And for Christmas, I shall give them "Silver Shadow" quotes...

NOTE: Apparently you shouldn’t read this if you don’t like spoilers. These are separate quotes from separate scenes, and none of them have anything to do with each other.
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“Kyla started breathing heavier. Everything spun around her as she cried out loud, ‘Daddy, I need you!’ After letting that hang there for a few seconds, she realized she didn’t know who she was talking to. Either way, it didn’t matter. One of them was dead and the other had left her, so whatever way she looked at it, she was still completely alone.”

“‘Is she okay?’ Nathaniel asked him. ‘She's fine,’ Caleb said. ‘She's back at the flat.’ He shook his head and looked out over the ledge of the Watchtower. ‘You gotta stop leaving that girl on abnormally high structures, Nate.’”

“That was when Caleb began to see that Kyla had even less of an understanding of grace than Nathaniel did. Boy, did they make a pair... ‘Yeah, he’s angry,’ Caleb told her, ‘but he will get over it.’ Kyla sneered and turned away from him. ‘How could he ever get over that?’ she asked in disbelief. Caleb responded to her look with a knowing one of his own. ‘Because that’s what love does.’”

“Kyla’s eyes softened even though they were still closed, but in a pained sort of way. Nathaniel continued to look at her as he held her hand, even though she was still too afraid to look at him. ‘This is my vow to you, Kyla James,’ he told her, ‘that I will keep you and protect you and love you for as long as love exists.’”

“Where was Nathaniel in all of this?” Caleb asked her. “He was still back with Donovan,” Kyla told him. “I didn’t know what had happened to him, though. He made Caden drag me away.” That surprised Caleb a little. “The boy was bleeding to death and he still dragged you out of there?” he asked her. Kyla cringed again, knowing there was so much more to it than that. “Donovan had a knife to him and Caden told him he wasn’t afraid to die for me,” she said. “Him dragging me away from there was really the least of his heroics.” “Well damn,” Caleb said, “I would have kissed him, too.”

“I am giving you my heart, Kyla,” he said. “And it is still my heart, no matter what title you choose to put on it. There is no halfway for me. There is no ending point at which I stop loving you. I am in this forever. I have chosen to lay down every guard I have, effectively giving you the power to break me.” She looked up at him slowly, her mind unable to grasp the truth in his words. “Why?” she asked him. Nathaniel touched her face. “Because even knowing this,” he said, “I can’t pull me back from you. You already own me, and whether or not I ever have you as mine, that is never going to change.”

“‘You’re going after him, aren’t you?’ Nathaniel said. Kyla cringed and told him, ‘I have to. I’m really scared he might do something stupid.’ Nathaniel snapped at her a little too quickly, “Yeah, like confess to being in love with you and kiss you while he’s pinning you to the ground?’ Kyla gave him a look. ‘Not even,’ she said. ‘I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t take a steak knife and try to slit my throat.’

“She walked over to where Val was trying to right herself and stepped on her neck to force her back down. Val looked scared. That wasn’t something Kyla was used to seeing in her. ‘If you ever come near him again,’ Kyla threatened her, ‘I will kill you and make it look like an accident.’”

"Through the Dark" Teaser Scene Nine: Balak

The cavern walls dripped with moisture from the recent rain, echoing every step that was taken by the girl who walked the Undergrounds. Her jet black hair was hidden beneath the hood of her cloak, her piercing green eyes illuminated by the light of the torch she held in her hand.

Val Linley was not here for games tonight.

Nestled between the cliff dwellings of Manitou Springs and the cave system that ran all through the mountain, the Undergrounds had been claimed by a witch coven in Manitou; a coven that Val was determined to become the thirteenth member of.

The position had been promised to her for quite some time. She was frustrated by that. Every time she would come close to being inducted and complete the tasks that were assigned to her, there was always something else that she was given to do.

That was the way Donovan worked. He loved to string them along; her more than the rest of them. Absolutely everything was a game to him.

The first few times he had pulled that on Val, she had chosen to submit and not put up a fight; but after she had recently delivered Kyla James to him on a silver plate, Val had finally had enough. She had executed her orders to perfection. She had done everything she was asked to do, and still Donovan had denied her what she was owed.

It wasn’t enough that he was holding her position in the coven for her. Val wanted it now. She was not about to let someone else come in and take what was rightfully hers; not when she had given so much for it. She would spill blood before letting that happen.

Unfortunately, what Val wanted and what she actually got were two very different things. If the witches were the ones in charge of this operation, there never would have been a hitch from the start. But the witches weren’t the ones in charge; the Nephilim were. Sick, depraved creatures who were only half-human. Selfish, vindictive beings whose blood ran red but who were hardly men. Their power was to be feared and their anger, even more. No man could hold the lust or the jealousy of these. The destruction they could bear wasn’t something to be grasped, for they were birthed for vindication, the cataclysm of all things. Angry retribution. Children of wrath. There was nothing dark enough to describe what the Nephilim were.

And they were so frighteningly beautiful that the mortals couldn’t help but be drawn to them.

Most of them were, anyway. There were a few Nephilim half-breeds (like Donovan’s slimy informant, Cerin) that gave “deformed and unfortunate” a whole new meaning. But the pure Nephilim, the children of angels and the daughters of men, these were more stunning than any human could grasp. That was why it was so easy for them to manipulate and control…because humans were enslaved to physical beauty.

Val knew how to use that to her advantage.

Her blood may have proved her humanity, but she refused to let herself be defined by such a weak and limited race. What she operated out of, what she could do, it didn’t do justice to call her human. She may not have been half-angel, but she knew how to wield power that few mortals ever could. She just hadn’t been permitted to step into it yet.

Tensing her lips as she walked into the chamber, Val was careful to keep her eyes fixed on the ground. She was not permitted to make eye contact with the others; not until she was officially inducted. Just one of the many things she resented Donovan for.

Val was almost certain that he reveled in her humility. He took every chance he got to put her in her place. Everyone knew she should have been the first witch to be inducted into the Manitou Coven, and yet no one spoke up to let Donovan know it. They were all too afraid of him.

Pathetic, sniveling cowards, Val thought. She kept her eyes on the floor.

The rocks hung heavy on the walls tonight. There was a weight there, despite Donovan’s absence, an uncertainty that made everyone who had gathered feel out of control.

Witches did not like to be out of control; Val less than any of them.

She stood along the wall with her hands folded in front of her as the twelve took their place at the circle at the center of the chamber. Jealousy burned in Val as she watched them step forward, these witches and warlocks who appeared on the outside as normal everyday people. They were not the sort that anyone would suspect of something so dark. They were normal. They were average. Not a single of the twelve stood out in any way.

Val was more powerful in the art of dark magic than all of them combined. It was in her blood; her life force…her existence. She had sold her very soul to this darkness, and as a result, she had access to what the others did not. That was why it didn’t make sense that Donovan would hold her at bay instead of utilizing her power. There wasn’t another witch or warlock here that could touch what she had.

Trying to hold back the disgust on her face so that no one could see it, Val scanned the room discreetly to see who was there. The twelve, she expected. They were not permitted to miss a meeting, even one that was called in the absence of their worshipful leader.

Val couldn’t hide her disgust any longer when her eyes fell to Balak, the towering, ebony-skinned Naphil who stood like a gargoyle at the entrance of the room. He walked slowly back and forth across the width of the chamber, his hands behind his back and his chin lifted up in picturesque arrogance.

The display was almost sad. Balak took far too much pleasure in giving orders when Donovan was gone, especially for one whose words carried so little weight. Val didn’t know why Donovan wasn’t back yet from whatever it was that he had to leave to accomplish, but his absence frustrated her all through this miserable excuse for a meeting. Listening to Balak, Donovan’s second-in-command speak to them as if he had all of his leader’s authority was irritating at the very least. Val had a difficult time standing still and keeping herself from showing what she really felt as she watched him. Balak didn’t have Donovan’s authority; he didn’t have any authority. And the fact that he was standing here acting like he did made Val want to gag out loud.

She resisted the urge, knowing it wouldn’t be worth the trouble it would cause her. Balak didn’t do well to any disrespecting him. None of the Nephilim did.

Dropping her eyes back to the stony cavern ground, Val forced her mind away from the dozen or so things she would love to say to Balak right now to knock him off of his pedestal. She also forced herself to let go of her resentment toward Donovan for leaving them here with this fool.

Donovan had called it “business,” whatever he was doing in London. To him, that could have meant anything. From what she had heard, he was dealing with some witches out there that they needed for God-only-knew what reason. Val didn’t have any idea. It made her nervous that Donovan was seeking aide from another coven instead of using the one he had the most direct charge over. Not that Val could blame him for that. Looking around the chamber at the ones who stood here, it was all she could do not to cringe in embarrassment. These twelve didn’t know how to practice dark magic any better than a junior high girl at a sleepover with a Ouija board.

Val had never been so eager to get out of the ritual chamber. Balak’s meeting had been insufferable, but it was more than that that drove her away from here. The last thing she wanted to do was face him right now. She didn’t want to talk to him.

Unfortunately, Balak did.

Val wasted no time in slipping out the entrance, but it didn’t do her any good. She had only gone ten steps when a towering Naphil who was infinitely stronger than she was grabbed her by the waist and pulled her into a hideaway room in the cave system that served as a storage space for the coven. Val gasped, but she didn’t scream. She had trained herself not to in moments of surprise. Besides, Balak’s grabbing her like this and forcing himself on her was not that surprising.

He wasn’t as careful as he normally would have been. He knew Donovan was gone, and the fear Val worked so well to control in herself nearly spiked out of control when Balak slammed her against the rocks behind her. He wasn’t trying to hurt her, but sometimes he didn’t have to try. Balak, much like the other Nephilim, often underestimated the extent of his own strength, especially in instances where his adrenaline was suddenly heightened.

Holding her down, Balak kissed her neck. “I was about driven insane in that meeting,” he breathed to her. His grip on her tightened with every word he spoke. “I wanted nothing more than to ravage you the entire time.”

Val trembled nervously and forced the tensest smile she had ever worn. Her heart skipped in abnormal fear when she felt the strength of Balak’s grip.

“I can’t stop thinking about last night,” he told her. “If Donovan hadn’t called you to that meeting, I never would have stopped…”

That was what it took for Val to shove him off. “Stop!” she hissed at him. “We have to stop this…”

Remembering back to what she had seen in Donovan’s eyes last night when he had spoken to her here in these caverns, Val was afraid of more than the forceful grip of the Naphil that was pinning her to the wall.

Balak did not look happy when she resisted him.

“If we keep this up,” she explained to him, “it’s only a matter of time before Donovan finds out.”

“He won’t find out,” Balak assured her. He grabbed her again and moved back to her neck, and Val put out her arm to block him.

“You can’t be naïve enough to believe that,” she said. “You know as well as I do that Donovan’s discernment supersedes all of ours.”

Saying it out loud like that, Val realized just how foolish she had been in taking this risk. At first it had been about gaining what she wanted from Balak, toying with that power and reveling in every minute of it. But that was before she and Donovan had gotten involved. Now she feared what he might do if he were to find out. Donovan took just about anything as betrayal, and Val knew how he dealt with traitors.

“We have gotten too close,” she told Balak. “It’s time we stop playing with fire.”

Balak didn’t agree with her. That was obvious by the way he grunted under his breath and pushed her back up against the cold stone wall. Val could feel his anger at the suggestion through his grip that held her. She didn’t want to be here anymore. More than anything, she just wanted to break free from his iron hands and get as far away from these caves as she could. She might only have known in part, but she knew what the Nephilim were capable of when they became angry, and she didn’t want to be close to that. They didn’t exactly have the best self-control when these situations presented themselves.

“Balak, please…” she said in a small voice.

Ironic that that would be the one thing that caused his grip to soften.

Balak didn’t say anything else to her as he turned away and left her there, and as Val walked away from him, she shook off her fear and told herself it was unfounded. Balak wasn’t going to do anything to her. He needed her too much. If he were to kill her, he couldn’t coerce her into sex again, and as dumb as he may have been, she knew he would realize that.

In other words, she owned him.

No, Val didn’t need to concern herself with fear over this primordial Naphil doing something rash. She had more important things to worry about, like staying unreadable to Donovan when he returned and following through with the last assignment he gave her: Causing an unbridgeable rift between Kyla James and the boy she had never deserved.

"Through the Dark" Teaser Scene Ten: Woods

Kyla struggled to feel Nathaniel, but she couldn’t feel a thing. Anxiety quickly followed when she was met by a numbed sort of emptiness where she should have felt his vitality. The way she felt him, it wasn’t the same as she felt Caden. She couldn’t feel Nathaniel’s emotions or the state of his physical being; simply his presence. It didn’t matter if he was standing right beside her or if he was on the other side of the world, somehow she could always feel that he was there…somewhere. That he was breathing and alive.

Right now, she felt nothing.

It troubled her, frightened her. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do or believe. She would rather feel anything, good or bad, than nothing at all. Or at least that was what she thought.

Kyla didn’t hear a sound. The forest was oddly quiet for this time of day as the clouds overhead built in an ominous gray shroud. The wind wasn’t blowing and there weren’t any small animals scurrying across the pine needles like there usually were, but she felt it the moment that changed.

She felt it the moment she wasn’t alone anymore.

Kyla froze before she even saw him. Her back was turned to the one she knew was behind her; she didn’t even have to look to verify that. She could discern the presence of evil easily enough. That wasn’t the kind of thing you could turn off; she had learned that when she’d tried. Even if you went into adamant denial of the existence of the supernatural, you couldn’t shut down your discernment to what you didn’t want to be real. Discernment didn’t operate on the wavelength of logic. At times, the two were set up as the bitterest of enemies; logic strengthening the mind while discernment strengthened the spirit. A man could not have two masters, the same way as a woman could not serve two beliefs. And none could keep their soul who was constantly trying to kill it.

Kyla had also learned that by trying.

Even though he made no sound as he emerged through the woods, Kyla knew when Donovan was there. Immediately her head snapped up and every muscle in her tensed. She didn’t look behind her when she felt Donovan approach; at least not at first. Her movement was careful and slow, as if on a subconscious level, she thought that if she took it slow enough, he might disappear; that this might all prove to be a fear-driven illusion.

Kyla wished it was a fear-driven illusion. The moment she laid eyes on his pale, hollow face, nausea ripped through her insides and her face went white as white as his. She wanted to be crazy enough to be hallucinating this, but she knew she wasn’t hallucinating.

Donovan stood about twenty feet in front of her with an evil, familiar smirk on his face. As soon as she made sense of what she was seeing, Kyla’s heart stopped beating altogether, and she was hit with a fear and a horror like she had never known before…not in one single other instance that she had come face to face with this maniacal creature.

She didn’t even care right now that he could kill her; that wasn’t what had her petrified. She only cared that he was here and Nathaniel wasn’t.

"Through the Dark" Teaser Scene Eight: After the Scars

Caden was trembling as he drove, so shaken he could hardly keep his eyes focused enough to drive in the lines on Highway 24. His emotion was rising to the point of near-incapacitation, and his breathing was alternating between coming out too fast and not coming out at all. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to cry. So he did both.

Punching his steering wheel hard enough to make his knuckle crack open, Caden jerked the now-bloodied steering wheel to the right and pulled his Jeep over to the side of the road. Helplessly, he slumped over as his lungs began to fail him. He could feel water filling his eyes, even if he was determined not to blink so he wouldn’t let it fall; but after the image of the scars he had seen on Kyla’s body flashed through his mind again, he couldn’t stop it.

Tears streamed down his face as he slammed his eyes closed, wanting the image to disappear, wanting this all to go away or at least to understand. Caden gripped the steering wheel as if it were the only way for him to hold to his sanity. He didn’t even notice the blood that dripped down the back of his hand. He couldn’t feel anything anymore but this sickening, helpless pain that was suffocating him now over the only girl he had ever loved.

“Oh, God…” Caden breathed out loud.

What was happening to her?

Playing With Scriptures

I accidentally stumbled across a handful of scriptures the other night (most of them in Hebrews) that I realized must be used in my story. I am pretty sure the majority of these will show up in "As Angels Fall" but several might make it into "Silver Shadow" first. We'll see. This is exciting me a lot right now. I can't wait to write this stuff! And feel free to ask questions about the context of any of these verses, because I would love to give you the rundown on how they are going to be used in The Awakened.
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"My eyes fail, looking for my God." -Psalm 69:3

"How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of Grace?" -Hebrews 10:29

"It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God." -Hebrews 10:31

"Others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about...persecuted, destitute and mistreated. The world was not worthy of them." -Hebrews 11:36-38

"Without holiness, no one will see the Lord." -Hebrews 12:14

"You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire, to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who hear it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded...But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the Living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks better than the blood of Abel." -Hebrews 12:18-24

There is also a reference to "the Day" (Hebrews 10:25) and "the ancients" (Hebrews 11:2) which I am going to heavily use in book four, and especially in the successive series to The Awakened Chronicles. Trust me when I say THAT is going to get fun.

"Silver Shadow" Teaser Scene Two: In the City of Angels

NOTE: It’s rough, it’s raw, it’s full of spoilers and there’s a good chance it will upset you. You know, all the usual trademarks of an Abby teaser scene. Also, it isn’t finished yet, so even if you read it now, be sure to check back soon when I add the rest to it.
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The double French doors that led to the balcony were open. On each of its sides, black curtains whipped back and forth like wings as the hot L.A. breeze blew into the penthouse. Bare feet padded against the shiny hardwood floor. It was the only noise in the entire place, other than the whooshing of the fabric that was pushed by the wind. The lanky fake-blonde wearing Nathaniel’s white button-up dress shirt with its sleeves rolled up to her elbows moved to close the doors just as he grabbed her wrist to stop her.

“Don’t,” he said. “I like the breeze.”

“But I’m cold,” the 22-year-old named Tori (or maybe it was Shania) complained.

“That’s not my problem,” Nathaniel said. He let go of her wrist and walked back through the penthouse toward the kitchen.

Tori (or Shania) wrinkled her nose and glared at him, folding her arms across her surgically-enlarged chest. “You really expect me to be treated like this?” she asked him.

Nathaniel pulled a half-gallon of orange juice from the stainless steel refrigerator and drank straight from the carton. When he set it down on the island in front of him, he motioned toward the front of the penthouse and told her, “Door’s right there.”

The girl whose name he didn’t remember (or care enough to learn) was completely indignant. “I just gave you the best sex of your life and you’re seriously going to stand there and say that to me?”

Nathaniel smirked at her. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he said. “That was hardly the best sex of my life.”

Not the best thing to say to a self-absorbed model who was convinced that the entire world did, in fact, revolve around her. She marched straight up to Nathaniel and slapped him across the face as hard as her scrawny arms would let her. It didn’t hurt him even remotely, but it did do something to his anger. It didn’t help that Nathaniel was always on the brink of snapping at about every given moment, just waiting for something, anything to trigger it.

His eyes narrowed in on the girl who hit him and he grabbed her by the arm. It didn’t take a fraction of a second for him to put an unnatural amount of fear in her. She started up at him frightened (and no doubt regretting what she’d just done) as she waited to see what he was going to do to her. “I would think long and hard before doing something like that again,” he said. Then he hurled her one-handed across the room, sending her sliding across the hardwood floor on her side, her feet coming halfway up over her head as she skidded to a stop.

The girl scrambled to stand up, trembling as she ran for the door and didn’t even take the time to close it behind her. Nathaniel took another long drink of orange juice and tossed the empty carton into the trashcan on the other side of the island. Models, he thought. They were good for about fifteen minutes and then they were useless.

Nathaniel grabbed the girl’s clothes (which were strewn across the floor of his bedroom) and tossed them out into the hallway. Not that he expected her to come back. He just didn’t want them messing up his penthouse. He liked things clean, and something about lacy red lingerie and four-inch stilettos lying scattered across his floor made it feel dirty.

Six months had passed since Nathaniel had informed Seth and his brothers in London that he would no longer follow the way of the Resitore. It didn’t feel like a mere six months, though. It felt like years had passed since his last night at Highgate. It felt like another lifetime. Nothing about Nathaniel or the life he now lead was even the remotely the same as it used to be. That was intentional on his part. He had gone to excessive lengths to ensure that nothing he knew could be tied to his former life. He wanted no part of that anymore.

Once the stupid model’s clothes were out in the hallway, Nathaniel walked over to the opened double-doors and out onto his balcony. Leaning over the railing, he stared out at the lights of the city and listened to the noise. Everything in Los Angeles was so busy, so alive, and yet so dead at the same time. He loved it and hated it as much as he loved and hated himself. The people here were always moving, always doing so much, and yet they were completely hollow. That was exactly why he had chosen to relocate here. He wanted to be somewhere that people didn’t feel so he could become like they were and blend into the crowd; these mindless masses who moved without living, existed without breathing, did everything they could for themselves and never had to know the sting of conviction.

"Silver Shadow" Teaser Scene One: Enemy

NOTE: This is just a short dialogue, not a full scene. But as I wrote it, it did something to my heart and I felt compelled to share it. Hope that’s okay with you.
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“We’re not having this conversation,” Kyla told him.

Caden didn’t hide how frustrated that made him. “We need to,” he said. “You need to understand that there’s more involved here than you're willing to admit. And just because you’re mad at God and angry about what happened to your dad, that doesn’t mean you can keep ignoring that.”

Kyla glared at him. “Don’t bring my dad into this,” she warned him.

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Kyla, but we have to lay everything out in the open here so we can see what’s really going on. I mean how can you keep running after all you’ve seen?” The idea obviously baffled him.

“Because I have to,” she said through clenched teeth.

Caden looked pained. “Why?”

She answered him in a rigid voice. “If I stop,” she told him, “if I turn around and look at this God you still want me to believe in, then I have to face the fact that the one thing I loved more than anything in my life let my father die. I would have to accept the fact that there is no safety, no promise or assurance of hope. That He doesn’t protect those who love Him. He doesn’t guard those who fear Him.”

She took a deep breath when she realized she wasn’t breathing.

“My dad was the best man I’ve ever known, Caden. He was faithful his whole life, and he believed in those things. Trust me when I say you don’t want me to believe in God. If you make me face Him now, you will be forcing me to become His enemy.”

As Angels Fall Quotes

This is just a short dialogue, not a full scene. But as I wrote it, it did something to my heart and I felt compelled to share it. Hope that’s okay with you.
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“We’re not having this conversation,” Kyla told him.

Caden didn’t hide how frustrated that made him. “We need to,” he said. “You need to understand that there’s more involved here than you're willing to admit. And just because you’re mad at God and angry about what happened to your dad, that doesn’t mean you can keep ignoring that.”

Kyla glared at him. “Don’t bring my dad into this,” she warned him.

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Kyla, but we have to lay everything out in the open here so we can see what’s really going on. I mean how can you keep running after all you’ve seen?”

The idea obviously baffled him.

“Because I have to,” she said.

Caden looked pained. “Why?” he asked her desperately.

She answered him in a rigid voice. “If I stop,” she told him, “if I turn around and look at this God you still want me to believe in, then I have to face the fact that the one thing I loved more than anything in my life let my father die. I would have to accept the fact that there is no safety, no promise or assurance of hope. That He doesn’t protect those who love Him. He doesn’t guard those who fear Him.” She took a deep breath when she realized she wasn’t breathing. “My dad was the best man I’ve ever known,” she said. “He was faithful his whole life, and he believed in those things. Trust me, Caden; you don’t want me to believe in God. If you make me face Him now, you will be forcing me to become His enemy.”

Val and Kyla

So I came across this picture of my cousin and her best friend, and the second I saw it, I honestly had to laugh. Other than the fact that they clearly don’t hate each other, how much do these two look like Val and Kyla? Seriously!

Through the Dark Teaser Scene Seven: Alexa

I know I owe you guys a fight scene (and I have an amazing one in the works) but unfortunately, it isn’t ready quite yet and I don’t want to rush it. So I’m putting this one up to tie you over in the meantime.
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Nathaniel kept himself hidden as long as he could. Watching Caden and Kyla where they stood in front of the waterfall, he had expended whatever self-control he possessed. The time had passed for self-control; that was over the moment he saw what Caden was after.

The first thing Nathaniel noticed was the boy’s nervousness. It wasn’t hard to see it; he didn’t even need to use his discernment for that. But it did make him uneasy. If something had Caden this nervous, there was little chance that this secret meeting had been staged to exchange pleasantries. Hell, even if Caden hadn’t been nervous, Nathaniel still would have been skeptical just by how it had been done.

Not that he could blame him. He hadn’t exactly left the boy with options.

As soon as Caden mentioned Nashville, Nathaniel felt a tension in his chest. He didn’t know what he was talking about and he wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Nathaniel knew it was probably a mistake for him to step out into view the way he did. After following Kyla to this place called Rainbow Falls, he had set up the perfect hiding place for himself that would never have allowed them to know he was there. But as soon as he realized what Caden was doing, Nathaniel had to put a stop to it.

He watched Kyla’s face drop when he walked up to them, and saw about a dozen different emotions play across her eyes.

None of them were happy.

The first emotion that marked her was surprise. Genuine surprise; strong enough that it might even be described as shock. Then she looked confused. She stood there for a moment staring at him, trying to fit the pieces together and understand how it was that he was even there. Then she got mad.

That was the one Nathaniel was least anxious to deal with.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped at him. “How did you know where I was?”

Nathaniel gave her a patronizing look and Kyla rolled her eyes. “Right,” she mumbled.

“I need to talk to Caden,” he told her.

She and Caden both looked surprised by that.

“You need to talk to Caden?” she asked him.

Nathaniel affirmed to her, “Yes,” emotionlessly. He kept his eyes on the boy, and was surprised when Caden wasn’t afraid to look back at him.

“You know, we were kind of in the middle of something,” Caden said. There was tension in his voice that he didn’t attempt to hide.

Do not hit the human boy, Nathaniel told himself. You can be civil about this.

As Kyla looked back and forth between them, it was obvious that she was afraid. No doubt, images from the first time he and Caden had ever laid into each other were flashing through her mind. Nathaniel couldn’t blame her for that, either. He knew she wanted to yell at him; Nathaniel could see it in her eyes. But at the moment, she seemed more concerned with keeping the peace between him and her best friend.

“Cade, maybe you’d better talk to him,” she said. “We can always do this later.”

Caden looked a little thrown when she said that. “Okay?”

“I have to get to work soon anyway,” she told him.

Nathaniel could tell that she was disappointed and he hated that, but when she turned to look him, Kyla gave him a firm look and said, “I will deal with you later.”

Nathaniel winced internally, but on the outside he showed no fear.

Caden looked about ready to snap, but even in his anger, Nathaniel could tell that he was holding back for reasons beyond the obvious. They both watched Kyla drive off in the Civic, and once she was gone, they turned back to face each other.

Nathaniel didn’t waste any time being subtle. “I know what you’re trying to pull,” he said, “and I am not okay with it.”

Caden scoffed at him, completely unfazed by his threats. Instead of responding to him, he shook his head and started to walk away, but Nathaniel grabbed his arm. Caden glared at him furiously and Nathaniel could see that he was trying to hold back his anger.

“Let go of me,” Caden spoke in a measured voice.

“Or what?” Nathaniel asked.

Caden tried to steady his breathing, tried to keep himself calm. “You don’t want to mess with that, Nathaniel,” he said. Then he gave him a look that made Nathaniel question just how much this boy knew.

It startled him, what he saw in Caden’s eyes. He could see that there was something he knew, more than Nathaniel realized, and it caught him so by surprise that Caden was able to break out of his hold and leave.

Nathaniel stared after him as he drove away in his Jeep. “Damn it, Kyla,” he muttered under his breath. “What else haven’t you told me?”

Nathaniel flew up to the mountain to cool off and get control over his anger, but it didn’t work out as well as he’d hoped. He tried to think of any truth he could, anything he could cling to that would help him to release this, but it was so powerful. He tried to resist the dark of his fear, his jealousy, his hate...but finally it pushed him to the point where he couldn't deny it anymore.

Nathaniel left in a fury, ready to re-confront Caden Howell despite his knowing it would be a mistake. He wasted no time making his way down to the Howell’s property, and when he got there, he headed straight for Caden’s bedroom. Nathaniel pounded on the glass sliding door, not even bothering with discretion; but it did him no good since the boy wasn’t even back yet.

That was when Nathaniel heard a voice behind him.

“He’s not here.”

Slowly, Nathaniel turned around to face Alexa. She stood expressionless behind him, unfazed by his door-pounding and his angry demeanor.

“Where is he?” Nathaniel asked her.

“He isn’t going to stay away from her,” the girl told him bluntly.

Nathaniel was taken aback, but he didn’t respond to her comment. He felt a fire flare up in him again, but he knew he couldn’t get angry at this child. That wouldn’t be right. Still, he didn’t like Alexa Howell very much, and at that particular moment, he especially didn’t like that she was a seer. This was one obstacle he would have preferred not to have to work around.

Nathaniel put his hand on his forehead and tried to control his anger. His head was throbbing, so he pressed his fingers to his temples, hoping to dull the pain. “Does he know?” Nathaniel asked her.

Alexa was quiet.

“Does he know what I am?”

“Yes,” she finally said. “Kyla told him everything.”

Through the Dark Teaser Scene Six: Rain

This is the very first scene I ever wrote for this story. Kinda weird that it ended up being in book two, but that's just the way it goes sometimes. Only problem is I have to completely re-do my outlining of Through the Dark to keep this scene as is. I still haven't decided what to do on that end yet, but I'll let you know when I figure it out.
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Kyla woke with a start, clutching her pillow in a death grip and struggling to breathe. She looked frantically around her, trying to figure out where she was, but it took her a moment to remember why she wasn’t in her bed. It had been so real, the nightmare she’d just woken from. It was dark and blurred and almost impossible to distinguish, but something about it was so vivid and lifelike she didn’t know that she’d been dreaming.

The feeling from it lingered on her as she sat up in the loft. She remembered the terror she had felt in it…the dread. And she remembered Caden.

All through the dream, she was being torn away from him, and somehow she knew that once he slipped away, she could never get him back.

The familiar stabbing in Kyla’s chest that she had lived with the entire time Caden was in Nashville, it was back again. It took a moment for her to realize it was just a nightmare, but the pain was too familiar. She couldn’t shake it off.

When she couldn’t take it anymore, Kyla threw off her covers and climbed down from the loft.

Scampering barefoot in the rain across the flagstone around the Howell’s pool, she ran for Caden’s bedroom before she gave herself the chance to think about what she was doing. She told herself five distinct times in a thirty-yard stretch to turn around and go back to the house, but her feet weren’t listening to her head. They rarely did.

Ignoring whatever sense she should have possessed when she reached the glass sliding door, she knocked on it quickly and then hugged herself in a failed attempt to keep warm. It may have been summertime, but the mountain rain was cold at night.

Kyla peered into the room through a gap in the curtains, trying to see if he’d woken up. It was too dark for her to see anything, though; in there or out here. The only light she had was coming from the blue glow of the pool. So she knocked a little harder.

This time she saw Caden sit up in his bed at the sound of her knocking, looking somewhat confused and disoriented. He rubbed his face with his hand and looked over at the door, and as soon as he saw her, his fatigued expression fell to a scowl. Kyla had seen that look on him a lot lately. It didn’t make it any easier seeing it now.

Shoving off his covers and getting up out of his bed, Caden made his way angrily across the room. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, but he had on some long black basketball pants; a fact for which Kyla was grateful. When he jerked the door open, she wasn’t sure what she expected him to say, but he only ended up asking her, “Are you serious?”

“No, I’m joking,” she replied sarcastically. “I just felt like freezing to death out here for kicks. Are you gonna let me in or not?”

He stood there as if to debate it for a moment, so Kyla shoved past him and walked into his room. Caden scowled and slid the door shut behind her. She was still hugging herself and looking away from him, not to mention drenching his carpet as she scanned the room compulsively and stood there in a sopping mess.

“Do you have some sort of defect in your brain?” Caden asked her, clicking on the lamp by his dresser. “Some sort of trigger that gets set off at the worst possible times that drives you to do stupid crap like this?”

Kyla told herself not to retaliate, but she couldn’t just stand there and let him insult her either. She wasn’t sure what she was going to say when she turned back around to face him, but whatever it was, it left her the moment her eyes fell on him. She already knew Caden wasn’t wearing a shirt; that much was obvious when he’d gotten out of bed. It really shouldn’t have surprised her, either. In the hundred times they’d gone swimming together in the summer, or played basketball or worked out or been on ten-mile runs…or sometimes when Caden just didn’t feel like wearing one, there were always occasions that arose which left him running around half-clothed. Kyla had never been bothered by it. It was normal for her to see him like that. It just wasn’t normal for her to see him like this.

Back then, he was still a scrawny little kid. Now he, well…wasn’t.

Kyla remembered the last day they spent together swimming in his pool last August. That was the day before he left her. She distinctly recalled teasing him and telling him he needed to “beef up” because he was so skinny. Apparently he had listened to her.

Kyla didn’t realize she was staring until he snapped at her, “What do you want?”

She forced her eyes up to his face again. “I want to talk to you,” she said.

Caden glanced at the clock by his bed and then back at her. “At two in the morning?”

“Well maybe we wouldn’t be doing this at two in the morning if you would stop screening my calls,” she said defensively.

“Can you really blame me for that, Kyla?”

“Yes, I can!” she said.

He scowled and turned away from her, and she was instantly struck with the memory of her dream. She still remembered what it felt like when he was ripped away from her…this boy who stood in front of her now that she could hardly convince herself was really there. And as she stared at him, trembling, she realized what a mistake it would be for her to get defensive right now.

“Caden…” she tried to say.

He snapped at her, “What?” and she tried not to choke up on her words.

“I miss you,” she said quietly.

That was all it took.

Pressing his lips together in frustration, Caden wrinkled his forehead and tried to resist her. She could see what he was doing, how he was trying to act calloused and tough and throw up walls so he wouldn’t have to feel whatever it was he was trying not to feel. But then he dropped his head and looked down at his feet. “Damn it, Kyla…”

Slowly, she uncrossed her arms and took a cautious step closer to him. Caden responded to the gesture by looking up and directly at her for the first time since she’d pushed her way into his room. His eyes started to soften and he tried to fight it when they did, but he didn’t pull them away from her after that. He swallowed hard when he saw that she was soaking wet and shivering, and though that was the least of her concerns right now, Caden obviously felt differently.

Without a word, he grabbed her and pulled her close to him, rubbing her arms up and down as he held her to his chest. He was so warm…so safe. And though she didn’t know why, the second that he touched her, Kyla had to fight off the urge to cry. Something about him holding her again, letting her back into that place he’d been keeping her out of, it came dangerously close to breaking her.

“You know, you’re an idiot for running out in the rain without any clothes on,” he told her.

Kyla laughed and leaned her head against his chest, biting her lip to keep back the emotion that was about to choke her off. Caden’s heart picked up speed when she pressed closer against him. She could feel it in the way he held her, in the way his grip on her tightened, how he was divided against himself. There was a fierceness behind it that she wasn’t used to feeling, like he wanted to hold her…possibly more than he ever had. But then he’d fight himself on it and start to let go, putting the guards back up again that she so utterly despised.

“I’m sorry,” Kyla's voice trembled.

Caden was still angry, but there was a weakness in him that wasn’t there before. He kissed the top of her head as she clung to him, and he stayed there like that for longer than she expected him to. “I’m sorry, too,” he told her.

She wanted to ask him why. She wanted the answers she had come here for, but she wasn’t willing to lose what she’d found instead. Nothing was worth more to her right now than this.

“Caden?” she asked him in a small voice.

“Yeah?”

Kyla shuddered at the thought of going back to the house. “Can I stay with you tonight?”

He hesitated, and suddenly she felt the need to explain herself.

“I just…I need you, Cade.”

He didn’t answer her. Instead he let her go and walked over to his dresser, pulling out the black Sleeping Giant shirt she’d bought him at a concert they went to last summer and tossing it to her one-handed. Kyla caught it shakily, the lump in her throat trying to get back at her.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

Caden still didn’t respond; he just grabbed another shirt for himself and moved back over to his bed.

Kyla turned around so her back was facing him and pulled her soaking wet shirt over her head. The strappy black sports bra she wore beneath it was soaked equally as much, but that, she would just have to deal with. Tossing her shirt on the ground, she slipped the one Caden gave her over her head; then she turned back to face him.

Caden was sitting with his back against the wall, pressing his fingers to his forehead like he would if he had a headache. Without even asking him, Kyla crawled across the bed and curled up next to him, resting her head on his chest.

Caden sighed and pulled his blanket around her, holding her with one arm as he laughingly whispered, “What are you trying to do to me?”

Kyla smiled and whispered back, “Keep you.”

She looked down at his forearm and her smile started to fade. Then she gently traced his scar with her fingertips, the same way she’d done a hundred other times. She felt his breathing stumble as she lay there in his hold, touching his arm, remembering the past, reminding them both of the first time he’d saved her life.

“Caden?” she said in a small voice.

He swallowed hard. “Yeah?”

“I love you,” Kyla told him.

Then she fell asleep.

Through the Dark Chapter List

Our preliminary chapter list will be as follows. Please note: As I continue to write and edit this book, chapter titles are subject to change. Pretty sure I’m gonna keep them generally like they are listed here, but we’ll see.
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1. “…cover-up.”

2. “…in the city of London.”

3. “…say I love you with a switchblade.”

4. “…swimming in the dark.”

5. “…to hold her and let her go.”

6. “…at the Red Rocks.”

7. “…the one who starts to dream.”

8. “…skyscraper.”

9. “…even heroes fly away.”

10. “…following Alexa.”

11. “…a messenger.”

12. “…trust your enemies, not your friends.”

13. “…what happened at Stonehenge.”

14. “…over the edge.”

15. “…airport.”

16. “…so this is what it means to risk everything.”

17. “…when it rains.”

18. “…I’d rather you just stab me.”

19. “…return.”

20. “…the morning after.”

21. “…playground.”

22. “…crossing lines.”

23. “…the truth about Rachel Blake.”

24. “…from the grave.”

25. “…into the woods.”

Woodland Park Adventures

There is nothing like traveling to the places where stories are written, especially when writer’s block has been biting at your heels so long you don’t even remember what it’s like not to have it. That’s why I love that The Awakened is set so close to home for me, because I can make decisions on a whim like road-tripping to Woodland Park to get inspired for Through the Dark (which I should have made much more progress on by now.)

So here is a collection of the pictures I took on the last such spontaneous trip I embarked on to do exactly that. Note: The successive posts after this one will most likely reflect the inspiration that resulted from said adventures.
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The Catamount Trail.



Entrance to the cemetery.



The James’ Condo.



Woodland Cemetery.



The Blake Estate.

Through the Dark Teaser Scene Five: Punching Bag

This one's really short, really rough and just for fun. I don’t know what I love so much about it; maybe that it’s the first point where Caden really starts to come unraveled.
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Caden was in his parents’ garage wailing on a punching bag that hung from the center beam when Alexa came out to see him. He had sweat pouring down his chest, despite the crisp mountain air that lingered from the night, but he didn’t even care to wipe it away. Nothing was going to stop his momentum right now. Not even his little sister.

Alexa waited patiently, watching him nail the bag over and over, but she didn’t make a sound. After she had waited long enough, Caden finally asked her, “What do you want?”

His tone was short, which was a typical way for any brother to talk to his little sister. Just not for him. Alexa didn’t appear fazed by his tone, but Caden knew better than to trust her outward appearance.

“What happened?” she asked him.

He gave her a look like she was playing some kind of game. “What?” he asked sarcastically. “You didn’t see it?”

Alexa’s eyes narrowed a little, but her voice remained flat. “No, I didn’t.”

“He came back,” Caden told her.

Alexa looked surprised by this, and seeing that startled him.

“You really didn’t know?” he asked her.

“You know I don’t see everything,” Alexa said.

Caden looked away from her. “Had me fooled,” he muttered under his breath.

Alexa seemed disturbed, like she didn’t know what to make of the way he was acting. Not that he could blame her for that. Caden wasn’t doing either of them any favors by holding back what he really wanted to say and taking out his aggression on her in this petty, inadvertent way. So he decided to give them both a break and get blunt with her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked her. She stared at him, completely unresponsive. “Why didn’t you tell me what he is?”

Finally she understood. Alexa looked down and said quietly, “I didn’t know if you would believe me.”

Caden sneered at her, unable to decide if that more hurt him or angered him. “When have I ever not believed you?”

Alexa wrote the question off to being rhetorical, though he’d hardly meant it to be.

“How did you find out?” she asked him.

He didn’t answer her.

“Tell me what happened, Caden.”

He hit the bag again, hard. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he mumbled. “He has her now.” Caden gave the bag a solid left jab. “And she’s in love with him.”

Alexa went rigid. “What?”

His expression morphed into a sickened grimace, but Caden didn’t respond to the question. He was only capable of thinking one thing right now, and it happened to be the last thing he wanted to.

He couldn’t get Val’s words out of his head.

“I have to get out of here,” he muttered. Then he threw off his gloves and went back to his room, leaving his little sister standing there looking paralyzed.