Excerpt
I should be dead and headed for my funeral pyre. Except in a final desperate attempt to slow down my fall, I put out my hand, grasp the concrete edge of the platform and scream as my fingernails tear.
There's a low rumbling, growing louder.
The noise heightens, building, and then, it whooshes towards me.
The 8:05 a.m. local train to Churchgate station blares its horn, coming straight at me.
My heart slams with panic, mind gone white with fear and I can't think. Can't. Breathe. I've got to get the fuck out of here.
Stuck between the platform and the tracks, I look up into the man's face. Eyes gleaming, he's caught in the throes of arousal.
I'm afraid, so very afraid, and when he leans down, stretching out a hand, I shrink away towards an end that is more preferable. I look the other way and see the stream of white sparks spewing out of an open electric wire dangling on the other side of the tracks. Get out of here. Get out. Now.
"Help!" I scream.
Not one of the rush-hour Bombay commuters hears me. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Look at me. Help me, somebody. I am here. Here. I scream again.
My voice, torn out of me, scatters over the crowd who have eyes only for the incoming train.
No one sees me.
None except him.
He's there, standing on the platform, staring at me.
He's waiting.
Waiting for me to ask him, to beg him to rescue me. I don’t have a choice. I have to ask him for help. Ask him. Do it. DO IT.
I fling out my arm and, bending towards me, he clutches my wrist. It’s him—the same guy who fondled my thigh earlier and threw me off the platform—he claws my other palm off the platform, jerks me up, high, almost at eye level with him. I hang there suspended, swaying.
Heat from the oncoming train rushes at me. It's on me, almost at me. I shriek with terror. My mind’s babbling, thoughts tripping over each other; the blood thunders in my ears. It's over. All over. A trembling grips me. I shut my eyes tight.
"Don't go too far, little girl," Ma's voice taunts. "You don't know what demons are out there."
Then, I'm flying through the dust. He throws me free of the track, out of the path of the train and towards the open electricity wire.
Blessed silence.
I've always been obsessed by the future. Is it because I don't have one?
For more, read Awakened free on KU here: My Book
About the Author
Laxmi Hariharan is a New York Times bestselling author of Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy. Married to a film maker and fellow author she lives in London.
Find her books here amazon.com/author/laxmihariharan
Join her newsletter to get her best novelettes free here: http://smarturl.it/Laxmi
Join her reader group here: http://smarturl.it/TeamLaxmi
Follow her on BookBub here : http://smarturl.it/BBLH
Do reach out and say Hi to Laxmi :)
amazon.com/author/laxmihariharan
Chosen © 2015 Laxmi Hariharan
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Chosen: Vik's origin story (Many Lives Prequel Book 2) Page 16
