1st 5 Pages February Workshop - Carroll Rev 2

Name: Kessie Carroll
Genre: YA urban fantasy
Title: Storm Chase

Carda was already in a bad mood. Getting mugged made it worse. But totaling his car put the finishing touches on a really bad day.

It was almost summer break, and his college professors had piled homework on the freshmen. When Carda would rather be outside driving his newest RC car, or playing videogames under the air conditioning, instead he had to spend endless hours writing essays and researching topics for his English major. Most of his grade hinged on a research paper, and even his chosen topic, the history of race cars, couldn't improve the grind.

May in Phoenix, Arizona was already hot enough to kill. Carda slogged out to his car with thirty pounds of books in his backpack, and heat rose from the asphalt in waves. His skin seared. Being a redhead, his skin burned easy anyway. If he didn't get skin cancer from the sun, then he'd get some other cancer from the gallons of sunscreen he'd absorbed through his pores.

As he slouched along the endless rows of cars in the Arizona State University parking lot, he noticed three guys standing around the spot where he'd parked his red Miata. Their laughter echoed across the parking lot. Carda clenched his teeth and walked a little faster. They'd better not be pranking him again--just because he was eighteen and they were all twenty-one--

One of the guys made eye contact with him and jerked his head at his friends. Rayne Mistral. He was short, thin, built like a weasel, and tormented Carda whenever possible. Rayne dashed away between the cars, and his two friends followed him.

Carda sprinted the last ten feet to his car, then swore.

They'd let the air out of both rear tires.

It took twenty minutes to limp the Miata to the nearest gas station. The car's air conditioning never cooled off with the engine running so low, and Carda's temper rose with every minute in the broiling cab. Why couldn't he be out here taking classes he wanted to take? Auto shop was his first choice, but his mother had overruled him. "You're smart, Carda. You'd thrive in a field where you use your mind. Not scraping around in the dirt in some shop somewhere."

As he refilled his tires at the air pump, his cellphone chimed. He pulled it out and glanced at a text from his sister, Michelle. "Already home. Where are you?"

"At the gas station. Don't ask." He tucked the phone in his pocket again and glanced over the Miata's roof at a pastel-green Volkswagon Beetle parked beside the pumps. A college-age girl leaned against it, fanning herself with a sun hat. From this distance she was all curves with dark hair and long, tanned legs. For some reason she wore cat ears and a tail. She looked away as soon as he lifted his head.

Carda grinned. Being ogled by a hot girl made up for the aggravation of being pranked.

Someone tapped his shoulder. Carda turned and faced a man in a black business suit and silver sunglasses that completely concealed his eyes. A suit? In hundred-degree weather?

The stranger held up one hand and curled his fingers like claws.

Carda's entire body crushed inward on itself. His arms pressed against his chest, his knees bent and he sank to the pavement. The air left his lungs in a long moan as his heart struggled in his chest. Panic and disbelief washed through him. What the heck was happening? Somehow this guy was crushing him to death without touching him!

As he fell, Carda flung himself sideways and rolled into his attacker's legs. The man shifted sideways to avoid him, and the crushing sensation lightened. Carda grabbed the man's left knee to trip him.

His hands burned.

The crushing sensation stopped. The man yelled and stumbled backward, grabbing his leg where Carda had touched him. Then he ran two steps and vanished.

Pushing himself to his hands and knees, Carda stared wildly around. How could his attacker vanish? Maybe he'd run behind the cars. The sun was in Carda's eyes and he couldn't see anyway.

As he climbed to his feet, gasping air into his compressed lungs, the girl with the ears and tail ran up. Her eyes were wide and her auburn hair flew around her face. "Oh my gosh! Are you okay?"

He flexed his arms and shook his legs. No pain. "I think I'm okay. I still have my wallet, even."

The girl spun in a circle, one hand pressed to her mouth. "I didn't see where he went. Get out of here, quick, before he comes after you again!"

"Okay, okay." Carda climbed into his car, bemused. Such a weird thing to happen, even if nothing had really come of it. But the girl's frantic terror echoed his own panic. He glanced around the gas station as he pulled out. The man in the suit had completely vanished. Freaky.

The delay getting on the road dumped Carda in the middle of the four-thirty traffic rush between Tempe and Mesa. Traffic oozed along at forty miles an hour, then slowed to ten miles an hour at the 101 junction.

The air conditioning roared comfortingly. Maneuvering through traffic, Carda pondered his weird day. How had that guy crushed him like that? Some kind of force field? Maybe he had some kind of military secret weapon. The girl had acted like she knew who he was, though. An uneasy tremor passed through his stomach. Was a killer on the loose and he'd missed it in the papers? Not like he followed the news much, but...

Traffic stopped ahead, and he slammed on his brakes. Carda's red Miata pulled up beside a white '78 Firebird, complete with bird logo on the hood. Rayne grinned at Carda from the driver's seat.

Oh, right. Carda clenched his teeth and gripped his steering wheel with both hands. As if Rayne hadn't made this school year miserable enough with his hazing--now Carda was stuck beside him on the clogged highway under the pitiless sun.

Rayne hung one arm out his window and waved his middle finger.

Carda's blood pressure spiked. He drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Rayne couldn't bait him into anything. Traffic would move in a minute, and he wouldn't have to look at the pathetic jerk in the muscle car anymore.

Traffic crept forward and sped up. Rayne gunned his engine, cut in front of Carda and roared away up the highway. Carda pressed his back into his seat, shifted gears and shot after him. "I'm not racing," he said aloud. "I'm accelerating to the speed limit."