An Excerpt from THE COLLECTOR!♥

 

Hello, all you lovely people. I have something super awesome and cool and just freaking GREAT to share with you today! Seriously. I'm sure you can guess from the title of this post...and you may or may not be skipping over this to get to the goodies, but I'm doing it anyway.

 

Remember when I was being kind of...I guess we can say spam-ish, and telling y'all that you should add THE COLLECTOR on Goodreads and why haven't you yet and are you insaaaane?!?! Heh. Yeah. Well, all my annoying-ness payed off!

 

Well, kind of. It's more like all your LISTENING to my annoying-ness payed off. Because after I sat on my blog and griped at you, I just KNOW some of you were nice people and skipped on over to Goodreads and added THE COLLECTOR. Because you guys are amazing. So then the adds went up. And up. And...we reached our goal!!!!!!!!!

 

Do you know what that means?

 

If your answer there was no,,,then you should look at the title of this post...

 

AN EXCERPT!

 

On Thursday, the VMafia was sent the second Dante excerpt. And let me tell you, it's amazing. AMAZING. Like, ohmygosh, I can't even. But I'm being cruel right now. I should just give it to you. As usual, Victoria gave us the option of keeping it for ourselves or sharing it. So of course I'm sharing it with you guys. Because you helped! You helped us get this excerpt.

 

So...here we go!

 

 

THE COLLECTOR: A DANTE WALKER NOVEL

Second excerpt release—January 10, 2013

 

Apparently, Charlie Cooper doesn’t have a car. But don’t worry, she tells me, we can walk to school from here.

            Thrilling.

It’ll only take a few lifetimes, what with her mad limp and all.

            Charlie carries a brown lunch bag in one hand, and every few minutes she digs Skittles out of her pocket and pops them into her mouth. I have no idea how this girl survives high school. She’s a disaster. It’s kind of tragic. Why is she still alive while I’m a walking corpse?

I can’t stop staring at her mouth. It’s the only part of her that’s passable yet it never stops moving.

            “Don’t you think?” she asks.

            I meet her eyes. “What?”

            She nudges me with her shoulder like we’re long lost pals. “Someone’s been daydreaming. Want some sugar?” Her open palm is a stained Skittle mess.

“I’ll pass,” I answer. I’m not sure how this chick stays so tiny. She eats like a hippopotamus. Deep in my pocket, I rub circles over my lucky penny. I’m trying to figure out how to corrupt this girl, and she keeps asking me questions.

Focus, Dante.

I narrow my eyes and do what I’m trained to do. At first, her body is exactly the same, short and skinny, like a weed that needs plucking. But then it changes. The familiar warm yellow light crawls over her skin and flickers.

            Ah, soul light. If I could drink it, I would. The color of a human soul is the same for everyone. It’s the seals that make the difference. I count how many she has, then clench my hands into fists. There are twelve seals on her soul. Only twelve. And they’re not even big. Great. I’ve come to collect Mother Teresa.

            Still, the fact that she has even twelve seals means Boss Man has probably had Charlie watched for some time, or at least the Peachville area. Looking at her, his reasons are lost to me. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve got to collect her either way. If I don’t and she dies, she’ll go to Judgment Day, and Boss Man obviously doesn’t want to take chances.

            Inspecting her soul closer, I notice some of Charlie’s seals are dark blue, others green or orange or whatnot. Every collector can place seals, and you can tell who sealed a soul by the color. Most of hers are green. That’d be Patrick’s work. Naturally, I was the one to train him.

            Her soul is clear of any of my red seals. But that won’t last for long cause Papa’s come to play. “How much further?” I ask.

            “Just on the other side of this hill,” she chirps. “Like I was saying, I’m not sure if you’ll be able to enroll this late in the semester, but at least you can see the school and stuff.”

            “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

            Charlie glances at me, and her eyes crinkle at the corners. “I think you’re nice, Dante.”

            “That’s cause I am nice.”

            She looks ahead and walks in silence for almost a full minute. It suddenly feels strange to be near her and not hear her speak. The massive trees hang in a canopy over the road, stretching to greet one another. Their leaves are dead.

            Toothy Jack O’ Lanterns sit on porches and watch us pass. One looks like it’s mocking me, so I flip it off. Charlie sees me. She throws her head back and laughs long and hard. The sound startles me.

I wonder what it would feel like to laugh like that—with complete abandonment.

 

And THAT is the excerpt. [insert swoon here] Is it just me, or does April seem even farther away now than it did last week? Because...HOLY CRAP I WANT THIS BOOK. Wantwantwant. Thanks to all of you for being great and adding THE COLLECTOR on Goodreads. You guys rock. I'm so glad we made it this far and got this! *happy dance*

 

What do YOU think of the excerpt? Do you agree with me that it's amazing? What about THE COLLECTOR? Do you agree that it's going to be epic?

 

Oh, and if you want to say a quick HI to my friend Vicki, you totally should. Just saying.

 

♥Jessica(: