Sneak Peek! Read the Prologue of FEBRUARY AIR by Alexia Purdy

I've been in excerpt mode this week and I got another one for you! Exclusive Sneak Peek of February Air just for followers of my blog! Check it out. This is undedited btw. Fair warning. Enjoy!

February Air

by

Alexia Purdy

Genre: Literary Contemporary Fiction

Release Date: TBD 2014

Blurb: 

Some things can never be undone. 

Victoria was running. From whom or what, she can’t remember. Returned to a husband she has no memory of, she embraces her old life with Josiah, who says they were madly in love before she disappeared. But, her ten year old son Matthew doesn’t even know who she is. Regardless, she decides to put the missing years behind her and tries to settle into her life once more with what little memory resurfaces. 

One day, a man named Gabriel arrives with a bubbly two year old in tow, claiming to be her husband and the child, their son Sebastian. 

Victoria isn’t sure who to believe and her life spirals out of control once more. If only she can remember what really happened all those years ago. 

The past runs away faster than Victoria can, and the pieces never seem to fit.

PROLOGUE

A TICKLE TO my nose woke me, and a chirping from birds rang in my ears, sending my eyelids flickering. The light of the clouded sky blinded me and I shut them tight almost as fast as I’d opened them. Shifting my weight, I found myself flat against my stomach, my face embedded in dirt with a mess of leaves stuck to my long brown locks tangled in the dandelions amidst a plethora of weeds peppering the ground.

Not where a woman like me should be. But where was I supposed to be? Who was I?

Not the sort of questions you’d hear often right? Neither had I, I think. Yet here I was, afraid to move from the warmth which the ground provided. The frosty February air wafted about, sending a sprinkle of gooseflesh across my exposed skin. My lips were dry, cracking and seemingly glued shut. A tongue of cotton wiggled inside my mouth and the ache of wind burn across my cheeks made me realize I had to get to some water, and some sort of help soon. The thirst was already unbearable.

“Uuh.” I mumbled. Shifting brought only pain hurling though my bones. I stopped to squeeze my eyelids together, biting my tongue as the arresting tenderness screamed down my limbs, reminding me of my less than functional condition. These weren’t pains my body remembered. They were new and their incessant hushing for me to lie still and relent to the elements as they ate away at my body, preparing me for vultures to satiate their cravings on my flesh. These thoughts left me colder inside than a winter storm.

No. I had to get up, despite the agonizing protest of every tiny cell I possessed.

Get up, get away. Run, run, run. The soft whispers of my subconscious thoughts woke me up even more and I desperately want to do as it says. First, I reached up to feel my cracked lips, the hard wrinkled skin sucked dry of moisture burned as I peeled my lips apart. It made me wince, a small high pitched squeal escaped them as I endured the opening of miniscule wounds across them. Bringing my arms forward, I pushed off the ground while yelling at the dirt and the empty atmosphere surrounding me. Grunting as my body struggled to rise up and not wither, not die.

Get up, get up, get up.

At last, I got to my knees, but this wasn’t comfortable at all. Despite the blast of cold air rushing about me, I’m relieved the feeling of wanting to curl up and die had faded with every move I’d made. It sobered me up enough to command my body to stand up. A scream accompanied every creak, stretch and torsion of joints. It’s the company of anguish which embodied who I was now, not a pleasantry of memories. This was the now.

How I got this way, I couldn’t recall. Memories felt foggy, like peering into darkened rooms of a house blasted with frosted window panes. As I stumbled forward, feeling as though my legs had also forgotten their use, I held my breath and clenched my teeth hard until my jaw joined the harmony of pain accompanying me now. 

Through the meadow and on to the ragged tree line ahead, I hoped someone would be nearby to help alleviate whatever was wrong with me and help. There had to be another soul nearby, somewhere. Wasn’t I here? Would I be so far from civilization in such a mangled state? I felt the ping of being utterly alone, but took reassurance in the fact there was still a blue sky above, there was still the dark, gritty earth under my bare feet. Though unscathed and not one bit ruined, as I was, we were all very much alive.

I had to find someone, or die trying.

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