Sunday Snippet: Finding Calm

The first week of Juneis in the books and I got a big chunk of my garage cleaned out, which makes me veryhappy.

Work projects aremoving along and I'm hoping to line up another project or two in the nearfuture. I love a full calendar!

I had a decent weekof television even with the great garage cleanout. I'm not up to my regularschedule yet and I'm actually okay with that.

I finished up thesecond half of Silent Witness and actually liked the kind of twistyending it had. Lots of red herrings in this episode.

Started a watch of Deathin Paradise. I've never seen this series from the actual beginning and I'mexcited to dive in.

Caught anotherepisode of Only Murders in the Building and I loved having some Mabelbackstory. The fact she loved The X-Files as a kid makes me so happy.

Continued myrewatch of Battlestar Galactica. "Resistance" is such a greatepisode … with the exception of introducing a character I absolutely dislikedwith intense passion.

Watched an episodeof Classic Rugrats. The two segments were ones I had forgotten and I'malways happy to watch those.

That's pretty muchit for the life update this week. Tonight's post is from Finding Calm, anovella that brings a couple together after a rough journey apart.

Here's themini-blurb:

Hank and Sunny have danced around finding happinesstogether so many times. Sunny botches it and learns a hard lesson at the handsof a crazed kidnapper. She finally wants to meet Hank on equal footing but thetiming never seems right. Surely her cosmic bad luck has to take an upswingsooner or later.

And a sneaky peek…

Sunny flipped down through thepages, skimming the information and got very angry. "Apparently I have almostperfect genes and they want to splice them with different matches to see if asuperior human can be made." The sinister reason made bile rise in herthroat and she covered her mouth to keep it from escaping.

No way would she allow the insaneenemy to get their hands on anything that could help them turn the tide in theirfavor. Sickened, she slowly and quietly made her way out of the room and edgedalong the corridor wall toward the doors marked Laboratory. The journey took longer than she wanted, but it hurt tomove. More than she'd ever admit to anyone.

She eased the lab door open andfound the area empty and eerily silent. A small row of ambient lights cast justenough brightness for her to find her way around. She discovered cloning notes,harvesting charts, and finally, ovaries, lots of samples. One with her name on thelabel. She destroyed hers with a test tube clamp and, for good measure, tookout all the others also. The noise set off an alarm and she had to get out,crunching over broken glass in her bare feet to make her exit. Once outside thelab, she grabbed an extinguisher, the only thing close to a weapon she couldfind and fought her way out of the building.

Stumbling halfway to the emptyfield behind the makeshift hospital, she crawled, skinning up her knees andravaging her hands. She made it to the edge and found cover in the tall brushbut snagged her arms in the process. Bruised and bleeding, she stopped to rest,and pray the stitch in her side didn't mean her wound had opened up again. Ahand grabbed her from behind and she bit down hard and spun around, ready totake on her attacker.

"Sunny, calm down. It's Josh.I can get you out of here. Come on."

She didn't hesitate. She looped herarm around his neck and let him pick her up. He melted back into the shadowsand managed to avoid the flood lights streaming in intervals all over the backfield. Once they made it to the far edge, he sat her down and caught hisbreath.

Sunny fought the wave of nausea thepain from her injuries brought. "Thanks, Josh. Now what?" If theydidn't move soon, they'd be caught.

And she would not go back to thatcreeptastic hospital—at least not alive.

Josh's gaze scanned the surroundingarea. "I found a ship that can get us off the planet … but I can't fly."He blew out a frustrated breath. "And the crew doesn't have a captain, whichmeans they're arguing with each other to figure out what to do next."

Sunny closed her eyes, relieffilling her. "No worries. I'm a pilot. I can fly pretty much anything."As long as she stayed conscious anyway.

Josh crouched down. "Come onthen." He turned and put his back to her. "Up you go."

Sunny draped her arms over his shouldersand wrapped her thighs around his waist. Her body ached and throbbed with painbut with escape imminent she'd endure for as long as she had to.

Sunny has someissues that need to be worked through and Josh ends up being part of thoseissues because he's not Hank.

 

That's it for thisweek. Catch everyone on the flipside.

ML Skye