Surprise Agent Invasion #31

Title: INK

Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Mystery

Word Count: 34,000

Query:

With a slip of paper and a lighter, Mazie ruined lives. With her sketch pad in a tattoo shop, she’ll try to save one.

She didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt. Now, fresh out of juvie for arson, fifteen-year-old Mazie is living on the streets and searching for a missing girl—the daughter of the firefighter who died in the flames Mazie started. Bringing Samantha back to her family could help make up for the loss she caused and put an end to Mazie’s nightmares.

But finding Samantha means NOT laying low—a dangerous proposition considering a sexy tattooed stranger, maybe Samantha’s kidnapper, is hunting Mazie down.

INK will appeal to fans of fast-paced suspense such as Lisa McMann’s WAKE series and Gail Giles' WHAT HAPPENED TO CASS MCBRIDE.

First 250:

I was the only guilty kid in juvie—or the only one who admitted it. When they stamped TIME SERVED on my court docs and Aunt Deb was done posing as a responsible adult, I stepped into the street and kept walking. Past the chain-link-fence-covered basketball courts. Past the half-lit Bail Money Now sign. Past Luther’s Pawn Shop and its promise of the best price for my gold.

If I went far enough, there would be a grassy park where people walked dogs and flew kites. If I took enough steps, nobody would know enough to whisper and wonder about the girl who lit the spark that grew into the flames that devoured the house on Decatur Road.

The sun breathed on me. I squirmed as sweat drops rolled down my back. A car turned onto the street with its bass pounding. I looked at the cracks in the sidewalk and studied the ants. They hurried like a liquid line to a smashed crispy frog.

Still, they knew where to go.

I slid my hand in my pocket and felt for the wad of ones Mama sent me. Still there. Not enough for a bus ride to South Carolina, but she couldn’t keep me anyhow.

“I’ll send more when business picks up,” she wrote.

I wondered where she’d send it.

My stomach growled. If I could hold off until sunset I could dumpster dive at the bread store. Maybe I’d even score some banana bread.

I walked quicker. A lone ant.