Arrival (Book One of the Maddy Young Diaries) [Kindle Edition]

The only thing Maddy Young knows for certain is that he died. As Two's newest public defender, Maddy's first case is to defend a man accused of killing three scientists. Three Historians. But there is more to Maddy's client than meets the eye. He is a Born. A protector of the Pure. Soon, Maddy finds himself embroiled in a war for all the world's memories and he begins to doubt the only truth he knows. Did he really die?

Excerpt from Chapter One:

“How did you die?”

I turned my head. The girl couldn’t have been more than seven. She had light brown hair held back in a ponytail. Her nose was dusted with light freckles, her cheeks as well, only not as densely as the freckles on her nose. She waited a second for my response, then said, “I went into diabetic shock.”

I nodded, like this wasn’t the craziest thing I’d ever heard.

She continued, “I have an uncle here. Uncle Trent. He died in a car crash when I was five. I’m supposed to go live with him I guess.”

She wrinkled her nose. I had a feeling she didn’t like Uncle Trent. Maybe Uncle Trent was like my Uncle Bill. Maybe Uncle Trent liked to make up stories after ten cans of Miller High Life, then get pissed off when you told him he was full of shit.

“So how did you die?” She came again.

This was the hundredth time I’d been posed that question in three days. How did you die? It was yet to lose its level of absurdity . . . In three days, there hadn’t been many answers, only promises that in time everything would make sense. The only answer, the only definitive that anyone would share, the only time anyone would look you directly in the eye was when you asked them if you died.

They wouldn’t waver, they wouldn’t blink, they would only nod their head and say, “Yes.”