Seventy-two hours glowing on the front.
“So I suggest,” says Malcolm, taking up the first fifty or so pages of the manuscript and shoving them into Sienna’s hands, “you do your part.”
He takes the rest, and retreats to the bed.
Sienna looks down at the title printed on the top page.
The Last Gasp.
How fitting.
She’s always been a fast reader, so she skims the first few chapters before handing them to Malcolm. He kicks off his shoes and makes himself comfortable, the short stack heaped like a cat on his chest, a pair of glasses he badly needs but almost never wears perched on his nose. He makes no show of actually reading, just ruffles the paper and hums to himself—a fucking maddening habit that makes Sienna flick through her mental Rolodex of murder methods again. She eyes the pillows on the bed. Smothering him would probably be the simplest.
Instead, she turns her face back to the open window, closes her eyes, and lets the cold breeze sting her cheeks as she reminds herself that in a few days, she will be free.
And Penn Stonely will be dead.
The Sci-Fi Writer
IN THE THROES OF SPACE, HE WOULDbe weightless.
Even aboard the vesselTourmaline, he would be assisted by a taxon suit. But here, the alien terrain reaches out with every stride, as if determined to remind him of his limitations, make him stumble, even fall.
It probably doesn’t help that Jaxon isn’t wearing his glasses, but they get fogged up when he runs, and he can see well enough to make out the contours of the trail, where thereisa trail, and the grass where there is none.
Skelbrae’s not exactly a national park, but it’s bigger than it looks. The castle sits up on the cliff, the cottage facing it across the drive, but the island itself is a messy heap of hills, overgrown paths that vanish around bends and cut through groves of trees.
It’s big enough that, more than once, the massive house vanishes from view, snuffed out between the gray sky and green earth as he loops the island, taking a slightly different route each time.
On the first lap, he spots a stone shack sinking into the side of a hill, an embankment, sloping down to a small, secluded beach.
On the second, an overgrown greenhouse, a set of rickety steps plunging down toward the sea, a cluster of trees.
As he passes the castle again, he spots Kenzo standing on the steps with a cup of coffee. When Jaxon goes past, he flashes a sardonic grin, lifts the cup in a small salute, and calls out, “Shouldn’t you be working?”
Jaxon gives him the finger and doesn’t look back, as if the time on the front of the safe isn’t blinking in his mind.
The hours ticking down:72,71,70...
But thisiswork, he tells himself.
When he runs, something comes unstuck inside him.
His labored breath becomes a backdrop for his mind, and his mind makes space, and in that space, he finds ideas. He’s heard other people do their best thinking in the shower, with the white noise and the wet heat, but he needs to have his body in motion.
But now, when he runs, it’s only a matter of time before his thoughts drag him back.
To the Lightspeed Saga.
To the third and final book, sitting half written on his laptop.
To the email from his editor, padded with faint praise as he tried to soften the news. That the sales weren’t where they needed to be. That he should be proud of everything he’d done, but—but—but—the publisher had decided to cancel the series.
Jaxon’s lungs begin to burn just thinking of it.
This is why he runs with music, so he can turn it up, drown out the bad thoughts and lose himself inside the wailing guitar solos. He’s always had a soft spot for eighties rock, which his mother used to blast inside their overheated Dallas double-wide. But his phone is locked in the safe (along with his smartwatch, so he can’t even check his pace), so he tries to focus on his body instead. The steady beat of his heart, limbs converting energy, the drum of his feet, the way the pieces work together, like a well-oiled machine.
Sidebar: Jaxon Knight wouldloveto be a machine. Not a clunky old computer, but a piece of higher tech, that elegant intersection of organic material and mechanical efficiency.
