Eighteen-year-old Brooklyn never knew her father. Rex Blackburn died in the 9/11 attacks four months before she was born.
And even though she never met him, she always dreamed about what he must have been like before he died. In her mind, he was a hero.
Little did she know.
After an attack at a 9/11 memorial gala, Brooklyn learns her father had been a member of an elite, anti-terrorism, military task force, made up of a very select group of people who had superhuman abilities. On the day the towers fell, he died using his power to save people.
The Army believes she inherited his gift, and Brooklyn is invited to train at West Point in order to hone her skills. Knowing deep down she is different than anyone else her age and wanting to learn more about a father she never knew, she readily agrees to become a cadet at the prestigious military academy.
She and five other 9/11 babies strengthen their superhuman abilities and spend weeks preparing themselves for their future in the army, fighting terrorists at home and abroad. And in the process of training, they identify with their deceased parents in a way they never knew they could.
Brooklyn knows she’ll go to war someday, but when terrorists find out about the group’s gifts, they don’t bother to wait.
The first blast came from behind the flag at the front of the room, shattering the silence we’d upheld during the patriotic song. It could have killed us, but it only succeeded in throwing me sideways, making me land sharply on the edge of the buffet table.
Land that I love!
Stand beside her, and guide her…
A hand reached toward me. I clung to it desperately as it tried to pull me out of the chaos, away from the explosions and the deafening spray of gunshots.
Through the night with the light from above.
Three short breaths – two blinks – and we were hit again, this time from the back.
Sticky warmth ran down the back of my neck and between my bare shoulder blades. The tight dress I wore to the memorial gala trapped me as I tried to escape.
From the mountains,
To the prairies…
I gripped the hand that had grabbed mine. The owner of it was ripped backwards, succumbing to the crowd, his fiery red hair sticking out among the mass. With all my strength, I threw him in front of me, and together, we sprinted toward the exit.
To the oceans,
White with foam!
Camouflaged men lining the back of the room aimed past me as we ran. They opened fire on a target I didn’t know.
God bless America!
My home, sweet home!
‘Didn’t know?’
That was a lie. I knew who he was.
He was the monster who killed my dad on the attacks of 9/11, the one who sentenced my mom to a lifetime of grief and pain.
God bless America!
The entire country knows him, and they know him well.
Amanda Deich is an author out of Littleton, CO. In her non-writer life, she is a teacher and coach to hundreds of kids, and she is a mama to two. If you meet her, she’ll talk Jesus and identity like no one’s business.
A prison break, a secret admirer, and a boatload of lies. Just about everything Sloane Cabot knows about her past is a big old pile of malarkey. Couple that with the blank spot of how her family died, and she needs answers, like, yesterday.
But when a man shows up dead on her family’s grave, she knows it somehow has to be tied to that fateful night a year ago.
A pair of guards opened the giant doors, bowing at Thomas as he guided me through. It was an actual struggle not to freeze at the entrance and stare. But man, did I want to. This place—while definitely what I would consider on-brand for a vamp nest—was one of the most magnificent buildings I’d ever been in. I wasn’t particularly interested in other churches, but this cathedral was just a beauty. A gallery of pews sat to the left and right of a wide aisle that led to a raised dais. Vampires filled the seats, dressed similarly to Thomas and me, their voices a low buzz of conversation. More people were sitting in the upper gallery, their opulent gowns and sharp tuxedos a happy reminder that Thomas had my back. Had I walked in here with leather pants and a whip on my hip, I had a feeling I would have been just a touch out of place.
Thomas continued his leading, guiding me down the aisle toward a stunningly severe woman sitting on what appeared to be a throne. Skin paler than death, eyes vamped out in a way that seemed permanent, and painted lips the color of blood, she was the most beautiful and yet most frightening woman I’d ever seen. Dark hair was piled on her head in purposefully haphazard curls, a few tendrils snaking out of the complicated up-do to artfully caress her neck. She wore a brilliant green gown that was so simple, and yet so achingly complex, it had to have cost a fortune.
We reached the end of the aisle, and Thomas bowed his head slightly. I copied him, wishing I would have received an etiquette lesson on the hour-long drive here. All I’d gotten was Thomas’ clenched jaw and silence.
“You have some nerve,” a woman growled, drawing my gaze from what had to be the queen of this nest to her right.
I quickly realized that the voice did not belong to a woman at all but a child. Pale-blonde hair and blue eyes were set in an elfin face of a vampire who had likely been no more than ten when she was turned. And that had to have been centuries ago. This little whisp of a “girl”—and I use that word lightly—had the look of a being older than dirt. Dressed in a black lace confection appropriate for a child beauty queen, she stood from her chair.
She then launched herself at Thomas.
I couldn’t exactly say why I did it. I mean, she had me by centuries, and Thomas could take care of himself. But as soon as her feet left the dais, I had the knife Clem had given me yanked from its sheath and was in front of the man in an instant.
Thomas owed me, not the other way around, but he’d been kind to me when I’d needed it, and I wouldn’t let him get attacked. No way, no how.
It was as if everyone froze. Conversations halted, guards stood stock-still, and even this slip of a thing stood arrested at the end of my blade, which was poised at her throat.
To this tiny—but by no means less deadly—vampire at the point of my knife, I said, “Settle down there, Blondie, or we’re going to have a problem.”
Annie Anderson is a military wife and United States Air Force veteran. Originally from Dallas, Texas, she is a southern girl at heart, but has lived all over the US and abroad. As soon as the military stops moving her family around, she’ll settle on a state, but for now she enjoys being a nomad with her husband, two daughters, an old man of a dog, and a young pup that makes life… interesting.
Starfighter Training Academy. It was just a game. The newest, hottest video game release of the year. Choose a role. Build the perfect hero who joins you on missions to save the Vega star system from the evil Queen Raya and her merciless Dark Fleet.
Play for hours? Check. Obsess over the in-game romance between your avatar and the sexiest alien you’ve ever seen? Check. Win? Beat the heck out of the game? Check and check.
Open your door at 3:00 in the morning to find that smoking hot alien you thought you made up in your head standing there? Um… okay.
Wake up on the other side of the galaxy with that same alien insisting you’re his… and that you haven’t been playing a video game, but completed the training program to become the first Starfighter from Earth?
I rolled over and blinked at my alarm clock. Three freaking thirty in the morning?
I must have been dreaming.
The pounding repeated, louder.
No one came to my door this late. Ever. Hell, no one came to my door at all unless I had a delivery or one of my neighbors needed something. I threw off my covers and slipped my toes into cold slippers.
“Coming!” Was my apartment building on fire? Was it the police? Had the neighbors been screaming at each other again? She really needed to kick that deadbeat boyfriend of hers to the curb.
The pounding intensified, and it was obvious that whoever was on the other side of the door had no problem waking up the entire building.
“I said, I’m coming!” I opened the door and stopped dead in my tracks. A huge man stood in the hallway wearing a helmet of some kind, as if he’d been riding a motorcycle. Which was crazy because it was cold and wet and not motorcycle weather.
He removed the helmet, and I stepped back. My eyes widened in recognition. Black hair, those familiar sparkling green eyes. Perfect olive skin. Full lips. Square jaw. A familiar uniform with a crest on his chest, the one I’d just seen on my gaming screen.
“Jamie.”
I stared, my throat and mouth frozen. Holy shit. That voice. I knewthat voice.
He was as big as I’d imagined. No, bigger. Broader. More intense. That gaze, it bored into me, past my flannel pj’s and to a place that left me speechless. My heart pounded, and I feared I was losing my mind. Hallucinating. This had to be a dream.
“Jamie Miller, you must come with me.”
“Um… what?” I finally said.
“You are the first Starfighter. And you are mine. Queen Raya has mobilized the Dark Fleet, and together we must save Velerion.”
Grace Goodwin is a USA Today and international bestselling author of Sci-Fi and Paranormal romance with nearly one million books sold. Grace’s titles are available worldwide in multiple languages in ebook, print and audio formats. Two best friends, one left-brained, the other right-brained, make up the award-winning writing duo that is Grace Goodwin. They are both mothers, escape room enthusiasts, avid readers and intrepid defenders of their preferred beverages. (There may or may not be an ongoing tea vs. coffee war occurring during their daily communications.) Grace loves to hear from readers.
