DEATH IN NEON

Death in Neon is a suspense novel about a woman name Lux Ilari whom is being stalked by a serial killer in Las Vegas. I have included diary entries from the serial killer throughout the novel as an interesting prospective.


Here is the prologue and first chapter so far:

PROLOGUE

Lux opened her eyes. Nothing.  I feel blinded.

The chair she sat up in felt cold pressed against her bare arms. They were strapped to her sides with thick, rough rope; the same rope seemed to pin her back. Lux tried to wiggle but the rope was too tight. Her ankles were bound together and it cut off some of her circulation. She had the sensation of pins and needles in her feet. Her feet. They were bare for no reason she could remember.

She closed her eyes and settled her head back to clear her thoughts. A violent throbbing sensation made her left eye twitch. She sat back up. That's better.

Her mouth felt like she hadn’t had a drink in days. There was no moisture to her tongue. She could taste her last cigarette.  How long ago was that?

She breathed as deeply as her restraints would allow and took in the scent of damp air. Damp? Was she in a basement or a cave? She dared not make a sound to test if there was an echo. Her ears strained to hear something… anything at all. Silence.

The stillness didn’t last. She could now hear the harsh rhythm of her heart. It beat like a frantic bird against the inside of her chest and echoed up through her ears drowning her in its rush.  Her breathing followed suit and became labored as if she were in a marathon. Hysterics.

CHAPTER ONE

Journal entry #319

Not even close to caught. They know I’m male. Hah. 

Clueless cops.

Lux leaned against her sleek, red motorcycle outside the hospital and brooded. The heat of midday shimmered above the Las Vegas asphalt. Lux took a deep drag of her cigarette. She let the smoke swirl across her tongue for a few seconds before blowing it out. One arm crossed under her chest. A scowl spread across her face.

Mother has terminal cancer.

Today it took her at least half an hour to work up the courage to face her mother, despite having seen her every day, since she entered the hospital four days ago.

Why today was so hard, she couldn’t explain, even to herself. Maybe it was the heat or possibly the weird nightmare she had last night of coming in and her mother being a zombie. She shook her head. Too many zombie flicks. She dropped her hands to her hips.

Lux remembered the day she found out. Her mother had sat her down and held her hands.

Lux crumpled there in her mother’s favorite stuffed chair and stayed silent for the longest time. Cancer? How could mom have cancer? She never smoked like me. Her ears rang and her heart made a dive to her stomach. Mom is going to die...

Her mother matched her silence

Lux stared at her. She took in the pained look in her mother’s eyes and then let her gaze fall away. Lux let herself be distracted by the swirling pattern in her mom’s blue and pink blouse.

Her other reached out and rubbed her hand over Lux’s hair in a soothing circle.

After a few moments, they embraced.

Lux found out later her mother told her about the cancer first. She recalled her siblings’ reactions. Her sister had cried, but not because their mother had cancer. Lux overheard her sister complaining to her boyfriend, “I’m the oldest-I should have known first!”

Her brother--upon finding out, he came last to the information--threw the medical textbook he had been studying at her.

She had a bruise across her lower back for weeks.

Lux threw down her cigarette in disgust and stomped it out with one combat boot. She tugged on the hem of her red plaid skirt out of habit even though this skirt hit her at almost her knees. Her usual skirts flashed more than a little thigh.

Lately, she had been feeling rebellious--as if she could defy the world and everything would just go back to normal.

A young man who looked as though he had walked out of a cookie-cutter goth store stopped in mid-stride across the street to stare at her. His eyes never left her voluptuous chest-fully covered for once-after arriving there from her long legs.

Lux glared at him and crossed her arms over her chest.

The youth blinked and looked up at her. Upon seeing her glare, he straightened, and jogged away.

“Fucking kids.” She raked her shaky hand through her black bob and sighed. What she wanted to do was go for a ride to nowhere. Just take her bike up to 120mph and weave through the busy city streets. She knew the lights, colors and sounds of the strip would stream by at that speed. What she had to do was head into the hospital and visit her mother.

Lux gathered up her courage, took a deep breath and straightened her spine. She glanced into one of her bike’s mirrors and saw that her eyeliner hadn’t run, but she still had circles under her dark green eyes. She sighed and then went up to the entrance of the hospital.

The drastic temperature drop made her shudder as she entered. Lux hated the smell of the hospital. Lemon scented cleaner tried to cover the stale air. She passed through security and got her sticker visitor badge, which contained her picture and her mother’s room for security purposes. The picture on it made her look like a ghost.

Lux made her way down the hall. The white walls blurred past her as she focused on nothing but getting to her mother’s door. Her boots squeaked over the pristine linoleum and she could vaguely hear the nurses chatting at the nurse’s station to her left.

She reached her mother’s room, took a deep breath and stepped in.

Mom has never looked her age. She had hair just as dark as her daughters’, a pixie cut, and eyes the same sea foam green. Not a wrinkle graced her pale face, except for when she laughed, which she did less and less often. Her body, with paper-thin skin and bruises, made her seem shrunken and frail. Her mother only had her fifty-eighth birthday a few months ago. She should still have plenty of life left.

Lux’s hard-shelled exterior protected her from everything but the sight of her mother so helpless. Her strength seeped from her with each step toward the bed.

A tube delivered oxygen into her mother’s nose and an IV dripped into her hand. Her eyes were closed and Lux couldn’t tell whether she was resting or sleeping. A starched white blanked was tucked up to her chest.

Lux had gotten used to all the monitors and their high-pitched beeps.  A large picture window with faded yellow curtains let in plenty of light, but the overhead lights were still blinding. The TV on the wall sat blank and silent.

 She stepped up to the bed. “Hey Mom,” she whispered.

Her mom’s eyes fluttered open. “Lulu.” Her voice barely reached Lux.

Lux slipped into Russian to ask how her mother felt.

Her mother sighed and responded in Russian as she said, "The pain is manageable, but I tire more easily."

Lux chewed her lower lip. One of these days she would chew right through it.

Her mother took in her appearance, and she frowned. “I wish you wouldn’t let this affect you so much.”

Lux knew she didn’t mean the dark circles, but the clothes. She kept her voice light and tried to be patient. 

“We’ve been over this, Mom. I just feel like wearing this stuff, OK?”

Her mother sighed and shook her head. She asked about work and Lux gave her a few meaningless updates. “Open that drawer please.” Her mother pointed with one shaking finger at her bedside table.

Lux slid open the drawer and looked inside. She found a long rectangular red box.

“Pull that out.”

Lux did as she asked and bumped the drawer closed with her hip. The box felt soft on the outside. She handed the box to her mother.

Her mother pushed it toward her. “My hands are too weak to open this.”

Lux frowned and opened the box. Inside laid a white gold locket with an intricate pattern of swirls across the front.  “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

“Open it.” Lux opened it and found a picture of her and her mother when she was a little girl on one side and a single shot of her mother.

“To keep me close to your heart.” Her mother gave her a smile that filled her eyes with warmth and made her seem less frail.

Lux felt a tear slide down one cheek as she pulled it out to put on. “Thank you.” It settled right above her cleavage and felt cool against her skin. She chewed her lower lip. “I love it.”

Her mother smiled.

Lux smiled back.

Her mother asked her a few small talk questions and then, “You meet anyone new?”

Sometimes she hated coming. “No.”

“Oh,” Her mother’s eyes became downcast, and a frown tugged at the corners of her mouth.

“I’m not really looking, Mom…”

“I know, Lulu, but I keep hoping you will.”

“I’m just enjoying the time to myself…I’m not ready to be tied down to one person.” Lux couldn’t remember the last relationship that lasted more than a week. She met guys in a club or a bar and then disposed of them like expired milk.

“Is that how you see love? That you’re tied down?”

Lux shrugged. “I guess I do. Love is complicated, and it demands too much.” She liked her men fast and bad.

“True love doesn’t demand anything except to embrace it, enjoy it, and that you’re true to it.”

Lux let her eyes drop to the bed, and she picked at a piece of lint fuzz. Her mother would never approve.

Her mother placed the hand without the IV over hers as if to still it.

Lux looked up at her mother.

“Just try to be open to it,” she said. “For me.”

“OK Mom, I’ll try for you.”

A small promise she couldn’t keep.

She left her mom to rest. Lux had to make a stop in the bathroom to wipe off her tear-stained face before she left the hospital. Twenty-six was too young to have your mother die.