Series: Craven Falls #2
Publication date: October 22nd, 2020
Synopsis:
My name is Robyn Wilde, or at least that's the name the state gave me when I was five years old. I have no idea what my real name is or where I came from, who my parents really are, and why they didn't want me.
But I can tell you this:
"I'm fifteen and ran away from my foster parents' house after finding a file hidden away in their room with not only my name on it, but also the name Crystal Rosmus. According to the file, she knows a lot about me. How, I have no idea. But she lives in Craven Falls, Ohio, and I'm on a bus right now to find her."
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Trailer
Excerpt - Prologue
I'd have to admit; I wasn't used to the physical exertion. The muscles throughout my entire body ached and burned like they were on fire. Sure, I did my share of chores around the house, but digging a hole was beyond the kind of work I normally did. It wasn't a routine for me. I had never done something like this before. I just prayed that the hole would be deep enough. Because it would be terrible if I did all this work for nothing. A waste of precious time. Because God knows that I don't have time to waste.
I stopped once the hole was the exact size I needed it to be. Like I said, I had never done this sort of thing before. I hadn't planned to dig a gigantic hole in the woods big enough to bury a body in. A body I hadn't intended to kill. If I said it was an accident, would you believe me? Probably not. You don't even know anything about me. And neither did she.
I wiped the sweat from my brow, feeling satisfied. A job well done, that's if I were giving out compliments to myself, which I'm not. No one has ever praised me for anything that I've done in my life, so why start now?
I turned and drove the shovel into the mound of dirt beside the hole. I had to finish this before it got too dark or worse, someone came into these woods and saw what I was doing. Then I'd have to get rid of them too, and I wasn't sure I could handle killing someone else.
I walked over to where I had left her body and grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the open grave. Her back scrapped against the earth, cutting her skin, not that I cared. Once I was at the edge of the hole I had just dug, I dropped her arms and sat down beside her.
Dirt covered her body from being dragged, but she was still beautiful. I ran my fingers over her hair, now tangled in a brownish red. The blood had dried in a crust form, matting the hair to her head. If you saw her now, you wouldn't know that her hair was once blonde, though browner at the roots like mine.
I wondered if they would miss her, but quickly blocked the thought from my mind. I wouldn't let her. Or at least I wouldn't miss her. To be honest, I really didn't even know her at that well. We knew nothing about each other because the truth of the matter was, we had just met for the first time in fifteen years. A secret that was kept from me. Actually, there were many secrets kept from me, but she was the one that mattered most. But I won't sit here and waste any more time reminiscing over the past I hadn't known about until just a few days ago.
Getting to my knees, I rolled her into the hole. The hole wasn't deep. Maybe two or three feet. Her body hit the bottom with a loud thud. No sound escaped out of her, which told me she had to be dead. She needed to be dead for this to benefit me.
Leaning forward, I peered into the open grave. She didn't move. Was I expecting her to? When I arrived here in Craven Falls, I had only one thing on my mind that was to find out who I really was. Well, until her. This girl now lying in front of me. I hadn't meant to hurt anyone when I arrived in this town, but I did and there was nothing I could do about it now.
I jumped down into the hole and laid her on her back, whispering in her ear. Words only meant for her to hear, that's if she were alive. I wished that she hadn't provoked me into killing her and wondered at that very moment if we were alike? If we shared the same habits and loved the same things as clothes and music. It didn't matter now. I made one tiny, infinite mistake, and now I have to cover it up.
A low chuckle escaped from deep inside my throat as I stared down at her. I wasn't sure where it had come from. Why did I think this was funny? I wondered if it would have ended up differently for her if she wouldn't have been such a pest? Well, I couldn't think about that now. She was already dead. She was in the woods where no one would come to look for her. Because in all honesty--they wouldn't even know she was missing.
I climbed out of the hole and stood above her. My lips spreading wide as a smile appeared. A side of me that felt all too new.
A gust of wind with a faint smell of rain came from out of nowhere. I needed to stop dicking around and cover her body before it rained. There were no leaves on the trees to help shelter me from the rainwater, just scrawny twigs like branches.
I turned and picked up the shovel, scooping the dirt onto her body until the hole wasn't a hole anymore.
Then I walked away.
The Dead Girl Under the Bleachers by Donna M. Zadunajsky (Craven Falls #1) -
Donna M. Zadunajsky started out writing children's books before she wrote and published her first novel, Broken Promises, in June 2012. She since has written several more novels and her first novella, HELP ME! Book 1 in the series, which is about teen suicide and bullying.
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