Team Mónica #4 -- ANOMALY

ANOMALY

YA Futuristic Thriller

68,000 words

Query:

Sloan's not a killer. So when she’s the next seventeen-year-old to get her brain scanned for the government initiative, Project Reform, she never expects to end up in the Desolate, an island full of teens marked as future killers.

On the island, Sloan makes a reluctant friend in her roommate, Fallon, who has a general dislike for every human except her boyfriend--the one guy Sloan hates most. When Fallon transforms into a programmed killer, Sloan believes she’s been brainwashed and hatches a plan to rescue her from the notorious Dark Hill, a prison on the island for the worst of the worst. 

As if that weren't enough to keep her toes curling in her sneakers, Sloan goes on the run with Fallon’s arrogant boyfriend and discovers that he knows more about Killer Island than he’s saying. As Sloan tries to fight a dangerous attraction to him, they stumble onto a plot against the government and find a drug that’s turning the teens on the island into actual killers.

Sloan has a decision to make--save herself or save humanity.

First page:

 

I wasn't a killer, so I had no reason to be nervous about the brain scan, but something tugged at me, something raw and unknown about today.

My hand shook as I reached for my locker. I flexed my fingers, willing the shakes to stop.

Relax, Sloan. But I couldn't. Not yet.

Someone yelled in the congested corridor, cutting off the words rotating in my head. Voices squawked and shrilled in the hallway, like flocks of birds let out of their cages.

I slammed my fist against the door. Why couldn't it just close on the first try?

"Locker close." It gaped open, like a mouth during a scream.

"Close locker?"

It always did this when I was late for class. You'd think I'd remember the correct voice command after three years. I glanced down at my clear wrist-phone.    

"Time?"

The numbers 8:01 AM hovered above my wrist in electric blue, while an ad for Coke Pure projected into the air beside it, then disappeared.

"Locker shut," I growled.

The door closed at a sluggish pace.

Hurried footsteps clomped behind me. I turned and saw my friend and resident gossipmonger, Jasmine, barreling down the hall in tight blue neon pants and hover boots, elbowing people in her way. "Sloan!"

“What?” I said. "Did you finally reach your gossip quota?"

"Smart ass." She leaned against the plastic doors and wrapped a lock of her pink hair around her finger. Her expression grew serious, the lines in her forehead crinkling slightly. “Zege didn't pass his brain scan.”