An Unedited Sneak Peek at Deprogrammed.

To make up for my absence, I've decided to post a sneak peek at Deprogrammed (keep in mind that this is completely edited just yet):

*NOTE: Please do not read this if you have yet to read Program 13 and Allegiance.*

I was awake, for what felt like the first time in my life.

My sight, my senses had all been enhanced.

We – Thirteen and I – had been enhanced.

I should have been erased. The attempted rewrite on her program was evidence of that. But I hadn’t been. I was still here, still present, still alive. And now I understood what I had to do.

“Thirteen,” McVeigh stepped forward, his hand extended out for me to grab a hold of. “Are you ready?”

It was a simple question, one that couldn’t be answered easily.

The part of me that was Thirteen? She was ready. She had been programmed to be ready.

I couldn’t say the same for me.

I had been human. I was built to experience life, to grow, to know what it was to love, to leave an impact behind after my time had come to an end. That was how my life should have played out.

But that life no longer belonged to whom – or what – I had become.

There was no end to this life, only if I exposed myself, and I couldn’t afford to do that.

I needed to end this, to save those that I loved before they were sentenced to lives as mindless Programs.

Flashes of data that had been implemented on Thirteen’s hard-drive during her most recent evaluation filled my mind. Every stream of information held a secret that I wasn’t meant to see but that McVeigh knew I would see.

Perhaps it was foolish of me to believe that he would have assumed that I’d been erased, after all, he was always one step ahead of me. But if he knew I was in here, why had he allowed me to remain alive? Why hadn’t Thirteen been deactivated? Because McVeigh needed me just as much as he needed her.

“I will ask you again, Thirteen. Are you ready?” McVeigh grew steadily frustrated.

“Yes.” The word left my mouth without any effort on my behalf.

She was stronger than me, just as she had been before, but this time was different.

She’d been reprogrammed. She knew how to protect herself from intruders – from me.

That was the worst part of it all.

I was an outsider inside my own body.

“Emile?” Hayden sounded desperate; as if he needed to know that I was still here – alive underneath it all, underneath Thirteen.

But I couldn’t answer him.

Her Program blocked me, preventing me from saying a word.

I’d never felt so strong, and yet so weak all at once.

As you can see, my writing style has changed a bit between Program 13 and Deprogrammed, which is to be expected given that I wrote Program 13 over two years ago now. For me, it was a bit strange to work on this one, not only did my writing style change, but I put these characters through hell (yes, I did tear up when I wrote a couple of the scenes in this book). It is definitely an emotional roller coaster, and it is easily my favorite book to date.

There will be an OFFICIAL release date announcement on Sunday, June 16th. =)

<3 Nicole