As the saga of Kilesha and The Atlantis Rock Band continues, we see new problems developing for the Atlanteans to remedy.
Dave Saren has a past riddled with drugs and booze, one he’s trying hard to overcome. The superstar rock band Pepper Tree Lollipop has a future they are trying to preserve, one that promises a bright hope to the teens of the world. When Lollipop is kidnapped by bigwigs from the drug scene, Dave finds himself in the hands of unscrupulous thugs who will stop at nothing to discredit the band’s anti-drug campaign, including implicating him as one of the drug mongers responsible for Lollipop’s downfall to the same dope they have been publicly waging war against. Can Dave save the day, his career and the esteem of his son Mike by escaping and rescuing the band, or will he succumb to the drugs they are already pumping into his system?
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Excerpt
Dave Saren pulled his shiny new red Mercedes E350 Sedan into the parking space on the back side of the airport, just as the equally lustrous gold Astra SP private jet was completing its circle of the runway. Plenty of time, he told himself as he watched the sun glinting off the plane a moment before he slid out from behind the wheel. Wondering where the transport van was, he crossed to the man standing by the limousine.
He gave the man a curt nod and his card before he spoke. "Harry inside?" he asked, peering to no avail at the dark tinted windows.
"Harry?" the man asked, seeming for a moment to have just awakened from a stupor. "Oh . . . no," he managed, after a pause Dave thought was just a tad too long, "Harry had a slight emergency with his—er—brother, and was called out of town late last night. Me and Chester over there are filling in for him today."
"Chester . . ." Dave mused, scanning for the other man but not seeing anyone. "Where are the others?"
"Don't need no one else," he answered. "Band has their own bodyguard, travels with 'em. They don't want no others gettin' in the way of their own man."
Dave knit his brow as he considered the other man's words. Pepper Tree Lollipop's bodyguard was out of commission with a crushed shoulder and reconstructive surgery resulting from an accident that had left him maimed and two of his associates dead. At the band's request, Dave had lined up a security team to meet him here, escort the group to their accommodations and join their entourage for the duration of their stay in Austin. Whoever this guy was, Dave didn't think he belonged here, and he started to tell him as much when the lights began to dim. He felt an instant of bursting pain in his head as everything started to go dark, but not before he saw the black Chevy Express extended cargo van pull in beside the limo. Three armed men sprang out the back door of the van before the vehicle stopped moving, just as Dave's vision blurred completely and he staggered, and then slid to his knees.
"And about damn time!" the stranger said to the new arrivals. "Here, get this yokel into the back of the van and cover him up before someone sees him."
"Dave was faintly aware of rough hands grabbing his unresponsive body and tossing him into the unlit back of the van. His head slammed against something cold and unyielding, the inside wall of the van—? And he knew he'd wake with a terrible headache later—if he woke at all. At the moment though, he couldn't quite be bothered to worry about an aching head. These people weren't part of Dave's security crew, and that could mean only one thing. He—and the Lollipop Band—were in a lot of trouble. Two unsuccessful attempts to derail the band had been thwarted in past months. Didn't it just figure the crooks would succeed on his shift though? Were these the same attackers as before? What did they want? Why in Austin, just when he was getting his life back on track? Damn! Not now!
He heard, more than felt, his hands and feet being tightly trussed behind his back with duct tape before they rolled him over, taped his mouth shut and pulled a long, dark cloth sack over his body. How had they drugged him? He tried to replay the scene in his mind, but found he was losing consciousness, and no amount of determination could shake the drugs coursing through his system. Mike and Benjamin's faces, full of shame and hurt, flashed through his mind and then faded, along with all other thoughts as he lost all consciousness. .
Heaven sent us an angel. She could be your neighbor. Her friends call her Megan, but when her eyes are glowing, everyone calls her Ember Reign.
Megan Martin was an average teenager. She felt cheated when her grandfather died and grandmother
The entire BetterWorld cyberpunk trilogy plus added material is now available in one ebook! In the trilogy, an unemployed bipolar journalist, her VR-addicted younger sister, and a teenage hacker try to stop a giant corporation from controlling the wo
