Novels by sabrina graan

IvaEverything turned very dark, and unexpectedly, I was back in the park I had blown apart. The ground, now made of chalk, swirled around me in mini-tornadoes. Instead of a drenching downpour, the rain came down in slow-motion droplets. The water and the chalk made a sticky paste that trapped my feet. When I looked at the trees in the distance, they swayed strangely as if they were two-dimensional paintings, not yet complete. A giant tornado, much bigger than the one I had faced, twirled in the distance away from the painted forest. And above the tornado flew long, nearly invisible white ropes.As I looked up at the ropes, I saw a shadowy figure draped in flowing cloth, or mist, so dark it made the gray sky seem almost white. Suddenly, lightning lit up the sky, and thunder crashed in an echo all around me. This seemed to cue the figure into action because it began a terrifying dance with the ropes. The shadow person reeled out the tornado in my direction, and the chalk paste held me

Secretary of DefenseThe morning had been an absolute shit show. Which meant the rest of the day would probably be a dumpster fire the size of DC. Since accepting the position of Secretary of Defense, I had regretted it at least every other minute of every day. President Sato had chosen me because she believed I would be more effective because of my non-bureaucratic background. She was mistaken. I hated everything about the damn job: the meetings, the sniveling politicians, and, most of all, the pompous, ornate mahogany desk that dominated my office.As my morning seething session built to its lunchtime crescendo, I received an email from my officious secretary, Harper. As I watched the attached video, an ominous feeling gathered in my gut. I never ignored this intuition, except when I took this soul-sucking job.Harper walked in just as I finished the video, and I did my best not to yell, “What the fuck is this?” Instead, I took a breath, restrained myself from calling him the fuckta

KennedyI had been gazing at my transforming face in a mirror for almost eighteen years, bewildered by the reaction it provoked. Sure, my eyes were an uncommon shade of green, but that didn’t make me a goddess. And most people never noticed that my eyes were too big and set too far apart. I wanted to put that feature in the exotic department, but mostly, it made me resemble a bug-eyed alien. Yet everyone still felt the need to fawn over my looks. It all made me feel like a coveted trophy with whomever I dated or, worse, Redford’s boring, perfect girlfriend in The Way We Were. That my family was filthy rich made it even worse. This created a unique group of people who resented my wealth and beauty. As if my life was perfect, and I floated along on a fartless, sweet-smelling rainbow. I know, poor, beautiful, rich girl. God, even my internal complaints were mundane and bordering on narcissistic. I pulled the brush a little harder than necessary through my hair and sighed in disgust at my

LukeI had been wandering in the rain on the outskirts of downtown Portal for the past thirty minutes. One of the guys on my lacrosse team told me about a place called The Spotted Pig that allegedly sold the best jerky in town. But it must move around because my navigation kept taking me to different locations. Although I missed living in London, the outdoor activities here on the East Coast of the US were exceptional, and decent snacks were necessary to keep up my energy.An ear-piercing sound suddenly emanated from my phone. I ripped it out of my jacket pocket and cupped my hand over the screen. The banner reported a tornado sighting, which meant I either needed to run into a nearby store or haul ass to the Rover. Based on my limited knowledge of tornadoes, the last option struck me as a bad idea. I let out a few curse words in frustration and tugged the hood of my mac a little further over my head as I prepared to leave the cover of my bus stop vestibule.I headed to the nearby har

IvaFailure is the first lesson of life. Every living creature fails in small ways, big ways, and everything in between. And that is okay because failing is often the best way we learn. Sometimes, though, failure is the worst. As I stood in a downpour on the outskirts of my hometown of Portal, facing down a tornado, this thought played on a loop in my mind.Before being dragged to this tornado-killing field, my soccer practice had been winding down because of the dark clouds that had been chasing their way to my high school. Just as my fingers touched the ball to keep it from flying into the goal, my power came alive and tugged on my guts. Feigning stomach cramps, I begged off practice, grabbed my backpack, and ducked into a bathroom stall. My power teleported me to Osterman Park, a favorite local picnic spot where I had spent my fair share of lazy afternoons sprawled on a quilt. The park stretched out for at least a mile and shared a small lake with an adjoining forest, where a torna

Two identical beings stood in an impossibly white room. They gazed at a field of images, each with their head cocked at the same angle. The images played across a silver-blue pool set in an enormous, tilted basin. The left being’s slender finger touched an image in the bowl, sending a ripple through the remaining pictures.In a crisp voice, the being stated, “That is what we need.”The other made a precision turn of 180 degrees, placed a hand on an identical visionary basin with different images, and responded, “Are you sure this is not the final piece?”“We do not deal in surety. We deal in probability. A surety is an illusion.”The beings silently agreed and returned to the first basin.A young man and woman were staring at each other, the way beings have been staring at each other since the beginning of most species. The guy pushed the girl’s hair back and wrapped his arms around her. Both were breathing heavily in anticipation of what was to come, their lips less than an inch from