by Jade Kerrion
Life lived on the cheap, and ugly.
There were no carpets to break up the monotony or absorb the chill of the gray cement floors, other than the rug outside the bathroom near the entryway to the studio. No pictures. No photographs. Nothing transformed the studio from merely a place to eat and sleep, to a home.
It was as colorless and as bland as the personality of the man who lived there.
It was where she was apparently spending the night.
Scowling, she searched the kitchen, and within five minutes, she settled down on the futon—the only semi-comfortable chair in the apartment, and that wasn’t saying much—with a ham sandwich and a glass of milk. Poor fare for Christmas Eve, but there wasn’t much else in Danyael’s home, and she was reluctant to leave the apartment when she did not know when he would return. She wanted to be there when he walked in.
She would give him a piece of her mind and rake him over hot coals. It was the least he deserved for dragging her away from family and friends on Christmas Eve.
Then maybe, just maybe, she would consider thanking him for what he had done for Galahad.
It was almost nine at night when Danyael slowly made his way out of the terminal of Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. Lucien’s private jet had landed several hours earlier, and Danyael had managed to get off the plane but his fading strength gave out on him as he made it to the terminal. He spent a few hours curled up on an uncomfortable chair in a corner of the waiting area, struggling—and largely failing—to work through the pain on his own. Passengers moving through the airport took him for a homeless vagrant and ignored him. Finally a bored security officer told him to get moving, and he complied, leaving the terminal and getting into the only cab waiting at the curb.
“Where to?” the cab driver demanded impatiently.
“I—” He searched the pocket of his jeans, of his jacket, found keys and cell phone, but no wallet, no ID, no credit card, and no money. He squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed hard, a flicker of bitter resignation twisting his features. Not this, not now. So tired.
He needed to get home, needed to rest. More than anything, he desperately needed a break in his run of bad luck. “I’m sorry, I’m just going to walk.”
“Don’t waste my time, man.” The driver cursed at him as Danyael stepped out of the cab.
Danyael exhaled shakily and raised his face to the cold night air that cut right through the minimal warmth afforded by his old leather jacket. The icy fingers of the wind caressed his face, and he welcomed the physical discomfort as a desperately needed distraction from the emotional torment.
He turned and started down the street. It would take hours to walk back to his home in Brooklyn, but he did not have anywhere else to be, anyway. His psychic shields were so tightly locked in place that it actually hurt to breathe. Take one step at a time. He stared down at his feet, feeling the chill of the freezing rain through his sneakers.
He felt cold, sick and hungry. He could barely think past the shafts of pain pounding through his skull or the deep, raw ache in his heart. He flinched when he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a store window, his bleak eyes haunted by a dark and wrenching pain that no amount of control or willpower could conceal.
He fought down the waves of revulsion that churned deep in the pit of his stomach. Where had it come from? How could he hate himself so viciously and with such fierce desperation?
Wrapping his arms around his cramping stomach to hold himself together, Danyael ground down on his teeth as if it would hold the pain in, pain that made him want to curl up on the sidewalk and pound his fists into the earth until they bled. Desperate to talk to the only friend he had, he reached into his jacket pocket for his cell phone. The battery indicator flashed red, perhaps enough for one call, if that.
The call went straight to voicemail. Danyael closed his eyes as he heard Lucien’s familiar voice asking the caller to leave a message. What could he say? How could he say what was truly on his mind and in his heart? What happened? You sent for me. What the hell did you do to me?
Two days of unexplained hell warred against sixteen years of friendship. For a single tormented moment, their friendship and their future hung in the balance.
Ultimately, friendship won. Faith won.
Danyael breathed out a shaky sigh. “Hi, Luce.” The familiar childhood name calmed him enough to blurt out the words before he changed his mind. “I…just called to wish you a Merry Christmas.”
He disconnected the call and shoved the cell phone back into the pocket of his frayed denim jeans. Hunched against the freezing night wind, he walked slowly past groups of revelers celebrating Christmas Eve with friends and family. He tried to staunch the emotional bleeding as love and laughter flowed freely all around him, flowed past him.
Despair rose up to shred him, but something flashed through the chaotic swirl of his emotions and drove back the despair—something so unfamiliar it took him several moments to put a name to it.
Love.
It anchored him, its radiant and steady glow a lighthouse in his emotional storm.
His mind reeled. I fell in love.
Danyael searched his fragmented memories for a face, for a name, but found nothing. Whoever she was, he had lost her along with his memories. His breath caught in his throat. Did you love me too? Would you look for me?
Will I ever find you again?
Without offering answers, love embraced him, shielding him from the worst of the emotional maelstrom trying to tear him apart.
I’ll be all right.
Still, it was going to be a long way home.
THE END
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Ready for the next installment in the Double Helix series? Read PERFECT BETRAYAL.
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Enjoy this excerpt from Perfect Betrayal!
Perfect Betrayal
Double Helix #2
Danyael Sabre fought a losing battle against fatigue and the wet chill of a New York winter storm. As the minutes ticked by slowly, he slipped past extreme exhaustion into mindless automation. The neighborhood deteriorated, the deeper he traveled into Brooklyn. The icy drizzle could not mask or wash away the stench of cheap alcohol and urine in the streets. He paused at the pollution-stained façade of an apartment complex. It was a welcome sight; home, at last.
Danyael unlocked the door of his apartment, slipped in, and quietly shut it behind him. He leaned his head against the door and closed his eyes. His shoulders sagged. He was alone; he could relax. With a soft sigh, he lowered his psychic shields. The suffocating weight of emotions he did not understand and could not remember flowed out of him.
A woman’s shriek of panic ripped through the silence of the apartment and shattered his lethargy. His dark eyes flashed open. I’m not alone!
She hurled herself at him. Instinctively, he caught her wrists as she clawed at his face. The swirl of long dark hair, swaying wildly, concealed most of her face, but he caught a glimpse of unreasoning terror in her eyes, terror he had put in there.
He struggled to contain the emotions he had released. The effort plowed through him, a punch to his stomach. It tore the breath out of his lungs. He convulsed, doubling over, the strain too much for a body pushed to its limits. His grip on her wrists loosened. She lunged away from him and raced to the kitchen.
“No, wait.” He grabbed her before her fingers wrapped around the hilt of the knife in the drying rack. His empathic powers surged, irresistible as the tides. They snaked, graceful tendrils of living vines, through her psyche and siphoned out the emotions he had unwittingly forced on her. To his relief, rationality seeped into her wide violet eyes. He started to ask if she was all right, but before he could utter a single word, scorching pain ripped down his spine.
Only his training suppressed the scream of agony. He flung himself away from her and crashed into the sink. Violent shudders wracked his body. He gripped hard on the countertop to brace against the spasms of pain.
What the hell?
He gritted his teeth and tasted blood in his mouth. He had not been prepared for her roiling emotions. Targeted at him, her emotions sliced through his defenses with devastating precision, anger and hate, vitally alive, scalding hot. They flared when he touched them, punished him when he tried to absorb them from her. He had to work through them. There was no other way. The alternative—returning the emotions to her—was not an option.
His eyes closed. Trembling, he focused on each breath burning in his lungs. As he shakily exhaled, he unclenched his fists. Release the pain.
Most of the time, the technique worked flawlessly. He had years of practice.
That day, it nearly didn’t.
Minutes passed before the red haze of pain obscuring his vision thinned and eventually wafted away. He looked up to find her staring steadily at him, the passion and fury he had briefly witnessed now perfectly regulated beneath an icy-cold façade.
“Are you all right?” he asked hoarsely.
Her eyes narrowed. She tilted her head but did not answer. She merely looked at him as if he were insane for asking the question.
“Are you all right?” Danyael asked again. He leaned against the old fridge. His quiet tone concealed his exhaustion. A quick empathic probe confirmed she was calm and rational, but her lack of response worried him. He thought he had reabsorbed the poisonous brew of his emotions before they sank into her psyche, but perhaps he had not been fast enough. Had he hurt her?
“I’m sorry. I know you’ve had a shock. Would you like to sit?” He paused; the aloof distance in her demeanor caused him to hesitate. He tried for a smile, though fatigue limited it to a faint curve on the edges of his lips. “I’m Danyael Sabre.”
“Zara.” Her answer was brusque. She did not offer a last name.
The name toyed on the edge of his consciousness, as if he had heard it before, but he was certain he did not know her. There was no way he could have forgotten someone as attractive as she was.
His mind mocked him. Who was to say what he could have forgotten? After all, he had no memories of the prior two days.
Continue reading PERFECT BETRAYAL.
Urban Fantasy and Science Fiction entwine in the world of the DOUBLE HELIX
“The Double Helix is the kind of series you’d expect to see with a movie deal. I loved, loved, LOVED it. I fell in love with the characters and will be reading all four books again in the future…a treat I reserve for my favorites.”—Full Time Reader, Amazon Reviewer
“I wish I could award more than 5 stars. This phenomenal series continues to astonish and delight.”—Hillel Kaminsky, Amazon Reviewer
MIRIYA
Thirty years into the First Genetic Revolution, society’s tolerance for human derivatives is wearing thin. Clones and in vitros are regarded with suspicion, and mutants with resentment. Yet in spite of the hostile environment, some alpha telepaths—like Miriya Templeton—have thrived.
Her luck is running out.
Destiny has set her life on a collision course with Danyael Sabre, the alpha empath who can kill with a touch. Whether he becomes friend or foe, whether he and she live or die, will depend on the choices she makes. On her decisions hang the outcomes of the Second Genetic Revolution. Miriya, however, does not believe in destiny, nor want any part of the revolution. It is up to the enforcer, Jake Hansen, to convince her otherwise, and he is running out of time.
PERFECTION UNLEASHED (Double Helix #1)
Winner of six literary awards, including Gold Medal, Science Fiction, Readers Favorites 2013
He shares a face with the perfect specimen. Together, they’ll reshape a divided nation… or shatter it completely.
Years as an assassin taught Zara to steel her heart against weakness. But she believes no creature deserves to be caged and prodded… much less the man who embodies human perfection. Against her better judgment, she ditches a recon mission to spring him free. She wasn’t counting on an irritating empath joining the chase.
Doctor Danyael Sabre hides his healing powers in plain sight. With tensions between unmodified humans and mutants intensifying, the empath vows to stay clear of the coming storm. But when his doppelgänger—a top-secret genetic experiment—escapes the lab, he is yanked into the fray. His only choice is to team up with his lookalike and the cold-hearted assassin who can't stand him.
As they fend off enemy forces and puzzle out the mystery of their past, Danyael faces an impossible dilemma. Should he use his healing powers to inflict pain or will he risk a lifetime in a cage?
PERFECT BETRAYAL (Double Helix #2)
1st Place, Royal Palm Literary Award 2013
Danyael Sabre, an object of desire, would much rather not be. An alpha empath by birth, a doctor by training, and an empathic healer by calling, he is stalked by the military that covets his ability to kill, not heal. Bereft of two days of memories, he goes on the run under the protection of an assassin, Zara Itani.
The more he uncovers of his lost hours, the more he doubts everything that once anchored him. He knows only that he endangers those around him and that he is falling in love with Zara, who hates him for reasons he no longer remembers.
As forces—both powerful and ruthless—threaten those he cares for, Danyael has only two options. He can betray his values and abandon the path of the healer, or he can wait to be betrayed, not by enemies, but by his friends.
ZARA
1st Place, Royal Palm Literary Award 2016
The alpha empath, Danyael Sabre, languishes in a maximum-security prison. His life sentence should spell emotional freedom for the assassin, Zara Itani, but true to her contrary nature, she travels the solitary and hazardous path from hate to love even though it is far too late for her and Danyael.
Meanwhile in her hometown of Beirut, international political conspiracy simmers on the brink of renewed military conflict. Zara’s loyalties will be tested; her beliefs challenged. She could start a war, or she could stop it.
Tell me who you love and I will tell you who you are....
Zara will finally discover who she is, but what will it cost Danyael this time?
PERFECT WEAPON (Double Helix #3)
An alpha empath, Danyael Sabre is powerful, rare, and coveted, even among the alpha mutants who dominate the Genetic Revolution. Betrayed by his friends and abandoned to a life sentence in a maximum-security prison, Danyael receives freedom and sanctuary from an unlikely quarter—the Mutant Assault Group, an elite mutant task force within the US military. Physically crippled and emotionally vulnerable, Danyael succumbs to the warmth of friendships and the promise of love he finds within their ranks.
Friendship and love, however, demand his loyalty, and Danyael rises to the challenge of training and leading the assault group's genetically modified super soldier army. The super soldiers are faster and stronger than the military's human soldiers; their animal instincts spur ferocity and fearlessness in battle. Who is the perfect weapon, though, the super soldiers or Danyael, the alpha empath, who can, with a touch, heal or kill?
Adversaries swarm like vultures around carrion; the pawn is once again in play. The threads of betrayal that sent Danyael to prison spin into a web, ensnaring him. When a terrorist group strikes Washington, D.C., how far will Danyael go to defend a government that sent him to prison to die?
SILENCE ENDS
2nd Place, Royal Palm Literary Award 2013
When you choose your friends, you also choose your enemies.
Seventeen-year old Dee wants nothing more than to help her twin brother, Dum, break free from the trauma in their childhood and speak again, but the only person who can help Dum is the alpha empath, Danyael Sabre, whom the U.S. government considers a terrorist and traitor.
The search for Danyael will lead Dee and Dum from the sheltered protection of the Mutant Affairs Council and into the violent, gang-controlled heart of Anacostia. Ensnared by Danyael’s complicated network of friends and enemies, Dee makes her stand in a political and social war that she is ill equipped to fight.
What can one human, armed only with her wits and pepper spray, do against the super-powered mutants who dominate the Genetic Revolution?
America, nevertheless, is ripe for change. Exhausted by decades of belligerence between humans and their genetic derivatives, the clones, in vitros, and mutants, society is on the verge of falling apart or growing up. Which path will it choose, and can a mere human, her sassy attitude and smart mouth notwithstanding, light the way to a better future?
In her quest to help her brother become normal, Dee will learn what it means to be extraordinary.
CARNIVAL TRICKS
1st Place, Royal Palm Literary Award 2015
In a world transformed by the Genetic Revolution, Kyle Norwood is an honest-to-God human and proud of it. His deadly skills come from hard work and not genetic sleight of hand. An easy mission to protect two Proficere Labs scientists turns into a shoot-out that leaves a scientist and a federal agent dead. Worse, the research data the scientists were carrying disappears.
In a world where human derivatives are hated and feared, Sofia Rios is almost human. When a fight during her waitressing shift turns fatal, a dying scientist launches her into the shady world of scientific espionage. The unwilling trustee of research that people would kill to obtain, Sofia turns to the man who steps out of the shadows to protect her, even though he appears as dangerous and disreputable as the people who hunt her.
