Twenty-One Excerpt

I know I offered an excerpt of Aouthentica, and I will get one for you! It's nearly all typed up, and once I get a chance to do a touch of editing, it will come. Pinkie promise. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a cupcake in my eye. {Sidenote: Hannah's done most of the typing for me. So, special thanks to her. Also, I got her to do it by not letting her read it unless she's typing it up, so she's spent hours working on it just because she wants to get to the end of the story. Which surprised me for two reasons. One, that she would spend that much time sitting in front of the computer working for me. And two, that she actually liked it enough to keep working on it that long.}
ANYWAY.
I was writing in my 642 Things To Write book (which is basically a writing prompt catalog), and I decided to write a bit with my Twenty-One characters, and I quite liked it, so I decided to share it with you.
I haven't talked much about Twenty-One, because I don't have much to say about it yet. It's kind of been on the back burner, stewing and slowly, ever so slowly growing. But I'll give you a bit of explanation.

First, my little summary.

Luke Cooper isn't supposed to exist.  So when someone calls the mercenary headquarters looking for him, Tactic panics. He's already on thin ice with the rest of the team. Any more scrutiny and his secret could be discovered.

The story centers around Tactic, and his protege LaRue. They're mercenaries and assassins, and for obvious reasons they want to leave their pasts behind and keep them secret. But Tactic's is catching up with him, and he's made a lot of mistakes recently. The others in the association are not trustworthy, and they might turn on him, so he's trying to keep Luke Cooper a secret.

              This is LaRue.                                                            This is Tactic.

The excerpts are based on the prompts, of course. The first is from Tactic's point of view, and the second is from LaRue's POV. There's about a minute's gap between the two. Some things that were said that I just didn't write down. 

Start with "I never told anyone..."

“I never told anyone my real name.” I scooped up another handful of ammunition and began feeding it into the mag, avoiding LaRue’s gaze.

Her hands stopped moving. “You’re Luke Cooper.”

“What? No!” I felt the faintest twinge of guilt, something that hadn’t reared it’s debilitating head in a long time. She deserved better than a lie after what we’d been through. But no one could know this. It was a time bomb without a failsafe. I wondered what I was doing holding it.

LaRue slowly reached for the box, groping slightly because her eyes were still on me. “Do you remember the day we talked about reading people? And the different signs, and what they meant?”

I knew where this was going. We had primarily discussed how to detect honesty versus dishonesty. She was going to call me out. I had to answer carefully.

“Vaguely. Was that when we were in India?”

She didn’t answer, still feeding bullets into her magazine clumsily, still not looking away. She was trying to wear me down with silence. It wouldn’t work. I was the king of silence.

“Tactic…” She had obviously given up quickly. “You said liars always look away. Look at me and tell me you’re not Luke Cooper.”

Write a scene that begins with "It was the first time I killed a man..."

“It was the first time I killed a man.” Tactic held my gaze now. He was telling the truth.

“It was an accident, in a way. I didn’t mean to kill him. I crossed the line before I even realized it was there. I had too many plans to let my life stop for an arrest and trial. So I ran. I erased Luke Cooper. He’s not supposed to exist. Now he shows up again, and he’s someone else.”

I took a deep breath, knowing we were treading on dangerous ground. “We can’t let Shadow find out. She already doesn’t trust you. And we’ve got to take out Luke Cooper. Wherever he is, whoever he is.”

“Oh, no…” Tactic stood up and slung his AK over his shoulder, and intense look on his face. “You’re not getting involved in this, LaRue. You’ve got a career here. Unless I get this wrapped up, I’m a time bomb. Distance yourself. Find a new buddy. If my reputation takes a dive, maybe you can salvage yours.”

“I started out with no reputation. I’m used to it, so I can do it again. You’re the one who’ll crash and burn without your precious reputation.” I waved my hands in the air and pitched my voice deeper and more rough. “I’m the great Tactic, mortals! Fear me! I can kill ten men with my big toe and a piece of pocket lint.”

He frowned. Obviously this was bothering him more than he let on. Usually my impressions cracked him up.

And that's all I have for now. Let me know what you think. If you like it, perhaps I'll share the original creative writing it's based off of. I know a couple parts are a little... overdramatic? Hannah says I keep doing that in Aouthentica. For example: 

"Rienna smiled again, feeling as if she had finally found a little speck of hope in a vast landscape of despair."

Yeah, that won't make it into the final draft. And in my defense, it was probably very late at night when I wrote it. And I was probably exhausted. So, cut me a little slack.

Aouthentica Excerpt Coming Soon!

Sé onr sverdar sitja hvass!

-Trinity

P.S. I do not own the rights to any of these photos, though the cover for Twenty-One is of my own making.