Feedback Blog Tour: excerpt
Title: Feedback
Author: D L Richardson
Genre: YA Paranormal
Publisher: Etopia Press
Ebook
Words: 65,000
Release Date: 10/5/2012
Publisher: OmniLit
Amazon
| Barnes
and Noble | OmniLit |
Ethan James,
Florida Bowman, and Jake Inala need organ transplants. When they receive the
organs of a dead CIA agent, Dylan Black, they take on more than the task of
completing the mission of deactivating bombs that threaten millions of lives.
Kidnapped, their lives under threat, the memories stored in the CIA agent’s
mind begin to awaken within each of them, except the one piece of information
they are abducted for - the location of the bombs.
Excerpt:
Chapter One
Wednesday, November 9th, Ethan James
AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck”
blared through the speakers. Apt music considering the weather conditions. Rain
pounded the windshield of the Lamborghini. Crushed beneath the noisy rain, the
music took a beating, too. I flipped the volume control to the max, drowning
out the steady slap of water on the roof.
The dark shroud of night
cloaked the striped lines to my left and right. Street signs blasted yellow
warnings to drivers to slow down on wet roads. I ignored them.
Instead, I pushed the car
to 120 miles per hour. Coming around a curve in the road, I flew up on a van
and sharply jerked the wheel to avoid ramming the Lamborghini up its rear end.
I owed my life to my quick reflexes.
Pity.
I drove for another half
mile at suicidal speeds, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel to the
rhythm of the guitar riff. Another half mile. Then another. Just when the buzz
of the ride plunged to a level of indifference, the car hit a pothole, veered
me across three lanes, and like a punch from nowhere, it was game on.
A tsunami-sized wave of
water fell from the sky. Momentarily blinded by the useless wipers, I sucked in
my breath when two rows of lights cut through the haze. Two white lights on the
bottom and six or more yellow ones on top—the bright circles headed straight at
me.
Semitrailer. Not good.
Gritting my teeth, I
tightened my grip on the steering wheel. The truck swerved at the last second,
missing killing me by about half that length of time. The driver blasted four
long bleats of the horn.
I laughed out loud as I spun
around.
I accelerated till the car
caught up to its former 120 miles per hour. The chorus kicked in, and I helped
with the backing vocals. “Thunder. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. Thunder.”
Whether driving under a
dome of blue, or a sky darkened by storms like tonight, I liked to push cars to
their limit. It didn’t matter what sort of car, but slow cars tended to break
apart sooner under extreme pressure. Fast cars handled the punishment of
driving at stupid speeds much better.
Speeding made the rush
last longer. It filled a void and carried me to a place where I let go of the
angst over a waste of a life spent waiting to die of kidney failure. The rush
reminded me that seventeen-year-old kids should wish for a professional ice
hockey career instead of wishing to still be alive by Christmas.
The song ended, and in
that second of silence, my thrill took a dismal nosedive. Images of the
hospital I attended every week flickered across my vision. So, I increased the
speed. Bad enough the bleak place filled my head and haunted my dreams, but to
interrupt my fun—not going to happen.
The next song on the CD
kicked in, and it did the trick of hauling me back to the driver’s seat, where
I replaced the hospital corridor for a rain-slicked freeway. I figured if I had
to die young, I’d do it on my terms. No doubt the doctors would have something
to say about this philosophy. If I crashed the car and ended up in the
hospital, I’d tell them I reached out to touch life. Better than dwelling on my
postpubescent life spent hooked up to a dialysis machine.
I’d probably get pulled
over by the cops first, and I couldn’t have that. Aside from speeding, I’d
stolen the Lamborghini from a mall parking lot half an hour earlier, and I
didn’t have a license.
A crack in my
concentration appeared like the lightning bolts streaking the sky. The car
drifted into the next lane, and I let it go. A set of lights rushed toward me,
and I expertly got the car under control, but at this speed, and despite the
car’s sporting capability, the Lamborghini was all over the shot.
Buzzed from pushing the
car, I kept going.
At 120 miles per hour,
streetlights floated like satiny, white ribbons. The rain-slicked road made it
impossible to judge the lines marking the lanes. Curves were hard to
anticipate.
Sometimes I oversteered;
sometimes I didn’t steer enough and had to yank the wheel to the left or right
at the last second. Other drivers blasted their horns. I didn’t care about the
rules of the road. Rules were for pussies.
For each minute I survived
this suicidal cruise, I’d get two points. So far, I’d accumulated over two
hundred. Fifty were up for grabs, if I made it home alive. I had a lot to lose
if I crashed the car. I had nothing to lose if I killed myself.
I jumped in surprise when
a car came up on my left and honked its horn, whizzing by in a blur of chrome.
“I don’t think so, buddy.”
I accelerated. If the cops
wanted to stop me, they’d have to use air support. Getting myself on TV only
added to the thrill of the chase.
Concern over my reckless
driving should have registered, but it didn’t. The speedometer now read 140
miles per hour. AC/DC screeched about “Hells Bells,” and the rain didn’t
lessen. If I lost control now, I’d smash into the concrete barriers lining the
highway. It’d be game over. No way I’d survive the impact. What a shame this
last train of thought wasn’t on whether I’d survive or not, but on whether I’d
care.
Lightning bolts exploded
across the sky and lit up the windshield. In that brief flicker of visibility,
I spotted the plane on fire, blocking the highway—and the spaceship blowing up
a bridge with luminous green laser beams. I let go of the wheel, idly watching
the Lamborghini plow into the concrete barrier. Metal fragments and orange
flames danced in front of me. The sound of something exploding boomed through
the speakers. The words GAME OVER flashed across the television screen.
The plane had been okay,
but the spaceship insulted me. For sure, the makers of the game reckoned it’d
be a hoot to throw unrealistic obstacles in my path.
I tossed the Xbox
controller aside and scratched my numb backside. My life couldn’t get any
worse…might as well go to school.
About the Author:
Music first
captured the creative interest of D L Richardson. She got her first acoustic
guitar at age ten, and in high school she sang with the school band. When she
left school she helped form her own rock band where she sang lead vocals,
played bass guitar, and wrote all the lyrics. At age 26 she realized she wanted
to write novels for the rest of her life, or die trying, so she sold her
equipment, quit pursuing a music career and began writing instead. She
currently lives in Australia NSW South Coast
Next up on the tour:
Dec. 24th- I am, Indeed
Dec. 25th- Kharisma Rhayne
Dec. 26th- Harlie's Books
Dec. 27th- A Book Lover's Library
Dec. 28th- Simply Infatuated
Dec. 29th- The Avid Reader
Dec. 30th- The Stuff of Success
Thank you to the Reader Girls, Laurie, Caitlin and Meg for taking the time to feature Feedback. I hope you girls get a chance to read it one day.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes
D L Richardson xoxo