The Protected Ones

Just when 15-year-old Mireya Soloman doesn't think life can get any suckier as a pregnant virgin, she finds herself on the run from a man with unnatural abilities; he's killed her foster family and says he must protect her child. And he always finds her. No matter where she hides.

Yup.

Life just got even more suckier.

There is still much to learn about the bipeds. Genetically engineered to resemble them, P-100 shares some of their physiognomy but that is where the similarities end for Protectors. The sole purpose of those in the Protector program is to protect their assignment. However, he has not been assigned and his inexplicable compulsion to abduct Mireya in order to protect her child cannot be stopped. But the more he learns about the bipeds, the more his bewilderment and fascination grows-especially with food. (A hotdog is not a heated canine served on a warm bun!) He also questions their ways-everything from parenthood and racism to French kissing and cuddling (all equally intolerable)-and his own inception. The answers he is searching for elude him as he is on the run as well. Leaving the program without an assignment is prohibited and They are searching for him.

Finding refuge at a boarding school for pregnant girls in Las Vegas, Mireya discovers there's nothing ordinary about the baby she carries. And to protect the both of them she must fight back. If only there were a How to Defeat an Indestructible Killer for Dummies handbook. But her headmistress and fellow pregnant boarders are a spirited group; they're eager to help her figure out how she became pregnant, the origins of P-100, and what they can do to defeat him. And for a girl that never considered herself all that special, Mireya begins to realize she's just as worthy of the same protection she's determined to provide for the child.

*BOOK IS COMPLETE; new chapters every Friday.

[*Word count: 97,000]