First Watch: A Watcher Bay Adventure (19 page)

“
We
’
ll mutiny before they get away with that.
”

The other man
’
s bold statement pulled Neyve away from her wandering thoughts and back to the present. Mutiny? Whoa! This conversation suddenly became much more serious, one she should probably not be listening in on.

“
Vida, did Tavian say anything about how they planned to get us off the ship?
”
the big guy responded, lines of intense concentration etching his brow.

“
Tav didn
’
t say, but they
’
ll have a plan. Most likely a ruse. They know we wouldn
’
t go willingly,
”
the Reacher scoffed.

Though the Founders held the power and controlled the resources, everyone knew you didn
’
t mess with the Reachers. Not only were they the brains of the operation, they provided most of the muscle
—
didn
’
t they? For her uncle
’
s safety, Neyve fervently hoped so.

Her heart rate began to creep up its pace, responding to the anxiety of a situation she should
know nothing about. Yet, glancing around the relatively open space, she could not find a less-than-obvious way out. Remaining as still as possible, she fervently hoped they were wrong. Or at the very least moved the conversation elsewhere.

“
. . . But that would have taken them months if not years in the planning, which would mean the betrayal goes all the way back to our original contract with the Founding Families.
”

Neyve
’
s stomach soured, her fingers again finding the pendant at her throat at their own volition. Her boyfriend Mirco
—
okay, ex-boyfriend by circumstance
—
flaunted his Abramov surname like a badge. A member of one of the big ten Founding families, they controlled . . . well, just about everything on modern-day Earth. No one thought Neyve should be with him, the upscale guy slumming it with the wild child girl, especially his family. Despite a predisposition to dislike those people in general, Neyve knew her Mirco. No way he
’
d ever be involved in anything so . . . so wrong. Feeling offended for him, she raised her gaze. Now brazenly observing, she quickly caught back up to the conversation.

“
Don't ask. Plausible deniability is a priceless commodity,
”
the woman, Vida, ominously suggested.
“
All you need to know is that I'll have Tavian Hunt take care of it, since he's already aboard the SS Challenge. In fact, I'll Ui him now.
”

“
Disabling the drive would buy us time,
”
the big man conceded as he watch the womans fingers flash over her comm unit.
“
But to what end?
”

“
So you can come up with a brilliant plan to save us all.
”

Neyve didn
’
t need saving. Without a slot on the dang ship, her fate extended as far as the first missile strike down on the ground. When a person knows they
’
re going down with their destabilizing planet, the whiney-baby discussion of a bunch of adults being protective over their first class seats becomes less than entertaining.

Tough luck. You might be stuck here with me.

“
Ah,
”
the big black man said, avoiding the gaze of the other Reachers who so nicely dumped such a load on him. His penetrating stare eventually landed on Neyve.

Staring directly back, she wordlessly dared him to respond. Go ahead, her flashing grey eyes taunted. Explain how you
’
ll save them
“
all
”
in front of the girl you know will be left behind.

Breaking off first, the man collected the attention of his compatriots with a single look, angling his head in Neyve
’
s direction.

With all eyes on Neyve now, her eavesdropping career screeched to a halt. Neyve schooled her features into a mask of passive indifference, giving her pendant a final rub before nonchalantly pushing off the glass to get up. Ever-so-casually moving past the group of Reachers, a challenge considering the distinct lack of gravity at this point, she made her way toward her sleep rack to collect her meager possessions.

Less than two hours to go now. Whatever plans they were making or revolutions they were planning, it definitely fell into the none-of-her-business-and-heck-with-them-anyway category. And it most assuredly didn
’
t involve
her.

To continue reading
Light the Way
by Roslyn McFarland, click
here
!

Auburn Seal began writing professionally when she found herself standing in the ruins of her previous career as a domestic engineer. Rising from the ashes of a life she hated, she has found solace and a rebirth in writing genre fiction. The primary difficulty she faces now is that genres are like potato chips and she can't settle on only one. Paranormal elements are found in nearly all of her novels and come in all flavors.

Ghosts add intrigue to her historical mysteries in The Vanishing Series.

Vampires spice up the new adult romance in The Immortals (a book born out of Auburn's obsession with Damon Salvatore).

See a more sentimental side of vamps in Kendawyn Paranormal Regency romances, a world that she co-created with Amanda A. Allen and Pamela Welsh.

Witches brew the solution to murder in the cozy witch mystery, Inconvenient Murder, that Auburn co-authored with Amanda A. Allen in yet another collaboration.

The pesky rules of science fiction prevented an overt use of paranormal elements in her upcoming novel First Watch, so Auburn added sex, violence, and bad language to fill the void left by absent ghosts, a sensory trifecta for the literary pallet.

First Watch is one title in a multi-author project Paradisi Chronicles, a post-apocalyptic exodus from Earth and settlement on a distant planet in a far off star system set to launch in September of this year.

When Auburn isn't learning how to write in every imaginable genre or collaborating with other authors, she spends time with her family watching movies and irritating them with her need to constantly dissect the plot structure of dinosaur blockbusters.

www.auburnseal.com

@auburnseal

www.facebook.com/auburnseal

More Titles from Auburn Seal

Paranormal Romance

The Immortals

Goodbye Love

Historical Fiction

Roanoke Vanishing

Maya Vanishing

Cozy Mystery

Inconvenient Murder

Sneak Peek of
Roanoke Vanishing

PROLOGUE

Elinor traveled silently through the night, watching from a distance as the large man shoved the thin girl against the concrete wall, his hands tight around her throat. Closer, she crept toward them. Closer.

Elinor looked on in disgust. The man quickly overpowered this fragile woman, her abdomen swollen with child.

His voice roared, shattering the otherwise silent night. “You are dead. Dead! This time you have gone too far.” His mouth foamed and his eyes were cold and bitter. This wasn’t the first time Elinor had seen angry men succumb to their rage.

“You are a freak. Did you have me followed?” Cristina’s response sounded fearless, but Elinor could see the terror in her eyes. She tried to wrestle free from his grasp but he only tightened his grip.

“You are a stupid, stupid woman. I told you to leave this alone. You wouldn’t listen. Now you will pay.”

Her bravado dissipated, panic creeping into her eyes, and the man continued his ruthless assault, shoving her up against the railing of the dam high above the waters of Lake Mead.

“But I did leave it alone. I left school. Why did you follow me to Vegas? I left. When I found out I was pregnant, I…I left.”

The man’s eyes remained unchanged—he had no compassion for this woman.

“Please, I’m begging you,” she gripped his hand, trying to pull it away from her neck. He squeezed her throat, her voice growing weaker as she pleaded with him.

“My baby. Please, I’m sorry. I’ll stop. Really, I will. Please…”

His furious ramblings pierced the cold desert night.

“You are just like all the rest, Cristina. My mother was the worst of them. Your child isn’t important. She didn’t care about me, and you don’t care about this child. I’m doing both of you a favor.”

Elinor’s ghostly dress made no sound as she made her way toward the woman. She was close enough now to see the spray of his saliva landing on Cristina’s face.

If only I could stop him, she thought wistfully.

The young girl gasped for air as the man in the shadows squeezed the life out of her. She tried to breathe, calling for help in a last effort.

Elinor stood behind the man, looking into the terrified woman’s eyes, willing her to see, hoping to provide at least a measure of comfort in her final moments.

Elinor reached out a useless hand, knowing it would not matter, but she couldn’t help herself from making the gesture. Maybe this one time she could help, intervene. Her hand moved right through their bodies. She bowed her head in resignation and despair. How long must she wait here in this world, so aware of pain and suffering yet so unable to stop it?

The dying woman’s eyes looked right through Elinor, unseeing. An extra curse, she supposed, to see and never be seen.

Cristina stopped struggling, her eyes glazing over in a final sleep as her body slumped onto her killer. Elinor had seen many die over the years at the hands of others, and the brutality—the wickedness—was never easy to observe, especially with her helpless to change the outcome.

Elinor squeezed her eyes shut, fighting centuries of memories—memories she didn’t want to recall—that came flooding back as the spark of life vanished from the woman. She pushed back the memory of her mother’s last breath and the feel of her husband’s blood, warm and sticky on her hands. She couldn’t let herself remember this again.