Conviction

As the song says, it's been a long strange trip.

It started on an ordinary day, the last ordinary day I would have.

I was walking home from work when I heard a scream.

I froze, and couldn’t figure out what to do. Part of me wanted to go help whoever it was who screamed, but the rest of me wanted to ignore it and not get involved.

But before I could follow through on that cowardice, a man came out of an alley - from the direction of the scream.

CHAPTER 70
I had a day off after that chat with Nita, and as Spring was now with us, I made sure the girls were okay before riding down to the little bit of a wetland nature reserve that had been made close to where I had first met Bert.

The migrants were passing through, some of them coming to stay somewhere in Britain, others heading even further, using Cardiff as a refuelling point on the way. I settled down with scope and flask, and as I scanned the reeds and water, I found my thoughts running through Diane’s behaviour. We had talked, to her obvious embarrassment, about the girls, and about them actually BEING girls, and she had confessed to me how steep the learning curve had been for her. I suspected that the only reason she was able to adapt at least a little had been the shared pain.

PMS Zombies by Arielle Brix
Cross-posted from Lycelia
Full novel available at Amazon

Chapter 2: Cravings
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Woodland, Northern Vermont

The day comes when Sally finds out the truth about her son. Will it be Victor or Vicki who emerges?

Copyright © 2021 by AuP reviner

Saddled 3

She handed me my pants and tee and said that I should get dressed as we would be going into Tours today as she needed to check in with her work before she started back on Monday. Giselle just started getting things out her drawers and dressing as if it was just a normal day.

Byline chapter 11

Copyright © 2021 Peregrine
All rights reserved.
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

CHAPTER 69
She chatted to Tiff as well, and what else could I do but offer her a meal, after asking the other girls for their permission? I got the idea that Diane had very little in the way of a life outside her work, and while she showed some understandable reaction to the nastiness the girls had experienced, there was a real impression of grey bleakness behind her eyes. What had happened to her at sixteen had clearly wounded her soul in ways I suspected might never heal, but as she sat with us in the second dining room, over a tray lasagne prepared by Gemma, she started to open up. As Charlie and the rest poked fun, nicely, at Gemma’s taste in rugby players, I watched Diane slowly emerge from her shell.

Lunacy
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

I always had a soft spot for Edgar – I think that is the right way to put it. I always pride myself on being a hard man, but when it came to Edgar I was a bit soft. I had known him for years; his mother and my mother had been good friends.