Famished (23 page)

The group decided that while everyone else slept, two of us would take turns and keep watch. I volunteered for the night shift. And so did Colin.

We hadn’t spoken to each other since we left the colony. I liked it that way. I didn’t have anything to say to him nor did I want to say anything to him.

When we fled the colony, he invited himself to come along on our journey to the untouched place. In the heat of the moment, there was too much going on and it hadn’t fully registered with me, that we’d be stuck together. At the time, I figured that we could use as many strong people as possible. Now I regretted being agreeable to him joining us.

We sat with our backs facing each other’s staring, out in opposite directions. Frankie laid at my feet and her soft breathing filled my ears. I brushed my fingertips along her forehead. “It’s just me and you, sis,” I whispered. She moaned and rolled over. I didn’t know how much I longer I should have
 
waited to tell her about our parents. It had only been a few hours since their deaths. Tomorrow, I told myself. I’d tell her tomorrow.

My head whipped around when Colin spoke. “What did you say?” he asked with a low voice.

I glared at him and scowled. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

He looked down at the ground. “Oh.” He paused. “Georgie, listen.”

I cut him off. “Don’t even go there.”

His eyes burned into mine. “You don’t even know what I was going to say?”

I narrowed my eyes. “You were going to apologize, weren’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

I harrumphed. “Well, you can save your breath because I don’t want to hear it.”

Closing my eyes, I saw myself again, on the ground screaming for him. My arms were outstretched as I clawed at the dirt and tears filled my eyes as I struggled to get away. Colin was ahead of me, still running, not even glancing back.I shuddered. If Colin thought that me forgiving him was going to be easy, he was out of his mind.

Coming Soon

Pride

Beauty is only skin deep
.

YA Contemporary – August 30, 2011

At age fifteen, Angela Dunne was plucked out of the crowd at her local mallbymodelingagent,OliviaLennox.
After fighting her way to the top, Angela is catapulted into the world of magazine covers, photo shoots, and runway shows. She’s traveling the globe, modelingforthebestdesigners,andlivingthelifemostgirlsheragecouldonlydreamof.

And it doesn’t take long for Angela’s rising stardom to go to her head. Being beautiful has become her obsession and her image is all she ever thinks about. Her family is ashamed of her. Friends don’t know her anymore. People in general can’t stand to be in the same room with her. The new Angela, finds pleasure in belittling those who aren’t as fortunate as her in the beauty department and treats those who aren’t up to her standards like they areinsignificant.

Suddenly, Angela’s modeling career comes to a halt after an accident backstage at a runway show. Now, Angela has to come to terms with the fact that she’s no longer beautiful on the outside. She’s a freak, a monster with a disfigured face. For someone who was once so beautiful on the outside but ugly on the inside, it’s up to Angela to dig deep down within herself and discover what the real meaning of beauty is.

Chapter 1: When I Grow Up

Tears spilled onto my cheeks as I bolted out of The Limited. I pushed my way through the crowd of people, my shoulder brushing against a woman to my left as I picked up speed. “Hey!” she shouted. “Watch where you’re going!”

I didn’t have time to apologize. My mother was gaining on me and the sound of her voice carried down the narrow, mall corridor, “Angela! You get back here this instant!”

 
I kept running and running. I stopped at the end of the corridor, hunching over to catch my breath. Again, my mother shouted, “Angela Marie Dunne!”

Right now, I didn’t want to be anywhere near her. First, she rushed me out of the house to go school shopping. Then, when I expressed interest in a pair of jeans I actually wanted, she humiliated me in front all the associates in the store.

“Seventy five dollars! Absolutely not!” I said, mocking her shrill high-pitched voice.

My mother caught up to me as I stalked toward the exit. “Angela!” she shouted.

I didn’t answer. I was too overwhelmed with emotion. I didn’t want to say something I would regret. She appeared next to me, keeping up with me. I never knew her short, chubby legs could go that fast. “You don’t need a seventy five dollar pair of jeans,” she stated, calmly.

She was the most frugal woman in the world, I swear. She didn’t even shop at the mall herself. Most of the time, my mother did shopping for her clothes at consignment shops. I had to admire that quality in her. She’d give up anything for herself if she felt like her kids needed something more.

At the moment, I noticed her examining me. She could see I was a loose cannon. That any given moment, I would snap at her. She was trying her hardest to reason with me. But, at that very second, I couldn’t be reasoned with.

I stopped mid-stride, trying to keep calm. “But everyone at school has jeans like that! You never let me wear anything cool!”

Coming Soon

A Whisper To A Scream

(The Sociopath Diaries 1)

Sometimes love…can be deadly.

YA Horror/Suspense/Romance- October 4,2011

Ellory Graham detested high school. She relished the fact that she was a rebel. A wild, carefree, type of girl. She basked in the glory of being the type of girl who stood up to authority. Unfortunately for her, her upfront, honest and bitchy nature always managed to land her in some kind of trouble.

Adam Jacobs was everything Ellory was not. Not only was he beautiful, but he was smart, artistic, and sweet. To almost every girl he seemed like the total package- that all around perfect guy. But in a town were nothing particularly interesting happens, and gossip seems like the only fun thing to do, sometimes those perfections become flaws. And it doesn’t take long for Ellory to find out,even Adam has secrets. But Adam’s secrets are the kind of secrets people die for…

Chapter One: High School

It didn’t take me long to come to the conclusion that high school sucks. Tedious. Repetitive. Social. Those three words summed up the way I felt about my school predominantly. Logan High, oh how I loathed the name. From the outside, it looked like your normal, everyday, high school. On the inside, well, that was a completely different story. I wouldn’t say I hated it all together, but it was something I didn’t want on my to-do list every day. Still, there I was, a senior, counting down the days to graduation. One hundred and eighty six days to go. Yeah, this was going to be a long year.

I sat at my desk, completely zoning out, waiting for class to begin when someone dug their text book into the corner of my back. I turned around annoyed. “What the hell?”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

My face instantly relaxed when I saw it was my best friend, Wren. “Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” she chirped.

Wren’s parents went through some kind of weird bird obsession and that’s how she got her name. It was either Wren or Robin. She was glad they picked Wren. “At least it’s unique,” she’d say. I agreed with her. There weren’t very many Wren’s that I knew. Actually, she was the only Wren I knew.

Wren and I were a surprise pairing as far as friends went. She was the suck-up, I was the slacker. As in she got straight A’s and I got straight C’s. She also always looked too perfect, too put together. She brushed a strand of her golden, blonde, hair off of her shoulder. Today it was poker straight and she donned a little black headband that added to her Barbie doll image.

Perfection, when it came to the way I looked, was something I could never master. Wren reached up, smoothing down a piece of my unruly, naturally curly, hair. “Your hair was sticking up.” I shrugged. My hair had a mind of its own.

I hadn’t even realized I zoned off again until Wren tapped me on the head with her pen. “Well.”

I met her gaze. “Well, what?”

“What’s wrong with you today?” she asked, probing my eyes for answers.

“I just don’t want to be here.”

“Do you ever?”

“No.”

“Well then, suck it up. We don’t have much longer until graduation.”

 
 
 
 
Graduation, the word was music to my ears. I couldn’t wait to get out of this hell hole.

Lauren Hammond knew from a young age that she was born to be a writer. After publishing her first novel in 2007, she then went on to write several screenplays and a few award winning poems.She aspires to be a positive role model for young people who have a pencil, a piece of paper, and a dream. Never give up on your dreams, you might wake up one day and regret not pursuing them.She currently serves as the Executive Literary Manager for ADA Management Group, has twelve novels slated for release between 2011 & 2012, and resides in Ohio.