An Agent's Inbox #5

Dear Agent,

Nineteen-year-old Warren King has been protecting his brother from bullies ever since he decided to wear a top hat to the third grade. So when his brother is kidnapped, Warren heads out to bust some faces. But Warren didn’t expect the bully to be the King of the Texas Empire. Warren learns that he and his brother are some of the last members of the Texas royal family, in other words, the descendants of some seriously bad dudes. Now the new King is hunting down his relatives before the true heir decides to say, “Hey man, you’re in my seat."

Warren must save his brother and avoid capture himself all while dealing with a supernatural energy that gives him access to his ancestors’ violent memories. This energy doesn’t add to his charm when he meets the first girl that ever made him want to do things like iron creases in his pants. She’s ready to help him take on the King, but since she’s an anti-monarchy activist dating the son of the President of the United States, he’s not sure if she’s going to kiss him or shoot him. Gone are the days when choosing a major was a big deal. Now he must embark into a West that stayed wild and choose to be King, follow a King, or die before he can retire his fake ID.

THE CHARGE is a 75,000 word upper young adult science fiction novel set in an alternate timeline where a dictator took over the Republic of Texas in 1836 and built his own empire in the West. I am a member of the Texas Writer’s Guild, She Writes, and YaLitChat and have been published in small press literary magazines such as Nerve Cowboy.

Sincerely,
S.B.


THE CHARGE

Warren’s mother had taped his old Star Wars comforter over the patio door of their apartment. He didn’t pause too long to wonder why. His mother suffered from what his brother called, “severe eccentricity,” and blacking out the windows with old sheets for no obvious reason wasn’t out of character. All in all, she had done better than he had expected in her first year with both of her sons out of the house. Just in case that didn’t last, Warren always came back home when she asked him too. But if she had called him because she had forgotten how to use the dishwasher again, he was heading right back to campus to enjoy the day after finals the way it was intended to be enjoyed--drunk and poolside.

He wiped his feet like he had been taught even though their revolting brown carpeting didn’t show much. He kind of missed the crappiness of their apartment, although he didn’t know why because his new apartment in Eugene was equally as crappy. Still, there was something about the smell of the pine trees in the courtyard and apartment pool chlorine that let Warren know that he was home.

His mother stood in their kitchen next to their yellow 1980s stove, peeling fake wood countertops, and a refrigerator that always looked too small next to Warren and his other super-tall family members. She held a box of uncooked spaghetti and didn’t respond to his presence right away.