And the winner is… Leesha!
It just occurred to me as I got yet another vote to my reader poll this afternoon… The decision has been made, Tandem Justice is currently being penned, and I didn’t let any of you know which character will take the lead in TJ. Oops, sorry gang! This one will be told from Leesha’s vantage point - she’s fiercely independent, brainy, and has the ability to move objects with the power of her mind. She’s complicated, and I’m having fun getting into her brain and personality as I write this. Want a sneak peek at the first part of Chapter One? You got it…
Chapter One
The buzz of her cell phone vibrating against the night table woke Leesha from a deep sleep. Without opening her eyes, she reached up and grabbed it before it fell to the ground.
6:30 on a Saturday morning. Brutal.
She knew why she had to get up, but that didn’t make it any easier. The dread in the pit of her stomach doubled when she opened her eyes and saw the outfit she had hanging from her door frame, freshly pressed. It was a pantsuit, purchased by her grandmother about six months ago when Leesha made the debate team. The suit lasted longer than her tenure with the intramural activity, but she was glad she had it for special occasions.
Not that she would call today a special occasion. Just one where she would have to look as presentable as possible. She was expected at a conference room at the university – the most neutral place they could agree on. “They” being the teenagers with mutant powers like herself, their parents, and Patrick Martin – a special agent with the FBI and liaison to the US Navy.
Martin had only recently tracked down the teens and had been insisting on a face-to-face meeting ever since the disaster at the clinic. Well, the teens called it a disaster. Martin seemed quite pleased with his good fortune, finding six individuals all in the same place after years of fruitless research and tracking.
After three years of trying not to be tracked down and turned into a lab rat, Leesha and the others were faced with the startling realization that they had been discovered. And they were about to be interrogated. To what extent they shared information with the government was up to them, at least according to their parents.
Parents. Mom. Mom?
Leesha threw open her bedroom door to look into the doorway of her mother’s tiny bedroom. She didn’t even have to cross the hallway to know it was empty. She cursed under her breath.
For cryin’ out loud, Ma. I told you this was important.
As usual, what Leesha deemed important was not necessarily so in the eyes of her mother. Toni Conway, pregnant at fourteen, had never really grown up. She was selfish and irresponsible, and now with a new sense of freedom at thirty-one, was living the life of a college party girl. The baby was a burden, even from the time she was born. True, she got help from her parents, but they always made her feel guilty for needing it. Now that Leesha was seventeen and independent, Toni was determined to live out the adolescent livelihood she felt was stolen from her.
That left Leesha to fend for herself. She had worked for cash since Toni never had any. Babysitting at ten, lifeguarding at fourteen, and now serving as hostess to a steakhouse, she had become very adept at taking care of herself – and others. Even before she could drive a car, she made her way to wherever she needed to be on her bicycle. No challenge stood in the way of Leesha Conway, and she didn’t intend on having that change today.
With one last exasperated sigh in the direction of her mother’s room, she stalked off to take a shower.
Over the last few years, there were so many times she had wanted to talk to her mother about what was happening to her. The painful migraines, the telekinesis, and most recently – the blessing of finding others just like her. She had always hoped her mother would come around, want to be a friend to her. Even just a parent. But she never did.
The heartache in what she was missing was never as glaring until she started spending time with the Dixon parents – Marcy and Dan. Lexi and Sam were lucky to have their parents help them through all of this, and even though they had opened their home to the other teens, Leesha still wished she had an active parent in her life. One of her own blood.
She had hoped today would be the day she could share with Toni what happened to her shortly after she was born. That a stranger injected her with drugs designed to alter her genetics. That for months she lived with debilitating migraines as her body transformed. That even now, after the pain was over, she was still living in fear that her ability to move things with the power of her mind would attract the attention of strangers wanting to study her.
Did she need her mother to know? No. But she desperately wanted someone in her life that she could cling to for comfort. And yet today was just another day where she felt utterly alone.
One last final note from me… I’m still looking for reader reviews for After the Pulse. If you’re interested in a copy, and are willing to review it on Amazon or any other online retailer, let me know. I’ll need to know what kind of e-reader you have and where to email your free copy!
