After an unusual day at school of mute goth kids, disappearing acid burns and the feeling of someone hunting for him, Max just wants to unwind at home. When a stranger appears in his room and abducts him, he witnesses the murder of his parents and becomes the prime suspect.
Max soon finds himself on the run with several other abducted teens, all being hunted down because they've developed unnatural powers. Even with his new allies and newfound ability to heal, Max can't get too comfortable. He knows that the people looking for him are still out there - and they're closing in.
Excerpt
Chapter One
It was just an off morning. His phone had shut off all alarms for the day, he fell out of bed when his mom came to wake him up, and he burnt his hand on the toaster, but that was all over now. He’d leave his house and have to concentrate on school and friends soon enough. Everything would be normal soon.
There was definitely no one out there looking for him, no matter how much he felt like there was.
Max fumbled with the laces on his shoes. He couldn’t just slide them on today, instead having to untie the laces and sit there to tie them back up. At least he wasn’t late yet.
“Are you home tonight?” his mother asked him. “Your father’s home early and he said he wanted to try something different for dinner.” She sat next to him, pulling on her own shoes for work and putting a pair of heels in her bag. Max looked at her, his mom looking back, her red hair pulled into a strict bun and the smile on her freckled face not quite meeting her eyes.
Though he looked more like his father, Max had his mother’s colouring and shared most of her expressions. He knew the one she wore now well.
“I don’t have to be,” Max said. He finally got his laces back in order and picked up his backpack. “Especially if it’s anything like the tuna casserole.”
“To be fair, the recipe did not specify canned tuna.”
“I’ll just go to Jeremy’s house tonight.”
“If you don’t have training tonight, you’re coming home. You aren’t going to let your mother be the only one with food poisoning, are you?”
“You aren’t going to let your only son get food poisoning again, are you?”
“If you don’t have lifeguarding tonight, then you’re coming home,” she said. “Who knows? It might be good.”
“So pizza if it goes wrong?”
“Pizza,” she agreed. She let Max out the door first, locking it behind both of them.
While she drove off, Max made his way down the street, trying to figure out why his feet felt funny. That nagging feeling that something was wrong today wouldn’t leave him, so he did his best to ignore it.
He went to Tara’s house and knocked. “Hey,” she said after yelling her goodbyes into the house. “You look awful...” She was out a moment later, looking him over and tilting her head at his shoes.
Max followed her eyes down and saw what had her confused. Of course his shoes were on the wrong feet. He sat down on the front step of her house and switched them. “It’s been a bad morning.”
“What did you do to him?”
Max looked up as he finished his laces and saw Jeremy coming over from a few doors down. He had his backpack slung over one shoulder and looked at Tara with a grin creeping across his face under his crooked nose. He was limping a bit from a fall in a basketball game a week before, but still pounded a fist into his hand like he was planning to make Tara pay.
“He did it to himself,” Tara said, smiling.
Sometimes he wondered why the two of them didn’t just date already.
Max got to his feet and started walking to school, the other two falling in step beside him. He felt better with the two of them with him, if only because someone would be able to stop him from doing any other incredibly stupid things this morning.
The smile had not left Tara’s face. “So besides forgetting how shoes work…”
“Had a run in with the floor and a toaster this morning, too,” Max said, holding up his hand to show them the burn. When he looked, it had already faded away. “Something’s just off today.”
“Forget your meds?” Jeremy offered.
And then he realized. His alarms didn’t go off. He’d forgotten to take his Adderall.
Today was going to suck.
He glanced back at his house, but he wasn’t going to head back now. He could handle one day without it. Instead, he took out his phone and set an alarm to remember to take it when he got home.
“Even if he did forget, he’s never this off,” Tara said.
“Maybe he’s going to discover he’s Batman today.”
“You mean my parents are going to get shot?” Max asked, pocketing his phone. Jeremy didn’t hear him.
“Except you’re not cool enough for Batman. Maybe Robin.”
“So who’s Batman?” Tara asked.
“Me, obviously. You can be Batgirl. You’d look better in the costume.”
“I really need more girl friends.”
“Yeah, but they wouldn’t be as much fun as us,” Max said. He let his mind wander into the conversation and away from whatever was wrong with him this morning. That feeling that someone was looking for him still lingered in his mind, but discussions about superheroes were enough of a distraction to keep him from obsessing over it.
The feeling of someone looking for him didn’t return until they got to school. Outside the door he spotted a woman dressed in an all white pantsuit and her black hair pulled back. She conferred with two others, these all dressed in black and moving their hands rapidly at one another. None of their mouths were moving.
“Deaf goths?” Tara asked as they walked past them and into the school. “That’s new.”
“You think they’re new?” Max asked, trying to push back his unease. She might be the one looking for him, but he still didn’t know why anyone would be looking for him. As near as he could tell, there was no reason anyone would want him.
Jeremy shrugged. “Maybe? You finish the math homework from last night?”
It’s just the lack of meds talking, he told himself. Except that not taking them doesn’t make you paranoid.
Shine is designed to help you build a firm belief in yourself and your abilities and empower you to navigate life’s ups and downs with grace and resilience
