Excerpt and GIVEAWAY: IFB Tours Presents: The Headhunters Race by Kimberly Afe
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Series: Headhunters #1
Release date: January 3rd 2014
Publisher: January Sky Publishing
Purchase: Amazon
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Sixteen-year-old Avene was sentenced to prison at thirteen for a crime she didn't commit. Now she has a chance to win her freedom back – if she enters the Headhunters Race. Second prize isn't so bad either, an upgrade to the Leisure Prison if you make it to the finish line. To win either prize, Avene and the other prisoners must navigate one hundred and fifty miles of dense forest, desert, and worst of all, cannibal territory.
With a mechanical collar timed to strangle the prisoners if they're not back in nine days, Avene allies herself with seventeen-year-old McCoy, another prisoner that insists on helping her at every turn and a boy she's trying hard not to fall for. Together they battle nature, other prisoners, and the timed death collars to win the coveted prize. But when Avene is tested with one deadly conflict after another, she realizes there is more at stake than winning her freedom – first she has to survive.
Excerpt
from The Headhunters Race
This excerpt is from
the day the race starts and Avene is getting ready.
Hours later, when
the birds start chirping, I know it's almost time to wake up. I get
out of bed and change into my special clothes. The ones I've been
saving for this day: a sturdy pair of jeans and a man's blue flannel
shirt. Underneath I wear my white fitted tee-shirt, depicting a
crudely drawn skull. I added the crossbones bearing a set of daggers
with a nearly dried-up marker I found a year ago. It represents my
mantra for the race: stay away from me or I'll kill you.
I tie my sheath
around my thigh, re-lace my boots with longer and sturdier cord I
found on a pair of men's boots in the goodie two shoes clothing pile,
and then gulp down several handfuls of water. I wipe the droplets
from my mouth while I pace like a caged panther. A few minutes later
I slug down another five handfuls before I remember to fill my water
bottle.
Zita leans up on
her elbow. "You're sure you want to do this?"
"I have to,
Zita. It's our only way out. The only way we'll be free."
She throws off her
cover and leaps to her feet. "Well, we better do something with
that hair. They'll start calling the prisoners out soon."
Zita snatches our
slop container from the table. She fills it with dirt from the corner
and mixes in a bit of water. "I'm not sure how well this will
work," she says, stirring it with her finger. "Sit."
I sit on the ground
cross-legged at her feet. She kneels beside me, takes a small lock of
hair, and rubs mud all through the strands. The stringy tresses stick
together, cold and wet against my cheek. After one side of my head is
finished, she steps back and surveys her work. "Nope, this isn't
working. Your roots are still too light."
"Why don't you
wash her whole head in it?" says McCoy.
I stiffen. Leave it
to him to think of dunking my whole head in mud.
"You're a
genius!" says Zita. She grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet.
"Help me," she says to McCoy and I cringe at the thought of
him touching my head when I'm a direct competitor. He might send his
ninja blade across my neck.
He grabs the sink,
half full of water, water I need to drink, and dumps three quarters
of it into the corner. "Hey, I need to drink that!" I say.
"You can drink
ours," says McCoy.
Right. I'm not
going to drink theirs. He'd love that. Especially now that he's going
to have to hunt on his own and the only way he knows how is by
poaching off me.
Zita stops short of
pouring in handfuls of dirt. Instead she goes to the fire pit and
scoops out gobs of ash. She swishes it around with her fingers,
stares at it like she's not satisfied, and goes ahead and dumps in a
handful of dirt anyway. "Okay, bend over, girl."
I lean over the
sink while Zita pours the murky mixture over my hair and massages it
in. It's gritty and gross.
"Hand me that
old shirt in the corner," says Zita.
I'm looking upside
down at McCoy while he retrieves the old shirt she uses as her dust
rag. She wrings out my hair and then places the shirt over top and
squeezes out the excess water. "I wish I had a comb," she
says, flipping my head up and steering my behind back to the ground.
"It's okay, I
can use my fingers," I say.
McCoy dashes into
their room. "Boom has one, hold on."
I lean my head back
in defeat. He's determined to help me, to make me feel obligated to
help him in return, but his niceties aren't going to work on me.
Author Bio
Kimberly is the mother of two awesome kids, wife of the nicest man in the world, and her dog's best friend. She works by day and writes middle grade and young adult science fiction and fantasy novels in her spare time. She lives with her family in the beautiful Sonoran Desert.
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