Bouncer Post #104

Title: Precog

Genre: New Adult Paranormal

Word Count: 96,000

Query:

As a psychology major, twenty-four year old Ruth Lacey knows it’s not uncommon for a child raised in an abusive home to feel out of place and alone.  However, it isn’t Ruth’s past that isolates her.  It’s her ability to see the future. 

Wanting only to be normal, Ruth keeps her thoughts firmly in the present and hides her weirdness from everyone, even her two roommates.  In their friendship, Ruth found the only home she’s ever had and she doesn’t want to jeopardize that.

Then Ruth meets David Byrne. The moment his eyes meet hers, her mind slips its tight rein and slides sideways into the what if of David.  She feels his lips on hers, his hands, hot and hard on her back before her vision ends.   Ruth’s glimpse of her future with David comes to pass but Ruth finds out he’s more than a good kisser. He’s educated, ambitious, well-traveled, from a wealthy family, and completely smitten with Ruth.

Despite her roommate, Claudia’s dislike of David and her roommate, Mairin’s too enthusiastic endorsement of him, Ruth wraps herself in the bliss of being with him.  She drives away her misgivings about his odd relationship with his mother, his possessiveness and his flashes of cold anger with a vision of her wedding day. 

The night before their wedding, David reveals his true self, unleashing his rage on Ruth.  Ruth leaves David at the altar, putting her on a path she was never meant to tread and robbing her of her ability to see the future.  Unable to see what awaits, Ruth and both of her roommates are at the mercy of the monster she invited into their lives.

First 250:

Prologue

Pain in my hands. Mom yelling my name.  Fire on the stovetop.  Heat on my face. 

Water.  Need water.  Need water.  Pitcher on the table.  Get it.

“No, Ruthie.  Dammit.” Dad roaring. Water hitting the fire. Flames roaring. 

Dad shoving me.  Pain in my back.

“Get the baking soda, Ellie.”

Mom, pale, wide-eyed, handing the box to Dad.  White powder everywhere.

Flames sputtering, dying.  Dad turning on me.  “Idiot, clumsy, fool girl. Don’t you know better than to use water on a grease fire?”

Back up.  Table there. Can’t go any farther. Oh, no.  Oh, God.

“Ruth.”

Something soft and warm touched my arm.  I cried out, jerked, heard something fall off my desk and slap on the floor. Textbook?

Hands closed on both my arms.  I felt myself being shaken.  “Ruth, look at me.  Are you alright?”

I struggled to make myself focus, focus on the voice, focus on my mom’s face.  I could see her eyes, dark brown, the wrinkles around them parentheses of concern but everything else was spinning.  Nausea rose in me like a riptide.  I coughed, heaved, felt something cool and slick pressed against my chin, heard vomit splatter into the container my mom was holding under my mouth.

“Oh, Peanut.”

I sagged back into my chair and drew a hand across my mouth. My vision was still strange, everything too big, too bright, too close and I was trembling all over.

“What happened, honey?  Are you sick?  You looked like you were having a seizure or something.”