EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT: Ending Eleven by Jerri Chisholm

The finale of The Eleven Trilogy is drawing to a close, and we’ve got an excerpt from the final book that’s sure to get you excited.

Enjoy this exclusive excerpt of Jerri Chisholm’s ENDING ELEVEN!

I hear the meaty thumps of my heart. I hear the buzzing I have come to associate with the outside world on the other side of the door. I hear the seconds pass on a clock that doesn’t exist.

Tick tock tick tock.

Then, I try again. I twist the handle, I try every angle and position and I push and pull, and push and pull, and I know there are no windows in the small outbuilding, no other means of escape, no way out, and I try the door again and again and again. Then, I take a step back.

We are locked inside Compound Eleven.

We are locked inside Compound Eleven.

Again.

And then, I feel myself lifting, floating to the corner of the small room, watching things unfold from afar. I recognize that girl, I know her, I expect to see her in tears. That or hysterics. Screaming, shouting, swearing. It’s her worst nightmare, after all. So, I wait and wait for the sobs to come, I wait and wait while the other person, the boy, slides to the floor with his head in his hands.

But then his head snaps up, he watches the girl intently as she begins to laugh, louder and louder. She laughs so hard she collapses to the floor, laughter gurgling in her throat, choking her breath away.

And then, there is someone else there—a boy about the same age—and his skull explodes into bone fragments and brain matter and blood. The same thing happens a second later with a middle-aged man—bang. A tiny child with blond hair and protruding ribs becomes charred, rotting away into the floor and leaving nothing but ash.

And then, I am not watching from afar, I am not laughing—everywhere is dark, dark, dark, and nothing could be more beautiful. I dive down into the deepest darkness, where it is colorless and emotionless—where it is finally peaceful.

My name is Eve Hamilton.

Everyone in Compound Eleven thinks I was killed. But they’re dead wrong…

I spent my entire life in Compound Eleven as a fighter. Surviving in an underground city filled with violence, oppression, and tyranny. We were told the world above was scorched, an immediate death sentence. I should have died never knowing the truth. Instead, when I fought Wren—a boy from the top floor, a Preme—I fell for him. And eventually learned that my reality was an insidious lie.

Escaping Compound Eleven nearly killed me and Wren. Now we’re aboveground, where the world is anything but a toxic, burning wasteland. It’s green and lush, filled with sunshine, fresh water…and hope. All of which tastes bitter when I see what it’s cost me. Because something in Wren has changed. He’s broken—along with whatever it was between us.

Now the tides of violence in Compound Eleven are rising, threatening to spill out and shatter this peaceful place with brutality, corruption, and death.

But do I stop them…or join them?

Jerri Chisholm is a YA author, a distance runner, and a chocolate addict. Her childhood was spent largely in solitude with only her imagination and a pet parrot for company. Following that she completed a master’s degree in public policy and then became a lawyer, but ultimately decided to leave the profession to focus exclusively on the more imaginative and avian-friendly pursuit of writing. She lives with her husband and three children, but, alas, no parrot.