Crucified

Book 9: Swann Series

by Ryan Schow

Genres: Horror; YA Contemporary; YA Dark Fantasy

Synopsis

Sharp teeth.  A lover’s gaze.  One death to save the lives of billions. If only it were that easy! Savannah’s best friends no longer know her, her new lover comes with a bomb in his head, and the future looks more like a nuclear winter than a bright bowl of cherries. Just another day in paradise, right? Not so much. So what’s a girl to do? Steal a baby, start a fight, backhand a dictator? Decisions, decisions…    

In times of great suffering, sacrifices must be made for the betterment of all.

Savannah Swann has never had any shortage of enemies, and this will ring true in Crucified as well, but what if her biggest enemy is herself? As our heroine reaches new levels of power, and untold possibilities reshape her future, Savannah must change everything if she wants to have friends and family, a steady boyfriend, a balanced life. The key to her future lies in the past, but you’ve got to have some pretty big girl balls to pull off what Savannah’s planning next…

NOTE: The individual eBooks in this series will no longer be available in Kindle Unlimited. However, there are three box sets (containing three books each) and they are in Kindle Unlimited. You can find these books on my author page.  Simply click or tap the highlighted link to my name (found either under the title of this book, or under the cover image of the book), and you will go to my full catalogue. This series is listed as Swann Series: Books 1 – 3, Swann Series: Books 4 – 6 and Swann Series: Books 7 – 9. Here you will either be able to read the entire Swann Series for FREE with your Kindle Unlimited subscription, or you will be able to purchase the bundled books at a substantial discount!

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING…

“An avalanche of reading pleasure! That slight drip of straightforward pleasure has turned into an avalanche of complexity! Full of adventure, thrills, intrigue and romance they’ve been a true joyride.”

– The Mysterious Amazon Customer, Amazon Reviewer ★★★★★

“This is such a great series. I discovered it a few weeks back and I read it all. It pulls you in and punches you. I wasn't ready for the places it takes you.”

– Jim P. Ziller, Amazon Reviewer ★★★★★

INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR:

Q: Why should readers try this series?

A: This bold new series starts out looking at the life of a regular(ish) teen girl who’s bullied at the hands of her mother, the paparazzi and her fellow students. But what happens over this nine book series is this unfortunate girl becomes the most badass girl in all of history. Most readers will appreciate this series because there is literally nothing like it out there right now.

Q: What kind of series is this?

A: Swann and Monarch (books one and two) are both human stories steeped in high school angst, bullies, difficult parents and the twisted effects of human genetic modification. The third book, Clone, kicks this world wide open, unleashing a rapidly evolving world of urban fantasy.  By the ninth and final book in this series, urban fantasy will have become dark fantasy, but by then you’ll be so hooked that nothing else will matter.

Q: Are there adult themes in this series?

A: Yes. To stay authentic to the YA world, and to most of today’s teens, there is some strong language, violence and adult situations. I personally feel this series should be enjoyed by ages 15 and above.

Release date: December 10, 2018

Publisher: River City Publishing

Print pages: 355

Sample

Chapter 1

No one’s high school years should ever suck as much as mine, but they did, and I survived.  Barely.  At this point, however, I’m convinced most kids feel this way about school.  If not, if high school was your thing, I’m truly delighted for you.  Perhaps even a tad jealous.  Nevertheless, I got what I needed from those years, so lamenting the past just feels like an exercise in futility to the new and improved me.  

Besides, why brood over the past when the present holds so much promise?  Why brood when everything I ever hoped for I now have?

I mean, think about it…

My mother loves me.  I love her.  I love my father too, who always loved us both the way we were, even if we were both certifiable.  And Rebecca?  Ah, my heart leaps at the thought of her!  I now have a sister!  And boys?  Oh, yeah.  Got that worked out, too.  This genetically modified badass with tits now has the best boyfriend ever, which makes me feel like I’m grabbing blue ribbons on every front.  

Not to be one of those annoying little shits who gets the world handed to her on a golden platter then squeals with delight and pretends to be surprised (ugh…vomiting right now!), but my family and I have been blessed to start life anew.  We’re all the freshly unwrapped packages of our wildest dreams.  Our better selves incarnate.  And despite the dark days looming, if I obsess about just this moment, I swear to Jesus I’m paralyzed by the wonderment of it all.  For all its conquests, all its sorrows and all its future promises, I find myself eager to dive headlong into this unconventional life of mine.  

You know what they say—in for a penny, in for a pound.  

So yeah, I’m all in.  

That doesn’t mean I don’t consider my life on a more existential level.  Some people spend half their waking hours trying to decide who they are, where they have value in the world, how they will define themselves in their social circles, their community, the entire species.  Honestly, I get it.  We all ask those questions.  But my hand to God, most of us never get a reasonable answer.  Our existence is burdened by complication.  Clashing beliefs and ideologies.  Floundering morals.  When every single day with these politics, this media, this swiftly unraveling social climate feel like the drip-torture of gaslighting, the idea of searching for higher meaning has a way of giving you emotional constipation.  

Now that I’m through all that (thank God!), I know who I am.  In fact, I’m perfectly clear about it.  I’m a justice junkie who thrives on delivering payback.  I’m a girl who wants to stop others from hurting those of us who just want to live in a free and happy society.  I’m someone who loves but struggles to be loved.  Beyond all that, though, I’d say I’m now just a freak of nature searching for a normalcy I might never find.  

Jeez…normalcy.  

What in God’s name does normalcy even mean?  Is it having best friends?  Doing Saturday night sleepovers?  Staying up late into the night on the phone gabbing about boys and clothes and who’s doing what (and whom) at school?  

Yeah.  

All of that.  

Plus—and I know this sounds silly, maybe even a bit naïve for someone like me—there’s this part of me that wants to go shopping at the mall, sip overpriced coffee in outdoor cafes, lay out by the pool in a bikini and not worry about peeping neighbors or the cockroach paparazzi.  

Is that so wrong?  Am I being unrealistic here?  

Maybe.  But maybe not.

I suppose that’s why I’m obsessed with the lives of superheroes.  Random, right?  I’m no superhero.  I would have to be a self-centered troglodyte to even think such a thing!  Which is why I don’t.  What I’m thinking about, what’s confounding me on a God-sized level, is the conflicting personas.  Specifically how someone like me balances them.  Spiderman has this problem.  So does Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman.  And just like them, my life is ass backwards and upside down, as in there is no owner’s manual to me.  The point of all this egocentric pontification is me taking stock of my life and thinking that what I want most these days is not more for me, but more for others.  My inner philanthropist is shoving my whiny teenager aside and now my needs feel less pedestrian, less self-centered.  

Can someone please dust off the “Humanitarian of the Year” award?  Yep.  It’s not all about me anymore.  My focus is on everyone else, how I want more for this world of ours than what we’re getting. 

If you can imagine, I have Alice Jr. to thank for this.  The demonic five- or six- or seven-year-old, not the level-headed traveler.  Ever since I first laid eyes on the future that young Alice all but forced me to see, I’ve had to readjust my views to consider the ramifications of cause and effect.  Knowing what lies ahead for us as a species is what has nurtured in me this intense desire to care for more than just myself.  The need is so absolute it has become a monumental encumbrance, but not in a bad way.  It’s in this powerful, singular reality that I realize my life now has purpose.  

I have purpose.

 

* * *

I’ve seen the future.  There’s a lot of death at the hands (and jaws) of mutated things that people like you and me with our limited imaginations could never fathom.  What I saw when I traveled to the time and the coordinates Alice Jr. gave me, I can’t unsee.  Which tells me I’ve got bigger problems than making time to do my hair, my nails and spend time with my besties.  

What sweet little Alice—the fire breathing imp—showed me was how not killing a certain horrible scumbag from decades past (his name rhymes with Shitler) does something unforgivable to our world years into the future.  This is worse than nukes.  Worse than a catastrophic loss of life or scorched earth.  What Alice Jr. showed me was infinitely worse.  Like something you’d drag out of the ghettos of hell.  

The hard part of all of this is that Alice Jr. was right: this is my fault.  So yeah, the future is my fault and I need to fix it.  I’m on it, I swear.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, before I become this righteous, exalted woman on the path to a Zen lifestyle and an angel of world peace and all that syrupy crap, I’ve got to kill some people, behead a dictator (like I should’ve done in the first place) and pretty much save the future from itself.  Maybe then I’ll be that girl with all those friends.  Falling in love with that boy.  Living that storied life of the heroine who saves the motherfreaking world.