The latest in the hot and highly profitable line of pre-teen supernatural fantasy romance books, “Lightning” tells the story of a young and tragically misunderstood girl with low self-esteem, new to the area and the school, who falls in love with the one mythological being of horror she shouldn’t. Author Lyzabeth Mary Sue Powers wrote “Lightning” in segments for herself on her LiveJournal page over the summer of 2008, and was gratified to see such widespread appreciation from her bank account.
Read the first chapter!
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“Lightning” by Lizabeth Powers
Chapter One:
I approached my new school with trepidation borne from past experience. No point in trying to fit in, as my alabaster hair and waifish looks automatically kept me from fitting in to any of the established cliques. My stylish clothes wouldn’t fit in here, nor would my professional hair style or my curiously clear teenage skin. I didn’t know what the kids at this school would be like, but as my own interests included reading books and brooding I was sure we’d have nothing at all in common.
My mom was oblivious to my concerns, as usual, even though I had provided her with a cross-referenced list (with footnotes), and she kept jabbering on about how we’d make a new life here and how she was sure the new meds would do the trick. I fairly leapt from the car. Around me crowds of teenagers were swarming toward the school. They all knew each other from birth, obviously, and I could see several of them glancing at me. Suddenly I was even more aware of my hideous appearance. I held my books up flat in front of my face and walked on, accepting the occasional fall or brick wall collision as fair payment for my anonymity.
The first few classes were a nightmare. All of the boys – and a few of the girls – kept staring at me the whole time with hungry expressions. Were they so eager to start making fun of me? Six different guys, two girls, and one teacher asked me out for that weekend but I knew they were mocking me so I simply fled.
In the cafeteria I sat with some of my new friends: Marc, the captain of the local pitchfork-hurling team, who kept asking me to go to a movie with him; Alyssa, his girlfriend, who was so friendly and open she kept finding reasons to brush her hand across my face and upper body, and Jimbo, who kept drawing my face in his notebook over and over and asking me what I thought about high school marriages. Oh, when would I ever find someone who liked me?
Then I saw him. Over against the wall, at a table by himself, was one boy like no other. He was easily 7 feet tall, looming over the rest of us like a god looking out over the world he has created. His noble brow and piercing gaze captured my heart instantly, and I found myself shamelessly looking him up and down. An intricate network of scars crisscrossed his skin, which was the color of the sea after a storm, and I was possessed of an overwhelming desire to trace those scars with my trembling fingers. His manly jaw hung slightly slack, and his deep black eyes stared into a distance I could not fathom. Everything about him was amazing. His powerful chest spoke of strength, his broad shoulders spoke of responsibility, the body mods at his neck – a pair of matched bolts – spoke of a taste for the exotic, and the way he was methodically shoving what looked like a quarter of a sheep into his mouth told me he was a man of powerful appetites but rigid self-control. I half-heartedly tried to get his attention by flinging a fork at him, but it bounced off his thick forehead without his notice.
“Ah, Rosamont has found her new love!” Alyssa joked, toying with a strand of my hair.
“Seriously, you like Francis?” Marc asked incredulously, surreptitiously trying to peek down my blouse (trying to see what cheap knock-off label I was wearing, no doubt).
“Francis?” I was imagining his hands on me, holding me the way he was holding the sheep’s bloody haunch. I didn’t want my new friends to get the wrong idea, so I decided to be subtle. “What’s his story and everything about him?” I asked nonchalantly, turning on my voice recorder and nudging it in their direction.
Jimbo looked up from the drawing of me as Worshipful Goddess he was doodling on his geometry book. “Him? He’s a whack-job, Rose. Never talks to anyone, even if you hit him with your car.”
“Dr. Enstein, the local coroner, adopted him last year out of the blue,” Alyssa said. She was licking her lips and unbuttoning my top buttons, probably to button them again correctly. Damn my ill-fitting, off-the-rack clothing! No one was ever gong to like me this way! “Around November, right honey?”
“Yeah,” Marc said, stroking my leg. “About a month after those four kids from Chichester got killed in a car wreck and all their bodies went missing. Weirdest thing.”
“Does he have no friends, then?” I asked tremulously.
“Not that survived, no.”
My heart beat wildly. I could be his friend! I, who would never find love or attention otherwise, could get close to him, learn his secrets, touch that amazing chest that I couldn’t stop thinking or writing about. Immediately I stood, inadvertently flinging Alyssa backwards, and strode over to where Francis sat. He had emptied the contents of his lunch pail and had just compacted that to pop into his mouth. He chewed reflectively.
“Hello,” I said shyly. “I am Rosamont Velicia Harmony. I don’t mean to intrude, but I’m imagining stroking your bare chest even as you struggle to control your wild passions to a nonthreatening boyfriend level. How are you, and have you begun looking into my very soul yet?”
Francis continued to look straight ahead with a glassy stare. Was there an electrical spark dancing around his neck bolts, or was I dreaming it? Stray bits of metal shavings fell from his lush, full lips. His hands fascinated me with the way the skin color and hair patterns changed abruptly at the wrist scars. A tantalizing scent of bodily decay wafted from his clothing, the many wrinkles of which were filled with rich soil.
“Aren’t there any deep, dark secrets you’ve concealed for years that I could discover with my singular, inventive brain, which I would then keep to myself forever?” I asked urgently. “Or preferences in girls which have gone utterly unfulfilled until I miraculously came along?”
Francis remained oblivious to my pleas, and the way I was crawling across his body like a helper monkey. Was I so hideous, that this teenage Adonis could not deign to acknowledge me? I looked back over to the table where my new friends were holding up a “We Love You Rosamont!” banner. I would never fit in here, I knew it. Already I was longing to get home so I could have a good cry and a cut or three…
Suddenly Francis stood, effortlessly carrying me with him and also tipping the table over with unnatural strength. With the speed of thought with which I am blessed, I realized that this was no ordinary boy, especially after he tossed me into the salad bar and turned to walk through the concrete wall. He turned back to peer through the wreckage and, for the first time, made eye contact with me. From twenty feet away I felt our hearts mush together. And he spoke.
“UHHHHuuuuuhhhhhhhh!” he told me, the ring of sincerity in every syllable, and he lumbered off toward the gymnasium, where students and faculty were frantically trying to bar the doors.
I watched him go, concrete dust streaming from his attractively flat head, and plotted how to become emotionally entwined with him forever…
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Already optioned for a three-movie picture deal, TV series, spin-off book deal, and billion-dollar merchandise contract, “Lightning” is the hottest thing you’ll ever be embarassed to read!
Coming soon.
Ha! Hilarious. Nice Princess Bride reference too.
I absolutely love this, and I can’t stop laughing. Please publish more!
That was great! A good story for a bad day. More, more!
This is genius!
OMG, leik, Francis is totes my BF!!!11!! Or at least the hottie who’s playin him in teh movie is!!! LOL i cant wait til they film the scine frm the 4th book when he finally kills her and those other girls so he can bring her back to life as his bride! SO ROMANTIC *sigh*
PS to all u haterz whod rather read boring Mary Shelton or whatever, u have no sense of TRUE LITERATURE. Lightning has the best kind of reanimated corpses, way better than that Josh Wheldon stuff.
“With the speed of thought with which I am blessed . . .”
Ha! Thanks for the laughs – well done! You should, um, write for a living or something.
Not gonna lie. I kinda love you now. š
Great read! I’m linking it to my friends.
OMG! I can’t wait for “lightning” fanfic!
lol! this is the best twilight fanfic i’ve ever read!
This is awesome!
TEAM EDWARD FOR LIFE.