Unpopular: An Unloved Ones Prequel #3 (The Unloved Ones) by Kevin Richey

the weight of it in my hands. I don’t want to be here, but the only way out I can see is to get it over with.
    The batter for the other team goes up to the plate, and his friends in the stand cheer. I glare at him, and he gets his game face on. I hate that he cares so much, and I feel the anger building in me again. I just want to hit somebody.
    I lift my foot, and my body goes through the motions of the throw without my brain needing to comprehend it. My arm goes back, my body goes forward, and my arm goes forward again releasing the ball. It hurtles toward the batter, and lands in the catcher’s mitt.
    The crowd goes crazy. People are rising to their feet and jumping up and down. I look over, and my dad is standing to the right of the field, clutching his hands together as if he’s hoping the dice will roll in his favor. A chant breaks out in the crowd, so indistinct and muffled that it takes me a minute to realize it’s my name.
    Cohen. Cohen. Cohen.
    The ball is thrown back to me, and I see that my hands are bright red. The skin is burning. No one cares. All they want me to do is throw the ball.
    I wind up again, and release my fastball.
    Strike two.
    The crowd gets so excited that I feel the ground shaking. I look over and see old ladies with bloodlust in their eyes, clutching their school flags in their wrinkled hands. Small children, little boys with their faces painted hunter green and gold. The Sherriff is there in the front row, and Mr. Duko, and my mom. Gone are the wrinkles from her face. She looks sixteen again, her blonde hair glinting like a beacon in the sun, and her mouth open in a cheer.
    The ball goes back to me. I hold it in my hand, and I turn back toward the batter. My body moves slow, as if I’m underwater. I can feel the fatigue taking over again. I want to sleep. I want to get out of the sun and into the dark, and I want to sleep and maybe die. Why can’t they just let me die?
    “Strike three,” I hear a voice whisper. “Please God, strike three. Strike three, strike three, strike three.”
    I look over, and see it’s my dad chanting. He’s got that look of a gambler again, shaking his hands up and down with excitement. All he is saying, over and over again, is Strike Three.
    I blink through my grogginess. I lift my foot and pull my arm back, and when I heave my tired body forward, I release the ball with what has to be my hardest, fastest pitch ever.
    It goes straight toward my dad and hits him in his good knee. The ball is traveling at such a velocity that it goes right through, snapping the leg in half in the process and sending a shower of hot bone and cartilage onto the grass.
    He falls, his arms flailing uselessly in the air, and his face slams against the ground hard. He’ll never walk again.
    He’s out.

Coming Soon

 
    We hope you have enjoyed reading
Uninvited
, and invite you to return for the next installment of The Unloved Ones Prequels :
     
    Unnoticed

After her mother gives her a bad home haircut, Audrey Wilson can only hope no one at school notices. The next morning, she gets her wish: she wakes up invisible.

Coming to the Amazon Kindle in
October 2013

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