Story excerpt!
The sale is going on all week (and more sales to come all month). And it occurred to me after I posted last night that I forgot to actually include a link to my stuff (brilliant!) So you can find my stuff here. and just go to the home page to see all the authors on sale! Cool stuff!
And since the authors participating in Rainbow Snippets have been so supportive of my Nano WIP Behind Blue Eyes (working title) that I thought I'd share the unedited opening to the novel. Let me know what you think.
Chapter One
Kaleo shattered the one promise he had made to his mother; He was going to try for citizenship.
“Are you sure?”
Kaleo turned, hearing the worry in Dovon’s voice. His lover’s soft brown eyes were moist. It wasn’t fair. Dovon was supposed to be going with him. Like the throng of young men and women crammed into the shuttle bay, he and Dovon wished for a better life. There was only one way out of the prison slum they had been born into. Being born was in the slum was their only crime, barring them from citizenship and a real life. “What choice is there?”
It was a choice his mother made him promise never to chase after. She never told Kaleo why and now she was dead. Kaleo assumed her reason for making him promise was born from her anger. Mom had been born into one of the Merchant Houses, top of the top. Being a fancy dancer hadn’t save her from murder charges and ending up in the slum. She had to hate those people.
“If Mom hadn’t gotten sick,” Dovon started, his fists trembling.
Kaleo put his hand on his lover’s arm. He didn’t dare kiss Dovon openly in the hanger bay and give anyone associated with the rape gangs the idea it was open season on Dovon’s ass. “You have to take care of your little brother and sister. You’ll join me when you can.”
Dovon grinned. “I’m trying to picture you as some rich guy’s gardener.”
“That’s not a guarantee.” Kaleo held up his hands. “The recruiter said I could be a go-fer. I’d rather be outside, but either way, five years of indentured service and I get my i.d. citizenship. I’d clean their toilets for citizenship!”
“I hear they have droids for that sort of thing.” Dovon nudged him. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” It felt like a hand had closed over his throat and Kaleo could barely voice the rest of his thoughts. “I’m gonna miss you.”
Dovon pulled Kaleo back among the boxes to be loaded up on some shuttle or another. They couldn’t be seen by the slum mutts waiting to get a step up with the recruiters. Dovon kissed him deeply, but it only made the tightness in Kaleo’s throat and chest worse. “I hate this already.”
Kaleo squeezed Dovon’s hand. “Me, too. It’ll be okay. You stay safe down here.”
“You make your mom proud. You’ll be a good citizen.”
Kaleo stole another kiss then rejoined the group. He didn’t dare look back at his lover. He wouldn’t miss the slum, but he would miss Dovon. If he glanced back, Kaleo would break. He didn’t like to admit fear, but it was there, running laps in his belly. He didn’t know the first thing about the planet-side estates owned by the Merchanters, separated as they were from the slums by high walls and at least two hundred miles of military training ground. Of course, he could end up off-world instead. That was terrifying but exciting, too. Hell, this was his first time in a shuttle capable of going to the orbital colony.
As they blasted away from the only home he knew, Kaleo glanced around at the young people, who, like him, wanted a chance at a better life. Dovon should have been in the seat next to him. It was so damn unfair. Why did Dovon’s mom have to get so sick? Could she be faking it to keep her son around? He didn’t like to think that way. Still, this bunch he was with was less rough than Kaleo expected, a handsome group, but before he could assess the situation and make new alliances, a strange light-headedness washed over him. Who knew space flight would affect him so? Kaleo looked out a portal. The stars swam before his eyes and then the universe went out.
When he finally came back to, Kaleo didn’t know where he was. He wasn’t sitting up in a take-off seat. Stretched out on a hard cot, he shivered under a thin sheet. Trying to get up only made his head ache like never before. Pressing one hand to his forehead, Kaleo tried to figure out what had gone wrong. Did he get some form of space sickness?
His fingers brushed over his collar bone, meeting something hard and strange. There, in the left-hand space between collarbone and chest, was some kind of device. His pain-addled brain dredged up images from a dream he had had, something that belonged in a slum sewer. He had been hooked to a machine, weeping and blurting out all his deep, dark secrets right down to the first time he left Dovon suck on him. His dream-self hadn’t wanted to let the secrets spill, but he hadn’t been able to keep it in. Someone had been taking notes. Sometimes he wondered what was wrong with his brain and its crazy dreams.
He finally managed to sit up, realizing his clothes were gone. Shouldn’t he at least have underpants if he was in sick bay being treated for space sickness? Sitting up made his head thrum like a building coming down under a bombing, like so many that happened around the slum when the criminals got bored. Kaleo thought he might throw up. The sick bay on the ship left a lot to be desired. There was a bare toilet in one corner and nothing but grey, metal walls that grew up too close together.
One of them swished open, where he hadn’t even noticed a door, and a middle-aged woman walked in. She smiled at him. “Oh good, you’re awake.”
“I feel awful,” he muttered. “Did I get sick?”
“No, that was a neuro-gas we pumped into the bay.” Her smiled broadened as if she just told him he was getting citizenship without servitude.
His lips pinched. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t, mongrel. Your type never does.” Her nose wrinkled as if he smelled like he’d gone swimming in a retention pond back home. “I’m in charge of your training. You will call me Dr. Nye if you must speak to me.”
“Training? To garden?” His voice shook. Something was wrong. Fear flipped around inside him.
Nye laughed as cold as any rape gang leader. “There is no garden, no contract, no citizenship, you foolish boy.”
“But I signed…”
“A dream.” Nye pushed a button on the device on her wrist and three men came in. “They will begin your training.”
“I don’t understand,” he repeated, fear licking its way along his spine.
“Toy training, boy. That’s what you signed up for. It’s what we do with the pretty mongrels. Get him started, but don’t be too rough yet. His implants are still healing. And you know the rules, it’s anything goes, but you don’t touch that ass. Someone will pay well for it.” Nye turned on heel and left.
Kaleo couldn’t breathe. Toy training. The bogeyman every slum parent told their unfortunate offspring. Be good or the Confederation doctors will make you into a Toy. Everyone knew what happened to the Toys. None of the kids believed it was real. When the first man pinned him down, Kaleo realized his bladder had let go.