Celine was absolutely bursting with pride as she watched Jamie stare intently at the candle on the table in front of him, but she did her best to keep it under control. They were in a spare room at the Countess, a little rental room a floor above Roman’s. Based on how much dust she […]

They were wasting time. This was all Noah could think about as he sat down on the couch, trembling, with his phone still held limp in his hand. He hadn’t expected Andrew to be at Iris’s shop, which was just silly of him. Andrew worked there and it was midmorning, so he was more likely […]

Noah woke up slowly. The sunlight was coming in the window, streaking through the purple curtains as he sat up and looked around the otherwise empty bedroom. His head pounded and, for a second, it was a hangover. He must have drank or taken something. Because he’d absolutely lost his mind in Olivia’s living room […]

Noah felt a little better when he came back down about twenty minutes later. It had been a decent conversation with Roman, even if he’d been reluctant to actually call once he was alone upstairs. “Of fucking course,” Roman had said with a groan when Noah told him that Samuel Alderidge was actually that terrible […]

 They were all silent as the familiar tapping started up against the window again. Tap…tap…tap… Tap… Tap… And then the glass shattered, spraying into the store. Andrew put up a hand to block his face from the rain of glass shards, then he heard the rest of the remaining windows going too, one after the […]

Iris wasn’t sure if she was more shocked or afraid to have Olivia in her shop right now. It had been about seventy-two hours since the Limerick building went up in flames. Charles Baxter hadn’t been seen in public since then, not that anyone outside of them truly believed he’d been the one to do […]

Roman had been at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with Noah, trusting Jamie to have the kids at the Countess. It wasn’t like this was out of the ordinary, Jamie babysat his siblings all the time. But with everything going on, it had taken Roman a long moment this morning to decide that he could be […]

When Olivia brought the pizzas home, Andrew was the only person there. He was laying on the couch with a heating pad on his chest, reading a book. Before she could stop him, he got up and started helping Mia take her shoes off. “Noah’s out with Roman,” Andrew called in as Olivia brought the […]

Cleo’s phone rang as she was pulling off of Route Two and onto one of the many wooded back roads of Central Massachusetts, roads that she could never name, but could navigate in her sleep. She turned down her music and answered over the sound of her slapping windshield wipers. “Hello?” There was a pause […]

It was the pain that woke Andrew. He didn’t remember falling asleep on Liv’s couch, but that was where he woke up, with pain radiating throughout his back. He swallowed a groan as he came back to consciousness, then attempted to shift his body on the couch, but couldn’t stop the sound this time. He […]