When their younger twin siblings were
murdered by their
cold-blooded father, Shane and Keri’s
own twin connection deepened. Their
father shamed Shane and Keri into
silence, and then went on to bring four more
children into a house shuddering under
the weight of his unpredictable temper.
Ten
years later, what should have been a
regular visitation turns into a horrific
nightmare. Trapped in the Superstition
Mountains with an addicted and dangerous
father, Keri’s faith and
determination wavers, but she knows she must save her
brothers and sisters and return all of
them to the home they love.
She now
faces one insurmountable obstacle. He
can’t afford to let her go.
Excerpt 1 ~
Shane
The window in my bedroom that I share
with my two younger brothers overlooks Main Street. I angle my head,
so I can attempt to see where my twin is.
“See Keri?” Axe, my best bud,
asks.
“Nope. But I do see a bunch of cars
leaving.” I face him and grin. “That means she’s on her way
back.”
“Great. We can leave
now.”
“Looks that way.”
He and I race down the stairs. The
normal noise of a large family during winter holiday break greets me,
along with what can only be described as evil snickering. We come
around the corner, shoving and pushing to see which one of us gets to
the bottom first, with me gaining an inch on my bud.
“Yes!” I pump a fist and hop down
the last three steps, the satisfaction of proving once and for all
that I’m the best pass receiver on our team.
“I am so going to beat you one of
these days,” he says.
We knuckle bump and clown
around.
“Ready when you are, honey,” a
strange female voice says.
“Huh?” I turn
around.
A woman who looks like a million miles
of bad road stands beside the open front door. Before I can ask who
she is and what she’s doing in our house, a series of loud bangs
precedes the sound of a cat yowling. That noise sends fear shivers
through every inch of my body, and I don’t scare all that
easily.
“What the heck?” Axe pushes me
aside. “What’s going on, Shane?”
“Don’t know.” I point at the
woman. “Who are you?”
“Jake’s honey-poo,” she
purrs.
That response is wrong on so many
levels, beginning with Jake is my dad’s name. The last time I
checked he was still married to my mom.
“Who are you two handsome
hunks?”
Gross. Sick. Yuck! She sounds
just like Scooter when he catches a mouse.
Just as I’m about to tell this loser
from the wrong side of the tracks to get lost, Scooter races out of
the kitchen. A mix of who knows what, he has gorgeous gray and white
striped fur and I can only describe him as fat and
slow.
Slow comes nowhere close to describing
that streak racing for safety. Scooter howls out his fear. His fur
stands on end and his tail is so fluffy that it looks ten times its
normal size.
Author Bio:
Born and raised in
Southern California’s Los Angeles
basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years traveling
the United States and Europe while in
the Air Force before settling in
Northwest Georgia. A new empty nester
with her husband of more than twenty
years, she spends her days figuring out
new ways to torment her characters and
coming up with innovative tales from
the South and beyond.
She’s a multi-genre author who
comes up with ideas from the strangest
sources. Some of her short stories have
appeared in anthologies, others in
magazines. Three of her books (Softly Say
Goodbye, Who Am I?, and Mama’s
Advice) are Amazon best sellers. Her other books
are: Take Chances, Where U @, The Wrong
One, Pony Dreams, Evil Eyes, Inits,
Canoples Investigations Tackles Space
Pirates, The Call Chronicles 1: The
Griswold Gang, The Curse of Grungy
Gulley, Paradox Lost: Their Path, and
Starlight. Additionally, she has shorts
available on Amazon: Grace, Secret From
the Flames, Family Curse … Times Two,
Right Wrong Nothing In Between, and The
Ghost Catcher.
Excerpt 2 ~
Keri
Carly and I sneak up
the walkway to the backdoor of the
house where I live with my parents and five
siblings. We’ve done nothing wrong.
There is no reason for us to be sneaking
into my house, except one…
him.
“Are you sure about
this?” she whispers.
“Yeah.” I cast a
guilty glance at the driveway.
Shane’s truck isn’t
here. He must still be hanging with his
best bud, Axe. Heat rushes up my face
whenever I think about that hunk. Axe
not Shane. Big Bro is anything but a
hunk. Well, he is kind of cute, and a
lot of girls like him, but a hunk? Give
me a break. None of the girls hot for
him know that he stinks up a bathroom or
dumps his clothes all over the place
for me to pick up.
I’ll forgive Carly for
thinking like that. She’s good for Shane, if
he’d just get over the “everybody
will hate us for dating” thing. Big deal if
she’s African American and we’re
white. Nobody cares about that anymore.
“Your dad will pop a
cork if he catches me in the house,”
Carly says. “You know he hates… you know.”
We never talk about
that. So what if my dad is the biggest
bigot in the world? The rest of my
family is totally cool with me having
Carly around. They like her. She’s funny,
and an awesome bestie.
We both stop in
front of the back door. I reach out a
hand, but don’t turn the knob when I hear
shouting.
“Oh, shit.” I glance
at Carly.
“What now?” she
whispers.
Memories flood
through me of a night I try so very
hard to forget. Once upon a time, there was
another set of twins in our house. Then
they were gone. The reason they’re not
with us anymore is too hard to think
about. I don’t even talk about that night,
but that’s because Shane and I made a
sacred vow. We will always keep that
secret. Telling now will cause so many
problems for us.
I have to tell someone, but
that means I’ll go to jail. Won’t I? Isn’t
that where liars go when they hide a
crime?
The anniversary of
that particular act still haunts me,
even though it was way back in August.
December has usually been good, even if
we’re sad because of whatever he is doing. To
have such an innocent
act end in the violence as that one did
should never happen to anyone,
especially a kid. To have the person
responsible still walking around as if he
did nothing wrong infuriates me, until
I think about how I never told.
Shane didn’t either. We
should have told. It didn’t matter if we were
only seven. It doesn’t matter now
that we’re almost seventeen. We should have
told.
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