Show Me Yours Blogfest

Today's the triad-hosted blogfest, in which we share a cleaned-up passage (500 words or less) from our 2010 NaNoWriMo novels.

For the complete list of participants, you can check here or here.

I had a lot of passages I liked from Dry Run, but I decided to share the end of the novel. Yes, that's right: the end.

It's 647 words long, but I think the extra 147 words were necessary for setting the scene.
Thanks for stopping by, and please be sure to check out the other entries!


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Donovan burst onto the scene, nausea pounding through his throat, spinning his head. He felt the collision with her time bubble, and the impact sent him over the edge. His weak body convulsed on itself and he fell forward, stomach heaving. Stars danced across his vision even as he struggled to finish, to climb to his feet.
She stood at the focal point, the three men dangling in the air in front of her. Each expression frozen. Anger, hatred. And the fear born of pure love.
Pushing himself across the frozen ground, he grabbed her ankle, fingers nearly unresponsive from the cold.
She jerked, then looked down at him. He felt the automatic battering of her power against him, but he was ready. Deflected it off with a simple shrug. And then the surprise of recognition flared across her face.
“Stop.” His voice sounded weak, and he burst into a coughing fit. She stared at him, expression morphing from shock into anger, and then resolution.
“I can’t.”
Sorrow drenched her words, hitting him in the gut. But still he dragged himself standing. Both their shoulders heaving. Gazes locked through the inky air.
“You can’t change it.”
She snapped her gaze away from him, locking it on the man in the middle of the air. A lock of hair fell forward over his left eye. At her sides, her fingers curled into fists.
“Yes I can.”
He felt her intention shift before she moved. Even as she brought her hand up, resolution blazing in her eyes, he hated himself for what he had to do.
Their hands met in a burst of light, red and gold mixing like fireworks. A supernova star. She pushed against him, her will nearly overpowering.
Around them, the bubble of time warped.
Hardening his heart into the solid core of ice he’d come to embrance, he whipped his left hand forward. It struck her directly on the temple, the perfect amount of pressure to knock her brain into her skull.
Their eyes met, and in the last flash before she collapsed to the ground, he felt every nuance of her hurt and sorrow rend his soul.
And then she hit the ground with a solid thud.
Time snapped back into instant play, and Donovan let himself fall to the ground beside her, eyes trained on the scene in front of them.
The primal’s strike flashed forward.
Adam Savage’s lips formed his wife’s name even as the silver blade burrowed into his throat. A crimson arc sprayed into the air, and then he was falling, falling.
Donovan bent forward over Claire, covering her body with his. Hiding her unseeing eyes from the vision before them.
Adam hit the ground, hand splaying open toward his wife. Dark eyes locked on Donovan.

And then the air around them twisted into a vortex, and Donovan dug his fingers into Claire’s clothing, holding her against him with all his strength as the purchase he’d made slammed its bargain home.
Darkness swept around them, tucking them into its frigid womb. Like the center of a tornado, everything screamed and whirled until he thought he might separate from his soul.

And then it all went still.
Donovan Stryker opened his eyes, feeling the sticky resistance of blood seeping from his tear ducts.
Beneath him, Claire Savage lay still, like a doll. Chest rising and falling. His head spun with a whirlwind of emotions, fear and anger and rage and terror and love all mixing and pummeling him until he almost wished that he’d stayed behind.
Maybe he could leave before she woke. How many times would he be the cause of her heart breaking? How many times could one man break a woman until she was gone forever?
He pushed himself to his hands and knees, chest constricted. Breath ragged. Stomach twisting, mouth dry and sour.

She opened her eyes.