Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay in the Blog Tour posting, I had a family emergency. I hope you enjoy Ellie’s Super Secret Special Content!
From Ellie:
So there I am one day, on the way to the dog park when I check Twitter and see someone has tweeted a review for Shattered Dreams. I thought about putting the phone down, but curiosity got the better of me (as it always does), and I pulled up the review…and my day got a whole lot better.
That’s how my path first crossed with Jessica’s. Since then I’ve had the pleasure of trading tweets and exploring her blog, and now here we are, the second to last stop on my blog tour, with an extra special scene to share.
If you’ve been following along, you know what I’m going to say (so you can skip down to the ***!) Every now and then a character comes along who spins a story in an entirely new direction. Sometimes these characters are planned; sometimes they’re walk-ons. Regardless, they’re not supposed to be important. They’re not supposed to blow up the plot. They’re not supposed to torture the writer. But, inevitably, they do.
Dylan Fourcade is such a character. He showed up during the last third of SHATTERED DREAMS, the first Midnight Dragonfly book. He was supposed to be a minor, secondary character. Yes, I intended for him to cause conflict between Trinity and her boyfriend, but he wasn’t supposed to touch her soul—or mine. Heck, there was a strong possibility he was going to die somewhere in the second book, BROKEN ILLUSIONS.
But from the moment I first saw him standing there, statue still in the shade of his father’s back porch, everything changed, and I wanted to know more. I had to know more. So did Trinity…and readers. I was blown away by the response to Dylan, who had such a small role in Shattered Dreams. By and far the most common comment about Shattered was…more Dylan, please!
So there I found myself with Dylan, with me wanting to know more about him, with Trinity wanting to know more, with readers wanting to know more…except he was like all Mr. Secret Guy. He wasn’t someone who would just sit down and spill all that he knew or was thinking, all that he felt. He had his reasons for trying to stay in the background, in the shadows, all of which blew up in his face as the story barreled on and Trinity’s precognitive visions put her in greater and greater danger. All the while I found myself longing to see the world through his eyes. However, since the stories are told through Trinity’s eyes, I never could.
Until now, and a series of five secret scenes…
***
Here we find Dylan at an abandoned theme park on the outskirts of New Orleans, sitting in decay and ruin since Hurricane Katrina…
He didn’t know how to leave her, not again. Sometimes that seemed all he did, all he was destined to do. Turn away, walk away. But this time was different. He wasn’t leaving her in a good place. He wasn’t slipping back into the shadows while she moved toward the sunshine. She was kneeling beside an old roller coaster, trying so hard to be brave, when he knew that inside she was dying. Chase was hurt. Bad. He lay there broken and bleeding, hanging on with all that he had, for her. He needed to get to a hospital—fast.
He’d seen her, Trinity’s aunt. From his perch high on the rotting curve, Chase had seen Sara. And something else—someone. Dylan knew that as surely as he knew that Trinity was right. He had to go, to finish what Chase had started.
“Call me,” he gritted out, stripping every fissure of emotion from his voice. That’s not what she needed right now, emotion. She needed strength. She needed action. She needed him to turn and walk away, to find her aunt, even if doing so ripped at all those dark places inside of him.
“If you hear anything,” he said, pushing to his feet. “If a shadow so much as falls the wrong way—”
Her eyes met his, blasting him with resolve and recognition, with the quiet understanding of all that lay ahead of them, and all that lay behind. “I will,” she promised. “I promise.”
Something hard and tight coiled through him. Move, he told himself. It was time to move, but he couldn’t turn away, not with the tears streaming down her face.
“Hurry,” she whispered, pleading—begging. “Please.”
Detaching himself in every way that he could, he pulled the switchblade from his back pocket and extended it toward her. “Take this.”
Wordlessly, she did.
He turned then, and ran.
#
Broken glass crunched beneath his feet, graffiti swirled against the walls. Trash lay strewn everywhere, abandoned like the gutted, water-sogged remains of stuffed animals. Gift shops and cafes and restrooms, they were all there, just as they’d been before the storm. Waiting. Still.
Time was running out. That was all he could think. With each second that drained away, whoever had Sara had one more second to get her out of the park—or find Trinity. And he couldn’t let that happen.
A sound then, registering above the wind. Footsteps. Running. Slipping quickly inside an old snack shop, he lifted his gun just as his father came into view.
“Dad!” he whisper-shouted.
His father spun toward him, his eyes flashing with something wild and dark as he thrust out his arm, as if to stop someone behind him. But the moment passed as quickly as it came, and his father ran toward him.
“They’re here!” Dylan told him, explaining everything.
“We’ve got the place surrounded,” his dad told him, scanning, always scanning. He hesitated in the direction of the alley from where he’d come. “No one’s getting out of here without being seen.”
Dylan nodded, wanting to find comfort in that. But he couldn’t. Cops and guns didn’t guarantee happy endings.
Then the phone rang.
Adrenaline surging, he yanked it toward his face, but it wasn’t Trinity’s name he saw, just a number. A number he didn’t recognize.
He answered anyway.
“Aunt Sara!” came a voice—her voice. “Aunt Sara!”
His heart kicked hard. “Trinity?”
His father stepped closer.
The sound of breathing ripped in from the phone, hard, fast. Desperate. “Aunt Sara, please—”
He started to run. He didn’t know why. He just knew that he had to run, to get to her. That something was wrong. “What?” he asked, sprinting past the blur of shops and rides. “What are you talking about? Did you find her?”
“Dylan!” That was a scream.
The wind shoved at him, as if trying to hold him back, but he was so beyond that, being held back. “I’m here,” he shouted, not caring, not caring who heard or saw. “I’m right here. Tell me where you are—”
“Dylan!” she called, as if she had no idea he was on the phone, no idea where he was. “Aunt Sara! Where are you?”
For a second everything stopped. But that was only his imagination. Reality moved faster, sharper. “Trinity…” he said, injecting a calm into his voice, a calm he didn’t come close to feeling. “What are you talking about?”
But it wasn’t Trinity’s voice that answered. It was a different voice, a man’s voice, garbled, barely audible. Someone with her. Someone shouting. The wind distorted, but he made out a few words. “…mistake…”
“No,” she vowed, and this time her voice chilled to the bone. “I’m not leaving here with you.”
“Yes, you are.”
Oh, Jesus. Oh, God.
Beyond the upside down Jester, the old roller coaster came into view, the overgrown grass where he’d left her.
Chase still lay there, motionless.
Trinity was gone.
“Not without my aunt,” she vowed through the phone, and he realized it, realized it as he sprinted toward the ice cream shop at the corner. She’d called him so that he could hear…so that he would know what was happening to her.
So he could find her.
“Where are you,” he gritted out, even though he knew it was pointless. “Tell me where you are…”
More garbled words: “…game over…I win.”
That voice….
“No,” she cried, and Dylan heard it, the way her voice broke . “I’m not. I’m not stupid, either. I’m not going to be your play thing until you get bored with me.”
Game. The word made his blood run cold.
He legged around the corner, spinning at the same moment he saw the movement from the kiddie area. Red and blue flags flapped violently against a series of twisted tubes. Beyond, old medal swings swung in an endless circle…
The sound of a single gunshot pierced his heart.
“Trinity!’ he shouted, running again, running always. And then he saw her, there on the ground, dragging herself away from—
He couldn’t see the man, not his face. But he saw his shadow, and he knew that he saw her, too.
Metal clanged against metal, and another gunshot ripped into the rush of wind.
A hundred yards separated them.
“No!” he shouted at the same time Detective Jackson’s voice rang in. “Freeze!”
Ninety.
They both ran toward the swings.
Eighty.
“Trinity!” Dylan shouted, seeing it all play before him, every detail, and knowing he would never get there in time. He raised his gun at the exact same moment as the man in shadow.
Her eyes met his.
“No!” he shouted.
Seventy.
Something dark and desperate flashed between them, a recognition they’d lived countless times before. “Dylan—”
Three shots rang out.
The man went down.
All movement stopped, all except the rhythmic swaying of the swings, and the blur of his own movements.
Fifty.
Forty.
Through a haze of darkness he was aware of Jackson ahead of him, shouting, of the brutal, animalistic cry of pain.
Twenty-five.
Of the way the detective went down on his knees and rolled the man away…
Twenty. Fifteen—
And then he saw her, motionless.
Ten—
Dark, blood-matted hair streaked against her pale face.
“Ah, God,” he cried, as everything flashed, and then he was there, dropping down beside her. Touch her. It was all he could think. He had to touch her, to put his hands to her body, her heart.
“I’m here,” he murmured, pulling her limp form in his arms. No breath moved through her. “I’ve got you.”
Always.
About Ellie James
Most people who know Ellie think she’s your nice, average wife and mom of two little kids. They see someone who does all that normal stuff, like grocery shopping, going to soccer games, and somehow always forgetting to get the house cleaned and laundry done.
What they don’t know is that more often than not, this LSU J-School alum is somewhere far, far away, deeply embroiled in solving a riddle or puzzle or crime, testing the limits of possibility, exploring the unexplained, and holding her breath while two people fall in love.
Regardless of which world Ellie’s in, she loves rain and wind and thunder and lightning; the first warm kiss of spring and the first cool whisper of fall; family, friends, and animals; dreams and happy endings; Lost and Fringe; Arcade Fire and Dave Matthews, and last but not least…warm gooey chocolate chip cookies.
You can follow Ellie on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Midnight-Dragonfly-Books-by-Ellie-James/154988421236309
Her next book, FRAGILE DARKNESS, is available from Griffin Teen November 27, 2012.
About the Midnight Dragonfly Series
Glimpses. That’s all they are. Shadowy premonitions flickering through sixteen year old psychic Trinity Monsour’s dreams. Some terrify: a girl screaming, a knife lifting, a body in the grass. But others–the dark, tortured eyes and the shattering kiss, the promise of forever–whisper to her soul. They come without warning. They come without detail.
But they always mean the same thing: The clock is ticking, and only Trinity can stop it.
Find out how in Shattered Dreams, Broken Illusions, and Fragile Darkness, available from Griffin Teen!
Click on the book titles above to check out A Midsummer Night’s Read reviews of each of Ellie James’ novels!
Hello again! It’s me, Jessica. I just have to tell you how much I adored this series (notice I said SERIES instead of TRILOGY, because I’m holding out hope that Ellie will continue Trinity’s story!) and I think everyone needs to pick up a copy ASAP.
Although, you are in luck! I’m giving away the entire trilogy here on A Midsummer Night’s Read!
Moving! 