Excerpt A Twisted Fate

My breath clouded my vision as I got out and waved the taxi driver off. I hooked my thumbs under my backpack straps.

“Now what, crazy bitch?” I asked under my breath. I brushed the snow off a park bench and sat down, but the cold seeped through my jacket. Glowing red, blue, green, and white lights reflected off the water stretched out like a strand of icicle lights on a Christmas tree all around the dark lake. Blank spots from unlit buildings broke up the strand. One right across from me stood out—the old historic steam plant. I remembered when the smokestacks used to belch out clouds of steam onto the lake.

Wait a minute.

Smokestacks looked like towers. That damn building had thousands of windows, like a squat five-story skyscraper. I’d been so focused on seaplanes I’d forgotten about everything else in the vision. But now I was on the wrong side of the lake, and the taxi had already left.

Fucking-A.

— A Twisted Fate