PW #249: YA Light Science Fiction: A.K.A. HAZE

Manuscript Status: Finished

Mentor Name: Sarah Nicolas
Mentee Name: Delia Moran
Title: A.K.A. HAZE
Category: Young Adult
Genre: Light Science Fiction
Word Count: 95,000

Pitch:

Seventeen-year-old convicted supervillain Haze agrees to serve on a government superhero team in exchange for a shorter sentence. Her best friend is scheming to break her out, but when the scheme turns deadly, she must choose which friends to fight for, and which to betray.

Excerpt:

The prison was weird at four a.m. Too dim. Too quiet. Even for me, and I’d spent the majority of the past thirteen months alone in my cell. I should have been used to Too Quiet. But accompanied or not, I couldn’t shake the feeling I was a trespasser here. That this half-lit hallway at this sleepy hour was never meant for my eyes.

My throat tightened. I swallowed past it. The rational part of my mind knew any procedure that had to be done before the rest of the prison woke to witness it couldn’t lead anywhere good. But it had been a while since my rational mind was in proper working order, so here we were. Misgivings on parade.

I shuffled through corridors I’d memorized months ago, counting my steps out of sheer habit. Fifty-one steps from my cell to the end of the supermax block, a left out the double doors, seventy-five steps to maximum security.

The guard who flanked my left shook his head and let out a little half-snort, half-laugh as we walked the olive drab tiles. My attorney, who marched on my right like a chaplain at an execution, joined the head shaking, though not the laughing. She didn’t find the situation quite as funny.

I focused on the floor and counted, doing my best to ignore the persistent and suspiciously mom-like voice in my head telling me to hustle my butt back to my cell.