July Mystery Agent Entry #10: NEAR DEATH

Title: NEAR DEATH
Genre: Young Adult Horror/Thriller
Word count: 78,000 words

Logline: After a mind-reading teen sees herself die in someone else's head, she must team up with a reluctant--but cute--death seer to catch her murderer ... before he is red-handed.



I don’t hear voices—I think other people’s thoughts. It’s as confusing as it sounds. I thought I was gay for about a week in sixth grade, but really I was just channeling the thoughts of the boy sitting in front of me.

Reading people’s minds is exhausting. Thoughts rarely flow: they whirl or flit—random, fragmented, and sometimes even overlapped. It’s distracting. With the way I sometimes zone out in the middle of conversations, or forget what I’m saying as I’m saying it, I can understand why everyone thinks I have extreme ADHD. The fact that I started gaining control over this “gift” at about the same time my parents started popping Adderall in my mouth just proves the diagnosis (or so they think).

“Six,” I mumble, spinning the dial on my gym locker past the zero twice and stopping at the six.

But the timing is a coincidence. I don’t even take the pills anymore. I’ve just taught myself to push the foreign thoughts into the background so that I can focus on what people are saying instead of what they’re thinking.

“Twelve.” Once around the zero in the other direction.

It’s not easy. Ever tried to read a book, watch a movie, and talk to someone at the same time? It’s kind of like that.

… get rid of this muffin top …

… her boobs can’t be real …