non-binary, white, and pansexual. they/he preferred online. writer, editor, and socially awkward
flash/burn masterlist | this is an introduction post
I am an adult resident of the United States of America who is writing a dystopian urban fantasy titled flash/burn. If you're fine with reading what is essentially a draft, hit it up. I've also done copy-editing work for my friend @goodluckclove's cozy book Blind Trust.
Name anyone I talk to a lot and they'll probably try to sell you that I have some level of undiagnosed inattentive ADHD, as they've sold me. Which is fine maybe. Probably fine. Very irregular writer.
>> status: rewriting flash/burn arc one
I'm into the same genres that I write, which is pretty convenient: fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, action, adventure, thriller, dash of horror.
I like character-driven plots more than I'll ever enjoy a book that forces out plot points, so I try to avoid forcing a plot as much as possible.
My music taste depends on the situation and my mood, but most of the time it's some version of alternative rock. It's all vibes.
I will write gore if I think it makes sense to. I'm not afraid to kill a major character if it makes sense to. I will try to tag these things but if I ever miss something sensitive be sure to let me know.
I can make my boyfriend hate my characters as much as he might hate a real living person. Which probably means I'm writing my assholes correctly. I take pride in this.
I am anti-AI. None of my writing will ever contain AI.
I write using LibreOffice. If you'd like a pdf version of my writing for whatever reason, I can make one for you.
I try to make my blog as generally safe and comfortable for everyone as possible, and if I fuck up I want to be told.
FLASH/BURN / MASTERLIST
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Harlow "Urban" Collins experienced the pyrokinetic rehabilitation and misuse clinics firsthand since he was seven. Since he awakened, it's been nothing but a constant stream of hatred.
Alph "Raiden" Roy managed to build a trustworthy reputation despite their pyrokinesis and was about to begin police academy when an incident that could kill their best friend and implicate them in a felony upends their plans.
A favor too many spirals both into the underground enforcement organization founded by Alph's family to pay it off—Cinder. Bad timing forces them into the clutches of a jump-started scramble to stop Storm's plans before Cinder's legal counterpart catches wind of its existence, even while life has to appear to resume like normal.
Shit hits the fan.
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ask to be added to the tag list
chapters: #flash/burn
everything else: #flash/burn shitposting
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MONOALCHEMICAL
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Gray was charged with high treason and is one of the most wanted fugitives in the Kingdom of Graheathe. Heir to her father, Leon Harkon is the first knight to successfully deliver the notorious alchemist-sorcerer a permanent blow—and also the first one to need his help.
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#monoalchemical:xarrixii
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YELLOW IS FEAR
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Fear was gifted the ability to wield an unruly piece of the magic plane and handed the trust of WKPD Captain Barrow McGlently. Fare Freundlichkeit thought that would be the biggest case her alter ego would ever need to go down, but that was before a strange, beak-masked “vigilante” kept pushing her away from the biggest slave trade Krusing had ever seen; and then swore his life to her.
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#yellow is fear:xarrixii
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HOLDING ANCHOR
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Earwyn Sol wants nothing more than to be remembered, so when Captain Haze of Dead Water let him on board all those years ago, he finally thought he had the chance. After becoming the feared Second Lieutenant Cardinal, however, his chances hadn’t changed.
Soren Auer is the sleepless Uchorian Sparrow translating fluently between the five common tongues and several ship communication encryptions just to keep the rest of his nine fingers, and also the inventor that offers himself hostage when Dead Water comes knocking.
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#holding anchor:xarrixii
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DEADRAIL_
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Atlas is the multi-skilled persona of tired code optimizer Sawyer Greene whose rules to meet with are very simple: no weapons, no murder, and he decides what jobs he'll take. Business as usual quickly turns into the unique job of somehow getting spoiled and dishonored Fujinaga Eiji to return to the Fujinaga succession line. To varying degrees of success.
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#deadrail_xarrixii
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WRITEMAS 2024 / MASTERLIST
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A writing game I participated in during December 2024. Contains non-canon but adjacent content for Monoalchemical, Yellow is Fear, and Holding Anchor.
i'm usually chronically lowercase but this felt better with proper grammar. anyway that's been me.
So word on the street is that the Flash/Burn's central conflict is now entirely about a pie making contest. Like, you got rid of all the intrigue and corruption. People still have psychic powers, but that is considered way less important than making the best blueberry pie.
That's crazy. Can I see a sneak peek of that?
sorry this took so long. it took me until 4AM to write the last 800 words or so
F/B Chapter_?? : "why is The Setup about pie"
CW: scuffling, swearing, kidnapping, arguing, references to past trauma, and of course blueberry pie 3.7k words
despair
/ / / / / | ---
It was past midnight by now, and while Harlow was killing for some sleep he really didn’t want to be stopped by Liam. Which meant his only option was when Liam is normally asleep.
This was his best bet.
When him and Liam had been tracking through a suspicious account earlier, there were frequent purchase receipts at an assorted cookery store in district one. It was more akin to a bakery with a side pawn shop than anything else, placed just on the edge of a park. A normal-looking, warm-colored interior with large windows.
He had probably passed the building thousands of times going to a nearby library. Stopped to sit inside a dozen. And although he’d never ordered a single thing within the years it had been a passing part of his life, the taste of their lemon bread was plastered hauntingly in his memory. What had initially just seemed like a gang that happened to be there at the time seemed more a piece of damning evidence now.
It was insane. Him doing this was insane.
The front lights were off, though Harlow saw a shadow pass by through the lit back of house. Their hours were still listed on the front door. Still the same.
What the hell is your plan here, Harlow?
He breathed out through his nose. At some point he’d grabbed onto the front door’s handle. He forced himself to let go. There was zero evidence of this actually being one of Storm’s businesses. Just some Storm agent’s debit card getting tracked here over and over. He was going to break into a building to look for evidence—and then what? Go to the next frequent flyer until he either passed out or got arrested?
Sure, there was a group of people that used to hang around that knew how to fight. And they seemed to live in the small apartments just above the shop. But it was nothing.
And yet it was something. Anything.
The front lights snapped on. A tanned, freckled brunette in light blue jeans and a light green plaid sweater had half-stepped out of the back-of-house doors to stare at him, two hair sticks puncturing through an otherwise loose bun. Harlow took a step back from the glass door as they strutted forward and turned the lock a few times.
“Do you need anything?” they asked carefully. Door ajar enough to transmit sound, not enough to let him in or set off the bell over the door. Eyes trained on his face like there was something there.
What the hell was your plan here?
“I’m sorry for dropping by at this—um, hour,” Harlow suddenly stammered. “I don’t know what I was—it’s nothing. Sorry. I’m sorry.” They raised an eyebrow at him as his throat clogged. He pushed back the memory stirring in his head. Not now. “Is—does Dennis still work here?”
“You know Dennis?”
“Nevermind. Even if he did still, um, work here,” stop it, “he probably wouldn’t, uh,” please stop it, “nevermind. I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
Breathe. Harlow practically had to shove himself further from the door. Confronting anyone working here was precisely the last thing he wanted from this endeavor. He should’ve picked somewhere else. Trying to act his way through reality made him sick.
They opened the door only a little farther. “Dennis is in the back if you wanted to leave a message. We’re both doing prep this morning, so,”
Harlow bit down. “If you could just tell him the, uh—the rehab kid, says thanks”—he laughed just to stop whatever his eyes were trying to do—“I don’t know. Sorry. I’ll go.”
He pivoted. Moved more mechanically than anything else back down the street, back down toward where he’d parked Alph’s truck a few blocks off. He just had to breathe, a little. Not more than five or six seconds later, a bell dinged from behind and he looked back over his shoulder to a short, pale man, a black T-shirt with some comedic note about dinosaurs and a meteor, round clear-frame glasses, and a graying black beard.
A moment of unsteady silence. Dennis straightened, clearing his throat before speaking. “You want to sit down for a minute?”
The chairs in the back office seemed shorter now. Colder. A couple of certificates were strewn up on the walls, some cards and crayon drawings, a calendar. An otherwise black smartwatch with a singular blue line along the strap sat on the desk. Harlow inhaled and looked away. Dennis handed him a paper cup of water.
“How have you been?” Dennis asked after maybe a minute or so.
“I’m out,” Harlow said.
Dennis nodded. Sat down in the rolling chair on the other side of the desk and leaned back. “That’s… good.” His eyes swiped across the room. “I would’ve brought you a pasty, or something, but we just started prep for the morning.”
“It’s alright.” Harlow exhaled. Ran his thumb along the ridge of the cup. “I wanted to thank you. Not ask for more.”
Dennis opened his mouth, then clamped it shut and smiled lopsidedly to himself. The last time Harlow had been here, Dennis had just become a manager and was scrambling around between the store and the kid who’d shown up out of nowhere pleading not to go back. Maybe it was just the time of day, but Dennis was just… there, this time. Still.
Harlow squeezed his eyes shut, breathing. He didn’t come here for this. He didn’t want to relive this. Didn’t want to be here again. He came here for Alph.
“Can I”—Harlow paused for just a moment—“have a minute?”
“Yeah,” Dennis exclaimed. Cleared his throat and rose from his chair. Then, softer, “yeah. I’ll just be with Amy, in the kitchen. Holler if you need something.”
The office door clicking shut. Harlow’s throat went dry. He stood up from the chair and reached for the watch still sitting on the desk. If Dennis had absolutely anything on Storm in the damn thing, anything mildly internal, Harlow was going to take it and roll. Anywhere Alph could possibly be, he’d take it.
He took out his phone, snapping pictures of anything remotely leading somewhere in the messages. Mostly business-side things, some more about upper management directives. Innovations on Dennis’ pie recipe, notes comparisons with some other bakeries. Communication with people, but not places. Internal places, anyway. Like hell would Storm risk a health inspector finding a captive in a restaurant.
Why would Storm take Alph captive, anyway? Prisoners don’t do much in a bake-off except as bargaining chips and it’s not like Amaterasu even pretended to give half a damn about them.
Nothing. Harlow set the watch back to its initial position and inhaled too sharply. Bit his tongue. Breathe. Please.
He needed a way further in. The only way to do that was seemingly to get recruited by Storm and advance the ranks high enough, but by virtue of being in Cinder he was pretty much excluded from that with a vague check in the stolen data.
Harlow stepped into the kitchen. Dennis and Amy both had long white aprons on now, on opposite sides of the room.
This was a long shot.
“This is, um, embarrassing,” Harlow started. Dennis stopped what he was doing to face him, realizing he’d stepped out. “Especially after I, said I wasn’t going to take more from you, do you know anyone that—that’s, um, hiring?” He cringed visibly. “Or, I guess, willing to hire, um, someone like me?”
Amy paused whatever they were doing to look over skeptically. Dennis waved them off back to work and stared weakly at Harlow for a few seconds.
“Sorry. I’m sorry⸺”
“No,” Dennis said, “no, don’t be. I get it. I’ve got a number you could contact. Let me find it.”
Harlow swallowed. He felt like he was choking. “Thank you.”
He’d gotten out of there as soon as he could. Took several minutes staring into the poorly lit parking garage from Alph’s driver’s seat before he could bring himself to look up the phone number in an online database Cinder had full access to. Lacey Cooper, address pulled from who knows where. Harlow started the truck.
One serrated blade to a previously sleeping neck later, he now had a stolen smartwatch strapped to his wrist and two feet inside an office building running 24/7. If he was lucky, Lacey would stay tied up for an hour or two before putting Storm on top of him.
Predictably enough, there was a large lounge spanning most of the bottom floor, empty of people except the head rising only to nod at him behind the counter. Sharp lines, untouched stacks of magazines, rectangular plant boxes. Almost certainly used by no people yearly. Any furniture that pretended it was made to be sat on was decorated in grays with the occasional touch of dark blue.
He wandered the building for a while, only a few night owls up late staring at screens that were too bright. Searched through any computer that had been left open or had a password haphazardly left in an office booth, snapping pictures of whatever he thought Liam would like before setting it to whatever position it’d had before and moving on.
Eventually he reached a floor full of meeting rooms separated from the world only by large panes of glass and the occasional metal handle. Some rooms were fit with a kitchen set. He broke into one on a less street-heavy side of the building, checking the cabinets and fridge for anything potentially surprising.
Five different brands of almond milk,
“Do you need help with anything?”
Harlow gripped onto the fridge door tighter to prevent himself from jumping. Took one careful glance behind him, “Lost my engagement ring somewhere. I’ve been retracing my steps.”
The guy nods slowly. Dark hair stretched behind their head, adorned with a brimmed hat and matched with a thin brown trench coat. They were white, maybe mildly tanned, with a strong frame. He laughed to himself. Alph would’ve called the guy some sort of noir detective if they were here.
“Wolford,” the man says after a stretch of silence.
He shuts the fridge door, briefly reaching to shake their hand. “Rennick.”
“Have you checked in with security about it?” they ask politely.
“Not yet,” Harlow answers, pretending to scan the floor. “I’d rather not bother them if I don’t have to.”
Another nod. “I suppose I’ll leave you to it, then. Good luck in your search.”
Then they walked away back down the hall. For good measure, Harlow turned on his phone’s flashlight and looked under the fridge for a good fifteen seconds before getting back up. They were gone from the hallway when he checked.
Harlow found himself putting a hand in his hair and laughed. This building was a dead-end. Something Liam might be interested in could be here, something Cinder might be interested in, but Harlow being here yet was a joke. He was just here for Alph. Storm would have to have beyond lost their minds to house a prisoner in an office in the middle of the city.
What do they want you for, Al? Harlow took a deep breath.
What a dumb question.
He snapped open his lighter, holding the fire in his hand. Heated it up. Started out the hallway, jumped a few floors. If he was correct, Wolford would be one of Storm’s higher-ups. Someone with an office to go back to that had information that would matter to him. They carried themselves with the kind of authority that would warrant it. Almost a demand for respect.
His hands were shaking. He needed to find a door with Wolford on it.
Blank white halls, speckled tile flooring, large, faintly buzzing ceiling lights. The emptiness stretching out into full-length windows and the city across the street. Desks and kitchenettes and empty pastry racks randomly left in the middle of a breakroom.
Finally, on the top floor, a windowed office completely blocked by vertical white blinds. Seemingly nothing inside, based on Harlow’s glance through the slits, but the name Nacht Wolford was printed on the door nonetheless.
Harlow tried the handle—locked—before setting his thumb over the crack between the door and the frame and sliding it down. The door popped open, sliced-through deadbolt revealing the flame he quickly shoved back to his hand. The blinds rattled as he cracked the door further open, and⸺
A computer mouse dangled limply from where its cord was bolted to a desk. A desk bolted to the ceiling along with the complete kitchen in the office, gas stove. A potted plant entirely made of plastic down to the soil hung over his head. The wall behind the door was curved at the top and bottom, fitted with the same dark grey tile as the floor and ceiling. The lights were in the floor.
Nacht Wolford. Where did he recognize that name from?
His head banged against the—ceiling.
The door was swung back into place as he tried to refocus, tearing his eyes to watch the figure holding one hand flat while rotating the other, walking up the wall to the ceiling and standing over him. The blinds over the door clattered and laid against the ceiling. They were shrugging off their brown trench coat, throwing it over the coatstand.
Harlow just barely managed to scrunch his fingers, swinging the fire in the Wolford’s direction before the right to use his hand was flattened, lighter pressing into his hand. They bent down to place their hat over his face.
“Now then,” the man said. Harlow felt the Storm watch being torn from his wrist. The weight of his lighter releasing, and then the loud snap of it closing.
Shuffling. The tap of metal being set on a hard surface. Trying to get up did nothing except make him feel like he was being actively crushed. Wolford let out a long sigh before speaking again. “I believe we’re overdue for a proper conversation. How are you?”
Harlow stayed silent for a few seconds, hoping he wouldn’t need to participate. Then, blankly, “I’m flat to your ceiling.”
Nothing. Silence. Wolford chuckled sheepishly. “I apologize for making you waste the last thirty minutes. I foolishly thought Cinder would be smart enough to send more than a singular person to one of my offices for a silent raid and tried looking for the rest of your party to nail all of you at once. Just you, unfortunately.” A pause. “Would you humor me as to why?”
My offices. Harlow had calmly walked into an open jaw. He was pinned.
“Where is Alph?” he countered without really thinking about it. It was far angrier than he’d intended it to be.
“I think you’re misunderstanding the situation.”
He kept his mouth shut.
“Before I so kindly either test you or drag your fractured and limp body down the halls, will you at least tell me how you found this building, Rennick?” Wolford’s shoes clacked silently against the tile, lifting the hat off of Harlow’s face. He was squinting—down—at the man crouched over him, light over their back suddenly too bright.
His throat went dry. If they kept all of their prisoners in the same place—“I saw the manager at a bakery I went to wearing a Storm watch. Asked about a job. Interrogated the interviewer wearing the same watch.”
No, if he could just move,
“I see.” Wolford stood up, placing their hat on the coatrack.
Could just grab his lighter,
He had shot up from the floor before even realizing it, body moving automatically to the desk where his leg was then torn to the side from its place, slamming him into the kitchen counter. He held a hand against where the countertop had momentarily dug into his abdomen, crippled over and hissing beneath each breath.
“You can make a blueberry pie, can’t you?” Wolford prompted. “You’re in Cinder. Show me.”
Harlow grabbed the countertop and pulled himself up, leg throbbing. Staring at the gas stove. “If I do”—he took in a sharp breath—“will you tell me where Alph is?”
“I’ll take you to them.”
There was barely a change in Wolford’s expression. The tiniest quirk of a grin as he passed by to sit in the chair at his desk. Harlow only dragged himself along the kitchen set to the cupboard closest to the fridge, limping on every nerve blasting that he’d been thrown into a cabinet.
Telekinesis. No other kinetic mimicked that. The issue was that telekinesis was strictly with things—and the room hadn’t rotated. The mouse was laying flat and his lighter had been casually set down. Like Wolford had simply decided to change the gravity of the room. How many different directions could he do that? There was Harlow smashed to the ceiling, and then there was Wolford walking the wall.
Scale. Bowls. Where’d all the other sets keep the...
That was two. Wolford was rotating a hand earlier, keeping the other flat. If he could only manipulate two zones at once, that gave Harlow something to work with. It’d have to be fast.
Micromanaging butter in a microwave. Folding out the dough. Wolford locking both of his hands flat to the countertop after setting the disks to chill for an hour.
Stilted silence. Harlow laughing to himself. This situation was absurd. Wolford was busy typing away at his computer and Harlow was left awkwardly adjusting his posture against the pressure placed on his hands. Thinking. Whenever his thoughts wandered off the situation he’d pathetically gotten himself stuck in, they landed on Alph.
An endless stream of questions without answers. His need for sleep catching up with him. Quiet pleading that Alph is okay—to nobody.
He coughed on air caught in his throat.
Breathe. “I need to make the—filling.”
Wolford nodded. Harlow’s fingers ached from being pressed flat. He fiddled with the range’s knobs, locking down the fire in the gas stove before figuring out which one preheated the oven. Clean off the counter. Blueberries. You actually agreed to bake Storm a pie on the offchance you’d get Alph out of here.
Wherever “here” is.
Once the hour was up he took out the crust, fitting it into a pie tin and sliding in the filling. A recipe he’d crammed into his head, making over and over again to practice working with his hands. Cutting dough into strips, weaving them over and under each other.
There’d be no way to fight Wolford if Harlow got too out of range of the gas stove. If he got knocked out. Got his hands bound. Finding Alph would do nothing.
Egg wash.
He stopped for a moment, feeling the fire he’d built up in his hand by creating a lattice out of pie crust. He put the stupid blueberry pie in the oven and inhaled.
The motion of shutting the oven door was enough to throw up a wall of fire between him and Wolford. That wall of fire was enough to break for the door, to slam against the floor of the hallway, groan, and get up to his wrist being grabbed from the front.
Next thing he knew, he was on asphalt under dim lights, resisting the urge to hurl.
“What the fuck were you thinking?!” Liam shouted.
“I⸺” Harlow was cut off instantly.
“No, I think I know what went through your head.” Liam chuckled tiredly. “You thought that you could go recklessly raid Storm buildings on your own, waste less time doing nothing and spend more time finding Alph. And where did I find you? Being forced to share your blueberry pie recipe with Storm’s head god-damn honcho, all but screwed.”
Harlow huffed, pushing off the ground. “If you actually cared enough about them, you would be helping me instead of making me find them alone.”
“It’s reckless. If you thought for even one second about what Cinder loses trying to save one person rather than meticulously wiping out one of Storm’s buildings,”
“I can’t keep waiting⸺”
“We have to wait, Urban!” Liam says, exasperated. “This isn’t just you and them selling blueberry pie on the street anymore, Al is Amaterasu’s child and you’re both caught up in a pie war!”
Harlow put his face in his hands, scoffing.
“You were in the midst of trying to run away from a guy who can choose to crush someone into a floor. I don’t think you understand just how fucked you were on your own there. Now a building Cinder could’ve potentially leeched countless tidbits of recipe information from is a mass Storm evacuation to a new location we need to figure out. Because you couldn’t sit still.”
“I can’t just leave Al to die!” Harlow put a hand in his hair, his own words sinking into his stomach. Salt pricking at the corners of his eyes. “I’ve killed one person I care about already, I don’t need to go slaughtering another!”
Liam opens his mouth before snapping it shut, taking a deep breath. “Nacht wouldn’t have killed Al.”
“And that’s justification for not letting me go look for them?”
“I said wait, Urban!” Liam’s voice raised again. He rubbed his nose, angry tone persisting even as his voice dropped back down. “This conversation is over. Get in the car.”
After a long stretch of silence, Harlow reluctantly entered the passenger of the car Liam gestured to. Breathing. Looking out the window, rather than at Liam getting into the driver’s and kicking the car alive. Several minutes of driving in the dark passed by in complete silence.
“Liam,” Harlow started suddenly. Calmer.
“Yeaup?”
“Thanks. For getting me out of there.”
A pause. “You’re welcome.”
Harlow’s mouth hung slightly ajar as he wiped at his eyes. Someone honked at a black truck flying through a red light blaring something unintelligibly bass boosted. “How did you even figure out where I was?”
“I chipped your phone after Al disappeared,” Liam said. Glanced at him. “Was the pie you put together any good?”
So word on the street is that the Flash/Burn's central conflict is now entirely about a pie making contest. Like, you got rid of all the intrigue and corruption. People still have psychic powers, but that is considered way less important than making the best blueberry pie.
That's crazy. Can I see a sneak peek of that?
sorry this took so long. it took me until 4AM to write the last 800 words or so
F/B Chapter_?? : "why is The Setup about pie"
CW: scuffling, swearing, kidnapping, arguing, references to past trauma, and of course blueberry pie 3.7k words
despair
/ / / / / | ---
It was past midnight by now, and while Harlow was killing for some sleep he really didn’t want to be stopped by Liam. Which meant his only option was when Liam is normally asleep.
This was his best bet.
When him and Liam had been tracking through a suspicious account earlier, there were frequent purchase receipts at an assorted cookery store in district one. It was more akin to a bakery with a side pawn shop than anything else, placed just on the edge of a park. A normal-looking, warm-colored interior with large windows.
He had probably passed the building thousands of times going to a nearby library. Stopped to sit inside a dozen. And although he’d never ordered a single thing within the years it had been a passing part of his life, the taste of their lemon bread was plastered hauntingly in his memory. What had initially just seemed like a gang that happened to be there at the time seemed more a piece of damning evidence now.
It was insane. Him doing this was insane.
The front lights were off, though Harlow saw a shadow pass by through the lit back of house. Their hours were still listed on the front door. Still the same.
What the hell is your plan here, Harlow?
He breathed out through his nose. At some point he’d grabbed onto the front door’s handle. He forced himself to let go. There was zero evidence of this actually being one of Storm’s businesses. Just some Storm agent’s debit card getting tracked here over and over. He was going to break into a building to look for evidence—and then what? Go to the next frequent flyer until he either passed out or got arrested?
Sure, there was a group of people that used to hang around that knew how to fight. And they seemed to live in the small apartments just above the shop. But it was nothing.
And yet it was something. Anything.
The front lights snapped on. A tanned, freckled brunette in light blue jeans and a light green plaid sweater had half-stepped out of the back-of-house doors to stare at him, two hair sticks puncturing through an otherwise loose bun. Harlow took a step back from the glass door as they strutted forward and turned the lock a few times.
“Do you need anything?” they asked carefully. Door ajar enough to transmit sound, not enough to let him in or set off the bell over the door. Eyes trained on his face like there was something there.
What the hell was your plan here?
“I’m sorry for dropping by at this—um, hour,” Harlow suddenly stammered. “I don’t know what I was—it’s nothing. Sorry. I’m sorry.” They raised an eyebrow at him as his throat clogged. He pushed back the memory stirring in his head. Not now. “Is—does Dennis still work here?”
“You know Dennis?”
“Nevermind. Even if he did still, um, work here,” stop it, “he probably wouldn’t, uh,” please stop it, “nevermind. I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
Breathe. Harlow practically had to shove himself further from the door. Confronting anyone working here was precisely the last thing he wanted from this endeavor. He should’ve picked somewhere else. Trying to act his way through reality made him sick.
They opened the door only a little farther. “Dennis is in the back if you wanted to leave a message. We’re both doing prep this morning, so,”
Harlow bit down. “If you could just tell him the, uh—the rehab kid, says thanks”—he laughed just to stop whatever his eyes were trying to do—“I don’t know. Sorry. I’ll go.”
He pivoted. Moved more mechanically than anything else back down the street, back down toward where he’d parked Alph’s truck a few blocks off. He just had to breathe, a little. Not more than five or six seconds later, a bell dinged from behind and he looked back over his shoulder to a short, pale man, a black T-shirt with some comedic note about dinosaurs and a meteor, round clear-frame glasses, and a graying black beard.
A moment of unsteady silence. Dennis straightened, clearing his throat before speaking. “You want to sit down for a minute?”
The chairs in the back office seemed shorter now. Colder. A couple of certificates were strewn up on the walls, some cards and crayon drawings, a calendar. An otherwise black smartwatch with a singular blue line along the strap sat on the desk. Harlow inhaled and looked away. Dennis handed him a paper cup of water.
“How have you been?” Dennis asked after maybe a minute or so.
“I’m out,” Harlow said.
Dennis nodded. Sat down in the rolling chair on the other side of the desk and leaned back. “That’s… good.” His eyes swiped across the room. “I would’ve brought you a pasty, or something, but we just started prep for the morning.”
“It’s alright.” Harlow exhaled. Ran his thumb along the ridge of the cup. “I wanted to thank you. Not ask for more.”
Dennis opened his mouth, then clamped it shut and smiled lopsidedly to himself. The last time Harlow had been here, Dennis had just become a manager and was scrambling around between the store and the kid who’d shown up out of nowhere pleading not to go back. Maybe it was just the time of day, but Dennis was just… there, this time. Still.
Harlow squeezed his eyes shut, breathing. He didn’t come here for this. He didn’t want to relive this. Didn’t want to be here again. He came here for Alph.
“Can I”—Harlow paused for just a moment—“have a minute?”
“Yeah,” Dennis exclaimed. Cleared his throat and rose from his chair. Then, softer, “yeah. I’ll just be with Amy, in the kitchen. Holler if you need something.”
The office door clicking shut. Harlow’s throat went dry. He stood up from the chair and reached for the watch still sitting on the desk. If Dennis had absolutely anything on Storm in the damn thing, anything mildly internal, Harlow was going to take it and roll. Anywhere Alph could possibly be, he’d take it.
He took out his phone, snapping pictures of anything remotely leading somewhere in the messages. Mostly business-side things, some more about upper management directives. Innovations on Dennis’ pie recipe, notes comparisons with some other bakeries. Communication with people, but not places. Internal places, anyway. Like hell would Storm risk a health inspector finding a captive in a restaurant.
Why would Storm take Alph captive, anyway? Prisoners don’t do much in a bake-off except as bargaining chips and it’s not like Amaterasu even pretended to give half a damn about them.
Nothing. Harlow set the watch back to its initial position and inhaled too sharply. Bit his tongue. Breathe. Please.
He needed a way further in. The only way to do that was seemingly to get recruited by Storm and advance the ranks high enough, but by virtue of being in Cinder he was pretty much excluded from that with a vague check in the stolen data.
Harlow stepped into the kitchen. Dennis and Amy both had long white aprons on now, on opposite sides of the room.
This was a long shot.
“This is, um, embarrassing,” Harlow started. Dennis stopped what he was doing to face him, realizing he’d stepped out. “Especially after I, said I wasn’t going to take more from you, do you know anyone that—that’s, um, hiring?” He cringed visibly. “Or, I guess, willing to hire, um, someone like me?”
Amy paused whatever they were doing to look over skeptically. Dennis waved them off back to work and stared weakly at Harlow for a few seconds.
“Sorry. I’m sorry⸺”
“No,” Dennis said, “no, don’t be. I get it. I’ve got a number you could contact. Let me find it.”
Harlow swallowed. He felt like he was choking. “Thank you.”
He’d gotten out of there as soon as he could. Took several minutes staring into the poorly lit parking garage from Alph’s driver’s seat before he could bring himself to look up the phone number in an online database Cinder had full access to. Lacey Cooper, address pulled from who knows where. Harlow started the truck.
One serrated blade to a previously sleeping neck later, he now had a stolen smartwatch strapped to his wrist and two feet inside an office building running 24/7. If he was lucky, Lacey would stay tied up for an hour or two before putting Storm on top of him.
Predictably enough, there was a large lounge spanning most of the bottom floor, empty of people except the head rising only to nod at him behind the counter. Sharp lines, untouched stacks of magazines, rectangular plant boxes. Almost certainly used by no people yearly. Any furniture that pretended it was made to be sat on was decorated in grays with the occasional touch of dark blue.
He wandered the building for a while, only a few night owls up late staring at screens that were too bright. Searched through any computer that had been left open or had a password haphazardly left in an office booth, snapping pictures of whatever he thought Liam would like before setting it to whatever position it’d had before and moving on.
Eventually he reached a floor full of meeting rooms separated from the world only by large panes of glass and the occasional metal handle. Some rooms were fit with a kitchen set. He broke into one on a less street-heavy side of the building, checking the cabinets and fridge for anything potentially surprising.
Five different brands of almond milk,
“Do you need help with anything?”
Harlow gripped onto the fridge door tighter to prevent himself from jumping. Took one careful glance behind him, “Lost my engagement ring somewhere. I’ve been retracing my steps.”
The guy nods slowly. Dark hair stretched behind their head, adorned with a brimmed hat and matched with a thin brown trench coat. They were white, maybe mildly tanned, with a strong frame. He laughed to himself. Alph would’ve called the guy some sort of noir detective if they were here.
“Wolford,” the man says after a stretch of silence.
He shuts the fridge door, briefly reaching to shake their hand. “Rennick.”
“Have you checked in with security about it?” they ask politely.
“Not yet,” Harlow answers, pretending to scan the floor. “I’d rather not bother them if I don’t have to.”
Another nod. “I suppose I’ll leave you to it, then. Good luck in your search.”
Then they walked away back down the hall. For good measure, Harlow turned on his phone’s flashlight and looked under the fridge for a good fifteen seconds before getting back up. They were gone from the hallway when he checked.
Harlow found himself putting a hand in his hair and laughed. This building was a dead-end. Something Liam might be interested in could be here, something Cinder might be interested in, but Harlow being here yet was a joke. He was just here for Alph. Storm would have to have beyond lost their minds to house a prisoner in an office in the middle of the city.
What do they want you for, Al? Harlow took a deep breath.
What a dumb question.
He snapped open his lighter, holding the fire in his hand. Heated it up. Started out the hallway, jumped a few floors. If he was correct, Wolford would be one of Storm’s higher-ups. Someone with an office to go back to that had information that would matter to him. They carried themselves with the kind of authority that would warrant it. Almost a demand for respect.
His hands were shaking. He needed to find a door with Wolford on it.
Blank white halls, speckled tile flooring, large, faintly buzzing ceiling lights. The emptiness stretching out into full-length windows and the city across the street. Desks and kitchenettes and empty pastry racks randomly left in the middle of a breakroom.
Finally, on the top floor, a windowed office completely blocked by vertical white blinds. Seemingly nothing inside, based on Harlow’s glance through the slits, but the name Nacht Wolford was printed on the door nonetheless.
Harlow tried the handle—locked—before setting his thumb over the crack between the door and the frame and sliding it down. The door popped open, sliced-through deadbolt revealing the flame he quickly shoved back to his hand. The blinds rattled as he cracked the door further open, and⸺
A computer mouse dangled limply from where its cord was bolted to a desk. A desk bolted to the ceiling along with the complete kitchen in the office, gas stove. A potted plant entirely made of plastic down to the soil hung over his head. The wall behind the door was curved at the top and bottom, fitted with the same dark grey tile as the floor and ceiling. The lights were in the floor.
Nacht Wolford. Where did he recognize that name from?
His head banged against the—ceiling.
The door was swung back into place as he tried to refocus, tearing his eyes to watch the figure holding one hand flat while rotating the other, walking up the wall to the ceiling and standing over him. The blinds over the door clattered and laid against the ceiling. They were shrugging off their brown trench coat, throwing it over the coatstand.
Harlow just barely managed to scrunch his fingers, swinging the fire in the Wolford’s direction before the right to use his hand was flattened, lighter pressing into his hand. They bent down to place their hat over his face.
“Now then,” the man said. Harlow felt the Storm watch being torn from his wrist. The weight of his lighter releasing, and then the loud snap of it closing.
Shuffling. The tap of metal being set on a hard surface. Trying to get up did nothing except make him feel like he was being actively crushed. Wolford let out a long sigh before speaking again. “I believe we’re overdue for a proper conversation. How are you?”
Harlow stayed silent for a few seconds, hoping he wouldn’t need to participate. Then, blankly, “I’m flat to your ceiling.”
Nothing. Silence. Wolford chuckled sheepishly. “I apologize for making you waste the last thirty minutes. I foolishly thought Cinder would be smart enough to send more than a singular person to one of my offices for a silent raid and tried looking for the rest of your party to nail all of you at once. Just you, unfortunately.” A pause. “Would you humor me as to why?”
My offices. Harlow had calmly walked into an open jaw. He was pinned.
“Where is Alph?” he countered without really thinking about it. It was far angrier than he’d intended it to be.
“I think you’re misunderstanding the situation.”
He kept his mouth shut.
“Before I so kindly either test you or drag your fractured and limp body down the halls, will you at least tell me how you found this building, Rennick?” Wolford’s shoes clacked silently against the tile, lifting the hat off of Harlow’s face. He was squinting—down—at the man crouched over him, light over their back suddenly too bright.
His throat went dry. If they kept all of their prisoners in the same place—“I saw the manager at a bakery I went to wearing a Storm watch. Asked about a job. Interrogated the interviewer wearing the same watch.”
No, if he could just move,
“I see.” Wolford stood up, placing their hat on the coatrack.
Could just grab his lighter,
He had shot up from the floor before even realizing it, body moving automatically to the desk where his leg was then torn to the side from its place, slamming him into the kitchen counter. He held a hand against where the countertop had momentarily dug into his abdomen, crippled over and hissing beneath each breath.
“You can make a blueberry pie, can’t you?” Wolford prompted. “You’re in Cinder. Show me.”
Harlow grabbed the countertop and pulled himself up, leg throbbing. Staring at the gas stove. “If I do”—he took in a sharp breath—“will you tell me where Alph is?”
“I’ll take you to them.”
There was barely a change in Wolford’s expression. The tiniest quirk of a grin as he passed by to sit in the chair at his desk. Harlow only dragged himself along the kitchen set to the cupboard closest to the fridge, limping on every nerve blasting that he’d been thrown into a cabinet.
Telekinesis. No other kinetic mimicked that. The issue was that telekinesis was strictly with things—and the room hadn’t rotated. The mouse was laying flat and his lighter had been casually set down. Like Wolford had simply decided to change the gravity of the room. How many different directions could he do that? There was Harlow smashed to the ceiling, and then there was Wolford walking the wall.
Scale. Bowls. Where’d all the other sets keep the...
That was two. Wolford was rotating a hand earlier, keeping the other flat. If he could only manipulate two zones at once, that gave Harlow something to work with. It’d have to be fast.
Micromanaging butter in a microwave. Folding out the dough. Wolford locking both of his hands flat to the countertop after setting the disks to chill for an hour.
Stilted silence. Harlow laughing to himself. This situation was absurd. Wolford was busy typing away at his computer and Harlow was left awkwardly adjusting his posture against the pressure placed on his hands. Thinking. Whenever his thoughts wandered off the situation he’d pathetically gotten himself stuck in, they landed on Alph.
An endless stream of questions without answers. His need for sleep catching up with him. Quiet pleading that Alph is okay—to nobody.
He coughed on air caught in his throat.
Breathe. “I need to make the—filling.”
Wolford nodded. Harlow’s fingers ached from being pressed flat. He fiddled with the range’s knobs, locking down the fire in the gas stove before figuring out which one preheated the oven. Clean off the counter. Blueberries. You actually agreed to bake Storm a pie on the offchance you’d get Alph out of here.
Wherever “here” is.
Once the hour was up he took out the crust, fitting it into a pie tin and sliding in the filling. A recipe he’d crammed into his head, making over and over again to practice working with his hands. Cutting dough into strips, weaving them over and under each other.
There’d be no way to fight Wolford if Harlow got too out of range of the gas stove. If he got knocked out. Got his hands bound. Finding Alph would do nothing.
Egg wash.
He stopped for a moment, feeling the fire he’d built up in his hand by creating a lattice out of pie crust. He put the stupid blueberry pie in the oven and inhaled.
The motion of shutting the oven door was enough to throw up a wall of fire between him and Wolford. That wall of fire was enough to break for the door, to slam against the floor of the hallway, groan, and get up to his wrist being grabbed from the front.
Next thing he knew, he was on asphalt under dim lights, resisting the urge to hurl.
“What the fuck were you thinking?!” Liam shouted.
“I⸺” Harlow was cut off instantly.
“No, I think I know what went through your head.” Liam chuckled tiredly. “You thought that you could go recklessly raid Storm buildings on your own, waste less time doing nothing and spend more time finding Alph. And where did I find you? Being forced to share your blueberry pie recipe with Storm’s head god-damn honcho, all but screwed.”
Harlow huffed, pushing off the ground. “If you actually cared enough about them, you would be helping me instead of making me find them alone.”
“It’s reckless. If you thought for even one second about what Cinder loses trying to save one person rather than meticulously wiping out one of Storm’s buildings,”
“I can’t keep waiting⸺”
“We have to wait, Urban!” Liam says, exasperated. “This isn’t just you and them selling blueberry pie on the street anymore, Al is Amaterasu’s child and you’re both caught up in a pie war!”
Harlow put his face in his hands, scoffing.
“You were in the midst of trying to run away from a guy who can choose to crush someone into a floor. I don’t think you understand just how fucked you were on your own there. Now a building Cinder could’ve potentially leeched countless tidbits of recipe information from is a mass Storm evacuation to a new location we need to figure out. Because you couldn’t sit still.”
“I can’t just leave Al to die!” Harlow put a hand in his hair, his own words sinking into his stomach. Salt pricking at the corners of his eyes. “I’ve killed one person I care about already, I don’t need to go slaughtering another!”
Liam opens his mouth before snapping it shut, taking a deep breath. “Nacht wouldn’t have killed Al.”
“And that’s justification for not letting me go look for them?”
“I said wait, Urban!” Liam’s voice raised again. He rubbed his nose, angry tone persisting even as his voice dropped back down. “This conversation is over. Get in the car.”
After a long stretch of silence, Harlow reluctantly entered the passenger of the car Liam gestured to. Breathing. Looking out the window, rather than at Liam getting into the driver’s and kicking the car alive. Several minutes of driving in the dark passed by in complete silence.
“Liam,” Harlow started suddenly. Calmer.
“Yeaup?”
“Thanks. For getting me out of there.”
A pause. “You’re welcome.”
Harlow’s mouth hung slightly ajar as he wiped at his eyes. Someone honked at a black truck flying through a red light blaring something unintelligibly bass boosted. “How did you even figure out where I was?”
“I chipped your phone after Al disappeared,” Liam said. Glanced at him. “Was the pie you put together any good?”
I feel like when I say ‘relatable’ what I really mean is ‘resonant.’ I don’t want characters who I feel are like me, I want characters who have emotions so strong I can feel them through the page.
I think this is important because a lot of us forget the power of stories to make us feel things about characters who are not like us, who have experienced things that we never will. The purpose of listening to someone else's story should not necessarily be identification, but understanding.
In honor of pride month, the e-book version of my lesbian knight/dragon love story is on sale for a whole dollar off! Only $3.99 for the month of June, so if you've ever been interested in checking it out now might be the time~
(especially with the second book coming out later this year)
Where to buy?
I don't know why the Barnes & Noble links aren't working from that site but it is at B&N, you can find it here.
Synopsis:
In a ruined castle deep in the wilderness, there lived a beautiful princess guarded by a ferocious dragon.
Except for the fact that the maiden in the tower was no princess at all, but the dragon’s daughter. Rescued against her will, she is carried off to human lands and given the name Lady Patrice Drake.
Caught between culture shock and grief, she must find a way to navigate her strange new surroundings lest she be drowned under human machinations and politics.
Who among these people are enemies? Who among them are allies? And most importantly, who is she without her mother’s guidance and protection?
i'm going to be completely honest you've caught my blog (and flash/burn) at a VERY strange time for me
without too many details, i recently had a not-so-kind falling out with a long time friend of mine and they were one of the two other people who wrote the initial angsty rollercoaster with me that we called Archive. my mental state is sort of in the gutter right now and i'm in a deep hole called "rewriting arc one but taking a million years to do it" so i am a bit on edge
related to your actual question: Archive--the original Angst--was inspired by whatever my two friends were inspired by plus my reading of CuteC3's Fire for Hire on Webtoon. i mainly came up with pyrokinesis and criminal activity there as there probably wasn't more than ten chapters at the time
the plot of the capital-A Angst began with my now-boyfriend getting everyone involved in an organization called Cinder, and then over the course of several long seasons it becomes killer robots with confetti cannons and excessively burnt pizza and war and godlings and three kidnappings and torture and two very awful portrayals of blindness and one very awful portrayal of trauma and---- you get it
i had a knack for re-reading me and my friends' stories and then thinking my writing was juvenile (it was) and taking another crack at a scene. some of these were good and some were more forced. in essence, though, all flash/burn is is a culmination of me taking the ideas and concepts i personally enjoy from Archive and rewriting it with my personal (and hopefully more mature) spin.
(by spin i mean taking characters, backstories, and a plot concept and writing a new plot. there are like five chapters that are actually kind of the same and they're all in arc one)
and, no, i will not let anyone access the original Archive because my friends' writing has a right to privacy. and also i think i would die. instantly.
I am hoping to do an exchange beta for beta (I read your book, you read mine, we give each other notes). My novel is sci-fi fantasy heavy on the fantasy. It's 120K words approximately.
Looking for someone really reliable! Please don't ditch out on me half-way it's happened like 4 times lol
Novels only, please, I don't want to have to watch a series in order to beta a fanfic ~
i'm not someone who considers themself "good with words" in a way of praise or curiosity. i often feel like i have to force out a tone or words to the point i'm not conveying the subtleness at which it's actually present in my brain. the only way i really have at conveying subtleness just sounds so rude in a line of text and often once i hit the button to share the words with the world i end up embarrassed at how fake or how gross i sound.
and so often i will find myself using the like button sparingly, maybe a lack of it at all, because i'd like to save it for the times when i can't use words. and the only way the pattern breaks is with friends??
So assume that some paranormal creature has been confirmed to be real and present in the world as we know it. Out of all the supernatural folks you know of, which of them would you be the least impacted by if you knew they really existed?
(does that make sense? Like maybe you find out tomorrow that goblins were definitely around and you genuinely don't care. It doesn't impact your life and what you're all about. Which creature do you think is most likely to evoke that in you?)
maybe ghosts. like if they've existed all this time and are still just like Kind Of Nothing then it's. not a big deal that they exist For Sure. there's nothing to do about ghosts and there's nothing they can do to me. they just. Are There. I Guess.
also something like Bigfoot perhaps. like objectively not a super scary guy. what does he even do. oh he exists in the woods and is just kind of there? cool that's his prerogative
"Kill your local sex offender!" Oh, you mean the guy who went streaking at his local college football game on a dare one time? That's a sex crime.
"No, I mean-"
Oh, maybe the woman who had to pee in a public park that only had pay toilets, so she tried to hide behind the bushes but got caught? Public urination is a sex crime.
"What? No, I mean-"
Oh, maybe you mean the homeless guy who had to strip down to get his clothes in the laundromat to clean them for the first time in weeks? He tried being subtle, but someone called the cops on him, and now he's on the sex offender registry for public nudity.
"Rapists and pedophiles! Kill rapists and pedophiles!"
Oh, like the trans woman who got called a pedophile groomer for helping a trans kid escape her abusive parents?
Or maybe the black man who got labeled a rapist because he came on to another man's wife, and he decided to get back at him by charging him with rape?
How about the 17 year olds who were fooling around, fully consensually, in one of their bedrooms? That's still technically underage sex and thus rape of a minor.
Oh, or maybe you're talking about the doctor who performed genital reconstructive surgery in a state that just voted to get that classified as rape?
People will do everything they can to get you convinced rape and pedophilia are the worst crimes possible, then accuse whoever they like the least of being either a rapist, a pedophile, or both, counting on you turning on them just for being accused of the crime.
"Oh, so you're saying you don't want to kill a serial rapist?"
That's exactly what I'm goddamn saying.
Once we decide a group is okay to kill, the government will do everything they can to convince you that their political enemies are either part of that group, or just as bad as that group, to get you to kill their enemies for them.
The only way out is to accept every life as worth saving.
@the-overanalyzer — #human rights don't disappear when someone does something despicable #I know that's an uncomfortable position to defend sometimes but you just have to suck it up
yeah!
you're allowed to FEEL like you want to kill rapists (esp your own if such a misfortune has befallen you). you're even allowed to WANT and WISH for their deaths. that's all normal natural and dare i say... healthy???
it's perfectly sensible to feel all that rage and bloodlust as we grieve the loss of our autonomy, even if it was brief, or if we grieve the fact that this happens to others, or the prevalence of this crime, etc. whatever the reason you want that person dead, you're certainly entitled to that mental state
all of those feelings are yours, and you are allowed to feel them as long as it takes you to feel them
BUT. that doesn't make those feelings justice. that doesn't make that rage and pain the right thing to base policy on. policy that crushes human rights is policy that crushes humans, both the ones you hate and the ones you love
It reminds me of the Sir Terry Prachett quote "If you did it for a good reason, you'd do it for a bad one. You couldn't say 'We're the good guys' and do bad-guy things."
If you ever pay money for anything I write you should probably know it's going to be one of three things:
Absolutely self-indulgent character study with little to no plot on paper. Like, character study to the degree that you'd think it didn't occur to me someone might be expecting an exciting narrative. The people are the narrative. That's all you're going to get.
A thing I did entirely to make myself laugh.
A diary entry I've changed most of the specifics of.
i remember when blind trust came out and i bought the online read like pretty much immediately because i wanted something to read for the end of my junior year and you were baffled that someone paid you money for a book. very vague memory but it's there. and the book was everything i wanted it to be. good five dollars
