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The Fairytale Nerd is the next stop on the Nerve Blog Tour!

About Nerve

Nerve

by Jeanne Ryan

A high-stakes online game of dares turns deadly.

When Vee is picked to be a player in NERVE, an anonymous game of dares broadcast live online, she discovers that the game knows her. They tempt her with prizes taken from her ThisIsMe page and team her up with the perfect boy, sizzling-hot Ian. At first it's exhilarating--Vee and Ian's fans cheer them on to riskier dares with higher stakes. But the game takes a twisted turn when they're directed to a secret location with five other players for the Grand Prize round. Suddenly they're playing all or nothing, with their lives on the line. Just how far will Vee go before she loses NERVE?

Debut author Jeanne Ryan delivers an un-putdownable suspense thriller.

An Excerpt

From chapter one, the first dare.

Tommy finds a seat at a community table near the center of the shop and sets our things down. He fiddles with his phone. “The NERVE site says I have to capture this on a live feed straight to them so we can’t edit the footage. I’ll start as soon as you’re ready.”

“Okay.” I creep to the back of the line, fighting the weird sensation that I’m losing control of my legs. It takes all of my concentration to place one leaden foot in front of the other, as if I’m wading across a swimming pool of syrup. Breathe, breathe, breathe. If only the coffee fumes weren’t so strong. The ventilation in here sucks. My hair and clothes will reek long after I leave. Will Mom notice?

A couple in front of me argues whether they should get chai tea at night, since it has caffeine, while a group of women in front of them pepper the barista with questions about calorie counts. Their chattering grates at my nerves. I want to yell that folks who are worried about calories shouldn’t hang out in places offering dozens of pastry options.

I wave at one of the baristas in an attempt to get his attention. He just smiles and continues pumping espresso. The clock on the wall says 9:37. Crap, twenty-three minutes until curfew and I just realized I’ll need to take Tommy back to his car before I can go home. I push my way toward the counter, causing a few angry comments. Once they see what I’m up to, maybe they’ll shut up. No one wants to mess with a nut job. At the corner of the counter stands a pitcher of ice water and a stack of plastic cups. I fill one up and move to a spot near Tommy, trying not to spill it despite my trembling arms and legs.

Nine thirty-nine. I take a breath and nod at Tommy, who points his phone and says something I can’t make out. A few people around us furrow their eyebrows, shooting me the stink eye. Tommy gives me a little smile and a thumbs-up, which causes a massive wave of gratitude to rise in my chest. This would be impossible alone. Maybe it still will be. My body won’t stop shaking, and I fight the urge to burst into tears. Geez, I’m such a wuss. No wonder I choked at play auditions.

I stare at the clock, suddenly feeling a sense of tunnel vision. Everything around me goes dark. All I see is the clock, pulsing like Edgar Allan Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart. This is ridiculous. It’s just one cup of water and one line to recite. Syd would pour a whole pitcher while singing her favorite number from Les Mis. Of course, I’m not her.

The racing of my heart progresses to pounding, and my head feels light. Every molecule in my body wants to run. Or scream. Or both. I tell myself to breathe. The dare will be over in a minute. Just a few moments more of enduring this terror. I wipe my cheek. As the clock on the wall moves to 9:40, I clear my parched throat.

Can I do this? The question repeats itself even as I raise the cup over my head. Amazingly, my arm still works. In a voice barely above a whisper, I say, “Cold water makes me hot.” I pour a few drops on my head.

Tommy squints like maybe he didn’t hear me.

I raise my voice, which comes out in a crackle and say, “Cold water makes me hot!” I pour the rest of the cup over my head. The icy shock clears my brain. Oh my God, I did it. And now I’m standing here soaked, wishing harder than I ever have for the ability to disappear.

A nearby woman yelps and jumps away. “What the heck?”

“Sorry,” I say as water drips from my nose. I know I should be doing something, but my body is paralyzed. Except for my eyes, which take in a million details at once, and all of them seem to mock me. With conscious effort, I break my immobility spell and wipe my face with the back of my hand while some guy nearby snaps my picture. I give him a dirty look and he snaps another.

Tommy puts the phone down, staring at me with wide eyes. “Uh, Vee, oh boy, your shirt—” He points at my chest with a look of horror.

About Jeanne

I’ve lived all over the world, raised in a family with eleven brothers and sisters. I spent my early childhood in Hawaii and the rest of my growing-up years trying to figure out a way to get back there, with stops in South Korea, Michigan and Germany along the way. Before writing fiction, I tried my hand at many things, including war game simulation and youth development research. But I decided it was much more fun to work on stories than statistics.

These days, I still love Hawaii, but have found my home under the moody skies of the Pacific Northwest.

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