People think nothing ever happens where I live. It’s too quiet, too docile, too peaceful. They don’t know the half of it. I am Conyza Bennett and I am the teen queen of things that go bump in the night....
Conyza Bennett is different to other girls her age - she can read minds for a start. But Connie is trying to put the drama of the supernatural world behind her and get on with living a normal life. Until the Cresta Crew arrive in town...
Because these boys aren’t your average teenagers. For a start they are ridiculously good-looking and Connie that underneath their pretty faces something sinister lurks. Connie tries to discover more about the mysterious Cresta Crew, but her powers of telepathy don’t work around these boys.
And as Connie gets closer to the Cresta Crew she begins to unravel a secret that could threaten to destroy everything she holds precious.
Conyza Bennett Book 2
Also by Cheryl S Ntumy
Entwined
UNRAVELLED
Cheryl S. Ntumy
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014
Copyright © Cheryl S. Ntumy 2014
Cheryl S. Ntumy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © March 2014 ISBN: 9781472090997
Version date: 2018-10-30
Cheryl S. Ntumy always knew she wanted to write. With two teachers as parents, she grew up surrounded by books. As a child she wrote everything she could think of, from comic books and magazines to short novels and film scripts – some of which are still hiding in a dusty closet. She dreamed of exploring the realms of science fiction, fantasy and the supernatural, but ended up studying textile design instead, and then journalism.
It didn’t take long for her to decide that fiction writing was the only career she was interested in. Her first book, the supernatural novella Crossing, was published in Botswana in 2010, and her first romance novel came a few months later. She has published five romance books to date. Unravelled is the sequel to her first young adult novel, Entwined.
Cheryl is now a full-time freelance writer in Gaborone, Botswana, where she spends her days writing, reading and daydreaming about stories. Her friends and family are still waiting for her to find gainful employment. She’s determined to keep them waiting for the rest of her life.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Lucy and Emily at Carina for all your help, and especially for the suggestions which greatly improved the book. I must admit I lost the plot for a while there!
Thanks to the Connie look-alikes I’ve spotted over the years, for keeping her story fresh in my mind.
Thanks to the creators and contributors of Wikipedia, which has been so useful I had to name a character after it.
Thanks to everyone who read the first book.
And as always thanks to Aku, for always being my sounding board.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
August 2
The pain wakes him. For a moment he thinks he must have dreamed it, imagined the searing knife between his ribs. He sits up in bed and listens. Nothing. No one. But when he moves to lie down again he feels it, a scalpel of fire under the skin, cutting its way through the ribs to the pumping heart beneath.
He grits his teeth to muffle another cry and tumbles to the floor, the duvet in a tangle around his legs. He knows this pain. He’s felt it before. He has grown to accept the sudden twinges, the split-second stab while he sleeps, the dull, pulling ache that lingers in the background, daring him not to notice. It’s his constant companion. His curse.
But this is different. He rolls on the floor and curls into a foetal position as the pain strikes