Cold Fire: A Paranormal Novel

by Shaye Easton

  I look at Sara. Her deep blue eyes and dark chocolate hair. We did it: we’ve swapped, and it has changed her. It’s changed us, even if it’s not yet noticeable. This is my new beginning as much as it is hers. A couple of months ago, I was trapped in an endless cycle of gloom and pain. I was a ghost haunting every place I visited. Now everything’s different. And it’ll keep being different, bringing with it a new fight, a new fear, a new something to love and then grieve.

  My old life and identity are gone. Lauren’s gone. Kathryn’s gone. Both of my parents exist out of my reach. I see it all in the flames: all the things and people I thought would be there forever, now burning into the past. The pain of it all hits me in a rush, all the blood of last week spilling across my vision, and my knees buckle.

  “Woah, are you okay?” Caden catches me before I can fall and gently guides me back to my feet. Once I’ve stabilised, I nod, and his hand slips into mine, squeezing reassuringly. I let my eyes drift down to where our skin meets and force myself to see through the blood, to forget about the pain, to focus on the light.

  The blood clears. My heart eases. I remember Sara beside me and look to find her crying, tears dribbling silently down her cheeks. I take her hand in mind, linking the three of us together. She looks up at me, surprised, a question in her eyes. I give her a small smile. She may not be the kindest of people, but she’s the closest thing to a sister I’ve ever had. And today we’ve both lost parents. Her grip tightens and when she smiles, it says both Thank you and Sorry.

  “You’ll get through this,” I tell her.

  On my other side, Caden says, “We all will.”

  And as I feel the heat of the bonfire on my cheek, as I absorb the light of it, flowing down onto my skin, splitting up the darkness of the future, banishing the gaping maw of death that once haunted my timeline—I know he’s right. We’re here. We’re alive. We can survive this.

  It’s not over yet.

  Can’t get enough of Caden and Melissa? Make sure you sign up for the author’s blog to find out more about them!

  Get these two bonus chapters when you sign up at

  shaye-easton.awesomeauthors.org.

  _____

  Here is a sample from another story you may enjoy:

  Chapter 1

  There’s something oddly satisfying about sitting at my desk and seeing the same pencil-written letter K that’s scrawled in the upper right corner. There’s always a nice feeling of familiarity to it. When I sit at my desk again today, it’s not there. The desk seems to be wiped clean; the pencil marks and eraser shavings are nowhere in sight. This bothers me. I like familiarity, and now this desk doesn’t even seem like it’s mine anymore. Even though I didn’t write the K in the first place, I became accustomed to seeing it.

  Familiarity always seems to get me through the long school days. It might bother other people to see the same thing and the same people over and over again, but it soothes me. Change is something I don’t like.

  It’s like walking down the hallways of Fairfield High and seeing the same groups of people standing in the middle of the hallway like they don’t have a class to get to in the next three minutes. This is the familiarity of high school. Every day, I hear people talking about last weekend’s party, the homework they had to cram on Sunday night, and who’s hooking up with whom. I push past these people to make it to class on time. Grades are all that matters to me right now. I don’t play any sports, so I can’t depend on my athletic ability to get me into a decent college. I want to get the hell out of this town, and I have to work hard to do it.

  Jesus, I am a nerd.

  I waltz into my last class of the day, and I pray time will go by quickly. Exhaustion has taken over my body, and I just want to go home and lay on my bed. Thankfully, class goes by swiftly, and I’m soon gathering my things. My teacher, Mrs. Clarke, stops me on my way out and hands me a book she thinks I’ll like. I thank her and walk home. I’ve never bothered my mom for a car. My house is within walking distance from the school, and I never go anywhere outside of school, so what’s the point?

  As I round a corner, I open the book Mrs. Clarke has given me. I start to read the first chapter. When I hear footsteps behind me, I don’t think anything of it. But the footsteps increase in speed and sound like they’re getting closer. Before I can turn around to investigate, I’m knocked to the ground, and my book falls out of my hands onto the side of the road.

  “What the hell?” I say as I frantically stand up to dust myself off. My only injury is the scratch on my forearm. No blood seems to be gushing anywhere, so I whirl around to face the person who knocked me down.

  Aiden Callaway, Fairfield High’s known troublemaker, is standing in front of me and looking around wildly. His eyes travel to the ground where my book is still laying. He hastily picks it up and shoves it in my chest. “Here,” he grumbles.

  He runs into me and has the nerve to snap at me? I feel like giving him a piece of my mind, but I decide against the idea. He isn’t someone I want to be acquainted with in any shape or form. His whole demeanor screams trouble. Instead of yelling at him, I simply walk away without saying a word.

  “What? No ‘thank you?’” I hear him ask me.

  “Thank you,” I say without turning around. This ends up being a big mistake. I know when to pick my battles, but he clearly doesn’t.

  My shoulder is yanked back, and I’m facing Aiden yet again. The irritation on his face is evident as he says, “You don’t have to be bitchy about it.” He glances around suspiciously before looking at me again.

  I scoff. “I think I can. You’re the one who ran into me and never bothered to apologize or ask if I was okay.” The nerve of this guy!

  “Stay out of my way next time.”

  “Or next time you can run around me like a normal person would.”

  “Like you would know anything about being normal.”

  “Excuse you?” I say loudly. “You’re being rude, and just for that, you’re not a normal person either!”

  He stares at me, and I’m immediately embarrassed by my lame comeback. He bursts into laughter, and I feel my cheeks heat up even more. “Wow,” he chuckles. “You really aren’t normal.”

  “There he is!” someone yells in the distance. I glance behind Aiden’s tall figure and see two guys running in our direction.

  “Shit,” Aiden mutters when he sees them. He grabs my arm and starts to run, bringing me along with him.

  I run with him until I realize what a stupid idea it is. I try to pull my arm away, but his grip tightens. “Let go!” I yell at him.

  “Stop struggling and run!”

  A car halts and the passenger side window rolls down, revealing a driver with sunglasses and a baseball cap. “C’mon, Aiden!”

  Aiden jerks the door open to the backseat of the car and the panic rises in me. I try once again to tug my arm away from Aiden’s grip, but I can’t match his strength. He pushes me into the backseat and flings himself in next to me. The car takes off, and Aiden quickly shuts the door.

  I sit up in the seat and start to breathe heavily. I glance around, thinking of ways I can escape. There is no way in hell I’m getting kidnapped today.

  “Jesus, calm down,” Aiden says to me. He leans back in his seat, seemingly unbothered that he was just chased down by two crazy people.

  The anger wells up inside me, and my fists connect with his arm repeatedly. “Do not tell me to calm down. I just met you, and you pulled me into a speeding car while being chased by two maniacs! This is practically kidnapping!”

  My small hands do little to no damage; he doesn’t even flinch. He laughs instead then says, “Relax. Those guys are gone.”

  “Why were they chasing you in the first place? Who were they?”

  “Just some guys I owe money to.” He casually shrugs.

  I look out the window and see that we’re going in the opposite direction of my house. I groan and slump into the seat.

  If you enjoyed this samp
le, look for

  Outcasts

  on Amazon.

  BOOK YOU MIGHT ENJOY

  INTERTWINED

  T.M. Mendes

  “I come before you. You will leave after me. I am someone you must never forget.”

  Cali, a school-oriented girl, was someone who never really had dreams. When she moved to her dorm at Arizona State University, she has been getting recurring terrible dreams – nightmares. The worst thing was that she can actually remember them, and it all felt vivid and real.

  Just when she thought she already had enough stress on her first few weeks in college, her life turned upside down when she met a loner and an aloof guy, Hayden. It was uncanny because she felt attached to the mysterious guy whom she had just met. There was a strong familiarity between them.

  It all got more complicated when Cali found out that she had a strange ability, and that some group of people was chasing her, wanting her dead.

  What is this ability that Cali discovered about herself? What is the connection she and Hayden have? Who are these group of people who want her dead, and why?

  This sci-fi romance story full of twists will surely keep you on the edge of your seats! Grab your own copy now!

  BOOK YOU MIGHT ENJOY

  SOUL WATCH

  Ember T.

  “If forever was a place and time was just a measurement of space, then I knew I wanted my forever to be right here.”

  As they say, only time can tell when one will fall in love.

  And such is true in the world where Pandora lives in, literally. People are now born with soul watches, an embedded timepiece that counts the seconds until one meets his or her soul mate.

  There is only one problem — Pandora was born with hers exactly 0000:00:00, the first in history.

  For a long time, she lived coping with the reality that she will never find her one true love. She tries her best to make sense of her empty soul watch and defend herself from people who call her “jinx” and “bad omen.”

  Everything takes a detour when her best friend, Crysta, found her soul mate. Suddenly, the truth about her situation starts to reveal itself.

  Now, Pandora has to let her guard down and accept the reality. And she needs to ready herself for the rollercoaster of emotions that comes with it.

  What would Pandora find out about herself and her soul mate? Will she continue to deny herself of her desires in fear of being hopeful of something she has long accepted doesn’t exist? Will she still find her happily ever after?

  Fall in love with the story and join Pandora in her journey towards finding her soul mate. You are in for one beautiful and emotional ride. Grab your copy now!

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Cold Fire would not have been possible without a lot of people, over the course of many years.

  To take it chronologically, I first want to thank everyone who supported me while I was writing the first draft of this book online – the readers, the fellow writers, the friends – who loved it, plot-holes and grammatical errors and all, and stuck with it even when I took it down strange paths. If not for your encouragement, I doubt teenage me would have made it past the ten chapter mark, let alone finished the novel.

  Thank you to my mum, who tolerated me when I barely left my room because all I wanted to do was write, who reminded me to keep at it, and who shared my excitement when I found out this book was getting published, the first book of many, I have no doubt. I love you very much.

  Thank you to the friends of mine who stood by me in recent years, even when I became something of a recluse to edit my manuscript. I am eternally grateful for your love and your friendship. An especially big thanks to Jess, who has never failed to be there for me, and who I am so lucky to have on my side.

  And finally, thank you to the wonderful team at Typewriter Pub for giving me this opportunity and for making my first voyage into the rather intimidating world of publishing an easy one.

  I first started Cold Fire in 2013, and even though I’ve returned to the world of this book only sporadically since I finished the first draft in 2015, I feel like I’ve been writing it non-stop for the past six years. It’s been there with me through everything, my highs and my lows, my success, and failures. It backdropped the entire crazy ride of adolescence. This story is as much Melissa’s as it is my own: a story about identity, about figuring out who you are. And for a long time after I wrote the last word, it didn’t feel finished. It was a six-year story that didn’t feel over. But it does now. I can finally close this chapter and begin a new one. So to everyone I’ve mentioned above, thank you.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Thank you so much for reading Cold Fire! I can’t express how grateful I am for reading something that was once just a thought inside my head.

  Please feel free to send me an email. Just know that my publisher filters these emails. Good news is always welcome.

  shaye_easton@awesomeauthors.org

  Sign up for my blog for updates and freebies!

  shaye-easton.awesomeauthors.org

  One last thing: I’d love to hear your thoughts on the book. Please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads because I just love reading your comments and getting to know you!

  Can’t wait to hear from you!

  Shaye Easton

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Shaye Easton is a self-professed bibliophile who writes stories about paranormal towns and science-fiction futures. She grew up near the eastern beaches of Sydney, Australia, and it took many a sunburn and mosquito bite for her to learn that she and the great outdoors would never get along. These days, she spends a lot of time indoors, writing, reading and drinking an inordinate amount of tea. She hopes writing books can be a full-time thing one day, but in the meantime, she attends the University of New South Wales, where she is currently studying a Bachelor of Arts with majors in English and Creative Writing.