CHAPTER 46

The roast was a little overdone, but the roast potatoes and other trimmings were spot on. It was almost like a Christmas dinner, as after arguing on the shop about what would actually go on the plates we had simply agreed to do everything.

Dad liked it, from the way he cleared his down to the pattern on the china, so I counted it as a success. Mam cleared the dishes away, leaving them to soak, and we settled down in our usual places on armchairs and settee. Dad broke the comfort of our well-fed silence.

“You look a little out of sorts, son. What’s up?”

CHAPTER 45
Next thing I knew, it was morning, the daylight obvious even through the heavy curtains. Mam tapped on the door of Blake’s bedroom.

“Breakfast in twenty minutes, you two. Dad’s already off to work”

I found myself blushing, even though I had done nothing but sleep. Better get up and face the music. I left him to dress, just a kiss on the cheek so he wouldn’t have my morning breath, but it was a wrench to get out of the bed and his arms.

I could really get used to it.

Exiled from her home and forced to flee to the furthest reaches of civilized space, Aviina has made a simple life for herself on Amalgam station. There she tries to make her living as a problem solver, working on the colossal galactic ‘Net’. However, she holds within herself a terrible secret. One that will put the denizens of Amalgam station into peril.

Light's Promise (Part 4 of 6)

by Erisian

Chapter 13 - Beacon

Tsáyidiel knelt upon the stone with two sets of dark wings covering an otherwise bare and human back. The air was warm, and the bright sunless sky stretched above with fluffy clouds hinting at towers and walls. The grass tickling at bare toes was the first indication that my attire had changed.

One look and it was decided that if the subconscious had chosen this outfit, me and her were going to have a chat. At length.

I felt my chest where the nipples were. They did feel puffy and the nipples itched a lot. Auntie gave me some cream to rub in, but it didn't seem to help much. Maybe it took time to work?

Brent Daniels’ life is going nowhere fast until one day everything changes when he discovers his parents’ disappearance six years earlier might have been something more sinister than he realized.

As he tries to discover the truth, he uncovers a global terrorist plot, however, his capture by the terrorist organization will leave him questioning everything he ever held of value.

CHAPTER 43
We were bright and early at the court the next day, which actually meant about nine thirty. We were down to the bare bones, just Elaine, the two of us and Alun, and wasted the morning on crosswords and an amble through the pedestrian area, avoiding the pub this time. The rest of the team were off with Sammy, something else going on, and Alun dropped a hint about picking someone up who may just have made the odd phone call to Pritchard.

At lunchtime, no verdict in sight, the two lads were gone. Lunch itself, a pasty and a cuppa, came and went, and then, finally, I got a text from the usher and we settled back into the public gallery as the jury returned.

CHAPTER 42
I didn’t make it back to the courtroom as I spent quite a bit of time on my knees, trying to throw up my breakfast along with all the years of hate and fear. So many hackneyed images still hold truth in them, and mine was that of pushing against the locked door, which opens suddenly, and collapse is inevitable.

I could still feel his eyes on me, and the worst part of it all was that he didn’t seem to recall me immediately. I could almost read his mind: ‘Which rape was that one? Oh, yes. All coming back to me now’.

Vantier a Whateley Tale.....Ancient and Powerful Vantier awakens in a foreign world, struggling to find her place in it.

He is saved from the death of his race and planet....to start all over again....but can she survive?
A human high school and being a teenager? Will she remember what was? And grow in power?

This Chapter---dealing with school, work and sudden travel needs!

We take a break for the madness of Rohanna and join Vantier in her first weeks at school!

CHAPTER 41
It got better and better as we counted down the days to the trial, and I ended up with statements from six more of the gang’s victims. Whatever the tariff said about their sentences after a guilty plea, it would end up in pieces once we were done.

Other things were better than I could ever have dreamt of, and no, I am not talking about me and a certain large man. It was Dad. He had really clicked with Blake, and I was almost feeling jealous, as the relationship was clearly mutual, and my own father seemed to be stealing time with Blake I wanted for myself.

Sod it! Life was good, not just bearable. I just wished Blake could have talked to me about the investigation.

Interview with a rager

The security officer unlocked and opened the heavy door to the isolation cell. Inside there was a person, curled up on in the corner on the far side. There was nothing else in the room, no chair, no bed, no toilet.

“Get up you dammed heathen, Mrs. Carson is here to talk at you,” the guard barked, walking over and using the end of his nightstick to punch the prisoner in the kidney. When he didn’t move, the guard drew the baton back to deliver a full power blow. He turned his head when he was prevented from completing the swing.

CHAPTER 40
It got almost routine after a while popping round the various support groups and clubs to leave cards, leaflets, posters and so on. It was the evenings that got interesting, as I encountered more and more of a world I had never really understood or, if I was truthful, suspected actually existed, despite all the times I had dabbled in it with Bridget. She was gay, in the same sense, I assumed, as was Elaine, a sort-of-straight. Both women were absolutely not into men, but in every other way they were as conventional as my parents.

CHAPTER 39
I had texted her in advance, of course, so she was waiting in the little café down the street, still acting in that filtering, shielding role I had recognised. That said, there was real warmth in her greeting to me.

“You got news for us, girl?”

“Oh yes! Best sort. He got nicked on Friday, after we had finished the trials and stuff with the other lot”

“Oh, we saw that on the news. Not what I’m asking, is it?”

“What are you asking, Deb?”

CHAPTER 38
I had turned up at the Crown Court for that final day, all five having eventually folded at their Plea and Direction Hearing, and as the crimes were not just indictable to the higher court but appalling in their very nature, there was no messing about with magistrates and hierarchies. We walked in, dressed in our best civilian clothes, as befitted our new (for some of us) and officially recognised status as DC rather than PC. Sammy outlined the facts of the case, four men stood up behind their publicly-funded representative and said the G-word, and the reports that had already been prepared and read by the judge were properly taken into account as he delivered ten years to each of them.

Shakedown
by Ellie Dauber (c) 2003

The Ace-High Lounge was in its early evening lull, between the “I’ll just stop off for a quick drink on the way home” crowd and the “Let’s go out tonight and have a few drinks” crowd. A few people were scattered here and there through the room, trying to decide which group they wanted to be in.

A beefy man, about forty, in a police uniform, walked in and headed quietly over to the bar. “Your boss around?” he asked the bartender.

“In the office,” the bartender said. “You want I should get him?”