Impulse, p.1
Impulse,
p.1
IMPULSE
Lenise Lee Publications
www.leniseleepublications.com
www.iamlenise.wordpress.com
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Excerpt
…He kept his eyes open during the kiss. The need to memorize every detail was far too great. He wanted to lock every flutter of Eve’s lashes and every nearly imperceptible moan that escaped from deep within her into his memory forever.
Reluctantly, Jesse slowly pulled his lips away from Eve so they each could draw in a breath of air. He watched as Eve’s eyes flickered open. Circling the dark pupils at the center of her light brown irises was the smallest splash of gold. Her tempting and exotic features silently beckoned to Jesse, urging him to draw her in ever closer…
Brave World Chronicles: Impulse. Copyright © 2011 by Lenise Lee.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents have no existence outside of the author’s imagination and are purely fictitious. Any similarity to actual events, locales, or people, living or deceased, is coincidental.
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Author’s Note:
This is a work of fiction. Although the characters in this fictitious writing engage in unprotected and experimental sexual acts, the author does not endorse unsafe sexual practices in real life situations.
Dear Reader,
Are you ready to go back to the world that could be waiting just over the horizon?
It was a difficult journey for me, yet I had to press on with this continuing story so I would be able to share the creed that I find works best in life: If you love someone, bring them close and tell them so without delay. Today is all we have and tomorrow may never come.
Thank you for joining me on this new adventure of love and hope. Peace and blessings to you, wherever you are.
LL
Impulse
By
Lenise Lee
- Prologue -
Jesse Dawson stamped down on the gas pedal and the engine revved to life. The hunter green metal beast he jumped behind the wheel of lunged forward like a wild animal trying to claw its way up the asphalt road on a rabid manhunt.
As Jesse thundered the SUV up the cramped street, jerking the wheel sharply from right to left and back again as he dodged abandoned vehicles, the solid black numbers displayed across the digital speedometer mounted on the dashboard catapulted well above the eighty mark. For a split second, the massive amount of energy that was powering up the roaring engine was nearly too explosive for the steel enclosure to control. When the enraged driver steered the monstrous body of metal around a car that had stalled in the middle of the paved road, the frame of the machine rocked to one side while its tires squealed in agony from the strain of trying to keep a grip on the heated ground below.
Like a surreal dream, an entire lifetime had somehow slipped through Jesse’s fingers in less than a day. All that he loved and cared for had become entangled in a sea of alternate and frightening possibilities. If any such notion were possible, he would have gladly sacrificed whatever was necessary to be able to step in reverse through time and space. He would have used every precious new second granted to him to figure out a way of keep his lover from becoming trapped at the very center of this chaotic mess. How had this alarming and dismal scene playing out all around him become reality for everyone, everywhere, so quickly?
To his right and to his left a blur of frantic people fumbled and scattered in droves up and down the sidewalks that were racing by Jesse’s windows. The smell of smoke, hanging like a heavy cloth, choked his flared nostrils. Small fires burned from the storefronts that had been ransacked and looted. Shrieking sirens and hysterical shouts pierced the scorching hot late spring air.
Jesse’s sharp eyes spotted the fire engine red sports car racing away at less than a half a city block ahead of his own speeding vehicle. Without dropping his insanely fast velocity by so much as a tenth of a mile per hour, Jesse mashed the long gas pedal down until its bottom touched the floor mat beneath his feet. The rear tires scream with fright at being dragged down the double yellow stripe at the center of the road at an unforgiveable pace.
He was closer now – so very close – to getting her back. He saw Eve struggle with one of the two men in the car. The one who was holding her shook her body violently and then her movements went still. Jesse’s heart pounded in his chest as he breathed out fire and anger that was aimed at her captors. The skin around his thick knuckles had gone completely pale from clutching the wheel with a ferocious grip. He was only yards behind but it might as well have been miles away.
He couldn’t see the tears streaking down her golden brown cheeks but Jesse could almost feel Eve’s frantic emotions reaching out to him, begging him to catch up and snatch her away from danger. He could sense the energy draining from her body. The awareness was so real, so intense that it was almost as if he were right there next to her in the other fleeing vehicle. What were those monsters doing to her?
I’m coming, Evie. Please, baby, don’t be scared. He willed his thoughts of comfort to her, hoping that somehow she would be able to hear them in her mind.
Jesse pushed away the nagging pain of his injuries. He wouldn’t give up the chase. He would never stop, not until Eve was in his arms again. He loved her enough to give up the very last breath in his body if he had to. He would do whatever was necessary to retrieve his woman. Once she was with him again, he would go through hell ten times over to make sure she was kept safe until this escalating nightmare was finally over.
Jesse wrung his hands around the circular wheel until the friction caused a flash of heat to surge over his palms. His sight was focused dead ahead at the rear of the car he was pursuing. His gray eyes darted from side to side as he twisted the steering wheel and maneuvered to and fro to avoid the occasional obstacle that crossed in front of the rumbling big bodied sports model truck – vacant vehicles, wayward shopping carts left dangling from curbs, hysterical people. It wouldn’t be Jesse’s intention to destroy any property while he made his mad pursuit but he damn sure wouldn’t be stopping to offer apologies if he did. There was simply no time left to spare.
In an hour or two that blazing yellow sun would duck behind the horizon and it would be full dark, then the real madness would begin. Evening was a time when people usually found a place where they felt safe and comfortable, whether it was with friends or family, at home or in a crowded social lounge. Yet, after the news broadcast heard around the world earlier today, none of those places would ever hold the same significance. When night finally fell on this particular day in human history, people would fall from scared to desperate in record time. There would be no secure place to hide in the middle of a vast city such as this. Jesse had to find his Eve before then. He had to. He was running on borrowed time that was ruthlessly ticking down to the zero point and failure was not an option, not when Eve’s well being – her life – was riding on his resolve to find a way to rescue her.
Until he made sure that Eve was returned to him unharmed, nothing else in the entire span of the world mattered to him anymore. Every piece of his previous existence had suddenly been shaken down to the one of the most prime impulses within the human spirit – protecting a loved one. While the rest of society fell to pieces, she may very well become his last link to sanity, hope, and love. For these reasons, plus a thousand more, Jesse was determined to reclaim his beautiful Eve.
Jesse wouldn’t fail – he couldn’t fail – not while even the dimmest spark of life still coursed through his veins. He raced the beast up the hard blacktop and closed in on the car. There was no other option left. This was might be his one and only shot at snatching Eve away from her captors. This chase needed to end now before one of the vehicles ran out of luck and careened out of control. Jesse pushed the monster into its highest gear.
At the moment of impact, he heard the crunch of metal scraping against metal, followed by feeling the bone rattling vibrations shoot through the center of his wide chest. Afterward, all went dark.
- One -
Yesterday…
“Swing…and a miss.”
The announcer called the play but Jesse already knew the outcome. Before his ultra fastball whizzed by the batter’s right ear, he was confident that there was enough heat behind the pitch to tip the speedometer well over 90 mph.
He watched the umpire nearest home base motion to indicate that the guy at bat for the opposing college
Time froze. Underneath his red hat, his lightly tanned forehead was covered in a layer of heavy perspiration. A line of sweat dripped down his temples and inched around his blond tinted eyebrows. He could feel the heavy solar rays from the blistering May sun beating down on him in waves. This spring had been unusually warm, with temperatures peaking near one hundred degrees over the last three weeks, and today was no different. The sky, clear and open, was colored in a bright and electric blue. The full power of the sun, combined with the adrenaline racing through his veins, sent Jesse’s body temperature soaring. Beneath his scarlet red uniform top, his white undershirt was drenched. He lifted his baseball cap and the light flooded into his clear gray eyes. He used his muscular and wide forearm to quickly swipe the wetness from his face and then readjusted his hat, pulling it down low over the bridge of his straight nose.
Jesse knew that he should have been training his eyes on Eli Dawson, his cousin and the catcher for their team, the Eastern States University Red Lions. Eli was stationed behind the batter with his glove out and extended. He was the guy from whom Jesse should be looking to for suggestions on his upcoming pitch but his focus had become seriously distracted. This was probably the worst time to be scanning the bleachers but Jesse had to take another glance to check and see if she was out there somewhere. His eyes walked across the lines of benches stacked up behind the gated fence surrounding home plate. Row by row, he searched every face he could make out from this distance with his twenty-twenty vision, hoping to snatch a glimpse of her standing by and cheering him on to a win.
After another stolen moment to rescan, there was still no sign of Eve. Another bead of perspiration dragged along the side of his face, recalling his attention back to the game. As he lined up his vision with Eli’s hands, Jesse lowered his red cap over his eyes another centimeter. He didn’t want Anthony to be able to read his expressions while the Red Lion’s catcher threw out possible plays to him. When Jesse was ready to receive his choices, he tipped his head toward Eli to confirm the same to him. Eli’s hands started to motion out different pitches while the batter in front of him geared up to try to demolish anything that came his way.
Tony, the man with the dark cocoa skin and intimidating eyes, was the last man standing in his team’s last turn at bat of the last inning of this final game of the season. This was all or none. Play hard or go home heartbroken. The two rivals were facing off like two gunfighters on a dusty street of a broke down town in the Old West. Each was about to give his ultimate hurrah in front of a packed audience of fans interlaced with a sprinkle of professional scouts. Only one of them would walk away the winner today and Jesse was resolute in making sure that champion would be him.
While he rejected play after play from Eli, the crowd could hold their silence no longer. Shouts went up from across the crowded stands. Despite the intense heat of the early afternoon sun, the aisles were a sea of blue and red dots, each person donning the color of their team, sweating it out and waiting to yell out the victory the instant it was called and confirmed. The shouts flurried in from all three sides behind home plate.
GO JESSE!
GET EM’ TONY!
LIONS RULE!
EAGLES ARE GONNA SOAR!
One more hand gesture from Eli and Jesse was finally ready. This was the one he had been waiting for. There was no way that Anthony would be anticipating this simple yet effective play. He wasn’t sure about what he wanted to do after he graduated or why Eve never expressed any interest in him other than mere friendship but he was sure about one thing – how to win. Jesse was a natural athlete with an inbred impulse to beat out the opposition. He knew how to take slim chances and catapult them into a success.
Rio waited with eternal patience, still frozen in place, armed and ready to swing away. Jesse gave Eli the okay nod and then lined up his body. Every inch of his skin was covered in thick sweat, his solid red baseball shirt, with his surname embossed on the back and the white outline of a lion sewn across the front, clung to him. His short cropped honey blond hair had turned stringy as the moisture gathered over his scalp.
His left knee went up and his right hand clutched the white ball with the red stitching around its surface as if it were the key to the universe. Jesse’s hands were locked and ready to release at his command. Every single muscle in his well-conditioned and lean body tensed up into tight knots, ready to explode on a moment’s notice with superhuman strength. The second before he threw the pitch, Jesse closed his eyes and pictured Evie’s magical smile – comforting and alluring, like warm cinnamon – then his lids flew open and he sent the ball hurling down the line, with a blistering resolve not to fail.
The scene played out in slow motion. As Jesse followed the flying object with his eyes, the ball seemed to be moving at a snail’s pace. Twisting, turning, the colors were a blur of red and white paste inching toward fate. Anthony rotated his hands around the bat, twisted his large upper torso and swung with all his might at the oncoming meteor. The long aluminum pole reached out to claim the high-powered rocket and Jesse’s lungs squeezed tight.
The blaring sound of the announcer’s voice, crackling over the loud speaker, was muffled in Jesse’s ears. The deep-voiced older man shouted out every detail of the last few seconds up until the final moment. Jesse’s heart bounced against his chest wall once…then again…and then broke into a flurry of erratic knocks, all of which sounded out with sharp clarity in his ears.
“And…Anthony Rio…aims hard…looks like it’s gonna’ be…A STRIKE!”
The home base umpire crossed his arms and Eli tossed the bat away from him and down to the ground. Jesse’s opponent dropped to his knees. Game over.
Fastball. He knew that Tony wouldn’t have been expecting another one of those so soon and Jesse’s instincts had been right, as usual.
“Folks, Jesse Dawson has done it yet again. Striking out the starting batter of the Western Bridge University Blue Eagles, he has ended the game on a thrilling and tense pitch. Looks as though the final score is 8-7, for the Lions. Very close, indeed, but this young man pulled them through to the win.”
The roar from the Lions’ ever faithful fans exploded from within the massive crowd and roared like an oncoming freight train, thoroughly drowning out the naysayers that had come expecting a triumph for the home team Eagles. Eli threw up his catcher’s mitt. He and other members of their team broke into a full run straight toward Jesse. Once they had surrounded him, a dozen pairs of arms heaved him up onto strong shoulders while they cried out in victory.
This should have been the perfect win for him. Anthony was an adversary who wasn’t to be taken lightly so Jesse knew that this success had been well earned. An entire stadium full of people had witnessed him smash through a tough opponent. While a swell of spectators buzzed with cheer and his entire team gave him solute for his outstanding abilities, the most important element was missing. The one woman he wanted to share this triumph with was nowhere in sight and without her here to share in this impromptu celebration with him, everything seemed hollow and meaningless.
