#TeaserTuesday: See Something

 

It's a been a tippy-tappy sort of effort, but book six is slowly but surely nearing THE END. 

“Where did he go?” She tried to sound demanding, but could hear the shrill note in her voice. “Where did you send him? If he’s hurt…”

“He’s quite well. I didn’t send him anywhere; he’s merely been banished from this plane back to his rightful one. At this moment, he’s doubtless waking up beside his handsome king.”

She hadn’t known for certain until he’d just confirmed it that he’d been the one to dispel Oliver from the meeting. Why? What did he want with her?

Her mind conjured a half-dozen images of prisoner torture: racks, and hammers, and nails, and boiling oil.

“Be calm,” Romanus said, which made her less calm.

“Can you read my mind?” she blurted, before anything like logic could guide her toward a safer topic.

The corners of his pale lips quirked upward in the faintest of smiles. She had no idea how old he was, if he was truly immortal, as legend claimed, but his face was smooth and unlined. Even his attempted grin didn’t offer any smile lines or dimples; no sign of a life spent finding anything humorous.

“No. I cannot,” he said. “But you reek of fear. It’s unnecessary.”

“Considering your men attacked mine on the road, through a massive hole in the sky no less, I think I’ll beg to differ.”

He stroked his chin, expression considering. “I’m surprised you survived that attack.”

A cold child skittered down her back. She pictured her pallet in her tent, the camp where her body lay sleeping, but when she tried to send herself there, she came up against a hard wall. He was keeping her here. And the twitch of his mouth for a second time said he’d felt her attempt to flee.

“I have a drake,” she said. “I have five drakes. I won’t be easy to kill.”

“Who says I mean to kill you?”

“Don’t you?”

“No. Quite the contrary.”

She blinked. “What does that mean?”

He leaned forward, and she leaned back in automatic reaction. “Give me your hand.” He extended his own, large, elegant, and long-fingered. White as fresh cream.

She’d rarely seen something more frightening.

“No.”

His fingers curled and uncurled in invitation. “Come now. If I wanted to harm you, I wouldn’t need your hand to do so.”

“Then what do you need it for?”

“I want to see something.”

Her grip on the chair arms slipped, and she closed her fists tighter around them. “You can see.”

“No.” Again, he beckoned with his fingers. “Your hand, please, my lady.”

She found it both hilarious and terrifying that he was so mannerly. How many nations had he invaded? How many men had he slaughtered? His soldiers were slaves born into captivity, forced to fight, and yet he said please.

It was curiosity rather than obedience that finally lifted her hand and placed the back of it in his palm. She didn’t think he could hurt her here—though, truly, she had no idea of what he was capable. But she wanted to see what he would do. What he wanted to see.

Fearless Read-Along: Chapter Twenty-Four

 

Mercy felt a prickling up the back of his neck when Ghost walked in. He heard the bell above the door, and he knew it was his VP, before Ghost came around the table and rested a forearm on the back of the opposite stool.

               Mercy was full to bursting with guilt, with remorse, with the kind of raw, familiar pain of Louisiana, but none of that was connected to Ghost in any way. He didn’t feel anything as his vice president fixed him with a freezing look, his jaw locked. He sipped his coffee with lifted brows, waiting, refusing to even hint at an apology.

If this book had chapter titles, Chapter Twenty-Four would be "A Series of Confrontations." There's not a single pleasant conversation in this one. 

The whole situation here just plain sucks, for all parties involved. I wanted it to be messy; I wanted none of them to have the right answers. My goal with every scene was to write them as a real family, not one that quickly and neatly comes to the correct decision. 

The events of the night before shocked everyone. Daylight is for ramifications. To Mercy's credit, he doesn't run, nor does he go to Ghost to apologize and beg forgiveness. At this point, Ghost hasn't decided to transfer him back to New Orleans, and had Mercy groveled, he wouldn't have, because he does see him as an asset for the club. Ghost spent the overnight hours rationalizing that Mercy didn't respond to his command in Hamilton House because of adrenaline. It was a crazy scene, and Mercy was in redzone attack mode. In the harsh light of day, though, it becomes quickly apparent that, when it comes to Ava, Ghost has zero control over Mercy. If he'd been able to threaten him, and forbid him from seeing Ava, and keep him around, he would have. But the moment in the bakery tells him all he needs to know. Plan B it is, then. 

Cut to Ava and Aidan in the hospital. 

He lifted what smelled like a sausage biscuit in offering. “Food?”

               “Not hungry.” She pushed the covers down to her waist and frowned at her hospital gown. “When are they going to release me?”

               More of that careful look from Aidan. He took a biscuit for himself, put the first on the side of her bed, and dropped into Maggie’s abandoned chair. “Probably when you’re ready to be released.”

               She rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. I have so much schoolwork still to catch up on. I can’t afford to take any more days off.”

               Aidan paused with breakfast halfway to his mouth. “Um…you know what happened to you, right?” He cringed, like he hated the thought. “Or did the bump on the head - ?”

               “I know exactly what happened to me.”

               He took a bite, chewed slowly. “Okay.”

               “You’re the one being weird about it.”

               He swallowed. “I expected–”

               “Crying? Screaming?”

               “Yeah.” Some of the usual snark came back into his voice. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to be a girl?”

               She twitched a thin smile. “No. I was raised by Dogs and the women who take care of them.” She glanced at the door, the freedom that lay down the hall. “I want to see Mercy.”

               Aidan snorted. “Yeah. That’s not happening.”

Over the years, both Ava and Aidan have caught their fair share of heat, and even some hate from readers. Not to be That Author, but I think, at times, neither of them get enough credit. I also think it can be easy for readers to say that they would do things differently in the given situation, when the given situation is a bad one. People have a habit of thinking of themselves as mature and rational at all times, when, really...well. You know. 

I love this scene because the thing about Aidan is that, at his core, stripped of all outside influence, he's a goofy, sweet sort of guy, with a little of his dad's mean streak, granted, but basically a decent person. He loves his sister. He brings her breakfast. His worry is genuine. But he also grew up in this violent, unforgiving outlaw world, and he's spent his life both consciously and unconsciously trying to fit into it, and so he's always at war with himself. He checks those kinder impulses and replaces them with assholery enough times that he starts to be an asshole. The push-pull of inherent personality and circumstantial environment makes him seem immature. And he is, to be sure. But that's to be expected when you're a club nepo baby rather than someone who sought out the club after a traumatic past, like Michael or Mercy. 

Ava is Aidan's inverse: she's naturally ferocious, and struggles with comporting herself in a societally accepted feminine manner. She doesn't have Maggie's natural social grace - but that's partly because Maggie grew up in a house where it was forced upon her, and Maggie in turn let Ava be herself. Ava only had to put on a performance outside of the house, and so she's clumsier with it, and more quickly resorts to bluntness. The funny thing is that her same ferocity is seen as valuable in Maggie, but earns Ava the label of "bratty and spoiled." *shrug* Writing books about women for women is a minefield. The fact that there's never a consensus on why some readers hate her tells me she's a very real character, and that if she strikes a nerve, it's about outside perspective, and not my execution. Also, it's okay to dislkike a character; it doesn't mean she's poorly crafted. In this scene she goes full Maggie - and full Ghost. Miss Scarlett O'Teague is going to "think about that another day," remember? The wallowing will come, but for now she's compartmentalizing like a mother, and she's not going to take any lip off her brother, of all people, Dog or no Dog. 

Cut to Maggie at the DAR meeting. On SoA, Gemma went around hitting people with skateboards and threatening bitches constantly. Maybe that's how they do things in California, but Maggie's a Southern gal. She'll pull her gun when she needs to, but her first approach is going to be beating these women at their own game. She's going to poison enough wells with a cotilion smile so she doesn't take the fall for anything. Don't let the Southern drawl fool you: things get bloodthirsty down here...we just do it elegantly. 

In the hospital, Mercy already senses what's coming.

How strange, she reflected, that it was her comforting him in this moment, that it was Mercy struggling, and her doing the petting.

               “It’s okay,” she whispered, pressing her lips to his temple.

               She felt his lashes flicker as he blinked. “No it’s not,” he said. “Oh, fillette, no it’s not.”

Not to come to Ava's defense yet again, but she's young. She's still convinced things can work out in their favor. 

This last scene contains one of my favorite moments of the book.

 

             “She is seventeen–”

               “So was I!” 

There's something delightful and rewarding about getting readers angry with a character; it's stopped feeling like words on a page, then, and the characters are real people you want to shake. Every time someone says, "Ghost is such a hypocrite!" I smile. He is! I love it. To be a parent is to be a hypocrite, at least to some degree. Do as I say, not as I do. And outlaw or not, a father seeing a distinction between his own romantic past and those of his kids feels terribly universal, especially when it comes to daughters. 

“That was different.”

               “How?” Maggie demanded. “Please, for the love of God, Kenneth, explain to me how that was even a little bit different.”

               “It just was,” he growled. “You knew what you were doing. You–”

               “I was a slut? Is that what you’re reaching for?” She slammed the closet doors and went to flounce down on the end of the bed, arms knotted across her middle. “I’d been pawed at by two boys” – she held up two fingers – “in my class, and you knew exactly how much I didn’t know. Age didn’t seem to slow you down then.”

               “It’s different,” he insisted, but she could see some of the fight bleeding out of him.

               Maggie softened her tone. “Because she’s your daughter, and it’s always different with daughters.”

               He swallowed hard, Adam’s apple punching in his throat. “After everything I did for him…”

               “There’s two different kinds of bodyguards,” Maggie said. “The ones who care, and the ones who don’t. You picked one who ended up caring…and now you want to crucify him for caring too much. You can’t have it both ways, baby. If I’ve learned anything from club life, it’s that.”

               Ghost shoved away from the wall and left with his shoulders set at high angles.

I didn't write up any discussion questions ahead of time, but feel free to hit me with any of your own questions. Thanks for being here! 

White Wolf Read-Along: Chapter Three

 

 

Snow again. The crippling cold. And the blood. Always the blood.

She lay on her back, and the wet cold of the snow bled through her clothes, bit through her skin and found purchase in her bones. Too cold to shiver, too cold to hurt, too cold to scream. Above her the sky wheeled white and endless, sifting fat flakes, clawed by the hard black talons of leafless tree limbs.

She didn't want to die, but she thought she might.

A face appeared above hers, well-made, blue-eyed, pale hair blowing in the ceaseless wind. He didn't snarl at her this time. No, he crouched beside her, the careful touch of his hand achingly warm against her face. His fingers trembled. His breath left his mouth in a shaky rush, pluming like smoke.

"Nikita," he said, and she woke up.

 

It's always fun to see different authors' takes on vampires, vampirism, and immortality in general, but within the genre, there are certain hallmarks to which most everyone adheres. One of those is the idea that the main reason life is precious is because it isn't permanent; immortality, therefore, comes with its own unique burden. It's a burden that weighs heavily on Nikita, and is the reason (spoiler alert) he hates Alexei at first. Alexei turns others without thought, as flighty about imbuing forever to his victims as the child he was when he was first turned. 

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. 

In Chapter Three, we see more of Trina's problem, in the form of another nightmare, and we learn about Lanny's problem, when he shows up drunk on her doorstep to reveal that he's received a crushing diagnosis. Trina urges him to start treatment, which he doesn't want to do, but he's too addled to have that sort of conversation with - or for the confession he lays at her feet. Like I said in the last post: he's an ass. It's a good moment for the gentle reminder that I often disagree personally with the way one of my characters behaves, but it makes for good on-page drama. 

Obviously, Lanny's health crisis is going to become important later. But the big twist of Chapter Three comes at the end, when Trina doesn't merely have another nightmare, but wakes up inside a stranger's body. This time, the blue-eyed boy of her nightmares isn't snarling and howling in the snow, but kneeling in front of her - of the person whose mind she's inhabiting - and pleading sweetly for someone named Nikita to "show her" something. 

There's a throwaway line in this chapter that, this many years later, I've forgotten I originally included. Not when her family had long since fallen apart and she had no one left but him. In the early days of White Wolf, I had this idea of Trina's family being a little more eccentric and unstable than they prove in Red Rooster. I liked the idea that, knowing the family history, the Big Secret of Nikita, her parents were strongly against her becoming a cop. They didn't want her getting into a dangerous profession; cue young, academy-bound Trina pushing back, big blowups. Her grandparents are a little kooky, and host seances, and her uncle's a little "off." I liked the idea of her needing Lanny more than he needed her. 

It's a case of the overall needs of the story adapting as a series progresses, and of an author having written millions of words and forgetting lines like this one. Oops! 

But I'll choose to see it here as Trina feeling like she can't lean on her family, like she's fallen out of it. Looking ahead, I think that works well enough.

This chapter marks the end of the modern-day storyline for a while. In Chapter Four, we travel to Moscow, and we dig into the historical side of the novel in earnest. In Chapter Four, we meet our captain. 

White Wolf Read-Along: Chapter Two

No one wore grief well, but for some it was a costume. It was Trina's job to figure out who was sincere, and who was playing dress-up.

 

Chapter Two is all about the police procedural side of the story, with a healthy dose of our detectives trying to figure out what's bothering one another in their personal lives. They're both "fine," of course. 

Y'all know I'm a detail person, and I also really love police procedurals. Mystery/thriller is my most read genre. I love the process, the chase, more than learning whodunnit, so it should come as no surprise that I revel in the little details of fact-finding, interviewing, and interrogation. I'm not a fan of "pulling one over on the audience." A little shock here and there is okay, but I don't ever like to sucker-punch the audience in a way that leaves them reeling. As the clues begin to form a picture for the detectives, so too should they inform the audience. That's my approach, anyway. 

"[K]inda posh, and not in a good, rich guy way. Like, a mama's boy or something, you know?"

 

Badly as I'd like to, I won't jump ahead and address the identity of this mama's boy, even though I want to. For now, he's simply "the killer," and Trina and Lanny are trying to figure out why their vic has zero lividity, and yet there's not a drop of blood at the crime scene. 

From a character-building standpoint, my goal with this chapter was to establish a rapport and intimacy between Trina and Lanny. Trina's been to his family Thanksgiving, and she's adopted his mother's habit of calling him by his full name, Roland, when he's being an ass - which is often. Lanny is my favorite sort of male character to write: kind of an ass. Confident, comfy in his own skin, irreverent. He stands in bold contrast to the other men in this series, who are either tortured Heathcliffs, like Nik and Fulk, princes of varying levels of aggression, or absolute rays of sunshine, like Sasha, and, to a lesser degree, Rob. Lanny is a dude. If I had to airlift him into another of my series, he'd make a pretty good Lean Dog. 

When the novel begins, though, we quickly realize, through Trina's eyes, that's something's amiss with him. We'll learn what that is in Chapter Three. 

Trina's still struggling with her nightmares in this chapter, and the resultant sleep deprivation. Lanny is the very soul of practicality, but Trina's family (which we'll learn more about later, and actually get to meet in book four) has always led her to believe that the inexplicable and mythical has a basis in reality. The oddness of this case is bugging her much more than it's bugging Lanny. 

I had a Facebook question after the Chapter One post as to whose eyes Trina was psychically seeing Sasha, and the answer is Nikita's. Next chapter, we'll see them have a little Vulcan Mind Meld moment before we take a full and deep dive into the past. 

Up next: Lanny's secret, and a healthy dose of that vague kind of magic I mentioned in Chapter One. Stay tuned! 

White Wolf Read-Along: Chapter One

 

It was a night ripe for fictitious interpretation. The rain-slick streets, the colored neon reflected in puddles, the steaming subway grates - all of it straight off the pages of a comic book. 

We've finally reached the first chapter! If you stuck through the prelude, the preface notes, and the prologue, then welcome to the meat and potatoes of book one. Thanks for being here. 

The thing about this series is there isn't a main character. Not really. I feel like Nik and Sasha are the overarching, unifying glue of the series, but page time gets spread across the board. I think some readers dislike that. Sprawling, multi-POV stories were de rigueur in the 80s and 90s, when I was starting my reading journey, so that's always the style I've favored. I think of it this way: no, we don't stay locked in one character's head for the whole journey, so you have to shift your focus, but you also get a much richer reading experience because you're seeing all angles of the story. 

In Chapter One, we meet Trina, who is part of our ensemble, and not the main character, but a very important one. 

We open with a glimpse of Siberia. A dream - or nightmare, rather. Dreams and dream-walking and psychic projection are central to the mythology system of this series. I like my magic systems to be fluid and inexact, and that's what we have here: no incantations and strict rules: different vampires have different strengths and skills within the psychic realm. Nikita, we'll learn, has his sire's incredibly strong ability to compel others, and that gets manipulated in this book by a third party, and none of those involved truly understand the mechanics of how it happens, only that it's *magic.* Give me vague magic all the live long day. 

From her haunting, violent dream, we cut to Trina's reality. Every scene involving Trina and Lanny working as detectives in the city is one of my favorites. Writing about vampires and werewolves automatically makes for a strong fantasy element. But if you asked me, I think one of my strongest skills as a writer is bringing to life the dirty, unpretty, ordinary side of life. Here in this chapter: the NYC noise, the neon in the puddles, Trina's cramped apartment and overstuffed closet. I think if you write with intent, you can make all of those real-life details beautiful through words alone, if not through visuals. I find that sort of dirty detail to be comforting, and I really relish the chance to make a scene feel real, and gritty, and even unpleasant, like with the crime scene here. 

Plotwise, this chapter sets up a murder that's about to lead our NYC characters down an immortal rabbit hole. 

Character wise, we meet three important players. Trina, of course, but also her partner, Lanny, and Trina's no-nonsense medical examiner friend, Dr. Christine Harvey. We don't learn much about Dr. Harvey here, other than that she's quick, competent, and good at her job, based on her attitude alone.

Lanny, we can see, is Going Through It™, and handling it in unhealthy ways. So that sets up the Big Reveal for him in the chapters to come. One of the reasons I love Lanny as a character is that he is so NOT a character who belongs in a fantasy story. He's the sort of rough-around-the-edges, disbelieving guy not at all enchanted by magical forces, and I love the way he grounds the wildness of the immortal story in something more immediate and real for modern readers. My vampires run the gamut: ancient to modern, and that was important for me, to show the contrast. 

I know that Trina has gotten a little flak, over the years, for being "boring." I would argue that all of my mortal characters are boring by comparison to the centuries' old characters, by default, and by necessity. I would also point out that, since character development is my most important aspect of storytelling, all those "boring" people have SUCH a journey ahead of them. 

Fearless Read-Along: Chapter Twenty-Three

“Mercy,” Aidan said, as if in a trance. “But he wouldn’t…”
               Maggie met her husband’s unforgiving glare. “Mercy’s,” she said quietly. “The baby was his.”

               Ghost blinked, once, twice…and Maggie lunged at him, throwing herself in front of him, catching him by the biceps as he started to charge into Ava’s room.

               “Ghost!” she pleaded in a whisper. “No, not now. Baby, just let him have a minute. Please.”

               He couldn’t even speak. His jaw was locked tight, his eyes blazing.

               “He can’t get her pregnant again right now,” Maggie reasoned. “A minute, Ghost. Just for tonight.” She leaned in closer, digging her fingers into his arms. “He loves her, and even if you’re furious, you know that.”

               He shook her off roughly and strode down the hall, his spine an iron bar between his shoulder blades.

               Maggie slumped sideways into the wall, and found Aidan’s befuddled gaze.

               He was too shocked to be angry yet. “I…I had no idea.”

               “No one did.” Because people saw what they wanted to, expected to, and so rarely what was.

 

I posted a few discussion questions in the FB reading group last night, and you can come join us there to answer them pre-post for next week. I'll also be posting them in my Insta stories on Sunday afternoons/evenings.

This week, the questions were:

1. After the penny drops about the identity of the baby's father, Maggie blocks Ghost from going into Ava's room, and he actually walks away. Are you surprised he didn't try to confront Mercy right then?
2. Ava can tell that Mercy's in the room while she's drugged up, but when she wakes fully, it's Maggie standing over her. How do you think it would have played out if Mercy had stayed until she woke?
3. Do you feel or think any differently about the chapter on a reread than you did on your initial read?

I'm using y'all's responses over on FB to guide today's book club post. 

From Tammy:

1. I think Maggie’s comment - you know he loves her - is what stopped him. He knows, but it makes him no less angry (and stupidly blind and deep in denial).

2. This description of how she knows he’s there - the weight & shape, the calluses & cracks, the pattern of his breathing - God, they’re so in sync with each other. I almost think this scene would have been too painful to write or read. We all needed to take a breath.

3. Re-reading this has just reminded me how “tore up” I was when I first read it. I wanted to kill Mason myself - and I still didn’t know about his accomplice yet!

From Darlene: 

In response to question 1, I think Ghost walked away because he knew he would lose control and Ghost is all about control. He already lost control when he had to get Ava to call Mercy off in HH, I don’t think he was willing to risk it again. Thank god for Maggie and her understanding of everyone involved.

I think it would have been heart wrenching if Mercy had been there when she woke up. The guilt, the pain, the loss. Maggie was a better choice as she could mourn with Ava, comfort her and not judge her. Not that Mercy would have judged but sometimes having your Mom there is easier.

From me:

Ghost is most definitely "stupidly blind and deep in denial," in this chapter, and in lots of others. Haha. When he asks Maggie whose baby it was, deep down, he already knows. But he's not a subtle guy, and he wants not only the verbal confirmation, but, to a lesser extent, the confirmation that Maggie knows, and has been keeping it from him. In the whole of their marriage, he's never felt like Maggie betrayed him - and despite his anger, he doesn't feel that way now. Even though Ava and Mercy, and Maggie and Ghost's relationships look different in superficial ways, and their interactions are at times in total contrast, Maggie's got a firm grip on Ghost's leash, just like Ava does on Mercy's. "You know he loves her" is a true and profound observation here, because no matter hard-nosed Ghost is about the club, no matter how strictly he adheres to protecting it over those around it, his love for Maggie is the ultimate trump card. Ava's young and still learning how that works, but Maggie knows exactly when to flex her love, as a shield or a weapon as needed. 

And Darlene is correct, too: he's badly rattled by having lost control of Mercy in that moment. He figures it can slide in one instance, in the heat of the moment, but if it happens again, then it'll keep happening, and he can kiss the president's chair goodbye. 

There's another part of him that feels helpless on a purely paternal level. He failed to notice (in a meaningful way) what was happening with his daughter, and now she's hurt, and he knows she's going to be heartbroken, and he knows he's going to break her heart again when he sends Mercy away. At this point, I don't think he's made that decision yet: it takes all night sitting up with spiked coffee and cigs, stewing over the situation, before he concludes he'll send Mercy away. One of those sleepless, five a.m. decisions from which no good can come. 

A lot of debating with oneself happens in writing, because one small course shift can have a butterfly effect on the whole book, but I never considered having Mercy there when Ava woke up. In the moment, he lacks all the emotional tools to handle the back-to-back revelations that she was pregnant, and that she miscarried. Devastating revelations for anyone, but given his past, Mercy's head is more or less full of bees at this point. He's nowhere near ready to share the truth of his dad, his gram, and his mom with Ava yet, and being there when she woke up would force it to a head, whether he wanted to sort through his feelings or not. 

And also, yeah, she needs her mom in this moment. Ava and Mercy are both too raw and reeling to offer any support to one another. Ava, at least, has Maggie, understanding, and patient, and ready with all the right words. Mercy doesn't have anyone. 

Thanks, y'all, for your great answers! Look for more next Sunday. 

Fearless Read-Along: Chapter Twenty-Two (The Real Deal)

 

               “Ava,” Ghost said, voice taking on a new tension, a foreign strain she’d never heard before. Slow, biting off each word: “Call him off.”

 

I handled the Chapter Twenty-Two post a little differently. Since I wasn't feeling hot, I opened up the floor for discussion first, and you guys delivered, so thank you! Now it's time for the real post on my part.

Sidenote: this DID get me wondering if I ought to put together discussion questions for each chapter ahead of time? That way I could focus on what you guys find most interesting about a chapter. Let me know if that's something you'd like me to add. 

Onward.

I said in my initial post that this chapter contains one of the scenes I was most excited to include in the novel. Fearless is a book that doesn't stop to ask if anyone's comfortable with what's happening. I always hope that readers will love my work, connect with it, and it's been wonderful to hear, over the years, that readers have found comfort and reassurance in a book. But I'm also not a moralizing preacher, nor a hand-holder when it comes to storytelling. The narrative tells you that Mercy would do anything for Ava. But it's easy to root for that notion when Mercy's, for lack of a better phrase, picking on people his own size. His own age. On fellow criminals and outlaws. In Chapter Twenty-Two, Mercy would have absolutely killed Mason if Maggie, Carter, and Ghost hadn't burst in...and Ava would have let him. The idea of anything gets less palatable when anything means killing a high school student. (I recycled the same theme with Beware of Dog.)

Fiction is fun when it pushes boundaries and forces us to examine our own moral codes. Most of us have hard boundaries, and Mercy and Ava are the sorts of characters who push up against those boundaries. Does Mason's age negate the wickedness of what he's done? Should Mercy have a code that prohibits him from stabbing a minor simply because he's a minor? 

My job is to inspire those questions for readers, but not to answer them. My job is simply to keep true to Mercy and Ava as characters, and for them, when it comes to each other, there are no hard boundaries. This is the first scene in the novel in which that becomes glaringly apparent. Anything means ANYTHING, and even their fictional loved ones will have to wrestle with that knowledge. 

From Diana on Facebook: "I later wondered if Ghost not being able to stop Mercy contributed to his decision to banish him."

Absolutely it did. Ghost knows Mercy's history in New Orleans, so he knows exactly what kind of mean, man-eating dog he's got on his hands. But Ghost thought he was the one holding the leash. When he realizes Ava's the one with the chain in her hands, that rattles him badly. How can he preside over a killer who answers to his teenage daughter instead of him? Like Darlene said on FB: "Ava realizing the Mercy would do absolutely anything for her. And Ghost realizing that she held the power with Mercy, not him."

Re: Ava and Mercy's relationship from Tammy: "That “new tension” - probably his first realization that this relationship was much more than he imagined."

Ghost is nothing if not a master of denial. He's an expert at throwing up a mental wall when he doesn't want to believe something. He can obviously see that Ava and Mercy mean much more to one another than he ever suspected, but Ms. Scarlett O'Teague here is going to "think about that another day." 

From Kathy: "In “the present” scenes I don’t think Ava ever realizes the power she has over Mercy. But Mercy does!" Agreed. Ava has a little over her dad's power of rationalization. She's so hurt by his abandonment that it becomes easy to tell herself that he doesn't care about her when they first reunite in the present day. Ava, girl, a man doesn't do that for a woman he only ever saw as a sex object! 

From Darlene: "This was a hard chapter to read given what was happening to Ava 😩. But when she saw Mercy behind Mason you could feel the relief that the torture would end and not like Mason thought it would."

 

             Her eyes slitted open and she saw Mason standing above her…

               And someone standing behind him. Someone much taller than him. Someone dark and furious and so painfully familiar.

               She was hallucinating.

               “Mercy,” she whispered.

               Mason’s eyes widened.

 

That visual of Mercy appearing behind Mason was such fun for the horror fan in me. The monster rearing up behind a character who has no idea they're about to get chomped. It's the sort of moment that I can imagine, if viewed in a movie or TV show, would make the viewer sit up and shout at the screen.

And from Tammy: "And finally…sweet Carter. It’s my belief that this is when he really became a Lean Dog." 

Yes! In Carter's mind, he's doing the "right thing." But this is his unwitting baptism in the notion that "right" and "legal" aren't always the same thing. I don't think he knew he was brave in this way, but when thrown head-first in the deep end, he most certainly ducked his head and started swimming. Ghost and Aidan are too caught up in the moment to properly appreciate the way he just passed an unasked-for test, but they certainly consider it going forward. 

With regard to Beau and Ainsley: I personally see Mason as irredeemable. He's cruel, he's dangerous. Truly a little psychopath. Just as in real life, those sorts of psychopaths attract followers who tell themselves that their friend "isn't that bad," but are inevitably forced to realize that they in fact are. 

Thank you, guys, for helping me out with this latest post! And do let me know about the discussion questions idea. We could do something like post the questions on Sunday, and then talk about the chapter on Monday. 

Tomorrow, it's the fallout in Chapter Twenty-Three. The next few are so painful, but in a way that's fun to read.