Teasers:
Powder
“Fine, I’ll help you, because
I can see you’ll never give up on her, and I will never be my own if we don’t.”
“You better believe it,”
Robert smirked.
The seven of us stood in
thick, dusty, golden sand, huge pieces of rock and debris extruding like
tombstones from ash. Battered, bruised and bloody, we watched as the ship
disappeared over the huge dunes, our world turning to powder, everything ready
to fly away in an escaping breath.
**********************************************
~ Glancing at Maya, it was time to
grieve the loss of a mother to us all. Maya’s head hung toward her lap, dark,
chocolate hair falling past her face, covering her expression. My sorrow turned
to anger. I wanted to go to her, but not yet. What did you say to someone who
had just lost a loved one? A mother. I had not earned the right to empathize
with such loss. I did not have the words, nor the true emotions, as I had never
had such a thing as a mother, I had never experienced anything the way she had.
It was clear to me what I was in that moment - a product of the Council. I let
the agony of that moment well up inside of me so I can know how not to let it
beat me up anymore, and I would fight back.
*****
A
body is fragile; it breaks, it tears, and it bleeds; it is also tangible and
real, beautiful and rare.
A
soul is an ever-fighting, ever-growing entity. It has a mind of its own.
But,
a mind is a curse; it can corrupt, be corrupted, think too much, or not enough.
When
body meets soul, it’s perfect. It knows the truth, but it cannot live without a
mind.
The
mind activates the power from the soul to the body.
The
balance is never perfect. This is the curse of being broken.
“I was on a lit path, a raging firestorm for him – all
of him. My body ached for it. I had found the antidote to my disease, and in
those forced images of false memories, I found my salvation, a cure from
myself…”
*****
“I know you are there. I can
feel you,” I groaned through the darkness.
Silence filled the gloomy
room, expanded through the cracks, pushed through thick, gray stone walls, and
penetrated the blackness outside.
“You are wasting your time.”
But the words escaped in a whisper, my throat so dry it seared.
I felt bruised, inside and
out. I tried to lift my body, which seemed to be glued by gravity itself to a
cold, hard surface. My wrist stung as I pulled against what felt like
barb-wired restraints laced with a poison that left me dizzy. I lay my head
back down, trying to catch my breath, sweat clinging to my entire body. A
stifling heat choking my vision, my thoughts. The throbbing in my head exploded
and rippled through my entire frame. I clenched my teeth, but the pain was too
insane to contain. I screamed, and the aching that echoed through my bones,
left me icy and shivering. My back lifted and slammed back onto the surface of
a metal bed as my breath hit me again. I swore.
“It gets easier with time.”
His words filtered through the nothingness inside of me as my heart slowly came
back to life.
I swallowed against coals
trapped in my throat.
It happened again. The shift
was taking me, it ripped and raked over my body. I choked on its blackness.
“Oh, the sin of guilt is an
unpleasant thing,” his voice said from right beside me.
I turned my head toward
where it was coming from, a tear escaped me. My emotions confined in my esophagus.
“He is going to kill you,”
is all I got out, before my eyes closed and I fell into its beckoning midnight.
*****
“Troy?” I called out.
“He’s gone.” A cold voice
bounced back.
“What did you do?” I
swallowed glass, knowing the man was behind it.
“Oh no, it’s what you did,”
he replied, his smug tone sickening.
I tried to lift myself from
the hard floor.
“I said, where is Troy?”
“I told you, but for some
reason you don’t believe me. He knows what you are, and he is hesitating,
wondering if it’s all worth it,” his words like stone grated the inside of my
brain to mush.
Liar!” I yelled, pulling
against chains.
“You give me way too much
credit… Ava.” A slight pause before he said my name, and the way he said it,
there was no doubt in my mind who had been responsible for the state I had
found myself in.
*****
But before I could get hold
of my thoughts, another loud explosion tore through the air, crackling like a
beast, our screams becoming lost in the echoes of terror. Loud crashes coming
from every direction, enclosing us within its catastrophic claws. Flames so
high and wide, we were about to be devoured within the jaws of the fiery
creature. I didn’t give myself the time to hesitate for a second longer. I
grabbed my two best friends and hurled them down the stairs. The door came
crashing in as we hit the bottom floor; Robert and David came tumbling through
it, smoke sweltering up behind them. There were no alarms to warn us, which
struck me as very odd at first. I waved my hand before my face trying to see
through smoke and dust. The fire came from next door and radiated though the
walls. I saw the grave expressions on the boys’ faces as they came toward us. I
heard girls in the other dorm shriek, cough, cry, and their loud footsteps as
they came hurtling down the stairs like mad banshees, pushing against us. I
turned to push back, my voice lost in shock and fear.
In 2010, Venessa Kimball was struck by an idea, A story that needed telling. Having always been passionate about the written word, Venessa embarked on writing what would become her Young Adult/Adult cross-over debut novel; Piercing the Fold: Book 1, a mature young adult/ adult crossover, paranormal, science fiction series. July 2, 2012, Venessa Kimball independently published the first book in the Piercing the Fold series. Book 2, Surfacing the Rim, released as a self-published novel on March 14, 2013. In August of 2013, Venessa joined the independent publishing house, Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly. The Piercing the Fold series has been re-published with them. Piercing the Fold: Book 1 was published on September 3, 2013 Surfacing the Rim: Book 2 re-published on September 24, 2013 and Ascending the Veil: Book 3 published for the first time November 2013. The fourth book in the series, Transcending the Legacy: Book 4, will release May 2014 with Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing House. As for the future, Venessa is already filling her Work-In-Progress folder with numerous projects. Two of her future projects are Adult contemporary fiction and Adult Paranormal/ Sci-Fi. They both will reflect her diversity as a writer in other genres. When Venessa is not writing, she is keeping active with her husband and three children, chauffeuring said children to extracurricular activities, catching a movie with her hubby or kids, and staying up way too late reading.
