Free Fall (15 page)
Authors: Carolyn Jewel
Since the only movement of air in her ten-by-ten prison came from the heat radiating from the floor, she had to wonder if the reaction might be a symptom of heat stroke.
Her legs wobbled, and for a couple of seconds she expected to collapse again. She didn’t. She shuffled forward to sneak a look out the window. Lucky her, she had a prime view of the car and the two men who got out. By now she’d guessed enough about the people who’d locked her in here that she figured the two men weren’t any more human than the others. They didn’t mean her any good, either. Why would they?
The shed she was trapped in was fifteen or twenty feet from where they’d parked and in direct sun. For the next four hours it would only get hotter inside and out. She knew that because she’d been stuck in here for at least three days. Might be only two. Could be four. She was losing track. There was no water. No food. No furniture. No toilet.
Naturally, she’d tried to escape, but every time she touched the door the resulting shock sent her crashing against the opposite wall. No matter how hard she hit the ramshackle walls, they never broke. Same thing if she tried to open the window. Or break it. Or pry up a floorboard or punch through the ceiling.
She didn’t want to risk another of those full-body shocks, so she kept her distance from the window while she watched the two men. Both were tall and fit. One of them was dark-haired with brown skin that announced he wasn’t from Anglo-Saxon stock. The other one was at least mixed ethnicity. He had hair just short of blond.
The darker man had gotten out of the driver’s seat, and now he stood by the car, within spitting distance of her. He pressed his key fob. The cherry-red Mercedes chirped in response. In twenty minutes, the inside of that car was going to be an oven.
That invisible arctic wind danced along her skin even as she breathed in hot, suffocating air. The darker man wore shiny shoes and a suit and tie, and he held himself like someone who knew he could beat the crap out of anyone who looked at him crosswise. He dropped the fob into his pocket.
When his companion walked around the car to the driver’s side, she could see he was as casually dressed as the car’s driver was formal. His jeans were ragged at the knees, his tee-shirt was faded to a shadow of its original blue, and his tan shoes were battered. He looked as if he’d enjoy any and every opportunity to be mean. She didn’t like his looks. At all.
Another ripple of awareness shuddered through her. She no longer believed she was imagining it. Whoever those men were, they set off a physical reaction in her that threatened to shake her apart; a reaction that had begun before she heard the car.
Her body had become alien to her the minute she lost control over what happened to her. Not just her body. Forces she didn’t understand ruled her new reality. She’d been changed against her will and there was no one to tell her how to deal with what she was now.
She resisted the urge to step away from the window, but there was no holding off the apprehension that curled in her stomach. She knew, without understanding why, that the man in jeans was the source of that new and deeper dread. He looked young, her age. Early twenties for sure.
The dark-haired man might be late twenties, maybe early thirties. Mere surface, of course, because they were passing for human right now. If she was right about what she’d figured out on her own—from words overheard, actions observed, knowledge that seemed to have been injected into her with no context—they could be thousands of years old.
Places to get
My Darkest Passion
Thanks for reading
Free Fall
. I hope you enjoyed the excerpt from
My Darkest Passion
. You can find out more about the series at my website,
carolynjewel.com
Copyright © 2012 by Carolyn Jewel
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Cover art copyright © 2012 by Patricia Schmitt
ISBN:978-1-937823-01-6
All rights reserved. Where such permission is sufficient, the author grants the right to strip any DRM which may be applied to this work.
Alas, I am not perfect. From time to time I make mistakes. The great thing about eBooks is I can upload fixes pretty quickly. If you find a typo, by all means let me know!
Here's a list of updates so far:
- 2013.04.26: ePub Version 1.1. Added the glossary. Stylesheet updated for better device support, booklinks updated, excerpts swapped out.
- 2013.01.19: css and html streamlined, booklinks updated, excerpts shortened.
- 2012.07.17: css and html streamlined
- 2012.07.01 ePub version 1
Thank you, eagle-eyed readers!