Sneak Peek at Chapter One

Chapter One: Firestarter

A door slammed shut behind her, blanketing the holding cell in black and in that darkness, Alez knew she would add three bodies to her kill list. If she was going to rot in the light prisons again, it had better be for a crime she’d actually committed. She paced the thirty narrow steps from the cement slab door to the far wall, chewing a nail to the stub.

Fire alarms continued to blare in the distance. The thick cut of smoke still curled on her tongue as she tried and failed to block out the shrill screams. This fire would unjustifiably become another crime in the long list of infractions tallied against her. Most she’d earned, and she had paid her debt to society. But this—this didn’t deserve her brand. 

In the darkness, she could just make out the silhouette of boxes stacked along a wall. As soon as one of her kidnappers made the idiotic decision to open that door, she would bash a box over their head, run out of the facility, and hitch a ride on the first airship off this Blighted rock. Maybe to one of the distant mining colonies. A person could make a living digging metals. It would be a hard life, but she wouldn’t have to constantly look over her shoulder. Better a decade drilling meteors than whatever awaited her here. 

Blight. 

The only complication to her escape plan; Collin. Out of the thousands of people on this plague-ridden planet, he was the singular ray of hope. She needed to get word to him—to tell him she was sorry. That this time really wasn’t her fault. 

Collin was better off without her. All she did was hold him back, make trouble that he felt compelled to save her from. It was for the best. 

But her heart knew better. Pretend all she wanted, there was no chance she would flee without him. The answer was in ocean-blue eyes that smiled at her over breakfast this morning. An answered she viewed each time their hands brushed, walking home from classes. She should at least say goodbye. New Plan:

Kill the bastards who kidnapped and locked her in this cell.

Somehow escape a maximum security building, crawling with military bastards.

Say goodbye to Collin. 

 Then find a way off this rock. 

That all sounded great as she imagined escape within the narrow confines of her holding cell. While her captors stood just on the other side of the door––deliberating the best way to dispatch her punishment––she was trapped in a holding tank, imaging the impossible. 

Her plan wasn’t actually a plan. For instance, how would she leave the building? Guards patrolled each exit in pairs. To even exit the interior zone, she’d need to scan an identity chip through their readers. There was no bypass. No way out. 

Alez continued pacing. Her hand slid down her arm to the row of rainbow rubber bands choked along her left wrists. She popped the rubber, three at a time, against her veins until pain seeped beneath calloused skin and fried her nerve endings. With a low breath, she exhaled tension that knotted her shoulder blades. Air flowed steady through her lungs as she forced a new rhythm.

Better.

The creeping thrum of her chest rising and falling synched with the snap and tug of bands along her skin. After some minutes, her heart slowed enough that she could think without the thoughts retracing paths in her mind. Each rubber band strike swallowed the din. Each strike–a dose of calm. 

On the opposite side of the metal door, she could nearly make out three distinct voices. The same three men who’d picked her up off the street and threw her in the back of a van. She blotted the raised cuts along her arm from when they’d thrown her to the ground. The bastards had caught her off guard. Den Mother would be disappointed in her momentary lapse in vigilance. But she planned to pay them back in kind.