave way and the blade sunk into the guard’s heart.

Walker’s hand slid away from the hilt and Cam got his first good look at the intricate handle. It was made from cherry blossom jasper, with veins of black and white threading through the stone. Cam knew without a doubt the design was one of a kind.

Because it was his.

He’d had it commissioned just before he’d left the Special Forces. SCOTT was engraved on the stainless steel bolster at the end of the handle. If he pulled the knife out of Walker’s chest, he knew what he’d find: the last names of his A-team etched into the blade.

“Oh, shit.” His hands started to shake and he squeezed his eyes shut to calm the tremors.

What had he done?  

 Audra gasped and Cam jerked his gaze to her. She hadn’t left. Why hadn’t she taken off? Her choppy breath matched his own. She dropped the remnants of the lamp she’d used to attack Walker’s skull, and it hit the floor with a clatter.

“I told you to leave.” The words came out in a harsh croak.

“I couldn’t.” Her fierce whisper was like a cool drink to his raw throat.

He struggled to stand, but his shaky legs wouldn’t support him. Not yet. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” She sunk to her knees beside him and reached out to stroke his face. “You…saved my life.”

#  #  #

Audra lightly pressed her fingertip to one of the cuts on Cam’s cheek. It wasn’t deep—little more than a scratch—but droplets of blood welled to the surface, and all she could think about was how he’d paid so little regard to his own safety in order to ensure hers.

His skin was hot to the touch, his breath ragged. She looked into his eyes, so dark without their usual spark of teasing that they appeared raw, even a bit vulnerable. He stared back at her without uttering a word, and although she barely knew him, somehow she knew it was rare for him to remain silent.

She shifted closer, laying her other hand on his opposite cheek, and still, he didn’t respond. Oh, his eyes darkened and roved over her face, and he swallowed hard, but the glib retort she’d expected never came.

“Cam?”

His eyes suddenly blazed. “That bastard was going to kill you with my own fucking knife.”

She flinched at the edge in his voice and her gaze flicked to Joe Walker’s body. She’d been trying hard to avoid glancing at him, but now she couldn’t look away. Her stomach balked and the blood drained from her head. Cam’s knife protruded from the guard’s chest, a wash of crimson staining his clothes.

They’d taken a man’s life. It was Cam that had wielded the blade, but he’d done it to protect her. Didn’t that make her every bit as responsible? She tried to blink back a wave of dizziness, but was unsuccessful until Cam took her hands in his, grounding her.

His thumb ran over her knuckles in a gentle caress. “Hey,” he tipped her chin up, forcing her to look at him, “I killed him. Not you.” He brushed a strand of hair off her cheek, his warm fingers lingering there. “And I’d do it again, in a heartbeat, if it meant saving your life.”

The quiet sincerity of his words—his touch—wormed their way into her starved heart. Gone was the smooth-talking veneer that Cam wore on the surface, the cockiness that made him risky. In its place was a man with his own emotional bumps and bruises. Someone she could relate to—even trust.

She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “What are we going to do?”

“We?” His brash confidence flooded back into his face with nothing more than an arched brow, but this time it didn’t send a flutter of panic into her heart. “We are going to get the hell out of here.” 

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Links to other Excerpt Monday writers

Note: I have not personally screened these excerpts. Please heed the ratings and be aware that the links may contain material that is not typical of my site.