Submission #10

Name: Robin Weeks
Title: GEAS (YA Urban Fantasy)
First 250 (well, 259--you said we could finish the sentence) :) :

Brina’s only warning was a light brush on her upper left wing. A second later, an elaborately folded magazine cover landed in her lap: a pterodactyl this time. Original. The complex folds obscured the picture, but Brina already knew that her face was lost somewhere inside. It had been taped to her locker (marked over with devil horns and a forked tail), stuck to the bathroom wall (with bat wings and fangs), and slipped inside her Biology book (with blacked out teeth and crossed eyes). It had been folded into airplanes and rolled into spit-wad shooters. It had been scribbled over with slurs of every kind. An anti-tribute to the school outcast.

After the first ten, she’d stopped smiling and thanking the sender. After the first twenty, she’d stopped feeling sick every time and settled for numb. By 3:30, she had a collection of fifty or more. Us Magazine must be making a killing.

Without taking her eyes off the stage, Moira reached over, snatched the newest offering, viciously crumpled it, and jammed it into her backpack with the rest of them.

“Nice picture, freak,” hissed a voice behind them.

Moira’s face hardened, but Brina shook her head. “Not worth it.”

In the dim light of the high school auditorium, thirty minutes into auditions for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Brina was too nervous to care anymore. Moira flashed a one-finger salute to the rear, Brina sighed, and they both went back to watching the stage.

Until the jerk behind them yanked on Brina’s glowing White wing, making her yelp.