Unspeakable (46 page)

To the people at Clean Teen Publishing. Wow! I don’t even know where to start. My eyes fill with tears when I think of you. From the acquisition readers to the editors and everyone in between—you have wicked skills! I couldn’t have dreamed of a better home for
Unspeakable
. You treated it as if it were your own. You giggled over the silly things and gave me ideas for more. And, Marya, the cover is beautiful. I can’t thank you enough. I’m so proud to be a Clean Teen author.
Unspeakable
was meant to find a home with you. You’re all rock stars!

To my awesome beta readers: Erin (Albert) Rhew (AKA: The Grammar Nazi), Mary Waibel, and Krista McLaughlin. All excellent writers and I encourage you to check them out. Each lady gave me advice on different areas of the manuscript and, when I pulled it all together, I think it came out a stronger book. Thank you! Your input was just as awesome as your friendship.

And I can’t forget my bestie beta, Meradeth Houston, author of The Sary Society Series, which is ah-ma-zing. Meradeth, you were my beta reader, sounding board, rambling email reader, and everything in between. I can’t thank you enough. I don’t think you realize how big a role you played in getting
Unspeakable
dusted off and sent to a publisher. Thank you for everything. I can’t think of any other friend that would read a book four or five times for someone, just because she wanted to. You are a friend unlike any other, and I’m so thankful for you. Even if you do, do gross things with people’s DNA. Ick. (Actually, I think it’s pretty cool.)

Book bloggers and reviewers, you all should all have bejeweled tiaras and wear them every day. You are the queens (and kings) of the writing community. Thank you for what you do to help authors spread the word about their books. You are priceless.

This is always the hardest thank you to write. To the readers of
Unspeakable
, saying thank you just doesn’t feel like enough. There are so many choices for you when you walk the aisles of a bookstore or browse the pages of an online bookstore. I’m very grateful that you decided to spend your time reading my book. I can’t express how honored I am. I hope you enjoyed
Unspeakable
, and that I’ll see you around the pages of the next love connection I write!

Thank you all from the depths of my heart,

~Michelle

Ask Michelle to skip the serious stuff and tell you about the real her, and this is what she’ll say:

I can’t write without a hoodie. Yeah, I live in Texas. We all have our quirks.

I majored in accounting in college. I was required to declare a major, having no clue what I wanted to do, I picked the first thing listed in the booklet the counselor gave me.

Forget coffee. Hand over the Red Bull and no one gets hurt. Seriously, just set it down and step away. I will morph into a normal human after I guzzle my can of caffeine.

I hate to cook, but love to watch cooking shows on television.

I paint my nails weird colors just to see my husband roll his eyes and make my nine-year-old twin girls giggle (and also mortify my teenage son).

I’m a hopeful romantic and love swoon-worthy endings that keep the butterflies going for days, but I don’t believe a HEA always ends with the boy getting the girl. Sometimes, a HEA is an ending we don’t see coming, but is still best for the characters in the long run.

I write across genres in the young adult and new adult age groups while eating way too many peanut butter M&Ms (but we’ll keep that second part just between us).

I was born and raised in Flint, Michigan, but now live in a suburb of Houston, TX with my very supportive family, two rescued dogs and a rescued cat.

And lastly, I’d love to hear from you. So drop me an email! Let’s chat. You tell me what you like in books, what you’d like to see happen in the writing community, what type of books you’d love to see more of—less of—I want to hear it all. Because the one thing I wish I could put on my list, but I still haven’t figured it out yet, is mind reading. But don’t tell my kids—I still have them fooled.

Find me here:

Website:
http://www.Michelle-Pickett.com

Email:
[email protected]

Blog:
http://www.Michelle-Pickett.com/blog

Facebook: 
http://www.Facebook.com/michellepickettauthor

Twitter:@Michelle_kp

If you enjoyed Unspeakable, we recommend you check out Michelle's new book Milayna, releasing March 17
^th
, 2015.  Enjoy a sneak peak here!

Chapter One: The Pool

That night, I dreamt of demons.

They chased me. No matter how fast or where I ran, they chased me.

Brown, curling horns protruded from their heads. They looked like wood with the bark whittled away. Some demons had two horns—one next to each pointed ear—and some had just one in the center of their forehead. Their gray skin was covered with a layer of dark ash that curled behind them as they ran, bringing with it the smell of sulfur and rotting flesh. Their eyes were black orbs. They were dull, dead eyes.

I screamed for my parents.

“Don’t fight it, Milayna. This is your destiny,” my dad told me.

I ran to Muriel’s house. My best friend—surely, she’d help. She waited for me at her door.

“Help me,” I screamed and reached for her.

She smiled, and horror filled me. Her jaw protruded and her mouth filled with long, yellow teeth, which were pointed like daggers. She grabbed my arms and held me for the demons.

“Muriel, help me,” I gasped, trying to pull free.

“I am helping you. You’ll see. You’ll be so much happier with us,” she hissed through her fangs.

I struggled against the demons. Their black nails bit into my arms, drawing blood. They pulled me to their leader, who stood silently watching, adjusting the sleeves of his black robe as if he were bored.

He looked like the devil. His skin was ruddy, and his eyes glowed amber. Jet-black hair, slicked back on his head, hung to his shoulders. But the demons didn’t call him Devil, Satan, or even Lucifer. They called him—

Azazel.

****

The sun beat down on my back. It felt good after swimming in the pool’s cool water. I looked at the trees surrounding the park while I squeezed water from my hair. The leaves looked like someone had dripped orange and yellow paint on them. I loved autumn in Michigan, but it meant the end of swimming outdoors, which I preferred to the tiled, sterile pool at school.

The water sparkled a silvery blue. I watched the children play, splashing and giggling as their mothers sat poolside, no doubt gossiping about the latest scandal in the neighborhood.

A young girl, maybe six or seven years old, caught my eye. I watched her strawberry-blonde curls float around her in the water. She was cute, at least as far as kids go. They just weren’t my thing. A whiny younger brother was all I needed. I didn’t even babysit, except when my mother needed help. But my gaze was drawn to the girl.

What is it about her? I can’t stop looking at her.

I felt like I had a knot in the pit of my stomach. It grew like a growth, moving into my throat. It was hard to pull in a breath. The strange feeling wasn’t directed toward the girl, although she was part of it. It was more a feeling that something wasn’t right. I could feel the cold fingers of evil slide up my spine.

I sucked in a breath, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I dropped my towel and focused on the girl.

She climbed out of the pool. Her mother was still deep in conversation with another woman. The redheaded girl yelled to her mom, but she waved her off, never looking away from the woman talking animatedly beside her.

It must be juicy gossip.

Happy, the young girl—why was I fixated on her?—scampered off to the playground next to the pool. She plopped down on a swing and pumped her legs back and forth until she swung high. Leaning back, she stretched her legs out, her chubby face to the sky, and smiled.

And then I saw him.

He stood just inside the trees at the edge of the playground. Watching. Waiting.

I don’t think he cared which kid it was. She just happened to be there. Either way, his stance changed. His face became animated. An ugly grin slid across his mouth as he waited next to a towering pine tree. He knew his chance was coming soon, and his gaze followed the girl. His prey had just entered his line of sight.

The knot lodged in my stomach twisted, as if someone were tying my insides together like they would their shoelaces. I sucked in a breath through my teeth and tensed against the pain.

Without thought, seemingly without my conscious control, I rose from my seat and circled the pool. I continued into the parking lot, where the sharp, small stones embedded themselves in the bottom of my feet, but I hardly noticed. I was on a mission. Why, or what I was going to do, I wasn’t sure.

It’s her mother’s responsibility to watch over her. Well, that’s not exactly true. We should—no, we’re required to watch over each other. At least, that’s what Mom and Dad pound into my brain every chance they get, usually right before they ask me to babysit Ben.

I continued through the gravel parking lot to the hill on the edge of the tree line. Glad to feel the cool grass under my burning feet, I picked up speed. He wasn’t hard to spot when I entered the trees. The sorry son-of-a-bitch stood watching her with his hand down his pants.

Eww and ick.

He was so engrossed that he didn’t hear me behind him. I picked up a fallen tree branch about the size of a baseball bat. It felt heavy in my hands, and the bark scraped against my fingers. With visions of his hands on the little girl running through my mind, I swung the limb as hard as I could. It cracked against the back of the man’s balding head.

I had no emotion as I watched him crumple to the ground. I stood over him, images of him with the girl mingled with images of him with other children. As I watched his blood trickle through the grass, I realized what I’d done. My hands started to tremble, and the branch slipped from my fingers and landed on top of him. My heartbeat was frenzied in my chest, and I turned and ran from his scrawny body.

Thoughts scrolled through my mind at triple speed. What caused the unstoppable desire to save the kid? I would’ve never let him touch her. But normally, I’d tell her mother that she’d wandered too far or call the police and alert them to the possibility of a child predator roaming the park. I never would have stepped in myself, but I wasn’t able to stop. Drawn to the girl, to her safety, I couldn’t walk away.

I went back to gather my things at the edge of the pool, looking over my shoulder to check on the girl. Her red curls bounced as she swung in the sunlight. Her mother was still unaware of where she was or how close she’d come to losing her childhood innocence.