The Missing Link (Book 1: Outcast) [CURRENTLY EDITING]

PROLOGUE

ATLANTA, GEORGIA
EIGHT YEARS AGO

The long fingers of the River Birch trees danced in the gentle breeze, making it easier for the onlookers to get a clear view of the cloudscape floating above the city. Colors melted into each other and moved along with the clouds, giving way to the dark colors of approaching nighttime. It had gotten alarmingly cold, and even the yellow leaves holding on to the branches seemed to shiver against the brittle wind. One of them had broken off its stem, twirling aimless until it dropped on top of a mass of thick, neatly-arranged, black hair. 

The man sitting on the first bench at the west entrance of Centennial Olympic Park lifted his gaze an inch higher than the AJC he had been reading—or rather skimming—for the past thirty-seven minutes. And counting. He reached up and snatched the crunchy leaf from his head, examining each spec of red and brown that time had left printed on it.

Only one thought came to him: fall had always been her favorite season.

With a sigh, he dog-eared the right page. There was no will left in him to learn about how Chestnut trees were now being bred for blight resistance, and a furious breeze had hurled itself against the branches, making it impossible to hold the newspaper still. Perhaps it was for the best, an unsolicited sign from life. He was tired of pretending, tired of making other people think he was a regular man spending his afternoon at the park.

He wasn't a regular man, and it was nowhere near a regular afternoon.

Their voices were louder and more annoying than usual, and, even for someone like him, made time pass slower than a garbage truck after New Year's Eve.

Isaiah's lack of punctuality wasn't helping the situation either. The man needed his friend to show up and report whatever information, if any, he'd been able to gather from the sorceress before he lost his mind.

Most importantly, though, before they wasted more time.

The impassive tap of his shoe sounded loud over the commemoratively engraved bricks on the ground, but he ignored the rhythm. Instead, he coaxed his mind out of the onlookers' and back to the plan, gathering his thoughts on the matter into a list. Point number one: what would they do now?

Perhaps killing Cora hadn't been the best of ideas—an instant of clouded judgement—but he knew she would've gone straight to the Servicemen to let them know what they were up to the minute he walked away. Something about the look on her face gave him a bad feeling. Dark and twisted. Distrustful. Granted, she would have been a brilliant weapon, the best of snitches, powerful and influential, though her own skills worked as a double-edged sword, one he wasn't about to take his chances with.

Faeries had shown themselves reluctant to Isaiah's deals before—reluctant to everyone in the Forgotten factions for that matter—and with their infatuated need to play on the winning side, the man knew Cora's response would have hardly been one of compliance. He was also aware that, had he not killed her himself, Isaiah would have gladly taken on the job to silence anyone who posed a threat to their plan.