Just for fun...K&L kick start

To give myself a little kick in the ass to get back into Luke and Keira's story -- the one due 1/1, I thought I'd post the first few rough--as in first drafts--paragraphs here. (I say first drafts-plural-because I have many first drafts.) Considering how many times I revise, they may look completely different a month from now.

But while I'm into the writing and deep editing, I will most likely continue to share little piece of the book here on the blog, along with photos and theme songs and quotes. Stay tuned if you like that kind of stuff.

Keira O'Shay flexed and released her fingers around the grip of her Colt AR-15 assault rifle, her mind on the little boy inside the religious cult compound. The boy she’d been tracking for over a year now.

She squinted through the hundred-and-something degree heat rippling off the hard, dry Nevada landscape. The ranch house and barns of the property danced in watery distortion, shifting like reflections in a House of Mirrors.

Fitting. From the very beginning this situation had taunted Keira with her twisted past.

Her commander, F.B.I. Senior Special Agent Angus West, leaned his hip against the bed of an agency pickup five feet away, arguing logistics with the incident commander from A.T.F. while she and her team wilted in their S.W.A.T. fatigues like steamed vegetables.

Fucking departmental posturing. Fucking egos. Fucking waste of time. So much precious time already depleted in briefing, staging, arming, negotiating.

Gunfire cracked through the air. The clang, clang, clang of bullets against metal echoed from the ranch house.

Keira flinched. The half-empty bottle of Gatorade in her hand exploded beneath the crush of her fingers. Orange liquid burst in her peripheral vision, and she chucked the shattered drink at the dirt.

Crack. Crack, crack crack. The return of fire from agents.

“Don’t shoot, you idiots." She muttered from between clenched teeth so her team, waiting for orders just twenty feet away beneath the shade of a single pathetic tree, wouldn’t hear. "My boy is in there.”

Her gaze slid along the roof line. Jumped from window to window. Scoured the borders of the main building. No sight of man, woman or child. Not even a mangy mutt or a scuttling rat.

Not a sound from inside. No screams, no cries. Not a damn word.

Her stomach twisted tighter, something she hadn't believed possible. She already felt like a bottle of champagne—shaken and still corked.

Enough of this bullshit.

She pushed off the S.W.A.T. van acting as a barrier to the hostilities, jerked her uniform ball cap off and whipped toward the men supposedly in charge. They had ceased their dispute to watch F.B.I. and A.T.F. agents scuttle among pickup trucks and outbuildings for cover.

“Excuse me, sir.” She looked directly at Angus, her patience as worn as the cracked earth beneath her feet. “What are we waiting for? A neon sign flashing ‘Armageddon this way’?”

Time to get to work...