Category: Short Stories

Shorter-form fiction

Short Story: Aren’t

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

One hundred and twenty five years. That was how long it took us to go from the most advanced civilization ever known to the brink of complete and total collapse. One hundred and twenty five years. Hardly much longer than a human life-span, really. Maybe that’s telling, but I can’t be sure. Who can anymore? We were poised over a precipice, ready to fall or fly. Beneath us lay civilization’s destruction, above an eternal golden age. Rather than gracefully balance ourselves to preserve our world before learning to fly, we leapt straight off into a swan dive. We wound up battered, broken, dead far below where we should have been.

I wasn’t one of the working class before things went down. That’s not to say I was wealthy, not even close. What I mean is, I wasn’t the group that all of the shit came down on worst. I was just a two-bit drug pusher, running grass, pills, powder– whatever I could. Everyone had to make-ends-meet. Most of the time, too, ends didn’t meet.

I digress. In simplest terms, I wasn’t part of the group about to have the weight of the world on me and my children if I– and my peers– fucked up. Too bad none of us paid attention, huh? What could’a been…

That’s sort the way of things, isn’t it? Human behavior dictates those of us with the most riding on us pay the least attention. Always. Must be a defense mechanism. We adapt well. Too well. Hell, it was the only redeeming thing our species had going. That adaptation certainly back-fires when you’re adapting to shackles around your wrists, ankles, and throat. At that point, adaptation outright is the oppressor.

Hindsight’s 20/20, but I’m guessing that’s where the “Middle-Class” was when things took their turn. We balanced on that precipice’s edge, looked down, then thought, “ah fuck it,” and dove. Things weren’t going great anyhow, and while it was technically the safest, most peaceful time in history, that was like saying a nuclear apocalypse could solve overpopulation. Technically true, but sure as hell not fixing things.

So, things could’ve been better. Big deal. Right? Sure, but technology was linking all of Humanity together. Call it the net, call it the web, whatever your rose, it linked everyone. Every person, young and old, stupid or smart, everyone could suddenly share and discuss anything; common interests, opinions, or even arguments, all from the safety of their own homes. Meanwhile, the boxes and “pipes” between they and their opponents kept everyone safe when things went tits-up and people lost their temper. Which they did. Often.

But was it a good system? Sure. Perfect? Of course not. What is? So, Flawed? Again, what isn’t?

It gave us all an outlet; a place to bitch and complain when needed, to learn from when wanted and everything around and in between. The only limit to it, really, was our imagination. It was like a super-power the whole world had access to. It evened the playing field in a lot of ways, made us equal. Offline you were poor, downtrodden, unheard. Online, you and everyone else were at zero.

The problems that led us here, to the brink of extinction, stemmed from people’s adaptations to it. They adapting to being placated, to accepting the world as it was. That bitching and complaining became the sole outlet angry people in a damaged world. People’d log-on, vent, fight, argue, whatever, then be done.

Things started getting out of hand though: people kept doing it as the world got worse. It was like Pavlov’s dog, but the bell never stopped ringing. People became complacent. How we got from that to end of the world wasn’t really a stretch. Politically, the landscape was volatile at the best of times– and completely catastrophic the rest. At its worst it was… well, this about sums it up. Like I said, I was a pusher, so I’m not one to judge. And I won’t for good reasons. So, there’s no reason to judge me either. I’m just calling things as I saw ’em, so maybe one day there’ll be a record.

I knew things were taking a turn when my business ramped up. You can always tell the health of a society by the things it makes or keeps illegal. For us it was grass, pills, chems, anything providing an escape. When your society’s far enough gone that chasing a dragon becomes the international pass-time, your society’s in need of some seriously dire repairs.

Long story shorter; business was booming. Selling happy pills, doubling stock three times a week, and still not meeting demand means your clients are seriously unhappy people. It wasn’t just junkies either. That’s a common misconception in my line of work– or former line of work, anyhow. Junkies can’t afford to feed their habits like the stably employed. Most of my clients were the complete opposite of junkies; good, hard-working people that paid taxes, owned homes, and raised kids. Problem was, they were exhausted. They slogged through daily grinds because it was expected.

Meanwhile, the people supposedly representing their interests– politicians, civic leaders and the like– were ignoring them to the point of outrage. Something had to give. That something ended up being so completely out of our scope of control we’re still reeling from it.

See, the geniuses supposedly representing us let the environment go to hell. Earth was dying. Fast. For years we’d heard how Earth was “afflicted” by our shortsightedness. Bleeding hearts and ultra-blues said it was “bleeding to death” because of us. Granted, we’d industrialized to a point of madness, we never realized we could make such an irreparable impact, let alone that we had. As it was, we were looking to drown in melted ice, or sweat to death in napalm heat-waves unless drastic change came.

People said it was bogus. “Climate-change” was an oxymoron that meant even less to their plebeian minds than “Mother Earth.” But it was getting hotter. The ice-caps were shrinking. Empirical evidence said so. Cold, hard facts said so. Logic and rationality said so. It wasn’t ever going to convince the non-believers though. And unfortunately, most of those non-believers were also in government.

No matter the causes, the arguments, or the disbelief, something needed to be done. Everyone knew it. But we’d adapted. We’d been placated and patronized too long, had spent far too long in virtual worlds. We’d become complacent, adapted so wholly to the disappointment of the real world that we ignored it boiling around us. Literally.

The end came with a series of rash weather changes. The entire North American continent went from a blistering hot summer to– almost overnight– a sub-arctic winter. Latin America and South America got the opposite. It was so hot no-one could survive there. Few did. It didn’t end there though. Technically, it still hasn’t.

All the shifting weather caused hurricanes in wall-life formations across the Atlantic. The wall advanced on Europe but met monumental cold fronts from Europe’s sub-arctic winter. The wall blew back toward North America. In a stroke of ungodly bad luck, the storms combined to form one storm that was Earth’s Great Red Spot. Funny thing is, so far’s we know, Jupiter’s storm wasn’t formed from our ignorance. Still, it’s out there even now, drifting along the Atlantic as if patrolling the waters between continents.

After that, weather prediction went out the window. Seasons changed. There was no longer a specific few but rather one, totally unpredictable one. The Earth’s place in its orbit around the Sun seemed to have no affect on it either. With that uncertain nature, came the chaos of the people subjected to it. People protested, rioted in some places. It was too little too late. The damage was done.

All we could really do afterward was try to survive its aftermath, but without proper seasons or stable climates, global harvests disappeared. Survivors rationed dwindling non-perishables. Food labs sprang up in vain attempts to fight our fate. Unfortunately, the damage to the world’s power-grid made power so scarce the projects were DOA. The erratic nature of the sun’s appearance, too, meant solar power was completely unreliable. Days or weeks of sudden darkness killed off any remaining hope.

With no way to ensure crops grew, starvation ran rampant. The world was war-torn, places mid-battle, missing, destroyed. The human race was one bad day away from total annihilation– or rather, is. And it’ll come, trust me.

It’s just as well. We had the world and destroyed it. My guess is the Human-race was some grand experiment set up and let run. The experimenter definitely deserves marks for effort, but loses on account of the extinction thing. Then again, it’s not the scientist’s fault when the experiment fails. That’s just the way of things: they are, or aren’t. Soon enough, we’ll be “aren’t.”

Short Story: One of a Kind

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Her legs were spread. Feet flat. Knees bent. She lie on her back with her arms out, as if waiting. Rigor mortis had already set in. The blood had left her cheeks and now she was pale, streaked with blue. Her eyes were closed, lips frosted with death’s chafe. Were it not for those damning details, she’d have been mistaken for a sculpture.

Detective “Iron” Ron Beck had seen more than a few beautiful women dead. None were ever so obviously posed. Then again, none had been victims of “The Uptown Lover.” That was what the papers called him, anyhow. It pissed Iron off, made him sick– for a man with a lead-lined gut, that was saying something.

Mostly, it made him sick because the women were all low-esteem types: The first was runner-up in Miss Universe. The second, a first-string replacement for a Prima Ballerina. The Third was an up-and-comer for an “alt-girl” modeling company. She too, was second to the company’s fan-favorite. Iron Ron had no doubts; this girl would prove similar.

All of them had been found like this: in sexual positions, either waiting patiently, presenting, or mid-act. Ron found the latter the worst. The girls’ dead-eyes made their poses morbid. One girl’s eyes had been half open, rolled back, as if mid-orgasm.

The level of obsession required would’ve made Iron’s skin crawl thirty years earlier. Now it was just another detail. He’d seen the most gruesome hack-jobs by latin-gangs, the pavement marks from free-fall suicides. He’d found soured, back-alley drug-deals ended by the most brutal stabbings and shootings. And in all of it, nothing had ever bothered him like this.

It was personal. Too personal. Detachment was a necessity to a murder. Even a murder of passion. The perpetrator saw themselves outside themselves. They watched their actions as if in the body of another. Or they blacked out entirely.

The “Uptown” murders lacked detachment. Attachment was the point. There was a connection here. One so strong it led to the posing. There was no evidence of sexual foul-play either. No necrophilia. No rape. The women all had the slight vaginal tearing common of beautiful, sexually active women. The M-E said they could’ve as easily been caused by by masturbation or tampons.

Forensics had concluded all the deaths were drug-related. All overdoses. The pallor of pooled blood in the extremities confirmed the girls were posed shortly after death. The lack of struggle suggested they’d been drugged unwittingly or willingly. Toxicology confirmed oral ingestion alongside wine. Thus far, the three deaths were officially ODs, death by cardiac or respiratory failure.

But someone caught on in the media. “Uptown Lover” was published. Since then, it’d been riding the headlines. In “Iron” Ron’s mind, they weren’t wrong about the murder. But officially, the girls could just as easily have been coaxed into suicide. In the end, someone they knew well was involved. Someone present. Moments after their deaths, they were posed like sex-dolls, presenting or cumming.

The department psychologists were having a field day. According to them the killer was male, late-30’s, a begrudging desk-jockey, and a closeted homosexual with a fetish for snuff-films. What was more, because of the nature of the overdoses, he likely saw himself as helpful. When the girls confided in him, they opened the door to his manipulation. That allowed him to maneuver them. He had a silver-tongue, they said.

Iron didn’t believe any of it. His gut said not to. Where it went, the rest of him followed. At the moment, it led him from the third body to the OIC: a veteran beat-cop named Matthew Ortega.

Matt had a left-ward lean from a permanent piece of shrapnel in the left side of his back. It was too painful to stand-upright. A junky with a shotgun had tried to waste him from behind at point-blank range. The result was the left-lean and a penchant for having to “sit this one out.”

Ortega didn’t like sitting out. Ever. So he jumped at any chance to help. Right now, Iron needed that.

“Matt, get a me a list of the girl’s closest contacts. All of them. Line them up for questioning and put someone on it. I want the transcripts and vid-footage afterward. Bring ’em to me. ‘Til then, work on getting the same from the other girls.”

Matt obliged by hobbling off toward another blue. Iron left the pop of camera flashes behind, headed home. It wasn’t more than a few hours before he was called back to the station to sift through the evidence Ortega’d procured.

He spent hours sorting it, reviewing the vids. That time had afforded him some better idea of the people the victims surrounded themselves with. Most were sycophants, latent sociopaths. Nothing unusual for Los Angeles. In Iron’s opinion, it would’ve been more worrying if there hadn’t been those types. None of them were family. The latest victim didn’t appear to have any on record.

The image he’d formed rivaled that of the psychologists. In all he’d surmised this much: the killer’s gender was indecipherable, but they were prone to comforting self-conscious women, coveted them. Their occupation allowed for it, that much was obvious by how practiced they needed to be. At that, they certainly were skilled. Silver-tongued. Negotiating was important. Manipulation was necessary to their survival, and useful for killing.

As for the aftermath of the murders, there were still questions. The meticulous positions suggested contradictory opinions. Either the killer was a latent homosexual, wishing to be beautiful like their victims. Or, conversely, the killer thought themselves an artist doing the victims justice. Making them unique, special.

Too many questions remained about the bodies. Iron didn’t allow his analysis to rely on them. It wasn’t necessary anyhow. The “why” was less important than the “how” of their closesness.

He was reading the lists of the victims’ connections when the answer hit. He was up and running like an Olympic sprinter, eyeing his watch. It was near the end of the day. Not near enough to miss his chance though.

Before long, Iron burst through the office-door of talent agent Laura Gainer. A half-dozen uniformed officers followed him. Between he and them, Gainer’s assistant was barking promptly. She was expertly ignored. Gainer was up, out of her seat. Either terrified from the intrusion, or with the thought in mind to fight or flee. Iron’s blue-wall wasn’t about to let either happen.

“Laura Gainer,” Iron said, stepping around behind her. “You are under arrest for the murders of–” He repeated the victims’ names, recited Gainer’s Miranda rights. He was magnetizing the wall of blue to him as he forced Gainer through it for a squad car outside.

They passed through her office toward an elevator, got in to ride it down.

“You seduced and killed four women, Ms. Gainer. First befriending them as a talent agent, you used their repeated failures to maneuver them. Would-be contracts were a farce. Their failures mounted. The women became emotional, vulnerable. You took advantage, convinced them to experiment sexually. Expand their appeal. Then, you used the connection to coerce them into overdosing.”

Beck pushed her from the elevator into the lobby. People gawked at the blue-wall and the cuffed woman. As he was speaking, Iron reasoned the rest out.

“Then, immediately following their last breaths, you began posing them in sexual positions. The reason was simple; you were doing them a service, making them unique at last.”

He shoved Gainer into the back of a squad car. Ortega hobbled over. Beck had asked to meet him there at the precise moment.

Ortega handed over a packet of papers, “Everything you asked for.”

“You read it?”

Ortega nodded. “Checks out.”

The blue-wall finally broke apart and the squad cars outside filed away one-by-one.

Beck watched them go, “I never had a doubt.”

Ortega mirrored his gaze, “How’d you figure it out?”

Beck’s eyes narrowed as Gainer’s car shrank into the distance. “Everyone wishes they were one of a kind. Few are.”

Ortega’s gut churned bile. A corner of his eye twitched. “Hell of a way to go.” His words hung in the air, echoing into the rise and fall of the city’s din.

Short Story: Never Ends There

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

It’s funny the way things turn out. Not always in the laughing matter, obviously. Funny in that way people are afraid to call irony for fear of starting a “thing.” That happens a lot. Especially in this society. It probably started around the time this did too, come to think of it. Probably coincidence. Then again, I don’t believe in coincidence– or do I? I don’t know. Ask me next time the news is over.

Where was I? Oh. Irony. It’s ironic. Not because “ironic” is fun to say, but because it actually is ironic. How? It all began about the time people got hyper-sensitive. First it was people’s fuck-partners and tastes. The gays started it, or rather, the “L,” “G,” “B,” and “T” started it. They argued they’d been discriminated against. They weren’t wrong.

A few years back a young man was grabbed off the road inAlabama. He’d been walking home when his existence offended some would-be purity-crusader. A couple guys grabbed him, beat him to death, and lynched him in a tree. No, I’m not confusing it with the Civil Rights movement. It just seems that way.

It’s hate. People whom no longer realize what human means. They know we’re animals, but believe that’s excuse enough. “Nature’s way” and such, are the lines. Except there’s no species that murders, rapes, pillages, and tortures apart from Homo–sapiens.

The point is, it started with the “Gays,” “those folk.” They were rightfully pissed. Technically, they weren’t even allowed to die for their country. A soldier known to be a homosexual could be discharged and jailed. Draconian rules in a modern society. Makes sense, right?

They got angry. And motivated. And did their thing hoping to make things better. All good things, right? Right. No arguments there. Not there. Elsewhere’s a different story. Elsewhere, there’s nothing but arguments.

‘Cause it didn’t end there. It never ends there! It doesn’t end until after the horse is bludgeoned to death. After its flesh is a mushy pulp and dust for the day’s bread. Such is human existence– so far as we’ve seen anyhow.

It’s always expected once one person starts complaining, someone else’ll follow. Usually it’s a pattern that goes like this; a group or person has a legitimate grievance. They air said grievance. Another group jumps to support their side or the other. Someone on the opposing side then jumps up to match them. The four groups, screaming, arguing, or generally causing a sonic discordance easily confused for noise.

Meanwhile, one other group abstains entirely, flying to mars to hide under a rock there. One last group tries to listen calmly, hoping to pick through the madness for the grievance to evaluate it for an amiable solution. The madness goes on long enough for that group to suss it out. They shut everyone up and negotiate– which may or may not involve repeating the aforementioned.

In the end, everyone’s happy. In the end, everyone sits down again. The first, aggrieved group is satisfied. The second is too. The third and fourth still hate each other and are ready to be at one another’s throats, but sit down to support their sides. The fifth returns from beneath the Mars-rock. And the sixth implements the proposed and ratified solutions. Simple, human nature.

But it never ends there! As soon as the first group’s happy again, another isn’t. They weren’t before, but their grievance felt too personal. They feared airing it. Seeing the last aired grievance was just as personal, they air theirs.

In our narrative, that was “women.” Women were pissed that they’d been mistreated, underpaid, and over-sexualized. They wanted equality, an end to mistreatment. They weren’t alone, nor were they wrong. The shouting began again. All the groups jumped up, fled, and listened as usual. Their grievance was heard, and eventually, a solution was reached. Same as before, right? Right. All good. Nothing bad.

But Remember: it never ends there!

The next thing that happened? You guessed it, someone else got upset. That time, it was “blacks.” Their grievance was aired; they’d won their Civil Rights but whites weren’t holding up their end. They weren’t wrong either. Solutions were reached.

But itnever ends there! Other races started piling on. Everyone began screaming or fleeing or listening… You might see where this is going.

One thing invariably led to another until only some grievances were legitimate. Others were just ignorantanger. Everyone accepted that. But now it was okay to air that, add it to the discordance. The breakdown came when people stopped reacting and listening– and thus working to fix problems.

With everyone too busy presenting the latest incarnation of “woe is me,” the biggest blowhards stole the show. Just trying to listen cost more energy than people had left, including the calm listeners.

And because it never ends there, that mentality of everyone deserves everything and nobody should ever stuggle trickled into every facet of society. Aired grievances, combined with a helicopter-parent society, forced society into accommodating everyone. Then, no-one could say anything without it pissing someone off.

That was the end of it. Civility ended there. Political correctness ended there. Manners ended there. Everything ended there. But it never ends there!

This started then. Now I’m here. There’s little more to do than than drool down my chin in hopes of making sense of it all. The white coat’s binding, and not very warm, and you’d think all that padding would insulate the room. But nope.

I’m forced to write with my toes. I’ve gotten good at doing things with my toes. I figure we’ll need that when we all return to the jungle. They won’t let me have my hands free anyway. I’m always scratching at myself and tearing my hair out. When I got here I looked like a cartoon cat run over by a lawnmower.

Funny thing. I saw a dead cat on the way in. Or maybe it was a possum. You can’t tell for sure from a moving car. All this insanity just makes me tired. It just never ends! Just like all that madness beyond the padding. Sometimes I really wish I was that possum…

Short Story: New Roommate

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Neon glows fought for dominance from opposing sides of the alley. Indistinct shapes reflected off wet asphalt. Streaked along it were the bastardized images of a place akin to skid-row save the mass of bodies endlessly moving about. They appeared more like a single, roiling creature, amorphous and ever in-motion, but with only its constituent parts moving. Here and there, heads bobbed up or down, maneuvered sideways, or leaned at the brisk air blowing this way or that.

Amid it all was a girl. From the looks of it, no more than fourteen, but built as if younger. Thin-wristed, short, and obviously malnourished given the clothes she wore; meant to fit properly, but far too baggy. Had any whom inch-wormed past bothered to look, they’d have found little to linger on. At first glance, they’d see only her thin, angular face protruding from her hood, her eyes averted and downcast. If they managed past that first, sweeping glance, they might catch a small glimpse of frost-white hair or golden eyes. Anything more would be impossible. Any search for it in vain.

Every night she stood there watching, waiting. With no purpose beyond waiting, observing, she barely even bothered to move. Anyone watching long enough would’ve pegged her for a forgotten animatronic before a human being– and a crude one at that. Nonetheless, she remained a perfectly average human, or as much as anyone could be nowadays.

Street-life was never easy. For a young girl, it was a living nightmare. So much had happened to her, around her, she’d effectively shut off to the world at large. The alley-staring was just an excuse to be around people, feel as if maybe she weren’t so alone. She’d been abandoned there a decade ago, told to wait. She still did, but more from habit than foolish hope. Invariably, she’d end up back in her hovel at night’s end; alone, cold, and with nothing but the incessant drip of leaky pipes for company.

She did her usual few hours of staring, fought hunger-shakes with expert will– or perhaps her endless well of loneliness. She could ignore just about anything. A necessity garnered from living in a hovel just beneath A/C units and street-walkers’ rooms. If she’d learned anything on the streets, it was that every man thought himself an Adonis and every woman an Aphrodite. None were.

Whores were the real heroes of the new world. Anyone putting up with such depravity in or on them for a living was a winner in her book– especially considering the depravity she heard first-hand. While she’d considered being a whore herself, her age was more of a problem than simply being illegal. After all, prostitution was illegal, but that hadn’t stopped the Johns and Janes from lining up.

No, her problem was one of value. She was a rare commodity. Too rare. Pure and nubile meant infinitely greater chances of attracting the worst of the scum. It was one thing to be a teenage prostitute for quick plug and plays with mentally twisted Johns and Janes. It was another entirely to be a victim of human trafficking, sadistic ritual, or any of the other million ways things could go wrong. If there was any truth she’d found in her life, it was that anything that could go wrong, eventually did go wrong.

She’d settled for petty theft and occasional panhandling instead. It had worked out well so far, no bodily violation required.

She returned to her hovel to hear some John pumping his brains out down the way. Even at the distance it was obvious the whore was faking it. The John didn’t seem to mind, if he noticed her at all. From what she’d seen, most people ignored what they didn’t want to accept. She was no different. She suspected the John stooping to paying for sex felt the same.

She crawled into her hovel on her hands and knees, ground still wet from the afternoon’s rain. It never rained in the mornings anymore, pollution she’d heard. It only rained afternoons and nights, and more often with each year. It was cold rain, bitter to taste but enough to live off if caught in a cup or a bottle.

The hovel was formed of a few, intersecting buildings’ air conditioning units. Summer’s were noisy, but winters were almost perfect. Excess heat leaked from poor seals, and the awnings above the units made kept it dry in all but the worst of storms.

She curled into a ball on a makeshift-mattress of old newspaper, card-board, and tattered, stinking rags. Sleep never came easy, but did eventually come. She’d almost left reality completely when feet scuffed the asphalt. She sat with a start, almost banged her head on an A/C unit.

“S-sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you!” Her head snapped toward the sounds: A boy’s face, about her age, with blond hair and sapphire eyes shuddered at frightening her. Her eyes bulged, massive and round, the golden irises minute around terror-dilated pupils. He put out his hands in defense, “I’m not gonna’ hurt you, I promise!”

She shrank into her corner, “Why’re you here?”

He glanced up at the A/C units and the awning above them, “It’s dry here. I was hoping, you know… maybe, you wouldn’t mind… sharing the place for the night?”

She thought on it, pupils constricting slowly. She didn’t own the place, but she had claimed it the same way everyone on the street claimed things. Still, the company might be nice.

She was apprehensive, but agreed, “Okay. But don’t steal my stuff or try to touch me.”

“Deal.” He sank into the opposite corner of the hovel, “My name’s Colin, by the way.”

“Andi.”

“Like Andrea?” She nodded. “Pretty name.”

She shrugged, relaxed back onto her makeshift-bed, then watched him through the half-darkness. He was balled up, shivering. His teeth made the tell-tale, persistent clack of one colder than they wanted to admit. She saw now, too, that his clothes were dark, clinging to his malnourished frame. He’d controlled the cold before by moving, but couldn’t once stationary.

Andi sighed. “You’re wet, aren’t you?”

His teeth chattered louder. “Y-yeah. I got chased over b-bread. D-dove into a pond to get away.”

She rolled her eyes, “Come here.” He hesitated. “Don’t get any ideas. I don’t want any cops finding me here. If you die from the cold, that means I gotta’ deal with a body. I’d rather not.” She motioned him over again and he crawled over, laid in front her. She scooted back wrapped her arm over him and pulled him in to her. “No getting handsy, either.”

He soaked in the fresh warmth from her body, “Thank you.”

“You really wanna’ thank me, help me get food tomorrow. For now, sleep.”

He nodded and closed his eyes for sleep.

He certainly wasn’t what she’d been looking for in a change. But then, she wasn’t sure what she was looking for– or even if she was looking for one. All the same, Colin was new, different. Maybe even enough to keep from staring indifferently at the world all day. She wasn’t sure yet, but at the very least, she’d have help getting food. It was more than she’d had an hour before.

A shiver coursed through Colin in his sleep. She squeezed him tighter and he relaxed, stilled. Andi closed her eyes, prepared for a better tomorrow– or at least, dreams of it.