get lost in poetry and you will find yourself

COMPLETED Read and feel deep. 2nd poetry collection: "It is all in your head" #12 in worthreading

Bren Halsey has spent her whole life in an orphanage. She blames her miserable existence on her parents-they abandoned her on the orphanage's doorstep as an infant. Her daily routine consists of online classes, taking the trash out, and annoying the hell out of the staff. Now, at age fourteen, life still hasn't improved. Bren plans to move far away from the dreaded place the second she turns eighteen. Until then, life doesn't seem like it could get any worse. Until, that is, she's kidnapped one night while taking the trash out. Bren is taken to a building in her own town, just blocks from the orphanage. The outside says Hancock Avenue Medical Boarding School-the inside says torture prison. Within the building's brick walls are many other children and teens who have also been kidnapped. Bren is subjected to countless painful experiments and hours of slave labor. According to a certain Professor Charleston, the prison leader, prisoners will remain in the building for thirty days before being taken to an unknown location. Escaping is nearly out of the question, as there are guards everywhere and punishments are severe. Bren knows that she has to get out somehow, because the prisoners who are shipped off at the end of the month are never seen again. When Bren learns the prison's true purpose, her worst fear is confirmed: the whole operation is much, much, bigger than just the Medical School.

Zoe is a teenage girl convicted of a murder she didn't commit, but that doesn't matter in the Arena of Justice. You either win your fights, or you die. ***** Seventeen-year-old Zoe never expected to find herself on the wrong side of the law, but when she's convicted of a murder she didn't commit, she's sentenced to the Arena of Justice - the home of gladiator matches where murderers fight murderers, and every fight ends with a death. Zoe's plan for surviving is simple: ignore the other inmates and fly under the radar until it's time to fight, but that's easier said than done. As hard as she tries to hate those she must kill, Zoe soon befriends the other inmates and falls in love - a deadly proposition when a moment's hesitation can prove fatal. It's up to Zoe to save her life, no matter how hard the system is trying to kill her. [[word count: 50,000-60,000 words]]