Excerpt + PB Release: Winders by Ryan O’Nan

Blurb

In this stunning debut by actor and screenwriter Ryan O’Nan, time itself can be wound back like a clock. The power of Winding can fix mistakes and prevent disasters. Or, in the wrong hands, it can be used as a weapon against the world…

“Clever, kinetic, and personal, O’Nan’s prose will keep your bedside lamp burning till the wee hours.” — Pierce Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Red Rising

Juniper Trask is a prodigy, raised under the Council’s strict Code, which allows Winders to exist in secret among average humans. After the shocking murder of her mentor, she is chosen to take his seat on the Council. But as Juniper settles into her new role, cracks of dissension are forming around her, and she uncovers the dark truth behind their power. Juniper has just become a pawn in a game no one knows is being played, and as she begins to question the Code for the first time, her life spirals into a world of danger.

Charlie Ryan always knew he was different, ever since he saved his mother from a horrible car wreck that no one but him remembers. After meeting a mysterious man who claims he has the same ability, Charlie leaves home to chase him for answers. But the world Charlie’s stepped into is more dangerous than he could have imagined. Charlie’s powers are special, and there are those who would kill to get their hands on him.

Now, Juniper and Charlie need each other if they are going to survive the future—no matter which future that may be…

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About the Author

RYAN O’NAN is an award-winning screen- writer, actor, and director. He is currently a writer/producer on Tracker, the number one most-watched television series in America. His previous screenwriting credits include Marvel’s Legion, Skins, Queen of the South on USA, and Wu-Tang: an American Saga on Hulu. He also wrote and directed the acclaimed indie film Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best which was released in 2012 by Oscilloscope Laboratories. He lives in Los Angeles with his Maine Coon, Anne Shirley.

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Excerpt

Deep, flexing hip hop pounds throughout the raging house party. A college party. We’re high school kids on the Rutgers University campus, because A: we’re lucky enough to live in a college town, B: we look older for our age, but mostly C: because Ducky’s girlfriend knows the dude throwing the party.

I stand alone, at the edge of the packed room, watching Ducky and Gina grind into each other on the dance floor. I’ve never been a big dancer.

Five minutes later, I find myself in the kitchen, staring down my sixth shot of Jäger. Part of me feels like I might have permanent esophagus damage now, and that perhaps I’ll only be able to taste black licorice for the rest of my life, but I’m already feeling a warmth permeating from my deepest core, expanding and consuming anything not fun-related.

And now I’m on the dance floor, and there’s no move I can’t do, no choreography (that probably took decades to perfect) that I haven’t instantly mastered. A twiggy, blonde college girl, wearing a baggy sweatshirt and short shorts, places her hand on my waist and leans her hips into me as we start to move together on the dance floor. She’s pretty damn gorgeous, as far as I can tell, and she smells like sweaty strawberries (which sounds awful in theory, but for some reason, it isn’t in real life). She turns around, her back against me now, pressing herself into me, holding my hands on her hips. I’m lost, and turned on, and drunk, and lost, and she smells so good. I can’t believe I’m keeping up with her rhythm. I know it won’t last for long.

Across the room Ducky yells out at me, “My man! Taught that boy every move he knows!” I look over and he’s smiling ear to ear. Gina stares at the girl I’m dancing with in disgust. I wonder if she knows her. Then she looks at me, and her expression changes into something hard to read. Jealousy, maybe? All I know is it makes me uncomfortable, so I grab my girl’s hand and spin her into an odd step. She laughs, surprised and delighted by the unexpected move. I like her laugh. I want more. I adjust my dance routine into something not unlike the Funky Chicken.

Ducky bellows, “Not that one! I did not teach him that! I swear!” I laugh hard. The girl laughs with me. I can’t remember the last time I felt this good. No time for sad, angry Charlie—that whiny little bitch. Cuz right now, I just gotta dance.

I’m halfway through what I assume is a flawless Thriller reenactment, when the world seems to tilt a good forty-five degrees on its axis. I stumble across the room and smash into a small group of people, who have somehow remained immune to the planetary shift.

One of the victims of my involuntary wrecking ball maneuver is a densely built dude, easily five years older than me, who’s wearing one of those long T-shirts that go halfway down to his knees. His full beer cup blasts from his hand, drenching his legs. I quickly scoop up his empty beer cup off the ground and extend it back to him as an obvious peace gesture.

“Oh, man, so sorry about that… My moves have a mind of their own sometimes.” I don’t mention my tilting-planet theory because, truthfully, there isn’t time. The burly goon swats the cup out of my hand.

“You got beer on my shoes, bitch! I just bought these!”

“It was an accident. Seriously, man, I’m really sorry.” I want to elaborate, but my brain won’t lock on to anything more profound to say. Even in my drunken state, I see his elbows move long before he’s able to leverage his full weight into the massive chest-push. Always watch the elbows. Before he can touch me, I deftly capture his wrist, twist, and pull his hulking upper body downward in pain as I swiftly bring my knee up into his face. The dull, meaty impact snaps his head back and he goes down hard—out for the count. It all happens so fast. My vision spins, taking in the frightened faces around me. The girl I was dancing with is long gone. And now Ducky is in front of me, holding me by the shoulders, looking about as serious as I’ve ever seen him. “Hey, hey…you okay?”

I wriggle out of his grip, backing away. “Give me a minute… I’m sorry, man.”

“Charlie, tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m good, I just need a minute.” I flash him my best smile, but he’s not buying it.

“Charlie—”

I turn and push through the crowd. But as I get close to the front door, a fresh crop of partygoers starts pouring in. I dodge through them, but there’s too many, and suddenly I feel like I’m drowning. I cut to the right, where I find a hallway, then a staircase. I head upstairs, where the population thins out drastically. I start down another hallway, but I only get a few meters before someone switches the filter on my vision to kaleidoscope and I almost throw up. And suddenly, I’m ten, and my mother is twisted up in her soiled bedsheets in front of me—thin and tortured-looking, reaching out to me in agony. The memory cuts me off at the knees. I plant my hand on the wall. But it’s not the wall; it’s a door. I fumble for the handle, then lurch into an empty bedroom, shutting the door behind me.

I swim across the dark room and come ashore on a twin bed. The stale air reeks of cheap incense. I sit, swaddling my head in my hands, attempting to clear my chaotic mind. What the hell just happened? Shit! I could’ve just stopped him with the wristlock…I didn’t need to hurt him. I ruined his new shoes. And maybe his face. Dancing sucks! I HATE dancing! No wonder so many religions forbid it. How can you keep civilization intact when everyone’s dancing around, ruining people’s shoes left and right?!

The door cracks open. A sheath of light pours in, masking the silhouetted figure in the doorway.

“Sorry, I’m gonna leave…” I struggle to stand.

“I just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” a sultry voice says.

I focus and put the perfectly curved silhouette together with the voice. “Oh…hi, Gina. Yeah, I’m good. Tell Ducky I’m good, and I’ll be right down.”

“He’s outside looking for you. But I saw you sneak upstairs.” Gina is also very drunk. I can hear the bravery in her voice. She closes the door behind her. I sit back down on the bed, deciding I can’t maneuver this situation and stand at the same time. “…So, I’m checking on you.”

“I’m good. Go back down. I’m fine.”

“What if I’d like to stay?” she says, moving toward me.

“Well…then…I don’t know what.” I’m flailing.

“Most girls would be scared of what you did. You don’t scare me, Charlie.” Gina is close now. I can hear her lips part, allowing her tongue to slice out and wet them. She presses her legs ever so slightly against my knees.

“Seriously, Gina…”

“What? You don’t think I’m good for Ducky, anyway. I can tell. Who cares if I’m here, then? Better than with him, right?” She touches my face. Her hand smells sweet, like cocoa butter. I stay silent. Then guilt seeps out of me and I push her back away. She retaliates, grabbing my shirt and pulling herself in between my legs. She presses her full lips to mine. Her kiss rips a hole in me but then instantly fills it; this cycle repeats endlessly within a second, a vicious duel between betrayal and anesthesia. I should stand up. Right now. I should. But right now, I am wreckage, driftwood, a straw house before a wolf. And because I have spent the last eight years proving to myself that I deserve all this pain, and because I am lonely, and because she is right, I kiss Gina back. We grab at each other, graceless, sloppy, groping.

The bedroom door swings open, framing us in a door-shaped spotlight, but some roaches just aren’t fast enough, and as I stare into the shattered face of my best friend, I wish this room was the mouth of some giant ravenous beast and that I would die screaming as its slathering jaws tear me apart.

Ducky looks like he’s going to be sick. He staggers away. I push Gina off me and race after him. “Ducky! No…wait! Stop, please!”

Ducky looks back at me as I struggle after him. “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?!” His rage is big and brutal. If he wasn’t so hurt, I know he would hit me. I can see it in his eyes and in his trembling body. He’s always had my back, always been so loyal, even when I was in the wrong, even when no one else stood by me. Freshman year, I saw Derek King, a twisted fiend of a kid, punch his girlfriend in the face in front of all her friends in the school parking lot. I beat him so badly, I broke my hand, and I was seconds from slamming his head in an open car door, when Ducky seized me from behind. Later, I found out, when Ducky had heard there was a fight in the parking lot, he’d dropped his books and sprinted across campus. No one told him it was me; he just knew. It was always me. If he’d gotten there ten seconds later, Derek King might’ve been dead, and Camp Lazarus would’ve been a day spa compared to the places they send underage murderers. And this is how I repay him.

“Ducky…I… That wasn’t… Let me just—”

“I just told you I might be in love with her, man—” Ducky’s blurry red eyes go panicked as he slips on a discarded beer bottle. His legs shoot out from underneath him. I’m too far away. I can’t reach him. He tumbles backward down the stairs. His body twists, and his face smashes against the thick wooden banister. A repulsive crack is audible as Ducky’s neck cocks to the side at an inhuman angle. He lands, inverted, and a bubble of bloody snot blooms from one of his nostrils as his body begins to spasm.

A howling, belligerent, curdled cry escapes me as I watch Ducky’s loose limbs waterfall down around his bent torso. And as desperate rage pisses out me like a severed artery…

The world around me begins to shift.

Ducky’s legs jerk back up into space, his neck straightens, and he flips in reverse back up the stairs. And now Ducky and I are racing backward through the hall. I’m pulled back into the bedroom. Back into Gina’s arms. Our lips meet again. Ducky seems to close the door on us, drenching the room in darkness. Gina and I jump away from each other just as quick. Some unseeable force drags Gina out of the room… Then I am alone again in the darkness.

And then time starts moving forward once again.

I sit on the bed, a festering sore of panic. I can feel every stitch of clothing on my body—itchy, shrinking, collapsing in on me like a cage. I’m crazy. Oh, God, I’m completely insane… “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” off my fucking rocker! Is this what being a schizophrenic feels like? Or… No! Don’t say OR. There is no OR! But I can’t help it… My mind cracks open the lid to the Pandora’s box I’ve held firmly in my grasp since that awful night on the highway: Or could it all be true? Saving my mother, the accident, rewinding… How can these miraculous things be true? They can’t. And what is that horrific ringing sound?

The door opens. Gina stands silhouetted. I launch off the bed and push past her. Adrenaline burns through the alcohol-induced fog. I’ve never felt more sober in my life.

“Charlie!” Gina calls after me.

Halfway down the stairs, a harsh fatigue hits me like a dump truck. I fight to stay conscious as the world hurricanes around me. I reach the ground floor and slam into Ducky, who grabs me and holds me up, shocked by my state.

“Charlie! What’s wrong? Did someone—” I wrap my arms around Ducky, collapsing into him.

“You’re okay. You’re okay…” I’m crying now—big, sloppy tears. I’m holding him so tight, terrified that if I let him go, I may lose him forever.

“Of course, I’m okay,” he assures me. “You’re scaring me, man. What the hell did—”

Then I yank away from him and rush out the front door, plowing my way through party guests, who re-converge angrily behind me, blocking Ducky’s path. I see him trying to push through, then…

“Ducky!” Gina yells out the front door. She sounds angry and embarrassed.

Ducky looks back.

I do not.

By the time he faces the street again, I’m gone.