Adam Excerpt
* * *
From the side of the room the door opened, instantaneously drawing almost everyone’s eyes to the newcomer.
My mouth dropped open.
The new arrival reached back to push his hair behind the nape of his neck and scanned the room with his magnetic gaze.
No. It couldn’t be.
There’s no such thing as magic, yet the guy from my dream the night before stood in the doorway. His face was exactly the same. His strong nose, his exquisite lips, his straight-edged brows that appeared harsh, yet empathetic. Even his eyes were the same color I’d seen in my dream, steel-gray and the shade of clouds filled with the most welcome of rains.
To my surprise, he glanced toward me and his finely-shaped lips curled into a smile. I could have sworn that my heart stopped beating. I had to force myself to breathe.
"Mr. Black," Mrs. Berry said, instantly knocking me out of my reverie as she turned her attention to the newcomer. "A pleasure to see you. Did you find your way here all right?"
"Yes ma’am," the guy named Black said. "I got lost, but I found the room finally."
"You’ll sit there, next to Adam." She pointed.
He started toward the desk beside me as the bell rang.
"But first, Mr. Black," Mrs. Berry continued, "why don’t you introduce yourself? I’m sure everyone here would like to know who you are. Wouldn’t you, class?"
A resounding chorus of grunts and ‘sures’ followed. I was only able to nod.
The new guy straightened his posture, offered a slight smile, then cleared his throat, almost as if he were nervous to be in such a large group. "Uh… hi," he said, his voice deep. "My name’s Mark Black. I’m from Houston. I moved back here with my mom and dad because my parents were originally from Trinity Springs."
"Oh! A native!" Mrs. Berry clapped so enthusiastically I thought for a moment her French tips would fly straight off. "Splendid! Absolutely remarkable, Mr. Black. Please, take a seat."
"Thank you," Mark said, bowing his head.
When he settled into his seat, he turned and smiled at me before directing his attention to the front of the room.
This couldn’t be happening. I had to be dreaming.
I pinched myself and was surprised to feel pain.
Nope. I was definitely not dreaming.
My cellphone vibrated a third, then a fourth and fifth time. I still couldn’t understand how Christy was able to get away with texting in class so often. It was a miracle she hadn’t had her phone taken away yet.
Just as I was about to reach down and turn my phone off, Mrs. Berry began to walk the rows of desks to pass the tests out. "You have the whole period," she said.
I accepted my copy of the test, passed my row’s set of papers back, then pulled my pencil from the edge of my desk and went to work.
Much of the period was spent working on the abysmally long but not overly difficult test. Having anticipated it being much harder, I found it refreshingly easy. While filling the bubbles not like the Christmas tree pattern I’d expected to use, I occasionally glanced over at Mark. Each time I looked, his gray eyes met mine.
I was unsettled, but reveled in the small sparks of pleasure I felt each time our eyes met. I’d never felt like this before. My gaze was repeatedly drawn to him, like two polar edges of magnets fighting to come together. Mark just smiled. It was almost like he could sense whenever I looked at him. My heart beat faster with the knowledge that he was at least all right with my attention. Considering the way most of the guys in the school treated me, Mark was a saint—an angel with grand sparkling wings that gleamed gold beneath the school’s fluorescent lighting.
I managed to tear my eyes away from Mark and looked up at the clock. I took note of the amount of time I had left and returned to my work. It was almost impossible to concentrate with Mark’s presence beside me. It seemed to pulse with the continuous beat of my heart. Somehow I managed to push through the test.
By the time I finished, the bell rang and the students began to rise from their seats.
"Turn your papers in here," Mrs. Berry said, patting the tray on her desk.
I rose, along with Mark, and dropped off my paper in before heading toward the door.
Once more I caught his eyes with mine and offered a slight, unsure smile. He returned it with a short nod and a grin, then was gone.
I felt breathless in his wake.
Rhiannon Frater is the award-winning author of the As the World Dies trilogy (The First Days, Fighting to Survive, Siege,) and the author of three other books: the vampire novels Pretty When She Dies and The Tale of the Vampire Bride and the young-adult zombie novel The Living Dead Boy and the Zombie Hunters. Inspired to independently produce her work from the urging of her fans, she published The First Days in late 2008 and quickly gathered a cult following. She won the Dead Letter Award back-to-back for both The First Days and Fighting to Survive, the former of which the Harrisburg Book Examiner called ‘one of the best zombie books of the decade.’ Rhiannon is currently represented by Hannah Gordon of the Foundry + Literary Media agency. You may contact her by sending an email to rhiannonfrater@gmail.com.
