Lauren let the silence stretch. There was a tightness in her chest, as if she was cramming all her anxieties into that small region. It was the stress, the fear. She'd tensed up. It was an odd thing to realize that she'd done so without knowing it. She still wasn't as collected as she was trying to ...

She opened her eyes at the sound of footsteps. Frowned. Her eyes looked the girl up, then back down. Brunette, large build, someone she'd definitely seen before. Lauren had no clue what the girl's name was, though, until the girl offered it. Carmina. It sounded familiar, but not enough. The importan...

((G069: Lauren Rowe starts)) At the beginning of the end of her life, Lauren Rowe was sitting cross-legged on the dilapidated harbor. She blinked once, twice, holding back the tears. The tears didn't come. They still hadn't, and it was better that they didn't. Better that she stayed strong. They'd t...

Things had wound down again. Not paying attention to much anymore, Mel slumped back in her seat and closed her eyes. She'd get some sleep while she could. After what had just happened, if she had dreams, they would be nightmares - still, it was better than thinking about the end. Not death, although...

"Good luck, though," Mel offered out the window. "Pretty sure they'll still be good people - better than hanging out with Jerry, anyway. And... yeah." She trailed off. She'd spoken without thinking, and in the next moment had realized she'd served herself a reminder of where she ...

"Yeah," Mel said, and felt the tip of her tongue touch the dry roof of her mouth before she forced the next words out. "I'm good." Guy had just walked past and started looting all of Jerry's stuff before ditching. Felt like kind of a dick move. Not that it didn't make sense. It w...

Fuck. Her head hurt. She didn't know why she'd asked in the first place. She had to see it for herself, didn't she? So them telling her maybe, probably, pretty sure he was dead - that didn't help. And forget for now them actually putting this whole thing in practice, forget Serena and Aiden apologiz...

((Melanie Beckett continued from Electric Dreams)) "Is he dead?" She was gripping the seat with both hands, white-knuckled. Instinct. When they'd accelerated, when they'd collided, it'd happened in a moment. Seat belts. She was in one piece. She peeled her hands off the seat. They squeezed...

Although the picket signs and the rest had been silly exaggerations, Mel had meant what she'd said. If they were going to set up a mine, warning others seemed fair, and where Tessa wanted to warn people verbally, her own suggestion had been nonverbal. As she walked, as Tessa talked, as the edge of C...

"I thought there'd be a chance of a battery-powered ice maker or something," Mel said lightly. "I say it's still worth a shot." She wasn't an electrical engineer - didn't even really care about the programming side of things that much either - but maybe a few AA batteries from El...

The mood had changed. Mel had been about to open her mouth and launch into another spiel about who knew what - probably about what was in her control and what was not, what she thought about the terrorists versus what Tessa thought and whether that really mattered or not and- And here came Vinny, pi...

"Sure, don't mind if I do." A heavy thump sounded as Mel thrust the flat top of the pickaxe into the earth and leaned a bit on the handle. It was far too short to be any real help, but at least this way, it was carrying its own weight. She'd have to give it back sometime. Maybe Vinny could...

Sardine? Anyway, forget about getting shot for a second. Mel appreciated Cameron backing her up and even giving her a reason for doing what she'd done mostly on a whim, but having to think about every mundane action in the light of whether it would put her in physical danger or not was, again, what ...

((Melanie Beckett continued from Nature's Predators )) She probably couldn't do this. She'd forgotten to immobilize Cameron's foot, for one. After a lifetime of soccer, it wasn't like she'd never seen a foot injury before, and it sure wasn't like she'd never sprained her own ankle stepping in a divo...

Lauren died. It was that simple, that complex. When the gunshots started, her first instinct was to step back. After that, she was going to duck. Going to run. Going to do any number of things. She knew she had no chance fighting against a gun. A figure burst out of the coffin. As it happened, she d...