Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Gridlock
    Gridlock
    Gridlock
    Ebook85 pages1 hour

    Gridlock

    By Torri Heat

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    In a dystopian world where the rich get richer and the poor struggle to survive, Tessa is a mad scientist. Or, more accurately, she’s a pissed off one. Her father was killed for sport by the wealthy and ever since, Tessa’s had one goal and one goal only -- revenge.

    Wanting to watch the world burn, she creates a virus no one has ever seen before. One that will turn the evil rich into mindless zombies. There’s only one problem. The virus doesn’t work on the one man Tessa wishes she didn’t know all too well: Rory.

    When her plans go awry, Rory and Tessa are forced to work together to survive. But can survival ever turn into something more?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChangeling Press
    Release dateMay 26, 2023
    Gridlock

    Read more from Torri Heat

    Related to Gridlock

    Titles in the series (2)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Carrie Fountain

      Mar 1, 2020

      Outside Dublin, Texas the radio stationsdisappear and I’m left alone with the faintvoice of a call-in psychologist talkingto a man in Cleveland about the voiceof the self, the narratives that voicetells, how they can be sharp and wrongand cut to the

      5 min read

    • Article

      Woman About Town

      Mar 30, 2023

      I AM LEARNING TO DRIVE.The most remarkable thing about this is that I’ve managed to get so far through adult life without doing it already — particularly given that I grew up in a village where buses were mythical beasts, to be summoned with sacrific

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Chip Off The Old Block

      Jun 5, 2022

      A Chip Off The Old Block
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Letter to My Sons

      Sep 25, 2019

      A Letter to My Sons
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Code of Hammurabi

      Nov 5, 2019

      The Code of Hammurabi
      12 min read

    • Article

      Quantum Physics for Mothers

      Dec 15, 2020

      Quantum Physics for Mothers
      10 min read

    • Article

      Ben Marcus

      Jun 15, 2018

      My wife, Gin, once knocked gently on my head, as if it were a door. “Hello,” she kept saying. “Hello. Who’s in there?” She and our therapist, Dr. Sherby, laughed a little about this, so I did, too. What fun. Keep knocking on my head like that, like i

      23 min read

    • Article

      Girls On The Playground

      Feb 18, 2021

      Girls On The Playground
      15 min read

    • Article

      WORLD of WONDERS

      Aug 12, 2020

      WORLD of WONDERS
      17 min read

    • Article

      Shame Is Ever-Present When You’re Sitting in a Cell

      Oct 23, 2020

      Between a strained relationship with my family and the death of a good friend, I’ve struggled to feel like I’m worth something.

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Joan of Arc Puppet Show

      Jun 1, 2019

      The Joan of Arc Puppet Show
      14 min read

    • Article

      Q&A with Bonnie

      Apr 21, 2023

      ◗ Elizabeth Zott is a character we would all love to know or even become. Where did such a personality spring from? Fury! I started Lessons in Chemistry about seven years ago. I’d just come out of a meeting, irritated by some garden variety sexism, a

      6 min read

    • Article

      Where Have All The Young Girls Gone?

      Sep 10, 2022

      The little fat man squirmed in his chair, sweat running down his red cheeks. I thought he was going to cry. Instead, he stared at me as though I had arrived from another planet, an alien being sent solely to torment him. I didn’t know why Professor H

      7 min read

    • Article

      When Life Bites

      Sep 14, 2020

      When Life Bites
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Uncanny Child

      Sep 5, 2019

      The Uncanny Child
      10 min read

    • Article

      60 Seconds That Changed My Life

      Feb 5, 2023

      DATE: December 2D, 1999, 8:15pm EVENT: Writer and broadcaster BENJAMIN LAW comes out to his mum about his sexuality. I GREW UP on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, the last mainland state in Australia to decriminalise homosexuality. That meant for a

      3 min read

    • Article

      60 Seconds That Changed My Life

      Feb 5, 2023

      DATE: December 2D, 1999, 8:15pm EVENT: Writer and broadcaster BENJAMIN LAW comes out to his mum about his sexuality. I GREW UP on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, the last mainland state in Australia to decriminalise homosexuality. That meant for a

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Symposium on Childhood

      Sep 1, 2021

      A Symposium on Childhood
      25 min read

    • Article

      Letter to My Son

      Jul 4, 2015

      Letter to My Son
      30 min read

    • Article

      From ATOPIA

      Jan 1, 2019

      See, the thing is poet, is that you’re failing.You’re failing at capitalism.You’re failing at “self-care.”You’re failing at feminism.You’re failing at activism.You’ve fallen deep into your addiction.Your despair spreads everywhere.None of this is you

      6 min read

    • Article

      Exodus

      Sep 15, 2018

      My exodus occurred after years wandering the wilderness of my hometown. For bread to live, for bread to leave, I worked a part-time gig at the Oregonian’s downtown insert facility, stacking pallet after pallet of inky-ass newspapers. The day in quest

      15 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Gridlock

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Gridlock - Torri Heat

      Chapter One

      In the beginning there was Adam and Eve. At least, that’s the story they told in school.

      My elementary school wasn’t the best, situated on the wrong side of the railroad tracks. Most of the students were kids of domestic servants -- gardeners and maids to the richest of the rich. Our clothes were castoffs, retrieved from garbage bags tossed outside their golden gates. Our tablets were refurbished, at least three generations behind the latest tech. Castoffs. Our teachers were still real-life people, not the private holograms other districts had been using for years. They made it clear they didn’t want to be there any more than we did. Most of the kids barely made it through middle school, the rest scraping by through high school.

      College was a joke, something our teachers didn’t bother even pretending we cared about. My classmates knew their place, and they were destined to take over the jobs their parents would retire from. Kids of chefs became chefs. Children of seamstresses became seamstresses. We didn’t move outside of our carefully worn tracks, following closely in the footsteps before us.

      But I digress. I’m sure despite the teaching methods, the story was still the same. In the beginning, there was Adam and Eve. Adam was flesh and blood, a man of the finest calibre. He was something of a legend, more of a superhero than anything else.

      Now, Eve though. Eve was something else entirely, created by Adam. Now this where the stories differed, depending on who you listen to. Some groups say she was a cyborg, once a woman adapted by Adam for his own needs. We weren’t supposed to question what those needs were. Others say she was an android, completely built from scraps in the Garden.

      The one I relate to most was the least popular. The idea that Eve never existed at all but was nothing more than a desire blooming from a lonely man’s mind. This concept appealed to me, because it meant that even when a man was given everything they needed to survive, they still couldn’t do so without even a mirage of a woman.

      Because even a man of the finest calibre was just that -- a man. Flesh. Blood. Decayable. This was what I told myself when I worked through the night in my lab, lack of sleep blurring my vision and cramping my hands. It was what got me through the long hours juggling work and school, killing myself to get the only scholarship available to a girl like me. I was going to escape the tracks of my parents, even if it killed me. It got me through my father’s murder. They labelled it an accidental death, but everyone knew better. Because if man was rotting on the inside, then they were corruptible as well. And that’s what I planned to take advantage of.

      The sound of flesh smacking against flesh filled the room, attempting to eliminate any space for my thoughts, revenge or otherwise. It wasn’t the best I’d had, but it wasn’t the worst either, and I wasn’t one to complain. Usually.

      Harder, I groaned. Fuck me harder. I gripped the sheets, propping myself up on my forearms while he took me from behind. It was good, but I needed it harder. Faster. Enough to drive out the vicious thoughts leeching their way back into my vision. I should’ve known when I asked him back to my room he wouldn’t be enough. But I had been hopeful. Naive, really.

      His hands gripped my hips, slamming his cock deeper into my pussy. Is this what you want, baby? You want my big cock?

      I want you to shut the fuck up and screw me like you mean it. Harder! Hard enough to fuck all the anger out of me.

      I couldn’t comprehend how these men I took to bed didn’t understand the difference between harder, faster, and deeper. They all pulled out the same moves, the same dirty talk, everything just more of the same. Of course, I was the one who kept taking them back to my bed, so what did that say about me?

      I was weak. I was looking for something I wasn’t sure existed. And my search led me again and again to these random men in my bed, much to my dissatisfaction.

      He thrust faster from behind, my thoughts still cycling through, a never-ending stream of everything I needed to do, what I was behind on, what I was working for. I would come. I always did. I had learned a long time ago how to take my own pleasure from a man, despite his flaws. My orgasm was already building, a combination of his rapid thrusts, and my own hand I had snuck between my legs, letting my other arm carry my weight.

      You’re so fucking hot, he grunted. God, you’re beautiful.

      I tuned him out, letting my fingers circle my clit before rubbing a steady rhythm against the swollen bud. It wouldn’t be great, but an orgasm was an orgasm, right?

      Fuck, baby, you love this big cock, don’t you?

      Go away. There was my release -- right there -- if only he could keep his stupid mouth shut.

      I groaned around my fingers, and the useless cock, as I came, my mind blissfully silent for the briefest of moments. Somewhere in the silence, I heard him as he came, pulling out of me with a groan.

      Useless. Sex was great for drowning out the noise, but revenge kept me alive. My mind had a tendency to drift back to my lab, to the samples neatly organized in my fridge. The moans and strangled gasps I stole from the men in my bed weren’t enough. I took what I needed from them, but it was never enough. The world would know my name one day. The name of the girl from the wrong side of the railroad tracks. I was a fool, looking for a missing piece of myself in the corruptible flesh of men.

      Said man, next to me, was breathing heavily, looking like he wanted to say something to me. But I had heard it all before, and I had no interest in repeating the past. If I remembered correctly, his name was Brody. Not that it mattered, because Brody was on his way out the door.

      I flopped back on my pillow, pushing my hair out of my face. Get out, I muttered.

      Wha… what?

      Get the fuck out of my bed. I gestured to the door. I’m sure the cook is still downstairs in the kitchen if you’re hungry.

      His eyes clouded, and a frown took over his face. They told me you were cold, but I didn’t realize how much of a bitch you really were.

      I rolled my eyes, turning away from him until I heard the zipper of his pants, followed by the latch of the door. Good fucking riddance.

      I stared at my ceiling

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1