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Hello and how has everyone been doing? Are spring allergies getting to you yet? It’s a beautiful season, but goodness I hate it because it causes me so much misery. Yes, yes, I do take antihistamines to function, but that’s not how it should be, right? 🤧

It’s been a while since I posted, mainly because life is pretty mundane and not worth sharing with the world. Sometimes, I post to Instagram because I like sharing pictures – they are truly worth a thousand words. Recently, I found out that a famous romance author I follow no longer maintains the blog on her website because it’s “old skool.” She’s moved to Instagram as her main platform of connecting with readers. It gave me some food for thought, but in the end I decided to continue popping in here and continue writing short updates. I don’t know that everyone who reads this is on Instagram (probably?), and managing multiple accounts in the ever-changing social media landscape is exhausting. Please don’t harpoon me for this. Maybe I am more old-school than most. Maybe I need an assistant to deal with this thing called “self-promotion” (who doesn’t?). But I’ll work on reviving my Twitter. Anyway, I love you all.

Among other, more relevant happenings, I sent Sky Song manuscript to record an audio book. So that’s coming up in a month or two on Audible. 👏

Also, in my quest to make my books more widely available, they can now be accessed through Barnes & Noble and Kobo, as well as Amazon (except for Sky Song which is still only on Amazon but will be available mid-May from other retailers). iBooks is next on the list to conquer. This is super exciting to me and makes me feel like a big girl.

I continue to work on the next installment in the Rix Universe, Rosamma’s journey. The action takes place almost entirely in space on a derelict space station. I have almost decided on a title, but keep going back and forth. Calling it a Galactic Hot Mess would not be inappropriate. The pirates are gross. The ick factor is high. There’s a robot ho and a dead body in the freezer. I know, in a romance novel. I hope you like it.

Meanwhile – meanwhile – using the free time I don’t have, I’ve been experimenting with a different writing style using the same familiar themes. I have a project in mind that may never come to fruition, but I’m sharing a snippet from the middle of a story I’m playing around with. The premise: he’s a feral warrior of sub-human species (think Orc or Neanderthal but not as dumb). He is in a program to be “humanized.” Then we have the expected sequence of events: He meets a girl. He likes the girl. She’s in danger. He takes it upon himself to protect her. But “humanized” means he isn’t the man he once was…

Warning: Language, graphic violence

Untitled 

  I walk along a fence. The dense shrubbery is tall and protects me from the garden lights. I’m shrouded in darkness. It makes me comfortable. Darkness is my friend. It was my old friend, and is my friend again for the night. Only for this one night. 

The small bow is poking me in the back, reminding of its presence. It’s light and doesn't have a long reach. I squint as I gauge the distance to Merah’s house.

Merah. My lips and tongue form the sounds of her name, but I keep it silent. I like saying her name. Here, in the darkness, I can admit it. This night is wrong for many reasons, and I know it. And I indulge. 

Merah. It’s a hex. Every time I utter it, it draws me closer to her. It’s binding. That’s why I rarely call her by her name, even in my dreams.

The lights are on in her house. Two windows upstairs. It’s her bedroom. I know the layout without having set foot inside. I’ve studied it. They really shouldn't make house plans so easy to find.

She invited me in. I declined. If she asks me again, I will decline, too. Boundaries are important. She is fragile now, but in time, she will move on without wanting me close. I hope she keeps me as a friend like she says she will. I hope I can handle it.

I settle in against the shrubs, downwind. Not that it matters with humans. Unless it’s a pile of shit, they can’t tell what’s under their noses. 

I’m secure in my hidden position, knowing there are no vantage points to spot me in the dark. Funny, I didn’t even think about it. Coming in, I already knew a perfect spot to hide. I already knew there was one. I’d noticed it without realizing it. Hunter instincts are hard to squish.

And so I wait.

This area is very quiet. The houses are big. The neighbors are hermits. Not a body in sight. Two cars - two cars - drive by in as many hours. She is right when she says it’s like living in a park. Peace.

The lights in the homes around me go out. Hers, too. She turns down for the night. Sweet dreams, my pet. Tonight, you’ll sleep well. I promise. 

I wait.

The air is fragrant with abundant flowers. An owl hoots in the night. Yes, peace. If I close my eyes, I can almost pretend I’m a small boy again, walking in the woods with my elders.

But I don’t close my eyes. I keep watch.

The yesterday's man comes creeping from around the corner. How stupid. I can see him plain as day. I can also hear his footsteps. He has a strong body, and he moves in a fluid, athletic way. Stealthy for a human, I suppose. 

I don’t move. The soft wind brushes against me, heightening my senses. I catch a distant whiff of his aftershave. My eyesight sharpens briefly before settling. Blood rushes through my body. I grow hot. Inwardly, I’m calm. I’ve got what I need to accomplish this. 

I watch the man watch her house.

He pauses, concealed in the shadows under the small balcony. He is listening and scanning the area. All is quiet, I know. I want to shake my head at the purposeful folly of humans. They don’t know when to quit.

Tonight, he’ll die.

The man comes out of the shadows and edges closer to the wide glass doors. Glass doors are never a wise idea, but I can almost get why people want them. It’s the view. And, of course, they believe this area is safe.

No place is fully safe. Ever. My pet is learning this hard lesson fast. 

The man’s back is now turned to me as he hunches over the lock. He wants to break in without shattering glass. He has it all planned. My hand inches toward my lower back, feeling for the hard outline of the bow. I take it out without a sound.

The man pauses and throws a furtive glance over his shoulder. He’s on high alert. Seeing nothing, he goes back to his task. 

I pull a short arrow from my boot. The bow is light and child-sized, but the arrow is weighted. I stretch my arm and slide it in position. The string is tight as I pull it. The weapon feels good, balanced. I aim.

The man keeps looking over his shoulder. I know he can’t see or hear me, but he feels me watching him. Even the most urbanized humans possess enough residual instinct to sense danger, and he’s sensing it now. 

He’s done with the lock - I hear the metallic click of it breaking. I move my foot lightly, scattering gravel with a crunch. He whirls around, dropping into a crouch, a gun in a two-handed grip. A gun. Did he plan to shoot Merah as she slept in her bed? 

He angles his body as he moves the gun right and left, peering into the darkness where I stand. His face is towards me. His face is my target. The tension in my shoulders is almost unbearable - a little bit of a strain of my weakened muscles, but mostly just anticipation. I lift my finger off the string, and it’s with regret. My hunt is over. 

The stubby arrow shoots forward with a quiet twang. The man reacts, turning away, but he’s too slow. The arrow finds his left eye and pierces it. It’s done. He drops to the ground with an aborted moan. His gun falls next to his twitching legs.

I wait until he stops twitching and dies.

I glance at her windows. They’re dark. She’s sleeping. 

Tucking the bow back into my waistband, I make my way to the body across her lawn. At this moment, I’m at my most vulnerable. But I’m willing to risk being seen on surveillance cameras. I can’t leave the dead man at Merah’s back door for her to find. 

I collect his gun and then lift his body into my arms. He’s heavy as fuck. I wish I had my old strength back… I slam the mental door on this kind of thinking. I’ve got what I need.

Staggering under the dead man’s weight, mindful of the blood seeping from his skewered eyeball, I fade back into the shrubbery and drop him at the spot where I stood. I wipe the gun with my shirt and put it on top of him for others to find. I leave the arrow where it is, sticking out from his skull. Let them guess. 

He’s off her property. 

Her windows are dark. My pet is sleeping soundly, undisturbed. Like I promised she would.

I start walking home. The bus doesn't run at night, and I need this walk. I’m still hot, and I don’t like it. I breathe deeply, inhaling with a full chest. The night is too warm to cool me down. I walk slowly on purpose, defying my racing heart’s desire to run. 

The canal glistens wetly under the weak light of the quarter moon as I approach. The water is deep and murky, and never still. It flows and ripples, restless, and my skin ripples in response. 

I try to take another breath and I can’t. The hot fullness inside me has reached its max. I can’t pretend anymore. I feel. I feel the thrill of the hunt. 

I reach for the bow and hurl it from the bridge. The spare arrow follows with a plunk. 

I force myself to keep walking, blocking the burning fullness that threatens to consume me. I wait for it to subside or at least to stop growing. I fear I can’t take it anymore without falling apart.

It’s nice to keep them not dead. I think about the kind doctor. I agree with him.

But killing can feel nice, too. 

I think about Merah. I always think about Merah. It calms me, but not tonight. 

Her widows are dark. The man is dead. It feels nice. 

Thoughts spin in my head. 

I want to go back to her house. I imagine myself doing it.

I open the glass doors with the broken lock and take the stairs to her bedroom. Her windows are dark. She’s sleeping. I lean over. “He’s dead,” I whisper, waking her. I can see her eyes, large and frightened. “Don’t be scared. I will never hurt you. I want to keep you not dead.” She reaches up and lays her hand on my face. Her touch is divine. She understands.

I’m alone on the bridge. The murky water flows below me. The night surrounds me. 

I burn.

Merah. This time, I say her name out loud. 

My body goes into a shuddering spasm, and I stumble. I double over, retching. My head pounds, my heart races, and sweat runs down my temples. I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know what to think. I hurt all over. My every nerve is agitated, and my every muscle is locked in a viscous cramp. I’m being pulled apart by invisible forces, and they are going to prevail…

When my vision clears, I’m no longer on the bridge. I’m slumped against a wall in an alley. My nose twitches, and I register the sour smell of rotting trash. That and the dingy cracked wall against which I sit in a puddle of oily water and my own vomit tell me that I’m in Aulder. I’m almost home.

I rise to my feet, afraid my legs will buckle. They feel weak. My entire body aches, but I can function. There, that’s the direction to my rooms. I head over, weaving like a drunk. 

I had a blackout. The pain was no fun, too. They had warned me about a negative reaction. They didn’t fucking lie.

The pub on the corner is still open. Beats of music and laughter are coming from the windows. Light is streaming from inside, spilling on the street.

I look up at my home. My windows are dark.

This is how it should be.

Yesterday was Sky Song release day, and it went great! I’m so grateful for my readers – thank you so much for appreciating the stories I have to tell. I receive so many kind comments, and it always warms my heart to hear from you. I continue to be amazed at how far-flung my books now are. They’re read in all the English-speaking countries, but also Sweden, Brazil, India, Japan, Poland, Mexico, Netherlands, Italy – it’s wonderful and slightly terrifying. Pressure!

Excited about the release date, I kept thinking about Cricket and Lyle’s story, and felt like I can’t let it go just yet. There are other characters that appear in it worth exploring. I really felt for poor Rosamma and the short straw she pulled in life by being born the way she was. She has so much to give to one lucky man. She deserves a happy ending, too! Of course she does.

But not so fast…

The last we see Rosamma is at the door as she departs to camp out near the space depot with other would-be passengers. They wait for Lyle to take them out. If you read Sky Song, you know that Rosamma and the group do get to fly out, separate from but following Cricket and Lyle’s transport, with the handsome, uppity Phex as their pilot. Only their trip goes horribly wrong when they’re captured. By pirates. Yes, some leftover dregs from Lyle’s birth planet. Poor Rosamma, so sick and sheltered and meek – and at the hands of the lowest of the low!

Anyway, I have a plot and a general outline. I was so hyped up by my own ideas that I wrote the ending already (no story, just the ending 😆). Can’t say much more at this point because things change a lot during the creative process, but I already know that this story will likely be more hardcore than Sky Song. Lots of violence, including towards women. Some truly revolting scenes. Crude language. But what can you expect from this cast of characters? I can smell them from here.

Pirates (and then there were ten):

Fincros – big and burly, cruel, with burn marks, the (most of the time) leader

Esseh – big and burly, unemotional, scarred, the (sometimes) leader

Massar – tall and thin with darkness in him; sadist

Nud – short and burly, vicious; brawler with a short fuse

Keerym – the only Tarai among Rix; second in command to whoever’s the leader that day

Xirris – uncouth, stupid, and smelly (more so than the rest); makes unfunny toilet jokes

Galan – always stoned

Thilza – big and burly but not aggressive, blends into the background; good mechanic

Ucai – sharp and clever but not big and burly; wants to be the leader and hates both Fincros and Esseh

Aolis – the pirate who dies violently at the beginning of the story (a memorable mention)

Hey there.

Popping in for a brief update on the release date of my latest, Sky Song.

❤️ It’s February 14! ❤️

You know, of course, that books make great gifts. You can let someone dear to you know that books make great gifts, including for Valentine’s Day (hint-hint).

Anyway, the ebook should now be available for preorders on Amazon. I was bummed to realize Amazon won’t allow to list a paperback for preorder, so the paperback version will come out on the 14th as well but not before. No word yet on the audio version.

Once more, thank you for reading and stay well!

Hello!

The sun is shining today and the day is hot, and some of us are mighty tired of summer. Bring on the fall! Although I have to admit, not long now, not like in Florida where I used to live where the fall takes forever to arrive, and when it comes, it feels like more summer.

Anyway, I’ve been quiet lately – work, work, and more work. Also writing Sky Song, which sadly isn’t done yet. I’ll post another snippet from it later just to prove it’s moving along, albeit at a slow pace. Like it often is with long-term projects, I’m getting tired of Cricket and Lyle. C’mon guys, wrap it up! But no, they still have adventures ahead that need to be told.

Lately, I’ve been trying to decide what I want to post, and searched around the www for inspiration. Naturally, I follow other (famous) authors in the romance sphere and I have to say, folks, I’m such a boring person. Case in point, Danielle Steel. Deservedly, hers is a household name. She’s such a disciplined, prolific writer. And she has such an Instagram-worthy, interesting life. Nine kids! Three cute dogs! High fashions and travel to New York and Paris! Me – I live in a middle-class suburb near a busy road and my fashions come from TJMaxx. I don’t even have pets because men in my household are allergic to cats and I don’t like walking a dog in the rain. So, finding a worthy subject to share on social media is a bit of a challenge every time. Or maybe I suck at self-promotion. 🙂

But enough about me. I compensate for being common as muck by writing stories about women who are also common and average, living their quiet lives until they meet un-common men and get sucked into adventures. They find themselves in situations they were unprepared for. And that’s when they discover strengths inside themselves they had no clue they possessed. They become the protectors, the fighters, the warriors. They start swimming against the current and take on evil organizations at their own detriment and in the name of what they think is right. And cheers to them!

Inner Beast - Chapter 2 

  The next morning Olivia came to work early, hoping to catch some quiet time before the others started filing in. Besides, one of their microscopes had gone out of order, which put an added strain on their already tight deadlines. 
  Firing up the equipment before anyone else called dibs, she carefully spread out fiber specimens from several different cases, making sure nothing got mixed up, and went to work. And everything else receded, leaving her on the other side of the world. 
  The nifty microscope transformed a tiny boring piece of lint into something fantastic and otherworldly. Like a mythical creature, a minuscule fragment of carpeting bloomed with scaled tentacles in the colorless projection. Frayed fibers of a torn cord turned into something she lacked words to describe. An intricate web. A porous mesh of twisted particles. An alien landscape. 
  All these years, and every time was still like the first time. Olivia could never get tired of the reverent amazement at how lucky she was to be granted an ability to see things from such a close perspective.
  By the time she finished with her last specimen and headed for her cubicle, half the morning had already gone, and the lab was humming with activity. Alex was, as per usual, hunched over the samples in the corner.
  “Hey!” Alex called out as Olivia passed by.
  “Hey yourself.”
  “So, did you make friends with Dax yesterday?”
  Friends? She wouldn't go that far. “I did get to know him a little.”
  “And what do you think?”
  “He’s alright.” In a not-Brian sort of way, which was to say he barely cut it in Olivia’s biased opinion. “I haven’t seen his work yet, but Shade was laudatory in his assessments. So there’s hope.”
  “Dax’s weird, but his work is flawless. He doesn’t disappoint.”
  Olivia stopped her progress to her desk. “You sound like you know him.”
  Alex shrugged. “We went to the same high school, except he was three years ahead, same as my older sister. I think they dated a little.”
  “Dated a little?” Olivia echoed.
  Alex grinned. “She had hots for him. I’m not sure he was interested, but he obliged her for a while, took her to the movies, crap like that. I haven’t seen him in a long time. He was pretty damn brilliant back then, so he graduated early while my poor sister sucked at math and had to go to a summer school to get her GED.” Alex’s tone held no pity for her older sibling. “Dax was her one and only attempt at dating a smart guy, and she failed miserably.” 
  “Oh. Well, then. He should do well with us, shouldn't he?” 
  She gave Alex a perfunctory smile and moved on. 
  Mystery solved. Dax knew Alex was a girl because he knew Alex. And no sense of smell was involved, thank you very much. 
  I can smell it, how else? Olivia rolled her eyes. What a dunce. At the same time, she marveled at herself for doubting the voice of reason and falling, though not all the way in, for his outrageous claims that he could smell things out. What was wrong with her?
  Dax arrived soon after and got situated in his - Brian’s - cubicle. Olivia, keenly aware of his arrival, pretended to be busy and not notice. No, not pretending, she was busy. Very busy. Really. Too busy to even say hello. She’d wasted enough of her time yesterday taking him around, and if Shade approached her again with another request to train Dax, she had a firm rejection in mind. Let Matthew take a turn. Or Alex, the old chum of Dax’s.
  Any-way.
  Concentration eluded her, and unusually loud voices of the analysts didn’t help her focus.
  “No, just you look at that. What am I supposed to do with this rubbish?” Helen’s shrill whine resonated all the way to Olivia’s cubicle. 
  “What’s that you’ve got in there? Another rotten big toe?” Matthew asked from across the hall, referring to an incident from a while back when a box had mistakenly been put in their lockbox instead of the one across the street where the medical examiner’s office was located. Naturally, nothing pleasant could be found in a box intended for the medical examiner. To add to the situation, the delivery had come in with a rush request, and Shade had personally delivered the box to Helen after lunch and ended up holding a bucket as she puked her sushi out. 
  Helen’s tone became as biting as Arctic frost, and her clipped British accent came out especially sharp. “That is not funny, Matthew.”
  “My bad. Sorry.” Matthew didn’t sound the least bit sorry. 
  “What is it and what’s wrong with the thing?” someone asked about the item that was giving Helen so much heartburn. 
  “It’s damp. And it’s got mold all over it. Way to ruin your own investigation, people.” Helen easily got upset when evidence came compromised because of poor preservation practices. 
  Olivia gave up on finding focus. Pushing away from her desk, she got up and went to see what was going on. 
  The sight of Dax’s head in Brian’s old cubicle pinched her heart, and she sped right past it.
  “Good morning, Olivia,” Dax called out without turning. 
  “Good morning,” Olivia murmured but didn’t stop. 
  She missed Brian. God, if only he were alive, he might’ve helped her make sense of her wariness around Dax. It was enough for her to catch a glimpse of the silly man bun, neatly twisted and secured with an elastic band, and her system went on high alert. 
  Today he wore dark jeans and a simple gray t-shirt that hung from his frame. His hair below the bun was styled with a low undercut that left a narrow strip of short buzz around his ears and the back of his head. Olivia judged the style to be juvenile and ill-suited for a man with the constitution of a fence post.
  What would Brian think of him?
  In the main area, the drama with Helen’s sample continued to unfold.
  “Gross. Look at that.” Matthew was pointing at the clear plastic back Helen was holding. 
  Ms. Dew waddled in. “Let me see the paperwork, Helen.”
  “It says on the slip that it’s a towel,” Helen’s grating voice intoned. “We can see that once we pick off the mold, thank you very much.”
  “Let me read the rest. Okay. One from a matched set, yes, yes, the victim’s brother had it in his possession… Wait.” 
  “Exactly!” Helen whined in a shrill tone. “I don’t understand if it’s the victim’s or the brother’s. And if they want a comparison, where’s the other towel? These people need to get training before I end up with another big toe!”
  Someone snorted with laughter – probably Matthew – and Ms. Dew clucked her tongue and made soothing noises. 
  Dax quietly joined them. “Do you think the other towel may still be in the intake room?”
  “Who knows?” By now Helen sounded so incensed you’d think her plane left without her. “Why do I have to spend my time turning over packages in search of something that should already be on my desk? Do they want the analysis or not?”
  “Let me go check the intake room. If it’s there, I’ll find it.”
  Olivia’s brows flew up. The arrogance! He thought he was something else, didn’t he? She almost wished the police department screwed up their submission all the way, and the second towel would not be there for him to find. 
  Of course, Dax didn’t sound all that arrogant, only self-assured. But she refused to differentiate.
  Helen clearly didn’t share Olivia’s derision toward the newcomer. She stopped complaining and even volunteered to go to the intake room with him. And together, cozy-shmozy and chatting like old friends, they took off to hunt for the missing towel.
  Olivia returned to her desk, shaking her head at her own uncharacteristic behavior. She was never one for office drama, and she shouldn't become a busybody now. Dax could gossip and wallow in whatever outrage Helen came up with that day without her participation, if he was so inclined. 
  She sat down and unlocked her computer.
  “Hey, girl. What’s doing?” Randy’s head popped up above the partition, startling her. 
  “Randy! How are you?” She stood up and went around to join him.
  “I’m here, ain’t I?”
  “Is everything okay?”
  “Yes. Why?” 
  “I’ve been trying to reach you since yesterday. You never replied.”
  Randy pulled his phone to check. “Ah. Guess my phone died on me.”
  Olivia took in his unkempt appearance. His face was puffy with bloat, his eyes bloodshot, and dense scruff shadowed his jaw. In a nutshell, he looked like a poster boy for a binge hangover.
  He wouldn’t meet her eyes, obviously aware of how low he’d sunk and of the fact that he showed up for work an hour late.
  “Do you need a charger?”
  His head jerked up. “A what?”
  “A charger. For your phone.” She pointed to the device he was holding in his hand.
  “No.” He scraped his other hand over his face and rubbed his tired looking eyes. “I’ve got one. Thanks.”
  He really looked pitiful, but showing pity wouldn’t work with Randy. Olivia cleared her throat. 
  “I’ve got your cases organized. Shade was asking after the one for the APD. The one on the multiple burglaries. I finished the tool marks yesterday afternoon and turned it in. Lever was hounding Shade something bad.” She caught herself short of apologizing for doing Randy’s job. The prosecuting attorney – known within their lab as Lever for attempting to force them produce results that could help him secure convictions – had called Shade bitching about delays, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. Olivia simply wanted to help lighten Randy’s caseload. 
  Randy smiled at her with a sad little smile. “You’re a regular Fairy Godmother, you. You need to get a life, Liv.”
  She wrinkled her nose at him. “Your advice is appreciated but not needed. A simple thanks for the tool marks would do.”
  “Thanks.”
  “There you go. As for my life, I’ve got plans to go running with my sister. We’ve fallen out of habit, but I want to see us doing it again.”
  Randy perked up a little at the mention of exercise. As a former athlete, he understood the thrill of a good workout. 
  “That’s great! But why do you have to do it with your sister?”
  She gave a small laugh. “Bonding experience?” 
  “You’re already bonded. You need to get a man to bond with. Preferably one that can give you a run for your money. Am I witty or what?”
  “You absolutely are.” 
  Although Randy’s advice to get a life had some value, she found it ironic that he felt in any position to dispense matchmaking wisdom, considering he’d gotten ditched himself and hadn’t been able to come to terms with it a year later. Besides, she wasn’t ready to grab the first available bachelor and run with him, pun intended. It would happen when it happened, and she refused to rush headlong into a relationship just so she could have one.
  “About the cases,” Olivia steered him away from the relationships topic. “Do you need my help?” She kept her voice low to keep the offer just between the two of them to save his pride.
  Still, he flinched. “I’ve got it.”
  Olivia regarded him with exasperation and decided that it was time for some honesty. “I’m afraid it would be a challenge to catch up on all of these,” she pointed at the pile of kits and paperwork, “before they’re due.”
  “I said I got it.” His chin jutted at her. “I’ll work extra hours if I have to.” 
  He wouldn’t. He hadn’t done overtime in weeks. He could barely last until five as it was, itchy to leave here and go bar hopping or whatever it was he did to get his nightly buzz. 
Not to mention that in his rush to process samples, his results became… how to put it nicely… unreliable. She was just picking the right words to point that out when she felt Randy’s attention abruptly leave her and his eyes fixate on something behind her back.
  “What the… Who is that?”
  Olivia knew without looking that Randy spotted Dax. “The new Brian.”
  Randy’s head swiveled to her and back to where Dax was presumably standing. 
  “What’s wrong with him?”
  Not gifted with a diplomatic touch to begin with, Randy had lost what little filter he’d had because of all his problems. Offending someone who looked like Dax would take Randy all of two sentences. God knew Alex had stopped talking to Randy a long time ago over his comments about their appearance.
  “I am not sure if there’s anything wrong with him,” Olivia said. “Today is his second day with us, so he hasn’t had a chance to share his full medical history. Maybe he’s okay, just pale.”
  “No shit he’s pale. He’s a zombie!”
  “Randy, stop it.”
  “For fuck's sake, he truly looks like a walking body bag filler. Workers’ comp in the making. How rusty are your CPR skills?”
  “Randy!”
  ”What if he decides to give up the ghost here? Wait, maybe he is a ghost!”
  “Hush.” Olivia threw a furtive glance around his shoulder. “You’re full of crap.”
  Helen and Dax had made their way back from the intake and were now standing in the center of the lab, surrounded by Ms. Dew, Matthew, and Alex, all intent on examining something she couldn’t see.
  She turned to her dumbass friend. “Let me introduce you. And you need to behave. We need him, and he really is a nice guy.”
  Something in her tone alerted Randy and he gave her a sharp glance. “You’ve got a problem with him. What is it?”
  “Nothing,” she denied.
  “No really, what is it?”
  “Nothing. Really. It’s just… he isn’t Brian,” she confessed quietly. 
  Maybe it was, in fact, her problem. She took an immediate dislike of him simply because Dax, pale but alive, moved into Brian’s cubicle, was now working Brian’s cases and making friends with Brian’s friends, while Brian’s cancer ravaged body was turning to dust. It seemed unfair.
  Randy blew out a minty gum-infused breath. “Crap. I’m sorry about Brian. I’m an ass for not saying this before. I feel for your loss. He was a great guy, and a great friend. I get it.”
  Tears stung Olivia’s eyes. “Thank you.” She sniffed and blinked rapidly to get rid of the tears.
  Reminding herself that life was generally unfair, and that she had no control over things like death, Olivia pulled Randy to the group.
  “…and in no time, Dax had it.” Helen positively beamed with pride. Excitement colored her cheeks and her eyes gleamed. Olivia had never seen her that animated.
  Dax was holding a large plastic container filled with packaged and labeled envelopes. His facial expression was neutral.
  Helen practically pranced on the spot as she recounted the story. “Dax walks in, takes one look around, and asks this sad Constance person who is stuffing her face with Doritos, ‘What’s in that box?’ And she is like, what box? Imagine, they didn’t know! It’s been there for weeks! What a mess. Now we’re going to catch flack for the delays, and it’d be our fault. Not ours, of course, the Intake’s, but we’ll get lumped together, mark my words. Shade will be a bear again for a month.”
  Ms. Dew danced around Dax as gracefully as her girth allowed. “I’m so happy that you located this box, Dax! How did you know?”
  Olivia held her breath afraid he’d make a crack about sniffing things out like he did yesterday. Randy would never let it go.
  “Yeah, how’d you know?” Randy’s question held such an unsubtle challenge that Olivia knew without a doubt Randy was going to try and bully the new guy. In his mind, he’d be doing her a favor by siding with her against the “interloper.”
  “Dax, this is Randy,” she quickly interjected, thinking that maybe sharing with Randy her reservations toward Dax had been a mistake. “You haven’t had a chance to meet him yesterday. Randy’s been a part of our lab for… Oh, how long has it been?”       She turned to Randy with a questioning look.
  He played nice. “Three years. Nice to meet you, Dax.”
  Randy stuck out his hand. The short sleeve of his shirt revealed a thick, veiny forearm, the kind that could twist fire pokers into pretzels. The few years spent outside the fighting ring weren’t enough to completely eradicate a decade or so that Randy had spent throwing his opponents on the mats. His muscled frame might be quickly going to seed, but he hadn’t turned into a glob of fat quite yet. 
  Olivia frowned. It wasn’t that Randy’s arms and hands looked wicked strong; after all, he couldn’t help it. It was the tension radiating from Randy that left her baffled. He positioned himself with a slight turn to his body, legs apart and chin drawn in, his hand stuck out at Dax at an angle where any blow could be easily deflected. As if he expected aggression. As if he suddenly saw a fighting opponent in the skinny dude with a man bun. 
  Ignoring – or maybe oblivious to - the nonverbal display of physical superiority, Dax calmly set the box with evidence packages on the counter. He extended his hand toward Randy’s for a handshake. As always, he wasn’t exactly slow but appeared in no hurry to make a movement, yet somehow it didn’t take him any longer than necessary to act. 
  “Nice to meet you, Randy.” Dax smiled slightly as their hands touched. Randy’s muscles flexed when he clamped his sizable hand around Dax’s in what looked like a firm, manly grip. To Olivia’s surprise, Randy’s hand failed to swallow Dax’s – his long pale fingers and wide palm matched Randy’s in size if not the tawny brawn.
  Dumbfounded by her discovery, Olivia stared at their clasped hands. If not for her fixation, she would have likely missed the subtle tension in Dax’s arm that made his tendons tighten. The perfectly smooth surface of his forearm rippled as if wind blew on calm water. His veins pulsed once, bulging in ropey relief underneath the skin. Thin red striations snaked down the white skin with a single strong pulse of his veins and faded. Like lightning, it lasted for a split second as he briefly squeezed Randy’s hand and let go. They both stepped apart, with Randy’s face registering confusion.
  Olivia blinked and looked around. No one else seemed to have noticed anything unusual about the handshake, but then no one else seemed to have paid attention. Helen was busy rustling her newfound baggy containing the second towel, and her excited handling of it was drawing more attention than the seemingly conventional introduction of Randy and Dax. 
  Olivia glanced again at Dax’s arms, but both looked thin and white and smooth. Fine dusting of blond hair covered the tight skin that wrapped around flat muscles. She wasn’t sure if she really witnessed this weird thing with the red streaks or if that surreal moment was just a figment of her imagination. She looked at Randy. Whatever he’d witnessed, he still had that confused look about him, like he just lost a pissing contest. 
  His mouth got a sour pout. “So, Dax, tell us about yourself. What else are you good at besides finding hidden boxes?”
  Dax shrugged. “Guess you summed it up for me. I find missing things. Connect the dots. That’s why I’m in this profession.”
  “Spend lots of time indoors, don’t you?” Randy gave Dax’s face a look that insinuated the other guy’s general appearance didn’t fit in with Randy’s ideas of a good time.
  “Sure do. Most of the time. What about you?”
  Randy smirked. “I prefer diverse pastimes.”
  A phone’s ringing interrupted what was quickly becoming a tedious one-upping on Randy’s part. The sound was coming from Randy’s desk.
  “Excuse me.” He turned and marched away. 
  If Olivia guessed correctly, Milton Shade was trying to get a hold of his wayward employee, and Randy expected the call. Fat bear that he was, Shade was no one’s fool. Their boss was as aware of what was happening – or in Randy’s case, not happening – in the lab as Olivia. She would probably hear from Shade too, for all of those cases she did for Randy. 
  She glanced up and started. Dax was watching her with chilling intensity.
  “What?” she snapped, peeved that he had the power to startle her, and immediately realized how unreasonably hostile she was being toward, essentially, a stranger. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.”
  “That’s okay. I’m sorry for startling you.” He was still watching you intently.
  “So, I have to say I’m impressed. I mean, that you managed to uncover that box with the missing towel. How did you, really?” With her left hand Olivia pushed a lock of hair behind her right ear in a nervous gesture she had worked hard to eradicate. With Dax’s watching her, the old habit came back full force.
  He grinned. “Okay, I’ll tell you my secret, but only if you tell me something in return.” His smile had a strange endearing quality. 
  “What would you like to know?”
  “How well do you know Randy?”
  So, Dax had picked up on the tension. Of course he would.
  “Oh, that. Fairly well.” She paused, weighing her next words. “Randy’s a decent guy. A straight shooter. He’s hit a rough patch on the personal front, but it’ll be over soon, I’m sure.”
  “I’m sure,” Dax echoed in a placating tone. “He drink?”
  Olivia stalled, not wanting to flat out lie but at the same time avoiding the details to protect Randy’s reputation. “Not at work. Why do you ask?”
  Dax raised his eyebrows that looked a lot darker than his hair – a startling contrast. “Because I can smell it on him. Is it why you stayed late yesterday and verified the three matches he had done before? You don’t trust his judgment?”
  Olivia ducked her head. “Look, I do a lot of things around this lab because we’re understaffed. You’re new, so you don’t have to worry about anything except your assigned cases. But if you have questions, I’m here for you, just like I’m here for Randy, for everyone.”
  “That’s not what I meant.” His dark eyes behind glasses took on a gentle glow. “Quite the opposite. You’re picking up slack from others, and I can help with that. I want to. There’re things I can do fast, because I can just…” he stopped himself.
  Olivia smiled and prodded, “Smell it?” It was becoming their shared joke.
  That endearing lopsided grin came out again. “Yeah. And see. Some things I don’t have to smell. Like patterns. Bite marks. Break lines. So use me. Let me help.” His velvet voice dropped, and dark erotic images danced on the edges of Olivia’s consciousness. 
  Embarrassed at herself, self-conscious and shocked at the direction of her thoughts, she shook her head dislodging the lock of hair from behind her right ear. “I will keep your offer in mind.” She had to clear her throat to purge the nervousness from her mind. “Now, will you tell me how you found that box at the Intake’s? With the towel?”
  His smile was wicked. “Smelled it.”
  Olivia chuckled. “Stop, Dax. I’m serious.”
  “So am I.”
  Shaking her head, she turned and went to check on Helen’s progress. He followed.
  By now, Helen had donned their standard issue purple gloves and was hovering over the two towels spread on the counter. Both looked soggy and moldy, with identical purple monograms across the edge. Helen had already labeled sterile containers where sample fibers from both towels would be deposited upon collection.
  Mathew loitered nearby, idly nibbling on a skinny sandwich. He scratched his head under the knit hat and said, “There’s a stain on the right one. Above the monogram.”
  Helen paused to give him a withering look. “Well thank you, Matthew. You’re very helpful. That’s what I’m going to report back to the PD: The forensic lab says there’s a stain on your towel. Case closed.”
  Matthew shrugged in return not at all perturbed by Helen’s acerbic retort. “Doesn’t look like blood to me. May be piss, though. Or vomit.”
  “Go away.”
  Smiling slightly around a mouthful of the sandwich, Mathew made his way back to his own workstation, winking at Olivia as he passed. 
  Dax sidestepped Helen and leaned toward the towels. “Anything you can tell, Helen?” He gave Helen one of his searching looks, the one that Olivia had determined to be distinctly Dax. When he asked a question, he focused his full attention on you, and that attention penetrated deep.
  Helen fussed with the containers. “Well, this is only preliminary,” she purred in a squeaky and completely un-Helen little voice, “but just from my experience I don’t think this is bodily fluids. Of course, with so much mold I can be mistaken.” She sounded like knew she wasn’t mistaken. 
  “I agree with you,” Dax said. 
  Reaching for a slip of paper, Helen turned her back to the towels. Using this moment, Dax leaned down even more, so low that his face came within a couple of inches of the nasty towel. He paused for a second before moving to the second towel, hovered there as well, and straightened up before Helen turned around. It almost looked as if he… sniffed at the stain.
  “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re taking this silly game too far,” Olivia murmured under her breath. Dax didn’t acknowledge her comment, but she knew he heard it. The corner of his mouth went up and his lovely nose twitched. 
  “What do you figure the stain might be?” he addressed Helen.
  “Most likely a drink. It isn’t blood for sure though I’m going to test it with phenolphthalein to have something other than my word for the investigators,” Helen explained as if incensed at the prospect that the investigators on the case might not consider her visual observations sufficient enough to stand in court. 
  She adjusted her gloves. “I have to run all kinds of tests. With so much mold all over the stain this evidence is almost completely ruined.” 
  “Let me know what you find out. I’m curious.”
  “I sure will!” Helen promised.
  Olivia turned to go back to her desk, and Dax again followed her. She half intended to let it go, but she simply didn’t have it in her nature to ignore things.
  “Was it necessary to pretend to sniff the towels? A joke told twice isn’t funny anymore. Besides, those things are nasty.”
  “They didn’t smell too bad.” He sounded serious.
  “Oh my God, please. What did they smell like?”
  He briefly looked away. “It’s an alcoholic drink. Helen’s right, the mold messed it up.” He rotated his head as annoyance flashed across his pale face. “I can’t say what kind. Citrusy. It had vodka in it, that’s for sure.”
  Olivia blew a long breath out. Citrus with its distinctive smell - she’d let it pass. But everyone knew alcohols as compounds evaporated in a matter of minutes because the carbon atoms in their molecules couldn’t form strong bonds. There should be nothing left for him to smell on the towel except mold. Not even a trained detection dog would have had any success. And Dax wasn’t a dog. He was a nut, that’s what he was.
  “If you say so.”
  “You don’t believe me.”
  Olivia paused, reminding herself that she should stay polite and professional. They were on track to remain colleagues for years. What if he were easily offended? You never knew with the nut jobs. “It’s not that I don’t. But I’ll admit, you are the first analyst I’ve known who claims to sniff things out in the literal sense.”
  Dax’s jaw clenched and he dropped his gaze from Olivia’s face to the carpet. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “You’re right, I overplayed it. I get it. Sorry.”
  He looked dejected, and Olivia immediately felt bad. Maybe he wasn’t a nutcase, but simply socially awkward. As a new kid on the block, he probably tried to make friends with her, nothing else. So what if his way of engaging included sniffing?
  “That’s alright, don’t worry about it. I won’t tell anyone,” she promised. “But hey, if you were serious about helping with cases around here, I just might take you up on your word.”
  He nodded, and they went to their respective cubicles.

  Olivia worked by herself for the rest of the day. 
  Randy had come back from Shade’s office in a foul mood. He worked through lunch, all the while wearing earbuds in an obvious attempt to discourage conversation. Olivia hoped that maybe the threat of a reprimand, or even termination, would be enough to shake some sense into Randy’s pickled brain. But when she glanced into the direction of his workspace at the end of the day, he was gone.
  So much for overtime.
  Dax was also nowhere to be seen. She must’ve missed him leaving, although why she felt like she should have been aware of it baffled her.
  She stood up, thinking that she might as well call it a day too. Phoebe texted, confirming their planned run around the track behind their old high school.
  She powered off her computer and picked up her bag.
  Helen was cleaning up, having just finished with her analysis. The two towels sat on the counter, neatly folded, bagged, and labeled. 
  “Have you figured out that stain, Helen?” Olivia asked.
  “I think so. Like I said, a drink.” Helen, being Helen, preened a little. “It took all I had and then some, with the degradation. But I did it! It's a cocktail, a margarita or something, either spilled on or wiped with this towel. Lime juice gave it away. I’m so proud of myself.”
  “Way to go, girl. You’re the best,” Olivia was pleased Helen figured it out. “What a waste of tequila,” she joked.
  Helen laughed. “Don’t worry, no waste. There was only vodka in it.”

Hello there! Another post with news about me and what I think. And if that isn’t your cuppa, keep scrolling down to another piece of a story.

Some significant changes have taken place in my life. Namely, after 18 years in Florida, we moved to Maryland, a state I haven’t even visited prior to coming to live here, and the adjustment is HARD. It’s harder now that I’m all alone, waiting on my family to join me. I married young and have been a wife and mother for 23 years, never having lived alone in my entire adult life – until now. This sudden solitude is unwelcome, and it undoubtedly makes my adjustment period especially sharp. The fact that I have almost no furniture in this echoing new house doesn’t help either.

But I have my laptop to write this post and compose my stories. And I finally have internet! So what that the technician was an hour late to my appointment? He came! A native of Portugal and a former farmer, for forty minutes he impressed on me the dangers of walking in local parks unarmed as I sat in my armchair swaddled in a throw to ward off the winter chill (NOT the picture of an outdoor enthusiast). The bears in these parts, according to him, are vicious. Don’t bring a tasty smelly sandwich along for a hike – the bears will pounce from behind. And if you happen to come across a bear, give up your backpack – with the sandwich in it, – don’t be fighting the animal. I mean, a solid advice from your friendly internet provider. Oh, and the vipers. One bite, and the venom will coagulate your blood. You die. His advice? Don’t attempt to pick up snakes in the woods. Gotcha, man. You don’t have to tell me twice.

Apart from the weird but rather entertaining visit from the internet tech, my weekend went by in isolation. It allowed me time to think, to regroup, to consider what’s important to keep in my new life and what I can let go. I listened to music – a welcome distraction in a still house. Music doesn’t really help me focus when I write, but rather individual tunes bring to life scenes that later get realized in my books. It can happen anytime, at any place when I hear a song for the first time. The lyrics may matter but usually don’t – what matters is that visual composition that the song as a whole – words, music, artistry – stir in my brain. For instance, “Mama” by Clean Bandit/Ellie Goulding brought on the idea of a scene where Gemma washes Simon’s hair in Homebound. It’s so random, but it does happen to me.

This weekend, I listened to Stromae and LP, two very different and unique artists with equally impressive catalogues of wonderful songs. Actually, I played LP when driving home late from work on Friday through the mother of all fogs, and “Forever for Now” gave me an idea for my work-in-progress, Sky Song. There’s a moment where Cricket looks up, and her eyes meet Lyle’s. There’s also fog. So I rewrote the first chapter to include this short but meaningful moment of connection between the two.

As usual, a disclaimer: What gets posted here is an unedited draft that may or may not end up in a final version in this exact form.

Cheers!

Sky Song - Chapter 1

  The sounds of the forest were terrifying.
  Strong gusts of wind came in like waves, and the dense tree canopy responded with a sinister whisper that swelled, expanded like a balloon being filled with air, turning into a powerful whoosh. It grew, gathering force until it drowned out the world. 
  And then it subsided.
  When the great rustling of trees quieted down, the grating screeches of birds took over, menacing and mocking. There were other sounds, too. Tree trunks groaning and twigs crackling. Invisible animals traipsing through the undergrowth, disturbing dry leaves where they stepped. A sudden flapping of wings… 
  Fists balled tightly at her sides, Cricket stood still as a statue with her eyes closed, forcing herself to absorb this music of the wild. 
  I can do this, she told herself for a hundredth time. 
  Her feet remained immobile as they began to perspire inside her cheap canvas sneakers, calling her bluff.
  Another wind gust came, bringing along another great whoosh. 
  A thin trickle of sweat slid between Cricket’s breasts, and her eyes snapped open. She stared at a large wooden sign in front of her that spelled in carved cursive Serenity Forest: Where Nature Welcomes You! 
  Bright painted flowers and butterflies decorated the rough board in an attempt to convey a rustic feel, an invitation to leave everyday worries behind and soak in the calming essence of the park.
  Yeah, sure.
  An older couple dressed for hiking emerged from the pseudo-forest, and to let them pass, Cricket had to move back from her position where she was toeing the line between the paved walkway and the pine straw-covered park trail. 
  “What a beautiful day!” the man said to her. “A little windy, but warm.” His companion smiled at Cricket.
  Stretching her lips in an answering smile that felt as wooden as the park’s sign, Cricket nodded at them as they passed by in their matching boonie hats and lace-up boots that clodded when they hit the pavement.
  Alone once more, she squinted at the bright blue sky where Meeus’ sun Kle shone cheerfully between a handful of fluffy clouds. It was, indeed, a beautiful day. 
  Turning around, Cricket headed for the med center, wondering when - or if - she’d finally be able to leave her old hang-ups behind and take a, literally, walk in the park. 
  One day soon, she promised herself, like she’d done countless times in the past six years.
  Maybe when mama finally joined her on Meeus, they’d go to the park together, and this time it would be fine, it would be glorious.
  One day.
  Cricket took a long way to work to compensate for the time she didn’t spend at the park. She walked slowly, enjoying the mild warmth of the early spring that arrived early this year. Really, even the worst kind of weather on Meeus was still good weather. Rather, there was rarely bad weather on Meeus. Not like back home, none of those fierce winter storms of January or exhausting dry spells of August. Temperate, that was this world. Temperate and moderate, as if the government adopted special provisions to regulate the weather like they regulated every other aspect of its citizens’ lives to make them as comfortable as one could possibly imagine.
  Cricket wanted for nothing. It was wrong of her to long for an occasional thunderstorm.
  She entered the med center through a secured door and took the elevator two stories down to the sub-basement where the lab was located. 
  Contrary to the norm, the lab was deserted.
  “What’s going on? Where’s everybody?” She checked the time. It was accurate. Slowly turning in a circle, Cricket took in abandoned workstations with stacks of litmus test slips and vials of bodily fluids. 
  Instruments sat at the ready, waiting for the techs to process the specimens submitted by doctor’s offices on behalf of the sick.
  And then she remembered about the symposium. The alien delegation was arriving today!
  Cricket took the same eerily silent, chrome-encrusted elevator back to the main floor, went out, and rounded the building to see the main entrance. 
  What she could see there was a great crowd that swallowed the entrance. A stern security guard firmly instructed the gawkers to move back. People excitedly milled around and ignored his warnings. 
  Everyone Cricket knew from the hospital was here, and then some. Doctors, nurses, cleaning people, and the electricians who came for repairs that day. Patients who had mobility and some in wheelchairs. The patients' visitors. The little old lady that worked in the cafeteria. Even their blind accountant and his service animal were standing, bizarrely, at the front of the line. 
  All in all, the circus had come to town.
  She spotted Salty’s stringy dark hair in the crowd next to Kim Creek’s unflattering brush cut and moved closer to them. 
  “Oh, hi,” Salty uttered in her usual depressed monotone. “You missed the first four.” Salty’s tone said she didn’t care if Cricket missed all of them, or if Cricket lived or died.
  Ignoring Salty’s Eeyore personality, something they all dealt with every day, Cricket made regretful noises. 
  “Who did I miss?”
  “I don’t know their species. They’re so strange looking - I’ll have bad dreams all week,” Salty gave a weak shudder inside her blue laboratory scrubs.
  “Why don’t you go back inside? Maybe it’s best not to watch if aliens upset you,” Cricket pointed out.
  “Kim says we need to learn who they are.” Salty threw a hateful glance at Kim who must’ve dragged her out here. “To be prepared.”
  “Prepared for what?” Cricket asked a pointless question. Kim always prepared. She lived her life in preparation for the apocalypse.  Doomsday was coming, and aliens were the devil of it.
  Kim turned her eyes, hard as chips of hazel rock on her equally unyielding face, to Cricket. 
  “Watch,” she said. “See how they move. Learn how they act.”
  “They step out of the riders and go inside - it takes but a few seconds. What can you learn?”
  Kim scoffed. “You’re never going to understand. Good thing there are people like me watching over people like you.” 
  Cricket rolled her eyes, not caring to hide it from Kim.
  Another rider glided to a stop, sending the security guard into a flurry of activity. He yelled and waved his hands, bearing down on the few excessively curious who blocked the path to the main entrance.
  The rider’s door slid up like a wing, and a Tana-Tana alien emerged. The crowd quieted down as if people beheld a miracle. The Tana-Tana was dressed into something that could only be described as a kaftan, richly embroidered with shimmering swirls that set off the gunmetal glimmer of his deep set eyes. He paused, giving the crowd a sweeping glance, then moved his sloping shoulders as if shrugging them all off and walked inside the hospital, his gait a bit lurching as all Tana-Tana gait was.
  The rider pulled away from the curb under the resumed chorus of excited chatter. 
  “Did you see his crest? Wild!”
  “I’m telling you, this one’s ratchet.”
  “Silly clothes.”
  “I still would…”
  Cricket quietly slipped away. Retracing her steps, she went back to the lab. She felt awkward from the spectacle. They were alien people, not some freaks on display. 
  But to the born-and-raised Meeus residents, they might as well have been. Meeus’ strict immigration policies prohibited non-humans from gaining residency, and even alien visitors were rare and mostly limited to Colvart city-continent. Here in Shadush, regular people knew of aliens from documentaries, but meeting one in real life was exceedingly rare. 
  Cricket could understand people's curiosity, but her Earth upbringing took care of her own. She’d seen aliens of all stripes up close and personal. She’d worked alongside some of them. She’d been accosted once or twice by predatory Peralis and opportunistic little Xosas. With her experiences so diverse and not altogether pleasant, she remained ambiguous toward Meeus’ alien prohibition. 
  “Not my business, not my problem. Keep your nose clean and think about mama,” she repeated her mantra as she tugged on a pair of protective gloves and covered her face with a clear shield.
  Not everyone at the lab was as obsessed with protective gear as Cricket, but she refused to take chances. Clearly, the fact that she replaced someone who had died of exposure to chemicals had something to do with it. On her first day, it was Salty who had demonstrated the proper procedures to Cricket and regaled her with a story of Igor.
  Igor used to process piss and poop samples, the basic and the least glamorous of the lab’s work, but occasionally helped with tissue analysis. Either because his training on tissues was inadequate, or he just got too sloppy with the face shield, but something got into his system and he died. Right here, at the lab. In the middle of the day. Just turned blue and dropped to the floor. 
  And by blue Salty meant blue. The skin of Igor’s entire body turned an electric shade of bright blue. His nails, too, and the whites of his eyes. He had foamed at the mouth before he passed, and the stuff was also blue. To add to the horror, his body had started dissolving immediately upon death into a blue gooey mess. 
  No one at the lab really knew what the hell Igor had ingested, but after his liquified body mass was removed, the floor tiles had to be replaced. The blue stain wouldn't come off.
  Cricket adjusted her face shield and fetched a tray of samples. She was grateful to have gotten this job, even though the legend of Igor’s untimely blue demise continued to haunt her a little.
  Before too long, excited voices of her co-workers reached Cricket as the party was returning from the show.
  “Emma!” Young Terrance burst through the doors ahead of the others. Cricket turned after a small hesitation. Six years, and it still took her a second to respond to the name. She was Emmaline, Cricket to her mother and a few others who’d known her since childhood. But here, on Meeus, she had shed her old Earth identity, adopting a shorter and simpler version of her name. 
  “They were so cool!” Terrance bounced up and down from excitement, earning a censoring glance from scowling Kim.
  Cricket raised her eyebrows behind her screen. “Cool?”
  “Yes! The aliens! You should’ve come.”
  “I came.”
  Terrance impatiently shook his head setting off an atmospheric event in the cloud of his shaggy coils. “You should’ve stayed. There were fifteen of them, and can you believe how different they were? It’s crazy! I never knew! They never told us about the cool stuff. I wish I could travel to all those different worlds. Maybe I will… No scratch that. I definitely will.” 
  “How about you travel to Pepper Pass first,” Kim scoffed, “to see your mother.”
  Terrance’s exuberance momentarily dimmed. “I don’t have any money. I’m still paying off my fines,” he admitted. Even his hair seemed to droop.
  Salty snickered. “You mean, for that rented rider that you wrecked at the plaza?”
  “The rider’s insured. It was that stupid statue. Who knew a pile of twisted wires was so expensive?”
  “It was a city-commissioned object of art,” Kim said.
  “It was a piece of garbage that deserved to be demolished,” Terrance countered, indignant, but quickly waved off his financial woes in favor of more interesting stuff. “Anyway, the Xosa was the first to arrive - a skinny little bastard, looked shrewd. And that Gaorz! Fish, I'm telling you.” Terrance roared with laughter ignoring Salty’s annoyed look. “With blue lips. The Tarai was normal-looking, except for the big ears, really distracting. Tana-Tana, Perali, Rix - they were, I don't know, kind of a lot like us. The Sakka gave off a weird vibe. And…”
  “Terrance,” Cricket interrupted him. “You said a Rix alien came?”
  “Yep, read his name tag myself, that’s how close I got,” he boasted. “It said his name’s Lyle.”
  “But Rix aren’t one of the consortium nations.”
  Terrance’s face got a blank look. He was a nice kid but not the brightest bulb in their lab chandelier. He clearly didn’t know what nations made up the intergalactic consortium.
  Cricket took pity on him. “Was there fourteen delegates?” 
  Terrance brightened. “Fifteen. And you know I have a knack for numbers, Emma.”
  Cricket smiled and went back to work, her mind, against her will, on the alien members of the intergalactic consortium that arrived to spend a week at the hospital’s medical research facility. To exchange knowledge and share ideas. 
  A Rix alien. 
  Maybe she should’ve stayed to the end. This was one species she’d never met in real life, but boy, had she heard a lot from mama. One of them, a Rix named Simon, had been imprisoned at a facility on Earth where mama used to work. He had come to them tortured and sick, and everyone thought he was going to die, but Gemma, mama’s friend who also worked at the prison, fought for him. Simon and Gemma fell in love, and he took Gemma away, and it would all have been terribly romantic if Simon hadn’t made an attempt to kill mama. He hadn’t, but only because Gemma interfered. 
  Regardless, mama held Simon in high esteem. She felt indebted to him because she was able to send Cricket to Meeus on an illegal passage Simon had procured by means of killing its original owner. And Cricket figured she should feel indebted to Simon as well, but try as she might, she never did. 
  Gemma was another matter. Cricket owed it big to Gemma for stalling Simon’s hand and sparing mama’s life. And for giving up her Meeus passage to Cricket. And for guilting her former fiance, Dr. Zeke Ragberg, into helping Cricket get established on Meeus. 
  Likewise, Cricket would be forever grateful to Dr. Ragberg for setting her up with a legal status here. It was Dr. Ragberg who gave her this job. And it was Dr. Ragberg who treated Cricket for a lung condition that had plagued her since she was six. 
  Cricket would never be able to pay Gemma and Dr. Ragberg back for their kindness. She would do anything for either of them. But her feelings toward Simon the Rix ran in a different direction.
  Still, she was curious. 
  Two trays of urine samples processed, Cricket logged the results and sent them off. Terrance had by now run out of excitement about the aliens, but Kim took over and spouted her usual conspiracy theories about how this group was a Trojan horse of all delegations, and that they would do an inside job of messing with Meeus’ medical infrastructure, and how aliens wanted nothing more than to replace humans, and those who fraternized with aliens would be the first to perish. And so on and so forth. 
  Cricket took off her gloves and reached for a snack. 
  The door opened with a bang, and Yanet appeared, her hair askew. 
  Cricket’s hand retracted. She’d never seen Dr. Ragberg’s nurse assistant with her hair out of order.
  Yanet’s wide - and slightly wild at the moment - eyes swept over the lab, landing square on Cricket.
  “Emma,” she said breathlessly. “Dr. Ragberg needs you quick. Come.” She motioned for Cricket to follow but abruptly stopped and frowned. “Take this off.”
  Cricket looked down. “My scrubs?”
  “Yes, the scrubs. What are you wearing today?” Yanet actually reached for the fasteners and opened up Cricket’s scrub top to reveal a plain beige sweater underneath. Cricket was so shocked by Yanet’s actions that she could only stand there and gape at her from behind her face shield. 
  Yanet’s perfect bioengineered face briefly registered disappointment, but she waved her hand dismissively. “Nothing can be done about it now. Come.”
  Divested of her protective gear, Cricket followed Yanet down a familiar route, up the elevator and through the hospital corridors to Dr. Ragberg’s office. 
  It was unoccupied.
  “Wait here.” Before she left, Yanet found her reflection in a glass cabinet door and smoothed her hair.
  Cricket lowered into a patient chair that she’d long come to caustically call her own. Dr. Ragberg still saw her once a month to monitor her condition, but it was more a precaution now. She’d come a long way since six years ago when she would sit in this chair almost every day, gasping and wheezing. Back then, every night she felt like drowning, and despite his unshakable optimism, the look in Dr. Ragberg’s eyes had been… uncertain.
  She didn’t have to wait long.
  “Emma! Thank you.” He walked in, young but appearing older with his conservatively styled clothes and an old-fashioned haircut. Cricket suspected it was intentional on his part.
  “Of course, Dr. Ragberg. What happened?”
  “Nothing, precisely. But I’m in a bit of a sensitive situation.” He sat down across from her. “Our alien guests are here. It’s a full house, I’m sure you’re well aware.”
  “The lab staff talk of nothing else.”
  Dr. Ragberg smiled his crooked smile. “I imagine. It’s the same on every floor. Well, the guests came to learn about us, about what we do. They asked us to share human experiences with them, stories, even of anecdotal nature. They’re curious about what we like, what we think, and how we react to outside stimuli.” He trailed off as if carefully weighing what he was going to say next.
  “That’s why they came, isn’t it?” Cricket prompted.
  “Yes, yes. That’s expected. But right now they’re asking to hear about humans who lived on Earth, to better understand how we’re different. If we’re different.” Dr. Ragberg shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Of course, I can always say we don’t have anyone with such a background, but I was wondering if you could do me a huge favor, Emma…”
  Cricket understood. Like her, Dr. Ragberg was born and raised on Earth, and like her, he had come to Meeus if not exactly illegally, but certainly as an uninvited guest. But that’s where their situations diverged. While Cricket, a non-entity, could get away with glossing over her Earth roots, Dr. Ragberg went to great lengths to bury his so that the stigma couldn't affect his brilliant medical career. And he was brilliant. It would be a shame if he lost his position over his lack of proper pedigree. 
  “You’d like me to talk to them?” Cricket guessed.
  “If you don’t mind.”
  She would do anything he asked. And in this case, it was nothing, really. “Of course I don’t mind. I’d be happy to.”
  He rose, still uncomfortably looking. “I’m much obliged, Emma. It would be so much easier if I could just… I wish I could change how things are.”
  “No worries, Dr. Ragberg. You know I will never mention you and Earth in the same sentence.”
  “Yes, well.” He cleared his throat. “I appreciate it.”
  As he led Cricket across the hospital, he instructed her to act natural and answer the aliens’ questions honestly, so long as she was comfortable with the topic. They came here to learn, and they expected to be educated. And entertained.
  Finally, they reached a large atrium that ended in an impressive set of double doors. 
  “And don’t worry, an interpreter is already in the room.” Dr. Ragberg pushed the heavy doors open, and she walked into a cavernous conference room.
  She took several steps and stopped, processing the scene before her. The alien delegation was seated around a U-shaped mahogany table that reflected the light of crystal chandeliers hanging above it, their glow turned to the max. The table was the width of a race track, befitting the room, and the aliens were widely spaced apart. It appeared that refreshments had just been served, with full plates and bowls of varying sizes standing next to each guest. Some of the bowls’ contents looked and smelled mysteriously. 
  A low hum of conversation flowed around the room. Three waiters hovered near the table at even intervals, and a wizened old man with hair in a long scraggly braid stooped solicitously next to a snooty Perali who was apparently having trouble making his request understood by one of the waiters. 
  Dr. Deja Nura who worked closely with Dr. Ragberg was also in the room, and she smiled at Cricket encouragingly. 
  Cricket sensed Dr. Ragberg behind her. 
  “Here you go.” He pulled up a chair for her, positioning it at the heel end of the mahogany horseshoe of the table. 
  “Thank you.” Automatically, she sat down.
  Another scan of the room told her that she’d been noticed. The conversations quieted down as the aliens regarded her openly, though their emotions were difficult to read even for a human like Cricket who spent her earlier life around them. 
  The Perali was drilling her with his animalistic beady eyes - a familiar experience. The big-boned Tana-Tana she’d seen on arrival was checking her out with bored curiosity. 
  A Tarai female with large furry ears and coarse facial features was looking at her like Cricket was a peculiar circus animal. Fair enough. That was her role at the moment.
  There were a Xosa; a Sakka; a fish-looking Gaorz - she had to give credit to Terrance for not making this up; a red-skinned Levisur whose flattened bald head sat on the body without a neck; a Rix with overlarge black eyes that clearly told Cricket that was what he was; a Brata with four jointed tentacles for hands; one bird-looking citizen of the planet Romtu; a gentleman with seven eyes scattered randomly on his reptilian face whose nation Cricket struggled to remember; and three representatives from the Kessa planet cluster that belonged to the subgroups of the same race. In a nutshell, the gang was all here.
  “Is this the Earth-born human?” someone asked in barely-understandable Universal. 
  “Yes! She is here for you,” the interpreter answered in an equally atrocious accent.
  Then he shuffled over to her chair and bent down, his stringy braid grazing her knees. “Do you have a greeting in mind or are we going to do a traditional one?”
  Cricket blinked and focused on his face. What she saw there was pity. Here she was, a thin young woman with mousy hair and a plain face, dressed in an unremarkable beige sweater and worn-out sneakers. She was sitting in that chair, a lone figure dwarfed by this huge room with soaring ceilings and enormous chandeliers, lost in the echoing space barely broken by the shiny expanse of the table, a poor nervous nobody in front of the exotic guests that were looking at her like she was part of their refreshments course. That was what the interpreter saw. That was what they all saw.
  “I’ve got it,” she said, causing the interpreter’s eyebrows to jump to his vaguely defined hairline.
  Cricket slowly rose to her feet, all five feet ten inches of her with a long neck and perfectly straight posture. Pressing her palms together in a cross pattern at the chest level, the gesture as familiar as it was global, she gave the room another sweeping glance.
  “What you ask, may you receive. What you seek, may you find,” she said in Universal, modulating her voice so it reached the guests at the far back, like that Rix alien. She then lowered her hands down without unclasping them, performing the expected ritual. “Here, the light shines upon you, and peace awaits you.” Now she moved her hands aside and palms out, cocking her head right and down in a half-bow. “We’re with you, by your side, always.” 
  The traditional part over with, Cricket dropped her hands at her sides and smiled. “I’m happy to take questions, but please, continue with your lunch.” 
  The silence in the room was so complete it rang. 
  And in this sudden, permeating stillness, Cricket’s eyes collided with the Rix’s. He was looking at her without blinking from his seat at the very back of the U-shaped table, the farthest point from where Cricket stood, and even across this vast distance, she could clearly see his large eyes. They appeared deep and bedewed, shining with a glistening, wet sheen that was deceiving. Like black amber, his eyes were hard and dry. Snake’s eyes, even though there was nothing reptilian in his appearance.
  An attack of nerves swamped Cricket, the Rix’s eyes causing it and soothing at the same time. It got colder. The blinding lights of the chandeliers dimmed and the aliens around the table blurred as if in a dense fog. The floor dropped, and Cricket was standing on air, and her only lifeline was that magnetic, hard gaze of the predator who lured her when her system clamored for her to run. 
  “Emma! You speak Universal?” 
  The floor slammed into place and the fog vanished.
  “Yes, I do.” Cricket turned to Dr. Nura who was looking at her in astonishment. Dr. Ragberg mirrored his colleague’s surprise. The interpreter appeared completely floored.
  “I had no idea. But of course, I had no clue you were from Earth until a few minutes ago. How fascinating!” Dr. Nura’s surprise appeared genuine and welcoming, and Cricket smiled in response.
  “What are the humans saying?” The Gaorz asked in her broken-up Universal. Having taken Cricket’s invitation to continue with the lunch to heart, she’d speared a slice of something with a two-pronged fork and was now pointing at Cricket with the food.
  The interpreter remembered he had a job to do and translated their exchange.
  “Good point.” The Gaorz popped the food between her deeply toned blue lips and chewed. “How did you learn to speak Universal?” 
  “They teach Universal at schools on Earth,” Cricket explained. “And I have held a lot of different jobs since I started working at fourteen. I had to talk to all kinds of peoples over the years. Earth is diverse like that.” 
  “How’s that?” the Gaorz pressed on, clearly the most outgoing of the group despite her poor command of the artificial language adopted by the consortium nations for intergalactic communications that came to be known as Universal.
  “I’d say it's very diverse.” There was unrest and conflicts but Cricket wasn’t going into all that unless specifically asked. “Many peoples settled on Earth. Perali,” she made eye contact with the one in the room. 
  “And Tana-Tana live there now.” She nodded at the Tana-Tana delegate who was busy eating. “The Sakkas have a large community, Xosa travel in and out, and many others who aren’t from the consortium nations.” Except for Rix. Rix never came except that one time when Simon’s ship crash-landed near the City where Cricket grew up. That hadn’t worked out all that great for Simon, so she couldn't say she blamed his people for not wanting to socialize.
  “You worked, you said? What did you do?”
  Cricket briefly described the countless menial jobs she had taken over the years only to lose them when her afflicted lungs kept her bedridden for days on end. She omitted the lungs part, of course.
  The Gaorz dabbed her blue lips with a napkin showing some manners. The napkin came away blue, and Cricket realized with surprise that blue was the color of the lipstick not the lips as she’d assumed. Between that and the purple eyeshadow above the Gaorz’s round lidless eyes and horizontal pink smudges below them, the choice of makeup shades left Cricket baffled but not critical. Aliens were like that: different.
  Others had by now expressed interest in asking questions, and one of the Kessas even clucked at the Gaorz for hogging the conversation. 
  “Do you have a family?” asked the Tarai lady.
  Cricket got quiet. She had her mama back on Earth, her only family. Here, she was completely and utterly alone. Such a simple question, it left her uncomfortable and, if she were completely honest with herself, feeling a tiny bit inadequate.
  She raised her chin defensively. “I do have family on Earth,” she stated with confidence. “I hope to create one here, too.”
  The Rix at the opposite end of the table continued to look at her out of his black eyes set in an impassive face. He no longer appeared predatory and otherworldly. And Cricket felt fine now, not nervous in the least, not shaken or upset. That strange moment where she’s fallen into his eyes was gone from Cricket’s imagination, but looking at him brought back the memory of it. And underneath her calm, she experienced an unexplainable fear that she had gotten infected with something that was now living within, a part of her till the end of her days. 
  “Do you have a boyfriend?” asked the Levisur in a hoarse hacking voice.
  “Ronjuk!” the Gaorz reached over and smacked him on the arm with a napkin. 
  “What? Did I say it wrong? Is boyfriend not the right word?”
  The Gaorz clucked and whistled and flapped her arms at Ronjuk the Levisur who rolled his eyes around in confusion. The aliens at the table expressed amusement in their different ways and even the Tana-Tana fought to hide a smile.
  “Are you applying?” the Perali asked the Levisur snidely. 
  Turning a deeper shade of red, Ronjuk worked his mouth to form a denial. “I just asked… from a purely scientific perspective. For research. It isn’t like I have an interest… I have a…  have a…  partner. Her name is Alalassa, and she looks like me only taller. A very beautiful female, a very rare specimen with dark spots on her head - I had to give up my two brothers to servitude to buy her…”
  The Kessas howled like hyenas. 
  “What?” Realizing he’d made another blunder but unable to figure out what exactly he’d said wrong, the Levisur looked helplessly at Cricket.
  She pulled the chair closer to the mahogany table and sat down. “Let me tell you more about our traditions.”

Hello, friends!

Aiming at October 1^st with Planet Zero release. Been a long time coming, and frankly, I’m ready to move on.

And moving right on to writing what I have dubbed Rix Universe Book 2. I already let it be known that Book 2 is Cricket’s book plus a certain tortured Rix hero. The hero’s (nick)name is Lyle and the book’s working title is “Sky Song.”

That’s all I have. Thanks for reading! Cheers.