The Chosen (Contender #1) - SAMPLE OF NOW PUBLISHED BOOK!

Chapter 1

Place: Unknown 

Date: Unknown 

Year: Unknown

The creature circled below Cade like a shark around a sinking ship. It leaped for him, its jaws snapping just below the narrow ledge he stood on. He shuffled back, pressing his shoulders into the cold stone of the canyon wall. There was an eight-foot drop to the ground beneath, and the bare earth had been churned to a thick sludge by the pacing of the monster beneath him.

It knuckled the ground with sinewy arms, growling like a dog fighting over a bone. The beast was already caked thickly in mud, and the rusty brown leather of its skin blended well with the rock formations Cade had woken among just a few hours ago. A slavering mouth gaped, the long needle points of its teeth glistening with saliva. But it was its eyes that scared him the most: twin spheres of obsidian that bulged from its sockets.

The opposite wall of the canyon was perhaps a stone's throw away from him, stretching up into the sky and casting the ravine Cade occupied in shadow. He was perched on a rock shelf, just above a narrow corridor of earth that formed the canyon bottom. The gully continued to his left and right, stretching in both directions to form a rough passage that curved out of sight, though he doubted he'd manage to run far before the creature tore him to shreds.

As he watched, the monster began to claw at the rock face, perhaps hoping it would crumble and send Cade plummeting down. Maybe if he remained still, it would give up and move on in search of easier prey. He ignored it, trying to figure out how he had ended up in this sorry mess.

The last thing Cade remembered was laying in his bed at his new "school for troubled youths," staring out of the locked windows at the moonlit sky. His thoughts had been tinged with misery at the time: the stash of stolen laptops his trust- fund roommate had hidden beneath his bed.

The arrest, the police interrogation. His court-appointed lawyer, who could barely remember his name. His mother, cry- ing, and the confusion and shame in his father's eyes.

The ultimatum the judge had given him. One year of "alternative" school, or Cade would be sent to a juvenile detention center. His parents had agreed, though it devastated them to know his chances of being accepted to a top university would be ruined. That was six months ago now. Six more to go.

And then he wasn't in the dorm anymore.

It had been too immediate for him to be dreaming. One moment he was looking at the moon, and the next he was standing on a ledge in the depths of a rocky canyon. Before he could give this surreal turn of events more thought, the creature had appeared, slinking out from behind the boulders in the narrow passage that ran along the bottom of the chasm.

He was pressed against a rock wall covered in a fine red powder, but beneath that there was little purchase for climb- ing. It was smooth like marble, with the orange glow of what he assumed was the setting sun visible in the swath of sky forty feet above him.

And it worried Cade that the sun was setting. He had never tried to sleep standing up before, and the ledge was too thin for him to lie down. But if he sat and dangled his feet over the edge, he would be within reach of the monster below. This situation didn't seem to have a happy ending.