Revolution (Collide, #4)(88)

“Ms. Maggie… can you hit the lights?” Two seconds later the click of the switch echoed around the room and the bedroom was plunged into darkness. “Thanks, you’re a doll.”



Two minutes later a flash of light across her closed lids broke her fall into sleep and she groaned, prying her eyes open to see her laptop had been turned on, the glow of the screen flicking across her walls as it changed from a Facebook account to Twitter.

“Ms. Maggie,” Ari groaned, flopping back against her pillows. “Can you Tweet in the morning. Please…”



The chair at her desk squeaked and the laptop went dark.

“Thank you,” she breathed. “Today was already depressing enough without the reminder that my poltergeist has more followers on Twitter than I do.”



(end of excerpt)

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About Samantha Young



After graduating from the University of Edinburgh with a degree in ancient and medieval history Samantha Young returned to her main passion, writing. She often incorporates history and mythology into her novels.

Samantha's first release, The Tale of Lunarmorte trilogy, was followed by a second series titled Warriors of Ankh. At present she is a full-time writer working on a number of projects for near future release. Smokeless Fire is book one in her YA urban fantasy romance series about Jinn.

For more info on the author and her novels visit Samantha Young's official blog at http://www.samanthayoungbooks.com

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Please enjoy an excerpt from Rachel Higginson’s newest book Starbright, coming September 2012.



Chapter One


The night had never been darker, the blackness surrounding the car, never so suffocating. Even the piles of snow pushed to the sides of the narrow road, did nothing to break up the oppressive darkness. The stars above, shone brightly, I was sure of it, but they did so from behind a curtain of clouds that blocked the light from reaching the road. I felt swallowed up by emptiness.

I gripped the steering wheel tighter, my knuckles stretching until they gleamed white in the glow of the dashboard and my frozen fingers worked numbly against the cold plastic. The headlights of my old Jeep reached only a few feet in front of me and then stopped abruptly against a wall of darkness. I shivered violently, nestling my chin further into the down of my heavy winter coat and cursed the Nebraska winter for being equally as cold as it was desolate.

The farmland rolled away from the winding road, buried beneath several feet of iced over snow in every direction. Trees, planted for the privacy of farmers, lined the way home with empty branches and snowcapped tops. My breath puffed out in front of me, fogging up the frozen windshield and reminding me that the heater to my fifteen year old Jeep Cherokee remained unfixed.

“Tristan!” I growled furiously into the frigid air. “Why I let you talk me into another movie I will never know!”



There was no one there to hear my complaints, or sympathize with me against my best friend, but it felt comforting to make noise in an empty antique without a radio. Still, receiving not even a groan of empathy from the Jeep, I sat forward and peered into the impossible night ahead of me.

I knew these roads; I had each curve and turn memorized. The distance between Tristan Shields’ house and my own was well traveled and practically sacred. Still, out in the country where street lights were for city-folk and the deer and the antelope tended to play, their familiar territory became a dangerous, never-ending expanse of nerves and tension.

Even in summer, unless the stars and moon were bright and friendly, the country roads of the Nebraska farmland became shrouded in a heavy obscurity, the headlights of the best of cars mapping out the only visibility in the heavy cloak of night and beyond those flickering lights the world seemed to drop off the edge of a cliff into nothingness. But now, in the dead of winter, with temperatures well below zero, the night around my old Jeep seemed to have a life of its own, oppressive and angry.

I cleared my throat and mentally determined to conquer the creeping feeling of being afraid. I bit down on my lower lip and clutched the steering wheel tighter. My breath came out in shaky puffs of air, reminding me it was more than the roads and the night that curdled the most terrified places of my heart. It was more than the late hour and bitter cold that forced me to shiver and shift my eyes suspiciously in every direction.

It was the Darkness.

Not the country night, or the moonless sky. But the real Darkness. The Darkness that moved secretly through this world and threatened every living, breathing creature. The darkness that slithered in unseen places and survived on the death and rotten things. The darkness that I would fight until my dying breath.

But not tonight. Tonight I wasn’t ready. Tonight, I was still only sixteen, and my parents were still off saving the galaxy while I stayed home to finish high school with an elderly woman as my keeper.

Something moved out of the corner of my eye. I could swear it. Swirling my head around, and keeping a steady hold on the steering wheel, I peered into the darkness, searching out the moving creature.

Nothing.

Nothing beyond the snow banks piled in the ditches and the swaying lifeless trees that were becoming sparser as I passed expansive fields blanketed under the white of winter.

I turned my attention to the road again and with a numb hand, brushed my platinum blonde hair under the brim of my stocking cap. My fingers snapped with electricity and for a moment the cab of my Jeep was lit with the sparks of static. Only a few more miles till home. I could make it. There was nothing to be afraid of.