No Way Back (Mia's Way, #1) (27 page)

Benji should be interested in her. I leave the closet and go to the bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror. There’s still something different about me, and when I look too fast, I see the bruises again. I had a growth spurt when I turned seventeen, and I went up a pants size, because I got hips.

I’m still pissed at that.

But nothing in the mirror makes me think I’m prettier than Ari. Nothing I see makes me think I deserve what happened to me. I don’t turn heads. I don’t know why Robert Connor and Madison Stewart chose me.

The sense of despair threatens to overwhelm me. I hate looking in the mirror. I don’t fully recognize who’s looking back at me. She’s changed. I’ve changed.

Ari, do you think I’m pretty?
I type.

OMG – you’re gorgeous.
Her response is fast.

I feel ugly.
I tell her.

She sends me a link to an online article a few minutes later. I open it. It’s an article from the night of the police ball. I look at the beautiful woman in the picture. I can’t believe it’s me. I don’t see
her
when I look in the mirror.

Any questions? I didn’t think so.
Ari texts.

I love you, Ari!!!!!!!

And I do. I never could’ve made it this summer without her. Or Chris. Or the occasional, selective help of Molly. Or Dom.

I pull up his contact info again.

Dom saw the girl at the ball, but he also found me covered in blood and beaten a couple months before. I don’t know why he and Ari believe in me the way they do, but it makes me want to cry for a different reason. A good reason. Because I know they care about me. They didn’t give up on me.

As crazy as the past week has been, I find myself really looking forward to going out with Dom for ice cream in two weeks. Assuming things don’t go batshit crazy again.

I guess we’ll see.

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Mia’s Way Series

No Way Back
(#1)

Dom’s Way
(#2) – late January 2013

One Way Out
(#3)

Dom’s Choice
(#4)

Away
(#5)

Excerpt from “Dark Summer” by Lizzy Ford

Continue reading for an exclusive excerpt of “Dark Summer” (#1, Witchling Series) by Lizzy Ford

Available from
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Amazon UK

Chapter One

Summer stepped off the stuffy bus, at once struck by the smog-free air and towering pine trees of the northern Idaho town. The sun shone gentler here than in her native Los Angeles, and the heat of noon was pleasant.

The bus driver pulled her bags from the storage compartment under the bus and left them beside her. She didn’t meet his eyes, not wanting to tell him she had no tip money. The orphanage had paid for her trip via Greyhound and given her a meager ten dollars a day for food.

“My sister lives up here. She tells everyone to avoid the forest after dark,” the bus driver said cheerfully.

Summer sneaked a look at him. He didn’t look upset at her for not tipping, and he said nothing else about his odd warning. He boarded the bus with a smile, and the lumbering vehicle merged back onto the single, two lane road hedged by pine trees running through Priest Lake, Idaho. She looked at the run down school in whose parking lot she stood. It was closed down for the summer, the cement of the parking lot cracked and the field behind overgrown with grass.

A warm breeze swept by her. It smelled of trees and burning wood. Something else was in the air, something that tickled her body from the inside out. The breeze seemed to return and swirl around her, lifting the hem of her shirt and jeans. She pushed her top down self-consciously.

“Ignore that.”

She looked up into the most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen. The teen walking towards her from the street was around seventeen with breeze-ruffled brown hair and eyes as clear and teal as footage of the Caribbean she’d seen on TV. His smile was bright and friendly, his skin and facial features indicating he was of Native American heritage. Around six feet tall, he’d begun to fill out, and his arms were muscular in the snug T-shirt he wore.