QK Round 2: Revenant vs. Colorblind

Entry Nickname: Revenant
Title: WHISPERING HANDS
Word count: 70,000
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy

Query:
Sixteen-year-old Cailyn Cooper wishes she inherited the wicked cool ability to form ghost-destroying orbs of psychic energy. Instead, she got saddled with the ability to heal by touch. A talent that either kills the women in her family before they reach twenty, or if they choose not to heal, drives them insane. And since Cailyn hears whispering from her hands when no one else does, she’s doesn’t need a crystal ball to see a straitjacket is in her future.

Cailyn’s family belongs to a group of psychics, the Sentries, who protect the world from malevolent spirits escaping purgatory. Without the ability to form orbs, Cailyn watches from the sidelines as her parents risk their lives, and then heals them before they die. When her parents are kidnapped, Cailyn turns to Sentries-in-training, seventeen-year-old twins, Eli and Tristan Parker, for help.

Cailyn and the Parkers discover a splinter group has formed in the Sentries—a group bent on controlling the world with their powers. To rescue her parents, and protect the brothers, Cailyn has to choose: straitjacket or body bag?

First 250 words:

I knocked on the partially opened bedroom door with one hand, while shaking the box of frosted shredded wheat with the other. “Hey Mama, want some breakfast?”

When she didn’t answer, I peeked inside her bedroom. The French doors leading to the backyard stood wide open, and my neck tingled as I hurried across the room. I stepped barefoot onto the night-cooled wood of the deck as the morning breeze ruffled my hair. My palms began their whispering, and then I smelled blood.

The cereal box hit the ground as I ran toward the deck stairs. Before reaching the top step, I slid on a mixture of blood and dew. I slammed into a wrought iron chair and knocked it over, but managed to stay on my feet. Mama stood in the grass next to the flower garden. The indigo glow from her hands shone faintly in the dawn’s light. The whispers from my palms became louder, and my fingertips tingled.

I darted down the stairs and raced toward her. The smell of blood increased, intermingled with a rancid, spoiled milk odor.

“Mama! Where are you hurt?”

She whirled toward me with her pink cotton robe fluttering around her legs. “Cailyn, get down!”

A movement to my right caught my attention. A shadow slid from behind the Mountain Laurel bush in the middle of the flower garden. I dropped to the ground, banging my left elbow on a rock in the grass. The shadow took solid form—grey opaque now, instead of a translucent mist.

Versus

Entry Nickname: Colorblind
Title: An Uncommon Blue
Word Count: 65K
Genre: YA Sci fi

Query:

A week before graduation, sixteen-year-old Bruno Nazaire accidentally murders someone outside his seventh period class. Even if the guy deserved it, now Bruno must become someone else to avoid being identified as the killer. That means a haircut, a change of wardrobe, and most important, getting rid of his once cherished Blue.

In Télesphore, the glowing color of a person’s palm determines their place in society, and touching hands with another mixes the colors permanently. Once a member of the Blue elite, now Bruno must do the unthinkable and dilute his color to stay one step ahead of the investigators. Suddenly he’s visiting parts town he never knew existed, and making friends with people he would’ve crossed the street to avoid only weeks ago.

But the officials hunting him are getting smarter, and in a city enclosed by jagged iron fences, there are only so many places to hide. At the last minute, Bruno’s parents arrange a deal to clear his name and get his life back. All Bruno has to do is turn his back on those in the Red slums that look to him as a leader, dump his new smoking-hot girlfriend, and let a Green boy die in his place.

First 250:
There are three unspoken rules in high school rugby.

1. Your team members are family.

2. You support your family.

3. This support must be shown periodically with an affectionate slap on the backside.

After four years as the starting right winger, I had almost gotten used to this. Almost. At least I no longer felt the urge to bloody my teammate’s nose when they tried it.

But in the middle of the hall? No way. During school hours my glutes were off limits.

I whirled around to explain this to whichever of my idiotic team members was behind me, only to find myself face to face with an attractive redhead.

“Hey, Bruno,” Drea said with a smirk. “Ready for the test?”

I opened my mouth but no sound came out.

Even with her super-short hair, Drea was stunning. Before last summer she’d often been mistaken for a boy. But that all ended when puberty hit. With both fists.

I recovered from my embarrassment enough to nod.

She leaned against the lockers. Her pale white skin reflected the light from her blue palm.

“History should be a breeze compared to pre-calc. I wanted to stab myself in the eye when I got to that section on antiderivatives.”

I mumbled something incoherent and fumbled with my lock.

Without warning she came up close and spoke in a half-whisper. Her hair smelled like coconut. “I know someone that likes you. If you hurry, we might have time to talk before the final.”