She’d mainlined two more cups of coffee-adjacent liquid to stop the glyphs from squirming beneath her knife as she carved them. The cinnabar was the good stuff after all. Once Tara was in motion, she found the chill invigorating. Occasionally as she worked she added up the fees she would have bil...
Caleb and Teo were sharing dinner in her apartment over a game of chess. Sam lay supine on the couch. A glass of cold white wine dangled from her fingers. Every year, when spring evaporated into the punishing heat of desert summer, Teo stole a few bottles of old wine from ...
She led the charge with Tay by her side, but it was Zip who threw a trash can through the building’s front window. Glass showered onto the tile floor and glittered like cutting frost. They ran through the empty foyer past a reception desk, froth on a human wave. If they stopped running they’d be ...
Groundskeepers had piled the cart with fallen palm fronds, then retired to a nearby cafe for drinks. Nick slept in the shade between the wheels, hands behind his head, dirty shirt pulled up to reveal his thin stomach. Save for the scar his face was smooth and soft, the way mainlanders painted kin...
He keeps them secret in his gums, waiting for the quickened skip of hunger, for the blood-rush he almost never feels these days. The teeth he wears instead are blunt as shovels. He coffee-stains them carefully, soaks them every night in a mug with ‘World’s Best Dad’ written on the side. After eig...
She expected a fight when she confessed her plan. Instead her young mother closed her eyes, and opened them, and asked, “Can you bring him back?” They sat together at their outpost’s small kitchen table, and drank tea, and curled their wings close about themselves, though the late summer night wa...
Kevarian received the letter at the door of the small suite that served as her office and quarters. Her features tightened when she saw the seal, as if it were a vicious insect that she couldn’t decide whether to crush or fling away. Quietly, she closed the door. She laid the letter in the center...