The After Effect
Renegade Heroes Series
Book Two
Rose Shababy
Genre: Urban Fantasy/Sci-fi
Publisher: Super Sheroes LLC
Date of Publication: July 19th, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9904620-3-3
ASIN: B01GSMOAE0
Number of pages: 228 approx.
Word Count: 72,757
Cover Artist: Regina Wamba
Maximum Ride meets Sin City in the Renegade Heroes series!
Kasey and his friends are fringe heroes. They use their abilities to protect society, until their last battle leaves Kasey almost dead. Disillusioned, they leave the city in search of peace.
But peace is the last thing they’ll find. Ever since Kasey escaped the cold fingers of death, his powers have been running wild. It doesn’t take long for his girlfriend, Blue, and the others to notice.
In the lush forests of northern Idaho they meet a brand new hero whose shocking revelation sheds new light on Kasey’s strange behavior.
And with her revelation comes a terrible solution none of them can accept.
Worse still, Kasey soon comes face to face with the nightmares of his past.
Will the heroes find the strength to face the consequences of their mistakes? Or will Kasey be forced to make the ultimate sacrifice?
The Blue Effect
Renegade Heroes
Book One
Rose Shababy
Blue Brennan is jaded and bitter despite her pinup girl looks and quick wit. Night after night, she scours the Seattle club scene looking for someone or something to fill the emptiness inside.
When she meets the mysterious Kasey, her world stops… literally. He claims she has the ability to control time and stuns her even further when he reveals his own gifts.
Blue is inexplicably drawn to Kasey and reluctantly enters his world filled with a new breed of humanity. They’re misfits like her, blessed or cursed with powerful abilities, struggling to hide their differences from the rest of society.
Then the group discovers a nameless, faceless sociopath with nightmarish powers; and he’s coming for Blue. She’s left reeling when they discover her gifts are the key to defeating his terrible evil and saving them all.
Now she must race against the clock to harness her own powers and save her new friends. Can she be more than a renegade? Can she be a hero too?
Excerpt:
After the events
of the morning, everyone seemed to need some private time, especially Blue. She
went to our room and crawled back into bed, claiming to still be tired from the
night before. Esme and Avery retreated outside, while Val and Ash went to town
to go bowling with the couple they met the night before.
I sat by myself
in the living room, remote in hand and flipping mindlessly through channels.
With no one in close vicinity, I didn’t have to work to block out random
thoughts and impressions. I stretched out on the couch and let myself relax
completely, a rarity for me. No walls in my mind, no struggle for control, no
confusion as I tried to sort out all the voices.
I came across
the movie Casablanca as I scrolled through channels, and stopped. Something
about the movie spoke to me, reminded me of me and Blue. I wondered if it was
the depth of Rick and Ilsa’s love for each other that mirrored mine and Blue’s.
Maybe it’s the
hopelessness of it, the voice inside me mocked. She has to give him up to do
the right thing, and he has to push her to do it. Just as you’ll have to push
Blue. There’s nothing you can do to change it. At least she’ll have Avery to
comfort her after you’re gone.
Once again, the
foreign anger inside me growled to life.
In defiance I
pushed the channel up button on the remote, flipping through channels until I
found one playing music videos and a close up of a woman’s face filled the
screen.
Zelda, I thought
as I studied her features. Despite Blue’s denial, I could still see a
resemblance between the two of them. Zelda wore heavy makeup so it was hard to
tell, and she seemed taller, leaner, and had longer features, but the
similarities were there.
Her brow wrinkled
as she sang, and the sadness in her eyes seemed to seep through the screen.
Stuck
inside a life of maybe
Finding
bliss in erratic shifts
I
watch you avoiding me
Sin-free
and quietly
Keep
your hands clean
Keep
your mind free
Never
touch me
Forget
to love me
We
can be pure
so
we can be godly
We
can be meek
so
we can be lonely
Open
your eyes
Free
from the guise
No
longer hypnotized
Breaking
out
Searching
for a beautiful life
Somebody
else’s life
Can
I start over this life?
Breaking
out
Something about
her singing made me uneasy as I stared at her. The song was a kind of ballad,
but still possessed an edge, an undeniable hardness. The mournful expression of
earlier now seemed like a persona, fake sorrow. I turned the television off and
laid back, closing my eyes, trying to quell the uneasiness.
I pushed the
song from my mind, thinking about the events of the previous night, as well as
this morning. I wondered if Rayne’s solution was truly the only way to fix
things, but it was the image of Blue’s tear-stained face that haunted me as I
fell asleep.
***
Home, I realized. I was home. I looked around the
small room as I pulled the nightshirt in my hands over my head. The water
closet, the old bed with the rusted frame, the bare wooden floor slats. I looked
down at my hands and realized they were those of a child.
Suddenly, a gunshot rang out from the other room,
and I dropped to the floor behind the bed as angry voices barked orders through
the wall.
The door burst open and I scurried under the bed as
a man dressed in camouflage and carrying a rifle marched in, dragging my sister
Zoya by her hair. She screamed and I clamped a hand over my mouth to keep from
screaming as well.
My father rushed into the room, yelling at the man
until another soldier came up from behind and struck him on the back of the
head with the butt of his own rifle.
Zoya screamed as our father crumpled to the ground,
blood gushing from the wound at the back of his head. From under the bed, I
watched it pool beneath him before one of the soldier’s dragged him from the
room, the blood streaking across the floor in a gruesome smear. The first
soldier shut the door behind him.
I watched as Zoya twisted herself around the
soldier’s leg, biting him hard on the calf. The man backhanded her with a force
that knocked her to the floor.
She lay still for a moment, facing the bed, until
her eyes landed on me. Her voice filled my mind. Do not move, brother. Do not
make a sound.
The soldier heaved her off the floor and threw her
on the bed. The bedsprings flexed above me, and I flattened myself against the
wooden slats of the floor to avoid being crushed.
The sound of Zoya crying filled my ears, and I
squeezed my eyes shut as if I doing so could block out the noise. A wave of
nausea hit me and suddenly, I found myself staring up at the soldier as he
ripped the clothes off my body. In the same moment, I realized I was also
staring down at Zoya as I shredded her clothes with strong, unfamiliar
hands.
I felt the screams tearing out of my throat as mad
panic overwhelmed my senses, barely able to separate the image of the soldier
above me and Zoya below.
A second later, the maniacal glee of the soldier
ripped through me, and I couldn’t hold back my screams any longer.
I screamed until my throat was hoarse, until the
screams turned to great heaving sobs. Only then did I hear the voice calling my
name.
“Kasimir,” the voice soothed. “Shh. Open your eyes,
little one.”
Peeking through my eyelids, I saw Zoya’s face
peering at me under the bed. She reached out a hand.
“Come, little one, you are safe.”
“But you’re dead,” I breathed as I put my hand in
hers and she helped me from under the bed. I looked around in wonder.
The walls had fallen away, and the bedroom sat in
the middle of a clearing, a lush forest surrounding it on all sides as the sun
shone down on us.
I looked at our joined hands and realized the hand
that held hers belonged to an adult. The childish persona I had adopted in the
dream had disappeared.
“That’s right,” I said aloud. “This is a dream.”
“Are you certain?” Zoya asked with a smile. “Just
because you are not awake does not mean you are dreaming. I have been trying to
communicate with you for a long time, but it was not until you understood what
was happening that I was able to break through.”
“If this isn’t a dream, then what is it?”
“You are between,” she said.
“Between what?”
“Between spaces. Between worlds.” She pointed toward
the woods. “Look, there. Do you see it?”
I stared in the direction she pointed, and as my
eyes adjusted to the darkness of the woods, I began to see a black void deep in
the trees. At first I thought it was just the darkness of the woods itself, but
after a moment I could see the outline of the void. The edges writhed and
seethed as if alive, and the entire void blurred and shimmered like a puddle of
oil.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It is the other side.” She lifted her hand again,
this time pointing in the opposite direction. “And there. That is the world you
know.”
I looked, this time shocked to see a ghost image of
me sleeping on the couch projected against the trees.
Zoya continued, pointed at the ground beneath us.
“This space is the crack between worlds. This is what you created when you died
and went back. This is you.”
I nodded. “I understand. I just don’t know how to
fix it.”
Zoya gave me a sad smile. “Yes, you do. Look again,”
she said as she pointed back to the void.
I looked again, and suddenly I could see long,
tentacle-like strands from the void snaking across the clearing, their thin
fingers wrapped around me.
I cried out and tried to shake them off, but they
moved and slid over my skin like oily, black mercury.
“Just as you
are attached to the world you know, you are now attached to the other side,”
Zoya told me. “As long as you are attached to both worlds, they will continue
to merge.”
“What will happen if the worlds merge?” I asked.
Her smiled disappeared. “Ultimate chaos. Both worlds
will be lost.” Her voice took on a tone of urgency. “You must seal the rift
before it is too late. If you do not, everything you love will be destroyed.”
I thought of Blue and realized that if I had to die,
I couldn’t think of a better reason.
I looked at Zoya. “How do I fix it?”
“You must go
back. The pieces of that world you see attached to you will follow you back in,
and the rift will seal itself.”
“Is there any way I can seal it and stay with Blue?”
I asked.
Zoya frowned. “As long as you are attached to the
other side, you cannot stay with her.”
“She won’t let go easily,” I told her.
“No,” my sister agreed. “She loves you as deeply as
any person has ever loved another. I am glad you found such a love, little one,
even if only for a short while.”
I stared at her, as if realizing for the first time
who I was talking to, and I reached for her hand again. “I wish you could meet
her. I miss you, sister.”
She pulled me into an embrace. “I have been with you
since the rift was opened,” she whispered against my ear. “Fighting to protect
you. I will stay with you as long as I can.”
I pulled away and looked at her worried face. “What
do you mean?”
She glanced toward the void. “There are others who
are not so benevolent. I fight them as much as I can, but I cannot fight them
all. Your mind is too open. The barriers are down, and the others are trying to
use you to gain access to the other side. If they overwhelm you, you will be
lost forever and the side you know, her world,” she said pointedly, and I knew
she meant Blue, “will be lost along with you.”
I nodded, tears filling my eyes as I looked at my
sister. “Is it terrible, Zoya? The other side?”
“No,” she smiled. “Those of the light, stay within
the light, and those of the dark, stay within the dark. I existed in place of
pure joy. The two sides have begun to merge only since the rift was created. If
you repair it, all will be as it was.”
Zoya glanced at the void again, before looking back
at me with fearful eyes. “It is time for you to wake up, little one, but before
I go, one last warning. The past may be gone, but it is not dead. Very soon you
will come face to face with your nightmares.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
The void emitted a strange mix of moaning and
hissing, and Zoya’s frantic eyes darted to the abyss. “No time,” she whispered.
“Wake up!”
***
I gasped for air
as I woke, rolling off the couch in my panic. I hit the floor with a heavy
thud.
As my breathing
calmed, I replayed the dream in my mind. Not a dream, I reminded myself. It may
have started out just like my nightmares, but it definitely hadn’t ended like
one.
I warmed as I
thought of Zoya. Ever since I lost my family, I’d tried to put it in the past
and forget what happened. I’d told myself to look to the future and focus on
becoming the person I wanted to be.
Now I realized
the past stayed with us no matter how much we tried to ignore it. By trying to
ignore it, I had dishonored the memory of my family. I had dishonored Zoya.
“I will do
better,” I said aloud. “I promise you, Zoya, I will make things right.”
About the Author:
Rose Shababy and her family reside in eastern Washington State. Rose grew up in the Northwest but swears she’s going to move to warmer climates someday. She’s claimed this for over 20 years, however, and has yet to move more than 75 miles away from her mother.
Rose has a deep love of all things Star Trek and yearns to travel the heavens, as well as an intense desire to be bitten by a radioactive spider. Unfortunately she sucks at science and math so she hasn’t been able bring her dreams to life, instead living vicariously through books, comics, television and film. She hopes to someday make a million dollars so she can afford to buy her way to the international space station, but she’d settle for being able to fly around the world and leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Rose also loves to cook and worked for years in a gourmet Italian grocery and deli where she learned to hone her skills. She prepares culinary masterpieces for her family, but fervently wishes the dishes would wash themselves. Especially now that her dishwashers/children are nearly grown and only one still lives at home.
Rose likes to use her free time wisely. For instance, she likes to daydream, will often read for hours until she falls asleep on the couch with an electric blanket and a warm tabby cat curled up on her hip, as well as spending cozy weekend days watching Syfy movies like Sharknado and Mega Piranha with her husband.
If Rose were a cartoon animal, she’d prefer to be a wise old owl or a sleek and sexy jaguar, but in reality she’d probably be a myopic mole with coke-bottle glasses.
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