Pawn (Nightmares Trilogy #1) (44 page)

“The food and drinks are on
their way out, so please take advantage.
As a special treat, curfew for the night has been
lifted.
And there will no training until
after lunchtime tomorrow, so enjoy yourselves,” Henri called to the
entire group.

Upon arriving at Elite
Headquarters to start our Pledge year, each Pledge was assigned to
a Hunting team with a vacancy.
Hunting
teams
have three members, but when one
member
left– for whatever reason – the
Agency
replaced
him, or her, with a Pledge.
Part of
what made the Hunters such a competitive division was the fact that
they only took as many Pledges as there were vacant Hunting
positions
.
This year only fifteen of us were accepted, much
less than most years.

I’d been assigned to Henri
Reich and Erik Kelley’s Hunting team.
Henri was the oldest, and the leader of our trio.
He stood almost two feet taller than me and was
all lean muscle.
His eyes were
a
warm, light brown, and
he wore
his hair
just a little longer than most Hunters would have.
Henri had been kind and patient in my short time
working with him.

Erik was his polar
opposite.
He was only a couple of years
younger than Henri, but was much more immature. It had amazed me to
learn they were such good friends; regularly hanging out in their
free time.
Erik was shorter – somewhere
right in the middle of Henri’s height and mine – and more muscular
than Henri, but by no means bulky.
His
thick, dark hair naturally fell to one side, and was long enough
that he used a bandana to keep it out of his face when we
practiced.
He had extraordinary turquoise
eyes; peculiar eye colors were a byproduct of the same nuclear
spill that had caused our Talents. My own unnatural purplish-blue
eyes were a result of the same catastrophe.

Several more Hunters came
over to welcome me and offer their congratulations.
Graciously, I thanked them.
Donavon grabbed my hand and led me away from the group
after a short, squat boy with dark brown hair,
whose name might have been Lenyx, had extended his
felicitations.

“Thanks,”
I mentally sent him.

I wasn’t exactly what you
would call social.
For most of my life,
I’ve had only one friend: Donavon. My parents had hired private
tutors for me since we had never stayed in one place long enough
for me to go to school and I rarely had the opportunity to spend
time with other children.
Donavon was a
social butterfly, but he knew that large groups of people make me
uncomfortable.

“I figured you might want
to get away.”

“What makes you think I
want to get away with you?”
I teased
him.
He pulled me close, wrapping one arm
around my waist, and lifted me off of my feet until our lips
met.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and
kissed him back; I could never stay mad at him for very
long.

“Told you that you wanted
to get away with me,” he whispered in my ear, setting me back on my
bare feet.
His breath tickled my ear, and
I giggled in spite of myself.

He took my hand and led me
behind the semi-circle of cabins, known at Headquarters as
Hunters Village, and into the woods.
We followed a short dirt path through the trees
and into another small clearing. There was a small fire already
blazing in the center of the clearing, and blankets and pillows
were spread out next to it.

“It’s been so long since we
spent time alone together.
I thought that
since you don’t have a curfew tonight, maybe we could sleep under
the stars.”
His mental voice sounded
tentative.
I could tell he was afraid that
I’d say no.

We hadn’t spent much time
together, just the two of us, in nearly a year.
Since I was younger than Donavon, I still had to complete my
time at school while he’d come
to
Headquarters.
The time apart had been hard
on both of us.
I’d seen him on holidays,
and the occasional weekend he’d been allowed to leave, and we’d
talked daily, but it had been a huge change from seeing each other
in classes and at every meal.
One of the
things I’d been looking forward to the most was being around him
again.

I strode confidently
towards the blankets and sat down.
I
patted a spot on the fabric next to me.
Donavon gave me a huge smile and took a seat, folding his
long legs underneath him.

“Donavon . . .,”
I mentally began, looking at my hands
uncomfortably.
I
did
want to spend the night with him
out here, under the stars, but I also didn’t want him to get the
wrong idea.

He lifted my chin, forcing me to meet
his clear blue eyes.

“I know, Tal.
No pressure. I just want to spend time with
you.”
His mental voice was
soft.

“Thank you,” I said out
loud, giving him an appreciative half-grin.
Donavon was only a year older than me, but that year seemed
to make all the difference when it came to taking the next step in
our relationship.

We both lay down with our
heads on the pillows, facing each other.
Donavon draped one arm over my small waist and extended the
other one under my head.
We stayed like
that for the rest of the night.
Nobody
walking by would have been able to overhear our conversation, even
though we talked until just before sunrise.
Our entire exchange took place mentally.
We rarely spoke “normally”, not since that first summer when
we met.

Donavon pulled me in closer, and I
buried my face in his broad chest feeling comfortable, and relaxed
for the first time since arriving at Elite Headquarters.

I drifted off to sleep as the sky
turned from the dark of night to the pink of morning.

Acknowledgements

There have been so many
people that have been instrumental in helping me research and
write
Pawn
. Many
of you know who you are. But you all deserve credit for the
incredible work that you have done and continue to do to support me
and my writing. Of course I want to start off by thanking my
parents, Esther and Henry, for their never ending support. They
have helped with everything from word choice to plot points to
unyielding encouragement. Hannah, as always, thank you for being
the true backbone of Sophie Davis books. Without you, not only
would
Pawn
have
never been written, the Talented Saga would never have seen the
light of day. You are the one person I can always count on to tell
me the truth about my writing and to let me know when I am being
drama queen by declaring the newest manuscript complete poop. Niki
and Charles Irish, thank you both for reading early editions
of
Pawn
and
spending Easter Sunday bouncing editing ideas with me. Jenn Haines,
thank you for your unwavering support and for providing me with my
youngest fan to date, your son, Ben. To my adoptive book mother,
Belinda Gallant, thank you so much for everything you do to promote
all of my books. You have become an invaluable part of the Sophie
Davis team. To Barbra Gordon, Jacquie Talento, and Cathie Veers,
thank you for not only joining my street team, but actually making
it a real team. Your creativity and dedication has helped the
Talented Saga become a success. I know with you all by my side we
will go far. Derinda Love, thank you for being so kind and generous
with your time and resources. For an author just starting out, I
cannot tell you how good it feels to have such a great friend and
ally. To Madison Daniels, thank you for all of the encouragement
and help with the
Pawn
trailer. You rock. Christine Hughes, thank you for always
being there when I need a sounding board. You have been a truly
great author friend to have. To Wendy Chartier, thank you for all
of your hard work setting up the
Pawn
release event. Thank you to
Heather Alexander and Kathy Eccleston for running the release event
and making it a wonderful success. Thank you to Betty Johnson for
donating the dream catcher necklace for the giveaway. Thank you to
Meliara, Beth Hoover, June Seto, and Crissy Mackey for all of your
wonderful feedback and comments on the book. You guys are the best
beta readers that an author can ask for. To Kannon Moore, thank you
for allowing me the use of your name. Should this book ever become
a movie and the next generation of little boys are all named after
you, I apologize. And last, but certainly not least, thank you to
all of the fans. You guys make all the sleepless nights worth
it.

For more information on
Sophie Davis
and the Talented Series or the
Nightmares Trilogy, visit Sophie’s website,
www.sophiedavisbooks.com

To contact Sophie directly,
email her at
[email protected]
.

You can also follow Sophie on twitter,
@sophiedavisbook.

Thank you for taking the time to read
Pawn. Sophie loves feedback, and any reviews posted to
goodreads.com, amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, ibooks.com, or any
other retail site where Pawn is sold, are greatly
appreciated.