Dame Rinda

Thank you for all the wonderful comments yesterday!  It’s nice to get feedback, to learn how people think we’re doing.  I had planned to answer one request and post the query letter that resulted in all my agent requests, but unfortunately, it’s on my desktop. Which crashed. 

I’m sure I have it on CD somewhere, but I’m not so organized with the CDs–there are a LOT of them.

So, since there were also requests for snippets, I can do that.  I don’t have contracts on my book length fiction, so I’m not under any restrictions yet.    Here’s a snippet of the young adult manuscript I sent in to Dame Agent recently–so you’re seeing work that hasn’t yet felt an editor’s touch.  It’s only a very small part.  I don’t want to give too much away and I like Dame Agent to see the work first.  She’s already seen this part. <g> 

This is the “meet” scene between my two main characters. I will share that Raven doesn’t realize at first that the guy who rescues her is around her age-eighteen. I’m jumping into the scene-right after Raven’s car crashes into a river. She’s already scrambled around in water and broken glass from bottles.  (You should have heard all the conversations I had while researching broken safety glass. <g>)

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The Snippet from Dame Rinda Elliott

When it felt as if the world would stay still again, I opened one eye and pulled myself partly up through the window. The snow still pounded, feeling more like ice. It stung my cold cheeks. My breath caught on a sob as the car suddenly lurched, slid a foot or two, then settled into whatever was holding it. I turned to see what and nearly swallowed my tongue. Someone was crouch-crawling along the fallen tree that had stopped my car. A man. A really big man in a black parka with the hood pulled over his face.

It was the guy who’d run me off the road!

My heart slammed against my rib cage.

It could have been the cold, or the terror screwing with my head… or my penchant for B scary movies, but all I could think about were stories about guys who ran cars off the road to get their hands on the girls inside.   

Honestly, facing my possible killer scared me, but being raped and murdered and left to freeze in the growing piles of snow wasn’t the way I wanted to go out either. My adrenaline spiked. I kept one eye on him and yanked the upper half of my body through the window.

Hell with the tree! I’d jump in the river and swim for it.

“Hang on,’ he yelled. “I’ll pull you out!”

“No thanks,” I shouted back. “I’m good!” I opened my mouth to repeat but choked as a surge of icy river water swept over the car and into my mouth. I spat it out, along with a twig and oh gross, something slippery that moved against my tongue. Gagging, I spat again and held on as the flood tried to push me back into the car.

“You’re losing a lot of blood, so be still.” The deep voice was right by my head.

Gasping, I turned, swallowing the stomach acid in my throat, not sure where to go. What to do. I was losing it. Hadn’t even realized he’d crawled that close.

“Kid, if I can see the blood in this dark, with all this water, you have a problem. Just stop wiggling, so I can get a good hold on you.”

“Who’s got a hold on you?” My words slurred and that scared me to death, even as the kid thing relieved me a bit. With my black hair cropped close to my head and wet, I probably looked like a twelve-year old boy who’d stolen his parents’ car. With nasty river water choking me, I probably sounded like one, too.

“I’ve got my boots braced, don’t worry.”

And with that, strong hands wrapped around my upper arms and he gently pulled me from the car like I was a baby. My right knee caught on the side of the window—or something in my knee caught on it.

The moan that escaped my throat was truly pitiful.

“Sorry,” he murmured, adjusting me in the air before slowly sliding one arm behind my knees. The other went around my shoulders. I stared into the darkness under the hood. It was really creepy, like gazing into a black hollow where a face should be.

I felt the effort he put into staying on that huge limb. Every step he took was carefully thought out, strategically placed.

By the time he’d carried me back to solid ground, I felt the pain and the cold full-force. Violent shivers wracked my body. My head pounded like it had been split. I couldn’t tell if water, snow or blood dripped down my face and I hoped it was the former. It was hard to see, to even keep my eyes open with all the wet stuff gumming them up or slamming into my eyeballs when I left them open. He didn’t stop once we reached the trees. In fact, he picked up the pace.

“My car,” I croaked, my hands sliding on the slippery material of his coat as I tried to clutch it. His jostling made me want to hurl. “Gods! Can you slow down?”

“Sorry. It’s too cold, you’re too wet and your head looks ugly.”

“Thanks.” Sarcasm. I was still capable of sarcasm.

Laughter shook his chest. “I meant the wound. As for the car, we’ll send someone for it after the snow st—” He broke off. “Someone will come get it later.”

Did he know it probably wouldn’t stop? I wanted to ask what he knew, but my words were taking on separate life, buzzing unsteadily about my brain like furious, drunken bees. I closed my eyes, swallowed and concentrated on staying awake and aware.

He stopped and went quiet. I gasped and managed to finally grab the slick parka. “Hey—”

I snapped my mouth shut as the very wrongness of the moment hit me.

His caution crept into and around me until I could nearly taste the thickness of it on the air. Then, I realized it wasn’t caution. It was magic. And with that, my surreal sort of dreamy state crumbled like burning paper. I fully felt the cold in my lungs. The ache from their effort to continue working. The throbbing in my head and knee. And the panic at the slide of that magic into my pores. Reality returned, as did my adrenaline.

I began to struggle.

He let me slide to my feet, facing away from him, but when my legs wobbled, he pulled me back against him. “Shh,” he whispered into my ear. The thick canopy of leaves over our heads slowed the fall of snow. His breath brushed hot over my cheek, down my neck. I shivered. He tightened his arms. “Someone’s out here. That’s why I was running before. I think he’s after a friend of mine. I heard Steven cry out right before I ran across that road.”

With his hand over my mouth, I couldn’t ask questions, wasn’t sure I wanted to anyway. I nodded to let him know I wasn’t panicked now. He removed his hand, but kept his mouth close. I shivered when his breath tickled my ear. “Listen,” he said, more breath than voice.

And I did.

The forest around us joined in the silence, the only noise the patter of snow hitting snow. The occasional moan of wind through the foliage. My gaze swung right and left, the view the same no matter where I looked. Trees, bushes and a vast white that reflected the moon and lit up the night around us.

Standing there, under the tree tops, with the forest silent and funereal, was like being cocooned in a world void of wildlife. I knew animals instinctively burrowed in the cold, but to hear nothing moving? This hush combined with the thick stink of magic was anything but ordinary. Even for me. The air carried the smell of dark things, of twisted fury and evil intent.

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