looking to escape the past - Out of Control by Sarah Alderson

When seventeen-year-old Liva came to New York City, all she wanted was to escape the painful memories of her past and finally find a fresh start. Her hopes for a new future were dashed the moment she became the sole witness to a brutal murder.

Description:

Published: May 12th, 2015

A girl looking to escape her past in New York City ends up on the run from a dangerous conspiracy in this sizzling, high-stakes novel.

When seventeen-year-old Liva came to New York City, all she wanted was to escape the painful memories of her past and finally find a fresh start. Her hopes for a new future were dashed the moment she became the sole witness to a brutal murder. When she’s taken into police custody—supposedly for her own protection—she realizes something isn’t right, but it’s too late. Soon, bullets start flying, and Liva realizes that she is not just a witness, but the target—and she needs to escape before it’s too late.

With the help of a sexy car thief that she met at the station, Liva manages to get away from the massacre unharmed, but now the two of them are alone in New York, trying to outrun and outwit the two killers who will stop at nothing to find them. Liva and Jay are living on the edge, but when you’re on the edge, there’s a long way to fall.

EXCERPT 

The boy snatches the key from my outstretched hand and jams it into the tiny hole. The cuff springs apart, freeing him.

Instantly, he throws himself on top of me. ‘Get down!’

A bullet smacks itself into a filing cabinet just behind us as we tumble to the ground. His chest presses down on mine, my face is buried in his shoulder. Quickly he rolls off me and pushes me towards a desk. I scoot underneath it, banging the side of my head on the sharp metal corner of a drawer unit. I let out a cry.

‘Shhh.’ His hand clamps over my mouth.

I tug his arm away. ‘What’s going on? What’s happening?’ I whisper.

Before he can answer me, the shooting stops and a silence falls that is even more terrifying than the gunfire. The boy and I both freeze, staring at each other unblinking, just a few millimetres between us. Together, enclosed in the tight space beneath the desk, we strain to listen, and over the radio static and the whir of the air conditioner overhead, I pick out faint cries coming from somewhere in the distance; the unnatural keening howl of a wounded animal.

The boy shifts his weight. His back is pressed to one cabinet, his feet to the drawer unit. Carefully, he peers around the edge of the desk then ducks quickly back, breathing fast. A bead of sweat trickles down the side of his face.

‘Shit,’ he murmurs, resting his head back against the cabinet and closing his eyes.

‘Wh— ’ I begin, but stop when I hear the sly creak of the door being pushed open. A boot crunches on glass. The boy’s eyes flash open and lock on mine, holding me in place, silencing the scream that has risen up my throat and is threatening to tear free. My legs begin to shake from holding still in a crouching position. The boy’s right hand squeezes my knee hard – another warning, his eyes wide and burning fiercely into mine, telling me: Do not move.

Something topples off a desk on the far side of the room and, over the boy’s shoulder, through a gap between two filing cabinets, I glimpse the back of a man’s leg. Whose? Is it a cop? Where is everyone else? What happened to the cops who ran out into the corridor?

No. I shut off the thought, not wanting to go there.

The man in the room is standing stock-still with his back to us. What is he doing? I can’t see. He’s facing the wall – the chalkboard with all the homicide cases listed on it. The seconds seem to extend into whole hours, days, centuries, and I’m holding my breath and the boy’s hand is still squeezing my knee and my heart is bursting, literally bursting, as though too much blood is pumping through it. My leg muscles are on fire and, without warning, my foot slips. Not far. But it bumps the edge of the desk. The man spins instantly in our direction. The air rushes from my lungs and the boy shifts beside me, a single word that I don’t catch, falling from his lips like a dying man’s prayer.

The man starts to head in our direction, is almost on us, when someone somewhere else in the building shouts something that’s instantly swallowed in a storm of gunfire and the man rushes out into the corridor.

The boy darts his head out and then he’s out from under the desk and reaching for me.

‘Move!’ he says, pulling me to my feet.

*********

the cop shoves the boy into a chair just a few feet away from me. The boy’s jaw works angrily, his eyes dart once around the room, taking me in with a narrowed look of suspicion before the cop barks something at him that gets his attention. It’s only then that I notice the handcuffs. He hunches over, almost as if he’s trying to hide them from me. I stare at him more closely, wondering what he’s been brought in for. Then I remember we’re sitting in the homicide department.

‘Name,’ the cop demands.

‘Jaime Moreno,’ he answers quietly, spelling it out. He says it with a slight Spanish inflection so it sounds like Hay-may. As the policeman writes it down, the boy looks over at me briefly and I see something flash in his eyes – pride or anger, I can’t tell which. Maybe it’s both.

‘You’ve been read your rights,’ the cop says now. ‘You got one phone call, Moreno. If I were you I’d use it to call your momma and tell her you ain’t gonna be home for a while.’ He stretches, reaches for a pencil. ‘You know, you could make this go a whole lot easier if you started talking.’

I watch the boy carefully. His face is turned in profile to me. His chin is lowered and he glowers at the cop through the shield of his lashes but doesn’t say a word.

The cop leans back in his seat. ‘Fine by me, if you don’t talk,’ he says, undoing the top button of his shirt. ‘No sweat off my sack. I’m not the one who’s facing twenty-five years in a New York State penitentiary. Maybe I wouldn’t be talking either in your shoes. Those some crazy mofos you messing up with. Hell, I’d probably be too busy shitting my pants too if I was the one sitting where you are right now.’ He pushes back from the desk, freeing his belly, stands up and stretches. ‘I’ll just go and see if a cell’s opened up.’

Once he’s gone, the boy stays sitting there, his shoulders slightly hunched, his jaw working overtime. His lips are pressed together tightly and his hands are clenched in his lap as if he’s praying. I almost feel sorry for him. Then I see the board of open murder cases on the wall in front of me and my sympathy magically evaporates. I hope if this boy’s guilty they lock him up and throw away the key.

I sit with my back to the boy, my foot tapping, waiting for Detective Owens to return. By the clock on the wall it’s nearly five a.m. I’ve been here three hours, but I’m hoping the detective takes his time as I haven’t yet thought of anyone I can call, and I’m still wracking my brains when I hear: ‘Pssst.’

I don’t turn around.

‘Pssst. Hey.’

I do a quick scan but the three cops left in the room are all busy and I can’t catch anyone’s eye.

‘Please.’

I turn fractionally towards the boy behind me who’s trying to get my attention. ‘What?’ I ask.

His eyes flit across the room before landing back on me. He keeps his voice low as he bends forwards. ‘I need a favour.’

I raise my eyebrows at him in disbelief. What makes him think I’m about to do him a favour? He’s a stranger. And he’s wearing handcuffs.

As if he knows exactly what I’m thinking – which admittedly, given the look I’m fixing him with, wouldn’t be hard to guess – he raises his own eyebrows right back at me. ‘What happened to innocent till proven guilty?’

I frown at him. He has me there. But still, there’s the fact he’s a stranger and I have a feeling that whatever kind of favour he’s going to ask me it’s not going to be legal.

‘You get to walk out of here. I don’t. I’m not going to make bail,’ he says.

I ponder this for a second. ‘How do you know,’ I finally say, ‘that I’ve not just been charged with a triple homicide?’

His eyes – a bewildering dark green – light up with amusement. He holds up his bound wrists and then nods at my free hands. ‘And besides,’ he says, ‘you don’t really fit the profile. You’re wearing a snazzy NYPD sweater. They don’t usually hand those out to murder suspects.’

I hold his gaze for a few seconds. His eyes burn into mine – pleading. ‘Listen, all I’m asking is that when you walk out of here you call someone for me,’ he says.

‘Why on earth would I do that?’ I ask, incredulous.

He considers me for a beat then sits back in his seat. ‘Because you look like you got heart.’

I stare at him blankly. Heart? What’s that supposed to mean? ‘You get one call, remember?’ I say.

‘I need that for someone else,’ he mumbles.

‘Too bad,’ I answer with a shrug.

‘Please,’ he begs, and I catch the waver in his voice and realise this is hard for him to ask. That flare in his eyes – it’s pride, not anger. ‘I don’t want my mom to worry,’ he says.

That gets my attention. ‘Your mother? You want me to call your mother?’ I ask, somewhat sceptically.

He looks at me abashed, colour running into his cheeks. ‘I just . . . I want her to know that I’m OK. And that I’m sorry,’ he adds.

I flinch back in my seat. Sorry? Isn’t that as much an admission of guilt as waving a bloodied knife in my face? He scowls at me instantly, seeing my reaction.

‘How do I know that you’re not just getting me to call one of your friends to pass on some kind of message?’ I ask. ‘I’m not an idiot.’

The scowl vanishes. His expression turns deadly serious. ‘I give you my word. I just want you to call my mom.’

I study him. He looks genuine. I’d go so far as to say desperate in fact. But he’s a stranger. And as a rule I don’t break rules. If you discount climbing on to roofs. Not even for friends. I learned the hard way. I glance over my shoulder at the far door which Detective Owens disappeared through, hoping he’ll reappear and give me a get-out clause.

‘If you do this for me,’ the boy says, leaning forwards, his hands clasped together, ‘I will pay you back.’

‘When?’ I fire back. ‘In twenty-five years?’

He winces and sits up tall in his seat, and I immediately regret my sarcasm. I take a deep breath. Would it really hurt to do this? But before I can decide, the boy is out of his seat. He throws a quick glance around the room and then he’s standing in front of me, pressing something into my hand. ‘Please,’ he says, staring down at me, his expression begging.

I am too startled to do anything but stare up at him.

‘OK,’ I say quietly, kicking myself mentally as soon as the word is past my lips.


My heart is hammering hard and sweat trickles down my back. I strain to listen. Are they following?

Just then we hear footsteps pounding the sidewalk. They come to a halt right by the entrance to the alleyway and Jay presses further against me, the buttons of his jeans cutting into my waist, my forehead against his collarbone. Neither of us breathes. My hand slides down Jay’s back and closes around the butt of the gun. He hadn’t thought to draw it. I ease it out as he tenses and pulls back enough that I can see the whites of his eyes. He gives a tiny shake of his head and puts a finger to his lips.

I stare up at him and we wait, listening, me with the gun still in my hand, my finger sliding the safety free, Jay still pressing me tight up against the wall. The voices start arguing about which direction we’ve gone in. Someone takes a few steps into the alleyway but stops just an inch or so shy of seeing us. I hear the sound of a zipper and then the sprinkle of urine spraying against metal. I wrinkle my nose and press my face into Jay’s T-shirt.

If he takes one more step he’ll see us. I picture what I’ll need to do. If I can push Jay aside I can aim the gun and we can hopefully hold them off until we’re far enough away to make a run for it.

We listen in absolute silence as the guy re-zips himself and heads back out towards the street. The three of them talk some more – though I can’t make out what they’re saying – and then finally, after what feels like an eternity, they walk away. Jay’s shoulders drop fractionally, but he doesn’t take a step back. No, he keeps me pressed up against the wall. And I notice that we’re both breathing fast again – as though we’re still sprinting. I tip my head back against the brick behind me so I can see his face. He’s looking down at me, and in the shadow all I can make out is the strong line of his jaw, the soft curve of his lips. I can’t read his expression. But I can guess at it.

He shifts his weight slightly and his thigh presses against my hip. I draw in a breath. My free hand – the one not holding the gun, rests on his upper chest. I slide it up and over his shoulder and with my eyes still on him I pull him even closer, until he’s pressed completely against me and I can feel the hardness of muscle through his T-shirt and his jeans. My heart explodes in my chest as I tilt my head back further, reaching on tiptoe, and his mouth finds mine in the darkness.

His kiss is hard, full of heat, uncontrolled.

The earth doesn’t just spin, it shatters into a million pieces. Lights burst lightning bright behind my eyes as Jay’s hands run the length of me, and I have to grip hold of his shoulder to keep from sliding down the wall.

His hand settles behind my waist, pinning me to him, and the other holds the back of my head. And I don’t fight it because I want him to hold me tighter, to kiss me deeper. I want to melt into him and I’m grasping at him even more frantically than he is at me. It’s as though all the pent-up energy and frustration and emotion of the day is spilling out of one and into the other, and the desperation in our kisses becomes a wild hunger for more, for touch, for connection, for closeness stripped bare.

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About the author:

Having spent most of her life in London, Sarah quit her job in the non profit sector in 2009 and took off on a round the world trip with her husband and princess-obsessed daughter on a mission to find a new place to call home. After several months in India, Singapore, Australia and the US, they settled in Bali where Sarah now spends her days writing by the pool and trying to machete open coconuts without severing a limb.

She finished her first novel, Hunting Lila (winner of the Kingston Book Award), just before they left the UK, wrote the sequel on the beach in India and had signed a two book deal with Simon & Schuster by the time they had reached Bali.

A third book, Fated, about a teenage demon slayer, was published in January 2012.

The Sound, a thriller romance set in Nantucket, was published in August 2013 and this was followed by the critically acclaimed Out of Control in May 2014.

She also writes New Adult romance for Pan Macmillan (UK) / Simon & Schuster (US) under the pen name Mila Gray.

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some of the author's other books