Prologue

Eclipse

The roads were deserted as fifteen-year-old Dezirae and her parents walked home from town. They walked along the sidewalk joking and laughing. Dezirae had coffee-colored skin, which made her deep blue eyes pop. Her hair was black like night, tied in a long, pin-straight ponytail (that reached her waist) with bangs that came down to her equally black eyebrows. Her dad was a six-foot-four, muscular man, who was bald with mocha-colored eyes. Her mom was tall, about five-ten, with golden-brown skin and sky-blue eyes and hair like Dez’s, only blonde.

Her dad carries a paper bag of groceries while her mom held the red detergent bottle with Tide typed in bold, blue letters, and Dezirae carried the book she just purchased in hard-cover. It was Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer, one she had been longing to swipe from the bookshelves ever since it came out. She had read it a million times, but wanted it to be her own.

That was when it hit them. Her mom was twirling around in her summer-y, white halter dress that made her look like a goddess. She stopped dead in mid-twirl, staring behind Dez and her father.

“Jim, honey,” she said in a worried tone. “It’s them.”

“Mom, who?” asked Dezirae.

“Dezzy, run!” her father told her.

“But—”

“GO!!” he shouted. Dez knew something was definitely wrong—her father never yelled. She clutched the book to her chest and ran without looking back. Gunshots sounded and Dez whipped around.

She then saw the man who her parents were so afraid of. He was in head-to-toe black, complete with ski mask. He has a limp from a gunshot in his thigh. He had one hand on a gun and one trying to cover the blood gushing from his leg.

Next, Dez saw her father, holding a gun. How had her parents gotten guns? Did they always carry them around? He looked so stern, so unbroken. She saw the pain and hate in his face. She saw a tangled bundle of limbs covered in white fabric stained with red, with a gun near its side. Her mother. Tears streamed from her eyes. Her father fired. The man fired. Dez’s dad missed, the man was right on topic.

Dez shrieked and ran to her father’s body. She clutched it and her mother’s corpse and buried her face into her father’s chest. She turned around. The man was limping toward her. She jumped up and ran into the road.

There was a long horn sound. There was a scream. Her scream. Dez felt her feet lift from the ground and a sharp pain in her legs. Then blackness.