The world is a shadow of what it once was.
War with the Blue Rats has decimated the world for over 100 years. Entire countries have been cut off from each other, with few able to communicate and trade. No one believes the War can be won, and those who are conscripted to fight do it expecting to die and wondering if they are sacrificing their lives for nothing.
She is in hiding.
Amidst the turmoil of a world cut off from each other is Jaci, a young girl living in the 23rd Quarter, dirt-poor and hiding from a obscure face she refuses to name. A chance encounter at a bar brawl has her meeting Nicholas Foakes, the crown Prince. From the get-go she is enamoured with his savvy attitude, his pirate smile, his unearthly eyes that hold her captive. Yet in a distant corner of her mind she knows she must keep away from the Prince, for he spells destruction not only for her heart, but for the safety of her very life.
Nicholas Foakes is tired.
He jokes with his closest friend Robin, toys with his own sanity and the patience of his hypocritical family, infuriates those he gambles money from, sleeps with renown beauties from all stations of life...but he's tired. To Nick, it's all the same, just a way of passing time until something worthwhile occupies him.
When he meets Jaci, he thinks she's something to temporarily entertain him. But, the more time he spends with her, the faster he comes to realize that Jaci isn't just a passing fancy. She's more real than anything he's ever faced, and he is determined to bring down the walls she's built around herself and make her his, and his alone.
Started writing Higher Ground in: 2017 Last remembered edit of this excerpt: 2020
This prison is rank with the stench of urine, shite, and the heavy odour of people's unwashed bodies. The first few rays of the morning sun are just peering into the window cell. It has been an entire night, and the smell doesn’t get any better. In fact, I think it actually gets worse, because at least three more wriggling bodies are thrown in cells during the course of the night in addition to those captured at the inn.
This is what being arrested smells like. The prison’s reputation for smelling fucking terrible is well-founded.
I stare at the fan circling over the desk of the guard Cop sitting and writing something. Every once in a while when the fan slows down the guard reaches up and tugs the length of wire or rope or something hanging down from the fan and it starts rotating again with renewed vigour. Each time he does this, he mutters colourfully under his breath in a deadpan tone. Like clockwork.
Some of the other inmates –the other people who’ve been taken in at the inn –occasionally call out to the guard, but they may as well be trying to communicate with a brick wall for all the attention he pays them. He only gives them any mind when they threaten to defecate right there in their cells. This coming from the women, just as well as the men.
Disgusting. It’s just –this whole place, it’s fucking disgusting. How the hell did I end up here?