Welcome author T.A. Moore with the latest blog tour for new release, Split Shift (Night Shift #2)! Author T.A. Moore visits with a chapter she wrote in the Night Shift world! Plus, she hosts a $10 Amazon gift card giveaway! Good luck!
Title: Split Shift
Publisher: Rogue Firebird Press
Release: April 19
Link: https://books2read.com/splitshiftbook2
After Night Shift officer Kit Marlow solved the murder of child star Haley Jenkins, he figured he was due a little down time. Maybe even a dinner date with Cade Deacon, the sarcastic security consultant, very good kisser, and werewolf who'd helped with the investigation.
That was before someone in a Night Shift uniform drove them both off the road. With the full moon up the only dinner date Cade is interested in...has Marlow served up on a plate. And not in a sexy way.
It's the second time that corrupt Night Shift officers have tried to kill Marlow. If he has his way, it will be the last. Problem is he only has twenty-eight days before the next full moon. If he hasn't identified who wants him dead by then, he'll have to take to werewolf filled streets with a team at his back he can't trust.
First things first, though. Get through the next twelve hours alive and uneaten, and hope that if a second date is still on the cards it's less eventful.
Tour:
First of all, thank you so much for having me! I’m thrilled to be here with my new release, Split Shift by TA Moore, the second novella in the Night Shift series.
For the blog tour I’ve written a short story set in the Night Shift world. I hope you enjoy!
Chapter 5
Blood and bits of hair and skin greased the crack in the side of the bus. It hadn’t been quite big enough for whoever had been dragged out. Marlow was careful where he put his hands--as much as he could be--and tried not to think about it.
He reached up, grabbed the cold metal strut of one of the seats, and dragged himself up. A strip of metal gave under his foot and he slipped briefly, a stab of pain in the back of his calf as something dug in, but he steadied himself and made it up onto the sticky, smelly floor of the bus.
A kid instantly launched herself at him. Skinny little arms wrapped his neck and she hiccupped sobs into his shoulder. She was kind of damp and smelled of...panic. Marlow tried to peel her off, failed, and steadied her with one hand instead as he got to his knees.
“Night Shift are here now!” a little boy said, puffed up with authority and fear. “We’ll be a-ok! Sir, yes, sir!”
Mutters of ‘Night Shift’ eddied through the bus and the kids shuffled closer to him. Some of them sniffled and asked for their moms or dads, others patted him like he was a good luck charm. They were all sticky. It seemed petty to notice that under the circumstances, but they were.
There was no teacher.
Bennett squirmed into the bus with much less fanfare, which explained why she’d let Marlow go first.
“Where--?”
Marlow shook his head and indicated the cluster of kids with a quick flick of his head.
“OK,” he said. His voice sounded muted and small under the gunfire and howls from outside. He took a deep breath and tried again, louder. “Everyone, take a seat. Come on. I want everyone’s butt on a seat by the time I count to three. Can you all do that? One. Two.”
The kids shuffled in place uncertainly. A few started for one of the benches and then stopped when no one else followed them.
“It’s not a field trip,” Bennett hissed at him. “Jesus Christ.”
“Everyone,” Marlow insisted. “Two and a half. And threeeeee.”
The kids finally co-operated, hunched in little clots of bodies on benches meant for two kids.
Except for one little girl. She had blood in her blonde curls and a long gash on her face that might even scar if she lived long enough. Not badly though. Her eyes were huge and glazed with shock.
“Mrs Notting hurt herself,” she said. For some reason saying it broke the dam and her face screwed up as tears spilled down her face. “Really bad.”
Bennett grimaced at Marlow and then turned to point at the kids. They stared at her finger as it tracked along the rows. “You lot? Stay. Put. Got it?”
They all nodded earnestly.
“Hey, kid,” Marlow put his hand on the little girl’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “What’s your name?”
The little girl wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Elliot.”
“OK. Elliot, why don’t you take us to your Mrs Nottingly? Let’s see if we can help her?”
Elliot squinched her face up, dripping fresh blood from the cut on her cheek, and shook her head. “I don’t want to,” she said. “Mr Redknapp is up there.”
“Where?” Bennett asked. “Front or back?”
Elliot pointed toward the front of the bus.
“OK,” Marlow said. He pulled a pad of gauze out of his pocket, pressed it against her cheek, and lifted her hand to hold it in place. “Hold that there and go sit down while we got check on them. OK?”
She stumbled away. Marlow pulled his gun and held it low against his leg as he followed Bennett down the bus. It jolted and rattled underfoot as wolves got through the Night Shift barricade to crash into it.
Bennett caught her balance on a kid’s head, apologised, and Marlow slid past her into the cab.
It turned out Mr Redknapp didn’t need any help. He sprawled, head down, on the steps toward the claw-scored door. There was a hole in his back big enough to stick a fist into and from the thick, clotted puddle of blood under him the one in his chest was even bigger.
“I...I had to,” Mrs Notting said. She was a stocky, middle-aged woman with severely cut hair and watery blue eyes. She had on a peach t-shirt with ‘Greetings from Florida’ on it and both legs torn up by wolf teeth. It was enough of a mess it was hard to tell how bad. Her hands were rock steady on the shotgun she cradled in her arms. “He was going to open the door. I had to stop him. He wouldn’t have made it, he couldn’t, and I...I had to give the kids a chance.”
Marlow hesitated for a second, the words stoppered up in his throat with shock.
“You did the right thing,” Bennett said, her voice flat with conviction. “He’d have gotten you all killed.”
“Shotguns standard issue on a school bus?” Marlow asked.
Notting glanced down at the gun as if she’d forgotten it was there. Her fingers flexed against the stock.
“Not usually,” she said. “It seemed like a good idea tonight. Guess I was right.”
She tilted her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. The colour had left her face, her lips a liverish pink.
“You guys got this?” she asked. “Because I’ve lost a lot of blood and I’d like to pass out.”
TA MOORE
TA Moore is a Northern Irish writer of romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and contemporary romance novels. A childhood in a rural, seaside town fostered in her a suspicious nature, a love of mystery, and a streak of black humour a mile wide. As her grandmother always said, ‘she’d laugh at a bad thing that one’, mind you, that was the pot calling the kettle black. TA Moore studied History, Irish mythology, English at University, mostly because she has always loved a good story. She has worked as a journalist, a finance manager, and in the arts sectors before she finally gave in to a lifelong desire to write.
Coffee, Doc Marten boots, and good friends are the essential things in life. Spiders, mayo, and heels are to be avoided.
Website: www.tamoorewrites.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TAMoorewrites/
Twitter: @tamoorewrites
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