His head was throbbing. 

Thomas had never been more grateful to go home to his bed. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel to avoid drifting into sleep. The painkillers made him feel drowsy, but he had to get Aubrey home safely.

She was staring at her palms and hadn’t said a word since they had left her house. He tried to make small talk to ease her nerves, but it felt awkward since they had just buried a corpse. He needed to engage himself somehow, to stay awake and ensure he...

“Hello?”

“I know your secret”, came the distorted voice from the other end of the line, sending shivers down Delia's spine.

“Who's this?” she steadied her voice, not allowing the fear she felt to reflect.

“Someone who knows what you did two nights ago”

Delia's heart pounded in her ears, blocking out every thought but the one that tried to figure out who was on the other end of the phone and how they knew about what happened two nights ago.

She thought of pretending not...

Jimmy grew up behind locked doors. His only access to the real world, before he struck twelve was the TV and a window in the attic. He hated the attic. 

He wasn't a recluse by choice. His parents hadn't thought they would be turning their only child into a recluse either. They hadn't thought of him at all.  

When Jimmy's mom had him, he was a bouncing baby boy with the widest of smiles and happy giggles. He rarely cried unless he was hungry or his diaper was full. He never cried when he...

"Surround the perimeter!" The commander's voice echoed through the earpods placed in Dorothy Lane's right ear and swiftly she slid out of the police van along with her colleagues.

This had to be the best night of her life!

For someone who got stuck with pansy jobs like writing tickets and parking duty, she was immensely grateful to be on a heart-pulsing mission. She adjusted her helmet and clutched her gun like it meant her life.

Because in a way, it did.

"Move, fatty!" An officer hissed...

Derrick hated springtime. He hated the constant rainfall that vacillated between heavy downpours and a drizzle. He, however, enjoyed that the weather gave him an excuse to sit in his office all day and smoke.

Sadly, he received a call that he had to answer based on the severity of the situation, snatching him from the comfort of his office. With a coffee in one hand and the other shielding his eyes, he sprinted across the parking lot of the Seattle Police Department to his cruiser.

He cussed...

The lights from the building across the street were on. Kyle gripped his blue ceramic mug fiercely, standing by his window. The tea in it had grown as cold as stone and tasteless. But that didn't bother him. He wasn't going to drink it anyway. He had a job to do.  

One job only. A job that had to do with the tall skyscraper opposite the hotel he had rented in the past two months. Well, not the entire building, just the fifth floor and the woman living on it.  

The large windows slid open...

It was raining cats and dogs outside. The rain was torrential, giving the patrons in the local dive bar an excuse to stay and down another pint.

The bar was bubbling with the excitement of those who found shelter from the rain, those who were there to watch the hockey game, or those just there to have a good time.

Irina sat at the end of the bar, sipping on her beer bottle. She noticed the glances from the men, they always looked. It often amused her how entranced they were, trying to steal...

I remember the first friend I had. The memory is vague, distant, long lost in the sea of nerves and neurons that make up my brain.  

It is a bit mystifying. The way friendships dissolve like salt in water, either adding flavor or saltiness, or perhaps a bit of both.  

My first friend wasn't chosen for any specific reason. We were kids, tiny and three. One minute I was toddling around my mother's kitchen, jumping into the tall containers of water that sat by the wall.  

My mother...

This is not a love story. If you’re in search of a love story, this isn’t the one. 

Don’t be fooled by the way you see him making me laugh, or wish you had what we have when you see us playing together in the park. Don’t wish a man could make you smile with his words the way you see me smiling, don’t do any of it, don’t fall in love because it will only hurt you. 

This is not a love story, but it does begin with a boy and a girl. I am the girl sitting on the cliff staring into...

She never liked to fly. She hated it but she also saw the irony in it. She had been in active service for years and still had motion sickness. She opted for more land-based military activities and tried as much as possible to steer away from all sea and air travel.

Family visits were strictly by road, and Gerald begrudgingly went along with it, bless him. Heck, before this recent expedition, she couldn’t remember the last time she sat on a flight of any kind, yet here she was on her second...