Normal world. Normal school. Normal girl. Hah. Samantha Raedan. Sure, she looks like your average sixteen-year-old girl with brown hair and brown eyes, but you should never judge a girl by her cover. To Sam, normal people are lucky, normal people are free to do whatever they want without a care in the world. But Sam is no normal girl. She holds a secret, one that if shared could destroy everything she has, and loves. Someone is after that secret. But she doesn't know it. How can she stop something if she doesn't know what that thing is? Is it possible to burn the wind?

"Things will never be the same again." Gneiss Underwood never thought that he could have a shot of a normal life. Growing up in an environment where everything defied sanity, guns and loneliness were his normal companions, if not danger and Death himself. An UnGifted teenager whose soul had been sold to the devil, he rejected the life that the world had offered to pursue the shadows of his past. But when he discovered that love did exist, no matter how unlikely it was, and he became a victim of that very emotion, it was too late for him. Why? Because he is 01. He is an assassin. And he won't let her die. [Book 2 of the Black Equation series - Stand alone] [Watty Awards 2012 Finalist] [Started December 2011. Undergoing edits]

It’s easy to smile. You simply put one corner of your mouth up, then the other. Smiling can make any conversation more exciting, or take someone out of a really awkward situation. I myself have perfected this technique. I smile when supposed to and laugh during tension. And the one thing smiling is really useful for is hiding emotions, ones that you don’t want anyone else to see. Emotions like hurt, anger, pain—anything of the sort can be hidden with a smile. At least in my case. Now I’m not much of a good liar. At least that’s what I want everyone to think. I’m actually pretty good at it, I just smile and make everyone else think everything’s happy-go-lucky. But I only learned to perfect this skill when my life came crashing down in the year before ninth grade, when everything changed.