TWT: SKYFIRE YA Sci-Fi Thriller

Query:

When sixteen-year-old Jesse discovers he can manipulate time, he wants to travel back a year to convince his past self to grow a pair and tell his best friend Brycen that he loves him.

But before Jesse can master his newfound power, a terrorist group known as Project Genesis discovers his time manipulating ability. Composed of humanoid creatures known as daphirs, Project Genesis plans to capture Jesse and implant a mind control chip in his brain so they can force him to freeze time while they wage war against the humans that have forced daphirs to live in secret for centuries. Jesse is going to have to put his declaration of love on hold for a while.

Grappling with the endangerment of his free will, Jesse confides in Brycen, who reveals he’s a daphir working against Project Genesis. The two join an elite team of daphirs who train Jesse to face Project Genesis. If he fails to defeat them, Project Genesis will take over his mind and force him to create a world where humans and daphirs can’t coexist, and Jesse could never have the life he craves with Brycen.

SKYFIRE is told from both Jesse’s and Brycen’s points of view and set in New York City. It will appeal to fans of Malinda Lo’s ADAPTATION.

250:
Jesse

“Neither of them wants custody of you?”

“That’s what I gathered,” I repeat and twist the end of my scarf around my finger. It’s not Brycen’s fault that he doesn’t believe it. I wish I didn’t, that I’d stop caring, but the whole thing still forms a nauseous empty hole in my stomach. “But I mean, what’s new, right?”

“Nothing, I suppose,” Brycen says. “Once they settle this thing, will you have to move?”

Thank God the crosswalk signal changes to red and we have to stop at the corner—my legs turn to jelly and that hole in my stomach rips open, sucking in worries like a black hole. Moving.

Brycen turns to me, looks up at me with those big green eyes and distinct, slanted eyebrows. Unintentional on his part, but I’ve never spent a day without a fluttering burn in my throat when he watches me like this. And I’m not ready to start.

“They broke their company in half and Mom’s taking her part to South Dakota for the virtually nonexistent taxes. I don’t want her to take me. I can’t leave.”

I can’t move away from the liberal honking surrounding us or the shine of lights reflecting off skyscrapers, buildings daring to touch the sky because no one can stop them. No one can tell all these people, filling the sidewalks despite the time of night, where they should be or who they should be. That charisma, persona, individuality would disappear from my life.

And be replaced with a state that believes I don’t deserve the right to marry.