#parker knoll

[imstuckin1999]

Happy October 11th! Hallie and Annie's Birthday!!

[supersvgsp]

Parker Knoll Vineyard Parent Trap Hallie Chardonnay SVG

[runilareads]

Fan Cast: The Favorite Sister by Jessica Knoll

Fan Cast: Brett Courtney - Barbie Ferreira Kelly Courtney - Maiara Walsh Stephanie Simmons - Teyonah Parris Lauren Bunn - Halston Sage Jen Greenberg - Emma Dumont Vince DeMarco - Toby Leonard Moore Jesse Barnes - Debi Mazar Lisa - Kristin Chenoweth Arch - Ritu Arya Dr. Chugh - Archie Panjabi Yvette Greenberg - Parker Posey Satya - Ace Bhatti

[shslbunnylover]

Could you do a chessy X reader where the reader is the ranch hand/horse caretaker for the vineyard and one day the reader has an accident with one of the horses and chessy is the only one around to save her? Fluff and angst would be perfect!

★ ★ ★ Kiss it better ★ ★ ★

Character: Chessy

Summary: When a particularly difficult to handle horse knocks you unconscious, Chessy can't help but fuss over you, leading to some new developments in your seemingly platonic relationship

Taglist: @inlovewithgreta @lilfartbox1

Trigger Warnings: Horse accident, blood, unconsciousness,

Genre: Hurt/Comfort

Author's Note: LET'S GO ANOTHER REQUEST DOWN!! >:3

Word Count: 3.23k

Working at the Parker Knoll Vineyard definitely had its upsides, great pay, working with your favorite animal all day, and the nice solitude that came with working alone on the long acres covered in grapevines (Seriously, this dude is loaded, how does he not have more hostlers??).

“Bye Chessy!” You heard a voice come out from the mansion, whom you assumed to be Annie by her British accent.

And there was your favorite part of working on the Parker Knoll. The housekeeper.

Chessy, to you at least, could be described as one of the most beautiful people you've ever met both inside and out.

No matter how much you'd try to deny yourself of your crush, it never seemed to work, and you'd always end up dreaming about the brunette.

“Alright, you four have fun!” You heard Chessy exclaim, waving the kids and their parents away as they walked out the door with their suitcases

You looked back at the mansion that was about an acre off from the area you were standing in before turning back, laughing to yourself as you saw Chessy chasing after the twins while their parents packed up.

Jesus Christ that woman was cute.

Turning back, you put the music back on your walkman before continuing your work on changing the horseshoes for Nick's steed.

You had been hired at the Parker Knoll Vineyard around 5 months after you graduated college with your bachelor equine degree, and when you moved to Napa, you began applying for as many jobs as possible.

When you found an advertisement in the paper for a job at a successful winery a few weeks later, specifically looking for a hostler and stable caretaker, you were overjoyed to find yourself beginning the application process.

Always being a horse person, you found your comfort in the stables of every ranch you had ever worked at starting in your mid-teens.

Sure they smelled like literal horse shit, but you loved to see how free spirited these creatures were. You were pretty much convinced that they were ethereal beings when they were left off the reins for a minute.

You had gotten into a few minor accidents in your early years of being an equestrian and a hostler (even though they weren't really minor and ended up with you getting a sprained ankle), but you'd learned from those mistakes, and now considered yourself well acquainted with the creatures you adored.

To you, finding your equestrian themed job at the Parker Knoll was the true start of your independent life, and you wouldn't have had it any other way.

“Where the hell did Nick put the horseshoes?” You looked around, attempting to find the object as Nick had rearranged the entire stable, leaving you confused as to where everything was.

You sighed, finally picking up the metal horseshoe to place them on the horse, who always gave you a pretty hard time when it came to changing his racing plates.

“Settle down boy…” You pet the much larger creature, trying to soothe the frazzled horse as you tried to pick up his leg.

The horse neighed violently, his tail swishing up and hitting you in the face.

You sighed, still trying to calm the creature.

“Come on sweetheart, I need you to work with me,” You cooed, petting the horse as you went to bend down.

But before you could even get fully to your position to change the plate, a hard force slammed straight into your face, knocking your body to the ground with a broken nose and definitely some other injuries.

You hit the ground, your breath being knocked out of you from the force of the creature's hoof shoving you to the dirty floor.

You cried out in pain louder than you thought, your body laying on the ground as your nose bled violently down your face. Your eyes began to go blurry, and you gripped the ground.

Your nails dug against the finished wood, your mind trying to fight the overcoming blacked out state. You had handled this before, you could do it again. It's not like this horse was pretty much 3 times your size. You could handle it.

Attempting to tilt your head up, a sharp pain shot through your body starting at your nose and spreading to the rest of your form.

“Fuck!” You cried, beginning to feel your body succumb to unconsciousness as the paralyzing feeling coursed through your blood and muscles, leaving you to pass out on the hay covered floor of the stables.

You weren't sure just how loud or for how long you'd cried out, but you knew it was loud enough for someone to hear, because just before you passed out, you saw a flash of brown and blue over your body before it all went black.

Chessy stood over you, freaking out as she propped your body up onto her own, her hand that wasn't holding your back up moving to hold your legs.

When she heard you scream from inside the house, she had dropped everything and ran to the stables to find you.

“Y/N??” She tried to wake you up, holding your nose with the sleeve of her jacket she had taken off to try and stop the bleeding. “Y/N wake up!” Chessy exclaimed, beginning to tear up as her breathing increased.

She already had shaky breathing from her running all the way to the stables from the house in less than 2 minutes, and now her upcoming panic attack over seeing you knocked out only caused her heart and breathing to race even more.

She moved her hand from under your legs and placed two fingers on your neck, a small cry of relief leaving her lips as she felt your pulse.

You laid in her arms, your body limp with shaky breathing, you looked so small in her arms even though she herself was smaller than you.

“Fucking Christ-” She held you tightly, hyperventilating beyond belief at the mere thought of losing you. God she couldn't lose you. “Stay with me sweetheart, please-”

She held you tightly in her arms, and it felt like her world was collapsing. She was terrified of losing the people she cared about, but if she lost you…she wouldn't know what to do with her life.

She loved you dearly, even if she didn't think you felt the same way.

Chessy scooped you up fully into her arms bridal style, and she kept trying to wake you up for a few solid minutes through choked out sobs.

When she saw your body begin to twitch, she stood up with you in her arms, making sure the horse was locked up before rushing you into the house.

A course of pain flushed through your body as you woke up, and a small grunt escaped your lips.

“Shit-” You grimaced, your hand sliding against the surface beneath you, your eyes widening when you felt the fabric of a bed instead of the furnished wood that you had collapsed onto.

You looked around, your eyes scanning your surroundings.

This wasn't your room.

“What the…where am I…?” You muttered, recognizing the land out the window, knowing you were back in the mansion, but where in it?

“Be careful sweetheart,” You saw Chessy immediately run in, her eyes red and puffy from what seemed like crying, she had a bottle of water in her hands with a corresponding bottle of medicine.

“Chessy?” You muttered, your head tilting to face her.

“Oh thank God you're awake,” Chessy sat on the bed, kissing your forehead before picking you up with surprisingly strong arms.

Your cheeks scattered a bright red, and you barely managed to stutter out a response.

“W-Where am I?”

Chessy propped you up onto by far the largest amount of pillows you had ever seen, allowing for your body to sink softly as if it was on a cloud.

“You're in my room, hon,” Chessy caressed your cheek. “I heard you scream and…” She trailed off, trying to remove the image of the person she cared about so much in that much pain out of her head. “I took you back to my room after I found you so I could take care of you,”

Your head turned to the right, and you noticed a whole tray of supplies on her nightstand, the books previously there now thrown onto the floor next to it.

The tray consisted of a fresh ice pack wrapped in a soft white towel for your nose, cotton balls to soak up the blood escaping your nostrils, band-aids for the scratches on your body you had suffered from the fall, and a bottle of cold water and some fruit in a bowl.

A small cold drop on your nose knocked you out of your small daze, and you realized that your nose wasn't in as much pain as before, which you realized was the case because Chessy had another towel-wrapped ice pack in your nose already.

“Chessy- You don't have to do all of this, I'm fine,” You murmured, still in a lot of pain and in no mood to actually stand up and protest, so you just let whatever the woman do what she wanted to your injured frame.

“No, you're injured, and you scared the shit out of me,” She shot a small glare, causing the blush on your cheeks to darken. “I'm taking care of you,”

You sighed, leaning your head back, too tired to fight.

“Fine…if you say so,” You grimaced.

Chessy’s glare softened, and she moved a few strands of hair away from your face and kissed your forehead.

“Oh hon, I'm so glad you're okay…I don't know what I would have done if I lost you,” The brunette sniffled, wiping her eyes with the non blood-covered sleeve of her jean jacket.

You blushed at her concern, your lips forming a small smile.

“I was going to be fine, just a little accident,” You chuckled.

Chessy frowned at you.

“Y/N, you were unconscious,” The shorter woman said sternly, pulling her glasses back on top of her head.

“I know- But I didn't die?” You attempted to assure her, cursing yourself when she only teared up more.

“I can't lose you sweetheart, I love you too much,” The brown eyed woman blushed, cupping your chin.

A small stutter escaped your lips at the mention of the word ‘love’.

“You're not losing me that quickly,” You chuckled, trying to dismiss the words that left Chessy's mouth.

Chessy smiled back at you.

“I know…” She chuckled, looking down at your form. “Oh hon, why don't I get you all cleaned up?” She cooed, placing a hand overtop of yours.

Your eyes widened, and you stuttered.

“H-Huh?”

“Can I change you out of these clothes hon?” The brunette asked.

“N-No, Chessy it's okay, I can go back to-”

You're cut off by Chessy crossing her arms and looking down at you with a raised eyebrow.

“That wasn't what I asked, I asked if I could change you into something comfortable,” She then put her hands on her hips.

You bit back a blush, and you simply nodded.

“Please…” You murmured.

Chessy smiled softly, walking out of the room and returning with one of her hoodies and pairs of sweatpants before stripping you of your uncomfortable riding gear.

Your cheeks heated up at the exposure of your skin, and you let out a sigh as Chessy took off your knee and elbow pads.

She looked at you with a smile, laughing at your relaxation.

“I knew you needed a break from the gear,” She chuckled, taking a few baby wipes and wiping down your body with them.

Your head leaned back, every muscle in your body relaxing at the touch of the wipe clearing off any sense of dirt.

“Thank you for this, Chess,” You hummed.

“Anything for you, baby,” The brunette smiled, placing her hoodie onto your body before sliding her sweatpants over your legs.

“Are you sure I'm not taking you away from your job?” You asked her, holding onto a pillow that was resting next to you.

“What do you mean sweetheart? I'm doing my job right now?” Chessy looked at you, taking her fingers and running her digits through your hair softly, taking it out of the ponytail it was in.

You chuckled.

“You're too good to me Chessy,”

“No I'm not, now be a good girl and stay still while I bandage you up, okay hon?” She instructed, beginning to apply some petroleum jelly onto the small scratches across your arms.

The nickname made something inside you flutter, and you immediately nodded, desperate to hear her praise you again. You just wanted to hear her want you.

“Good girl,” She repeated, rubbing in the jelly before taking the now lukewarm ice pack off of your nose and replacing it with the freshly cold one.

As she waited for the jelly to settle in, she wiped off the final remaining drops of blood off of your philtrum, tossing the last cotton ball away as the blood had finally dried up.

Another smile came back to your face as you heard her praise.

“Where did the Parker's all go?” You asked.

“They went up to that mountain cabin Nick just bought a few weeks ago, they'll be gone until around Wednesday,” Chessy replied.

“So…it's just us?” You asked.

“Us and Sammy,” She chuckled, hearing the dog bark downstairs.

“Speak of the devil,” You laughed. “I think he does need to be fed,” You checked the clock on her nightstand and saw it was Sammy's feeding time.

“You're right,” Chessy laughed, giving you a kiss on the forehead before standing up. “I will be right back, hon, and then I'll put the band-aids on now since the jelly will have settled.

You nodded at her, waving her off.

“Take your time, Chess,” You smiled.

Chessy quickly walked downstairs, and you could hear her playing with Sammy before the sound of his food bowl being filled with kibble filled your ears.

You laid in bed, waiting for the housekeeper’s return, nuzzling into her hoodie and engulfing your nose in her smell. Her hoodie smelled like fresh cinnamon and shampoo, matching the scent you had smelled when she had leaned in to kiss you on the forehead.

Her hoodie and sweatpants were warm, as if she had just gotten it out of the dryer, yet somehow it already smelled like her.

What Chessy knew that you didn't, however, was that she sprayed her perfume on the hoodie and sweatpants, secretly knowing just how much you adored her scent. I mean, she couldn't blame you, it was a nice perfume she wore, and when surrounded with literal horse shit all day, it wasn't hard to find a scent that you liked over that.

Chessy returned as you had your face buried in the hoodie, and she smiled as she closed the door.

“Aww…Sweetheart you look adorable…” The older woman cooed, kissing your forehead as she sat next to you on her bed.

She took your left arm, beginning to apply the bandages to your scratches.

You blushed at how warm and fuzzy the princess treatment you were receiving made you feel, and you laid your head on her shoulder.

“Your hoodie is so warm…” You smiled.

“I know hon, I took it out of the dryer just for you,” Chessy chuckled.

Of *course* she did. That's why you fell in love with her. She was the most considerate woman you had ever met, and she made you feel like a princess no matter how bad you were feeling that day.

“You're amazing, Chessy,” You laughed, looking at her as she finished with the first arm before moving to the next.

“Not as amazing as you, hon,” The older woman looked at you with the same pure adoration in her eyes she always showed to you every time she saw you.

When she finished with the other arm, you turned your body and cuddled into the older woman, your arms snaking around her waist as you clung to her.

“You're definitely more amazing than me,” You insisted, amused at the small banter you always ended up having on who was more amazing.

Chessy chuckled and took a bottle of water, putting it up to your lips, urging you to drink, which you did.

“Drink up sweetheart…” Chessy smiled, holding your chin up with her fingers as you drank it halfway.

When Chessy took the bottle away, she quickly replaced it with a granola bar she had opened, encouraging you to take small bites before placing the empty wrapper in the trash can before putting the other one next to the half-empty bottle of water.

“Why don't we watch some Clueless, huh? I want you to rest right here and I know that you like that movie,” The older woman suggested, scooping you up just a little and pulling you closer to her body.

“Really? You'd watch it with me?” You asked, smiling up at her with excited eyes, adjusting a bit as your body was still sore.

Chessy nodded.

“Of course, baby, hold on one second,” She picked up another instant ice pack and broke it in, placing two of them on separate sore spots of your body, a soft look in her eyes forming as she watched you relax from the ice packs soothing your pain.

“Thank you Chess…” You mumbled with a blush on your face.

“Anything for you, Y/N,” She hummed, putting on the movie and holding onto you gently.

You nuzzled into her chest as the intro to Clueless played in the background, but you were more focused on the woman holding you than the movie.

A few minutes passed and you thought about everything that had happened just in the span of two and a half hours. The accident sucked, definitely, but it resulted in you cuddling up with the woman you were so madly in love with, the same woman who you didn't know was madly in love with you too.

A sudden surge of confidence pulsed through your brain, and you pulled Chessy in for a sudden but short kiss on the lips.

“I love you, Chessy,” You blurted, sitting up a bit more now as you looked her dead in the eyes, waiting for her response.

Chessy looked at you in shock, and after a moment of silence she laughed softly.

‘Shit, I just messed it all up,’ You thought, your eyes widening in horror and pure embarrassment.

Before you could say anything however, your thoughts were very suddenly cut off by Chessy's lips on yours.

The kiss was much longer this time, and you broke away after what seemed like ages with your lips locked together.

“I love you too Y/N, since the first day I met you,” Chessy smiled, tears forming in her eyes.

You wiped her tears with her thumb.

“Do you want to be my girlfriend?” You asked with a shaky smile, your own tears starting to form

“More than anything, my love,” Chessy kissed you once again, pulling you into her body and meshing your forms together like puzzle pieces that were always destined to fit with one another, where she held you for the rest of the night.

If you enjoyed reading this, don't forget to like, reblog and comment! Thank you and you are loved <3

-Akira

[jtl-fics]

Foxhole bake please!!!

7/17/24 WIP Wednesday (Closed) | Foxhole Bake AU

The camera cuts to the opening cinematic of the Great British Bake-off before it settles on shots of the bakers coming across the knoll and entering into the tent. Many of them are wearing sweaters and sweatshirts.

“It’s so exciting!” One contestant, Libby Parker, says with a giddy smile. “I want to pinch myself because even though it’s week 2 I still can’t believe that I’m in the tent!”

“Why is it so cold?” Neil Josten asks looking at the camera, “It’s already April, it shouldn’t be this cold.” Neil complains.

[spookyspaghettisundae]

You're Something Else

There was something wrong with the coffee.

Agent Parker stared into the dark brown brew in the cardboard cup. Then she took another swig of the bitter swill. Grimaced.

After gulping it down, she wiped her mouth and remarked, “This stuff is cold.”

Agent Wells shrugged without taking his hands out of his pockets.

“I’ll have you know that it’s terrible even when it’s warm. Anyway, you’re the one who’s an hour late. And you’re welcome, by the way.”

Parker gulped down more of the coffee. She drank so much of it at once that it made Wells’ eyebrows shoot up.

She was drinking that stuff like she was dying of thirst.

“Sorry about the—you prefer it with cream, right?” he asked, watching her chug the coffee in huge gulps until emptying the cup.

She shook her head, crumpled the cardboard cup in her fist, then chucked it into the nearest trash can on the sidewalk.

“I don’t really care,” she said. “Let’s go. I’ll drive.”

Wells chewed on his lip as he watched her get into the black 1994 Lincoln town car.

He preferred to be the man behind the wheel, and his first instinct was to protest, but he decided to play it cool. Got in on the passenger seat’s side.

The engine roared to life after he slammed the door shut.

Something was bugging him. It eclipsed his urge to talk small, though he couldn’t help but keep casting a sidelong glance at the woman with the short red hair.

There was something painfully methodical about the way she moved and acted. Like an actor rehearsing a play for the first time on stage. She kept her sights trained on the road. Drove with an eerie calm. Never made eye contact with him.

He couldn’t put his finger on what was bothering him—it wasn’t her, but something else, something intangible. His mind raced through everything he had read about her on file.

And the psych eval.

Wells had been hedging his doubts about her. This first meeting wasn’t doing her any favors. She was even more standoffish than he had expected. Myriads of “eccentricities” colored her behavior patterns if he was going to be charitable about describing it. But nothing he considered too wild, nothing unworkable.

What was bothering him, then?

“Why are we driving all the way up to Chicago? After you drove all the way over from the west coast? You afraid of flying, or something?” he asked.

Trying to distract himself. Hoping to jog his mind until something clicked.

She shook her head. Offered no words.

Richmond drifted past them. Traffic and asphalt melted into the sky where they met at the horizon, flanked by tall buildings. Wells sighed, drinking in the beauty of the warm orange light of sunrise bathing every patch of green and gray.

As they left the road and swerved onto the highway, Wells said, “I did my homework on you, you know.”

Parker clicked her tongue.

“Were you authorized to read my files, Special Agent Derek Wells?”

“I—well—uh—”

“I didn’t think so, and I frankly don’t care. I trust it was an entertaining read, yes? Even if mildly unethical of you to do so without authorization.”

Wells sighed.

She added, “I have nothing to dispute. I trust whatever Director Collins may have contributed, even if I can speak less to the opinions of any other agents in the bureau or Doctor Coscarelli. Do you have any questions regarding my character, or would you rather go over the case we’ll be working together?”

“Hm. Yeah.” He crossed his arms.

Still couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe it would occur to him later.

Wells contorted, reached back to retrieve his briefcase from the backseat, flicked the latches, and flipped the case open. He rifled through a manila folder, papers rustling all the while.

“Local P.D. responded to a neighbor’s call regarding a disturbance at house number five on Manor Park Knoll,” he muttered out loud, eyes scanning the file.

Trying not to linger on any terrible pictures.

He had read it all before yet reading up on Parker had distracted him from the case. He welcomed the distraction from the distraction.

“I’m all ears,” she said, still transfixed on the endless stream of asphalt and highway traffic around them. “I haven’t been briefed on the case at all.”

Papers rustled.

“The entire Colliers family—slaughtered in their home. According to the initial report, every family member was stabbed and mutilated by sharp implements from around the home, such as a kitchen knife. No fingerprints anywhere except from the victims themselves. Though grisly, it was almost chalked up to a case of domestic violence gone horribly wrong. What really rose flags at the bureau was that Winston Colliers and his family had been living under witness protection.”

“What for?”

“Unclear. Dates back to the 1980s. Everything on Colliers is redacted or scrubbed clean. My sniff test says it was CIA, DEA, ATF, or some other agency.”

“What else have we got?”

“We’re not the first bureau agents on the case.”

“Hm?”

“Special Agents Bennet and Murphy were first to investigate.”

“It’s highly unusual that Collins would send four people to Chicago to look into this.”

“You’re right. It would be. But it’s just us. Bennet and Murphy are dead.”

“Hm.”

“Another report of a disturbance from the same neighbor later, and local P.D. found our colleagues slaughtered. Same description of carnage, no suspects. Did you know Bennet or Murphy?”

“No.”

Cringing at the crime scene photos that had been faxed over, Wells shut the briefcase. The latches softly clicked. He returned it to the backseat.

“I don’t get it,” Parker said.

“What?”

“I don’t get why we’re being sent there next. Weren’t there any agents from field offices closer to Chicago?”

“Oh,” Wells said. Licking his lips. “There’s a reason Collins picked you out of the whole Virginia office. You’re gonna like this. Oh, do you mind if I smoke?”

Parker shook her head. “Not if you spot me a cigarette.”

Wells smiled at her, finding that she paid no attention to his gestures or expressions. He produced a pack from his inner jacket pocket, lit one up, then handed it to Parker, lighting up another cigarette for himself next.

She rolled down her window a notch, admitting the noise of highway traffic inside. They both raised their voices to continue speaking between puffs of smoke.

“So—why would I like this?” Parker asked.

“There were unidentified symbols etched into the skin of several bodies—the coroner described them as looking like they were occult in nature, and nobody in the bureau recognized them.”

“Could have just been the coded scrawling of a serial killer, though. You know, like the Zodiac Killer?”

“Maybe. But then, there’s another thing. Colliers’ wife looked like someone had tried to jam parts of a grandfather clockwork into her body. Coroner said she was kind of… ‘hollowed out’.”

“Hollowed out?”

“His words, not mine. Organs surgically replaced with spare parts.”

Sharply blowing out another cancerous cloud, Parker said, “That’s very strange. That makes me very uncomfortable to hear. It makes me question existence somewhat.”

“You and me both! Well, I mean, on the uncomfortable and strange parts, that is.”

“Item,” she said in Latin pronunciation. “That explains why Collins selected me, but not why he selected you for the case.”

Wells frowned. “Why, you read up on me, too?”

“No. I’m just not aware of you being involved in any cases involving the occult. Very few people in the bureau share that particular specialization. I vaguely remember seeing your face and hearing your name before, but I barely know you.”

“Sheesh,” he said, punctuated by a sigh. “You’re something else. Way to tell a guy he’s ignorable. Am I that ignorable?”

Traffic drifted by. Silence draped itself over them as they continued to smoke. The awkwardness swelled to unbearable size, as Wells felt like he was owed some sort of apology.

While Parker said nothing.

“Look, Parker—”

“Special Agent Quinn Isabelle Parker,” she corrected him.

His nostrils flared and he bit his lip.

“Special Agent Parker,” he muttered, before fueling the next words with more force. “Think of me as the Yin to your Yang—”

“That’s very funny.”

“Huh?”

“Yin is dark and feminine, while Yang is bright and masculine. But I think I know where you’re going with this.” She stared blankly ahead, focused fully on the highway. “You think that I’m eccentric, or slightly unhinged.”

Drowned out by the noise of traffic, Wells muttered under his breath, “Slightly?”

She continued, “But I’m sure it’s something else. The last special agent I was paired up with ended up in a mental institution. Therefore, I’m assuming that the director either thinks very highly of you, or he has very low hopes for you.”

“Woah, woah, woah—wait—what? Can you rewind that a little bit?”

“I’m sure that wasn’t in the file you read on me. The bureau has disavowed everything about Special Agent Poole. Probably as redacted as anything on Colliers.”

Wells furiously stamped his cigarette out in the ashtray. The words wheezed out with smoke, and his voice cracked as he asked, “Special Agent Poole? Who the hell is that?”

“I’m not authorized to speak on that in any detail. Suffice to say, Special Agent Poole experienced severe trauma of the body and mind, far beyond what any human being should be forced to endure, and he has yet to recover from the event.”

Wells’ face twisted in disbelief and horror.

“Are you serious? You are serious.”

“Dead serious, Special Agent Wells. Now, this is going to be a long ride, and my mouth is dry from that terrible, cold coffee. Unless there’s more to discuss on the Chicago incident, I’m afraid I have little else to say.”

She stamped her cigarette out in the ashtray.

Wells stammered, “W-what? W-well, I mean, uh, this is going to be a long ride, so, we could also get to know—”

Parker flicked the radio on.

“Each other,” he muttered.

She cranked the volume up. “Waterfalls” by TLC blasted from the car’s radio.

Wells sighed. He had grown from loving this song to hating every note of it. It reminded him of his recent breakup and his ex. Aleena. She loved the song and used to play it all the time.

Now he hated it.

It conjured up happy memories, distorted through the lens of shouting in arguments, slammed doors, and general sentiments of upset. Sweet, blurry images turned sour and bleak like gray clouds and rainwater soaking his socks.

He sighed again.

Stomached the silence between them that followed. The music and noise of traffic were so loud that he could barely think, though that growing emptiness was all he had left to occupy his mind.

He wanted to ask about Parker’s mysterious Kentucky case. Then concluded she would only remain evasive about it.

More red tape he couldn’t cut.

More questions. No answers.

Swirling, spiraling distractions, distractions from the distractions from the distractions. The music drew his thoughts from his personal troubles, which distracted him from the highway occupying his horizon, which distracted him from the odd thing about the car he couldn’t figure out, which distracted him from Parker’s jarring and inscrutable presence, which distracted him from—

Many hours and several dead-end conversations later, they had stopped at a gas station. He had learned several things about Parker that he never cared to know. She had raved about different kinds of pie, diner culture, “the great North American countryside”, and talked about her education and professionalism like a robot.

Wells splashed water in his face in the men’s room. He inhaled sharply. Studied his reflection in the mirror.

“Just ask about the Kentucky case,” he said, pointing at himself. “You’re a man! You’re a man, Derek. She’s half your weight and just… eccentric.”

A toilet flushed. A stranger exited from a bathroom stall and gave Wells a funny look, then proceeded to wash his hands at the sink next to his.

Wells averted his gaze. Exited the restroom. Cold air blasted his face, and the sounds of traffic swallowed his groan.

Night had draped itself over the countryside. Trucks rumbled by, cars trailed along, moving lights, all streaking through the dark, all drifting down the highway like flotsam on a rushing river of inky-black shadow.

Parker was still inside the brightly lit gas station shop, standing in line behind several people.

Wells sighed as he waited by her Lincoln. He sat against the side of the warm hood, lit up a cigarette, and puffed away at his cancer stick.

Thump, thud, thump.

There it was.

The thing that felt wrong.

Knocking on the tiny door inside the tiniest part in the farthest reaches in the back of his mind. The thing that was wrong, knocking on that door. Begging for his attention.

He still couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but it was knocking.

Thump, thud, thump.

Knocking, asking for him to open up. To unleash the darkness.

THUD.

Startled, he stood. The car had gently rocked under his rump. He shuffled away from the vehicle, staring at the trunk’s lid in disbelief.

Thump, thump, thump.

Thumping. Coming from inside the trunk. There was someone in there.

He approached with the same apprehension as approaching a corpse at a crime scene.

Finally, he popped the lid.

A short-lived shower of sparks exploded from the cigarette where it crashed onto the asphalt between his feet.

Staring back at him was a pair of pale-blue eyes, piercing into his soul with surprise. A crop of short, red hair, clinging to her forehead in a sheen of sweat. A short woman, dressed in a suit. Her hands were tied behind her back with silver duct tape, her ankles bound the same way. A length of cloth, wrapped around her head, kept her mouth gagged.

She had the same face.

Special Agent Parker.

She struggled to sit up while Wells still grappled with his disbelief, blinking furiously.

“I’m gonna… remove that gag,” Wells announced, nodding along with every syllable.

He reached down to untie the cloth. Parker did not resist. Once the gag was gone, she grimaced and rolled her sore jaw with a gasp.

“I don’t know who that is,” she blurted out. Through gritted teeth, she added, “I’m Special Agent Quinn Isabelle Parker. The real Special Agent Quinn Isabelle Parker, as far as I know.”

The moment Wells looked up to see if the other Parker was still standing in line inside the gas station shop, he found her only steps away from himself. Staring daggers at him.

The moment he reached for the service pistol hidden in its holster, it was too late. The other Parker had already lunged at him, seized his wrist. They shuffled, grunted, groaned. An elbow connected to his belly, knocked the wind out of his lungs. He hurt his knuckles when he struck bone with a fist, a sharp pain he shrugged off. They grappled, slipping out of one another’s grasp, both struggling to gain the upper hand—then she seized his upper hand, twisting it around till his wrist threatened to snap.

He snapped around and snapped a kick at her shins, but she caught the side of his head.

Next thing Wells knew, he was seeing stars, stumbling around in a daze. The pain from smashing his head into a hard metal edge arrived with delay. Something warm trickled down the side of his face, followed by coppery crimson fluid on his fingertips as he explored the source of that sensation.

A kick to the hollow of his knee sent him crashing down into the asphalt, inches away from his still burning cigarette. He saw his service pistol, several steps away, to where it had clattered.

Out of reach.

Parker—whichever one she was—stomped on his back, causing him to wheeze and groan from the blow. He shouted and mustered all his might, scrambling to get back up despite the sting of a sharp pain from his spine.

With the world spinning around him, he saw double. Or he saw double the double—Parker head-butted Parker. The bound Parker fell out of the trunk and collapsed onto the parking lot after having head-butted the other Parker.

Wells lunged at her—unsure which one, really, just aiming in the general direction of the one still standing—and landed a punch in her face.

What started as a groan erupted into howling in pain. His own howl. His fist felt like he had struck a concrete wall.

She returned a punch which sent him flying headfirst into the trunk’s lid, sparking another explosion of stars before his inner eye. The world started spinning even faster.

Reeling and failing to grab hold of anything, he slipped and slid and skidded along the side of the car, hands helplessly squeaking on the paintjob, until he crumpled onto the ground.

Parker approached and tripped—no, the other Parker had kicked her in the back of her legs, defying her bondage—and Parker fell onto Wells.

Face first into the muzzle of his gun. Which he had managed to pick back up off the ground. Its cold business end rested against her forehead.

He pulled the trigger. Time and the world slowed to a halt. The flash of light extended like a big bang, like the birth of a new universe, bright and blinding. The cloud of smoke reminded him of the death he regularly inhaled in form of cigarettes, also slowed to a crawl, devouring all memories.

The bullet from his SIG Sauer P226 entered her forehead and blew the lid off the back of her skull.

He groaned and strained to push the lifeless body off himself. It took him more than one try, even dropping his pistol to use both hands. Parker weighed a ton.

No—really—she felt like she weighed five times what she looked like.

Where the body flopped onto asphalt, no blood nor brains nor bones spilled out of that hole in her skull.

Only a thin stream of translucent fluid. And tiny metal circles. With perfectly shaped teeth.

Gears.

Bent, deformed. Damaged where a bullet had broken them. Cracked in some places.

Something else cracked. In Wells’ mind. How long was he frozen there, staring into the unnatural bowels of her skull, studying it in disbelief? Finding no goopy, wet mass, but something akin to the insides of a clockwork? Myriads of complex pieces, made of brass and steel, suffused with oil, all disrupted by the power of a lucky bullet?

“Help?” asked Parker. The other Parker. “Can you please untie me?”

She was flopping around on the ground like a worm, grunting as she strained to inch closer.

Wells raised a hand, motioning for her to stop.

Something festered in his head. An uncertainty taking root. Unsure if the crack in his mind—that fissure—would ever close again.

Thoughts kept flooding out of the broken dam, all of them flowing out in pieces. Shards.

One surfaced from the flood—the car. The thing that had been wrong.

The heat of the machine. The cold in the air. The car had been cold when they met in Richmond. She could not have arrived in a cold car after having driven cross-country to Virginia.

Some things clicked. Others still made no sense. Like the clockwork in her skull.

“Hello?” Parker asked. “Are you Special Agent Derek Wells?”

He nodded. Switched to autopilot. Two men had emerged from the gas station’s shop, gawking at them across the parking lot. Wells waved at them.

“Nothing to see here, move along,” Wells shouted, finally getting up onto his feet. He produced his badge and held it up high. “FBI.”

They murmured in response, still gawked for several seconds, then backed away with caution. Staring at the pistol.

Wells holstered his firearm and approached Parker—the real Parker? With swift paces, though he failed to walk a straight line. The world was still spinning. And his thoughts kept racing in the opposite direction.

Hunkering down, he groaned while he failed to rip apart the duct tape tied around her wrists. It had twisted and contracted in ways that made it impossible for him to tear it with his bare hands.

“She has a carpet knife on her,” Parker said. “Use that to cut through the tape,”

His gaze swept back to the other Parker. The clockwork parts strewn out on the Tarmac near her skull. His stomach lurched. Wells felt like throwing up. Fought the urge, then moved.

Had to keep moving to stay in control.

He patted down the other Parker, grimacing as he accidentally touched a boob. The boob felt real. Then he noticed she had no holster on her body, nor any service weapon. Another detail he should have spotted earlier.

Finally, his hand found what he was looking for. The carpet knife. It clicked as he protracted the blade, and he proceeded to cut the real Parker loose, first freeing her hands, then her ankles.

She sat up on the asphalt, rubbing her wrists.

The dizziness overwhelmed him all the while.

Moments melted into minutes as Wells sat on the edge of the trunk, still recovering from the harrowing experience. His stomach kept churning, twisting one way, and then the other. Traffic continued to flow by, and gawkers came and went.

The real Parker radiated an eerie calm. Even calmer than the other Parker before her. As disheveled as she looked—with bruises and a blue spot on her neck from what he assumed to have been a prior struggle—she calmly examined the body of her doppelganger.

“Not human,” Parker concluded, rising from the ground where she had crouched beside the other body.

“What the hell is going on here,” Wells mumbled. There was no question hidden in his words. Only disbelief and a muted, helpless despair.

“She must have taken me alive because she wanted me for some unknown goal. A shame we couldn’t capture her and learn anything from an interrogation.”

The taillights of vehicles lazily drifted down the highway.

She continued, “Someone must have known. She asked me questions that only could have come from someone who knew.”

Wells shook his head. “Knew what? What the hell are you talking about? Our case?”

“No. Not our case. I suspect someone in the bureau is involved. Probably not you, though.”

“You’re gonna have to explain,” he muttered.

“You look uninjured,” she said. All up in his face.

He had failed to register her movements. Was he still out of it? Suffering from a concussion? Lost time? The tail lights melted into red streaks around him. A school of lights in the sea of darkness, where his consciousness swam along the surface, with no land in sight.

Parker stood in front of him, studying his face, gazing into his eyes. Her fingertips were cold where they touched upon his skin, examining him with the bedside manners of a butcher.

“How many fingers am I holding up, Special Agent Derek Wells?”

“Fifty,” Wells replied. “Just… call me Derek.”

“Well, if you’ve maintained a sense of humor, I’m sure you’ll be fine. If you’re feeling up to it, can you get us some coffee? I’ll have mine with—”

“Cream, no sugar. That right?”

“How’d you know?”

“Asked around about you. Read your file.”

“Were you authorized to read my file?”

“Uh, well—”

“Mildly unethical.”

He snapped to full attention. The spinning ceased. The urge to throw up grew explosively. He could practically taste the bile already.

She continued, “But I can’t hold it against you. I was going to do my homework on you, too. Just never got around to it because that thing—she—kidnapped me the moment I left Richmond Airport. Like I said, if you’re feeling up to it, I could really use some coffee right now. I’ll load the body into the trunk. Best we keep this under wraps until we know more.”

Parker produced a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket, lit one up, and then held it out to Wells.

He grabbed the cancer stick and took a long drag from it.

Then he dropped to his knees and threw up.

[nguerrero]

general info —

full name: natalie isabel guerrero

nickname: nat

age: 25

birthday: february 4th, 1998

sexual orientation: pansexual

residential area: downtown fairford

occupation: tour and event coordinator at her family's vineyard

gender: cis female

pronouns: she/her

traits:

+ Reliable, Independent, Knowledgable - Critical, Worried, Perfectionistic

about —

the youngest daughter of the guerrero family, nat was born into a life of financial stability and general comfort. she grew up in the farmlands, a huge estate that sometimes needed motorized transportation just to get around in it. (think of parker knoll in parent trap)

it was very clear to nat, from a fairly young age, that what the guerrero family had was a privilege, even if she didn't recognize it as such at that age. but she always knew she was lucky and knew that not everyone else had the same luck. despite her comfortable life, she never mistreated anyone based on their financial opportunities, although multiple times she has faltered and assumed that her daily commodities were norm.

unlike other kids, nat's room was always tidy and her school notes were color coded. she did not particularly excel in any particular subject, but loved english and languages. she still got by with decent grades and a lot of friends, despite the resting bitch face she grew into as she got older. she was in every single planning committee she could get into and helped coordinate multiple events in high school, as well as yearbooks and field trips. to this day, people talk about these events and remember them - and for good reason: nat would not allow herself anything short of perfection. a trait of hers that would end up developing anxiety and self-worth issues.

after graduating high school, her parents paid for her to study in barcelona for two years, but after getting homesick and struggling with her mental health, nat returned and finished her degree in business management in washington state. despite her threats and promises of moving away and traveling the world, she has never been able to leave her family and the fairford community for long.

she started working full-time at her family's vineyard as soon as she graduated college and is the best at hooking friends up with jobs at the vineyard too. she does most of the tour and event planning there, which is a big job - and it is surely burning her slowly, but nat claims that she loves it.

natalie loves her family and she's super grateful to them for everything they've provided for her, but has realized how coddled by them she's been her whole life, so she's on the search for her independence and her individuality, trying to figure out who she is outside of the guerrero bubble. she now lives downtown in an apartment, and is kind of struggling trying to figure out adulting by herself.

more!

although she's not the most creative nor does she really possess the skills, nat enjoys knitting. if she loves you, she has made you something.

she's a big people person and loves going out, aka huge extrovert. does things like paying for people's drinks as long as that means people are drinking with her.

speaks english, spanish, italian, and is learning korean.

some other hobbies of hers include: reading, travelling, wine tasting (duh), gym-going, and convincing people to let her organize their closet.

wanted connections —

members of the guerrero family. give her older siblings, or younger brothers, anything. pls.

adult friends! she's super outgoing and really loving once you get past the rbf.

one night stands/hookups

exes, failed situationships (from high school, college, or present day)

high school friends / lifelong friends: nat grew up in fairford, and her family is well-known.

gym buddy

neighbors in downtown

previous neighbors in farmlands

clients she's worked with at the vineyard

friends she's made traveling (barcelona friends would be cool but i'm open to more than just that!)

[dramyhsturgis]

Dark Academia Works Inspired by True Crime Cases?

Hello, all! I am looking for recommendations of Dark Academia works (novels, short stories, films, television series) based on true crime. I would be grateful for any suggestions for my list. Thank you!

I am intentionally casting my net widely, defining the Dark Academic genre (as opposed to the aesthetic) as one that focuses on an academic setting and educational experience, employs Gothic modes of storytelling, cultivates a dark mood by contemplating the subject of death, and offers critique for interrogating imbalances and abuses of power.*

Below the cut is my current list of Dark Academia Works Inspired by True Crime Cases. All suggestions are welcome!

Dark Academia Works Inspired/Informed by True Crime Cases

Note 1: “True crime” is defined here as a specific case (for example, a murder or missing person’s case), not as a larger historical event (for example, the Salem Witch Trials or the Opium Wars) or an amalgam of cases (for example, general hazing in fraternities). Note 2: This list is in chronological order based on the true crime case. Note 3: Some works that aren't fully DA but incorporate DA sections are included.

TRUE CRIME: 1897 disappearance of student Bertha Mellish from Mount Holyoke College DA novels: The Button Field by Gail Husch (2014) Killingly by Katharine Beutner (2023)

TRUE CRIME: 1924 killing of Bobby Franks by University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb DA Novels: Compulsion by Meyer Levin (1956) Nothing but the Night by James Yaffe (1957) Little Brother Fate by Mary-Carter Roberts (1957) These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever (2020) Hollow Fires by Samira Ahmed (2022) Jazzed by Jill Dearman (2022) DA films: Rope (1948), Compulsion (1959), and Murder by Numbers (2002)

TRUE CRIME: 1932 kidnapping and killing of Charles Lindbergh, Jr.; 1933 kidnapping and killing of Brooke Hart; and 1932-1934 crime spree of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow DA novels: Truly Devious books by Maureen Johnson (especially the first trilogy, 2018-2020)

TRUE CRIME: 1944 killing of David Kammerer by Columbia University student Lucien Carr DA film: Kill Your Darlings (2013)

TRUE CRIME: 1946 disappearance of student Paula Jean Welden from Bennington College DA novels: Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson (1951) Last Seen Wearing by Hillary Waugh (1952) The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992) Shirley by Susan Scarf Merrell (2014) Quantum Girl Theory by Erin Kate Ryan (2022)

TRUE CRIME: 1973 killing of student Cynthia Hellman at Randolph-Macon Women’s College DA novel: Good Girls Lie by J.T. Ellison (2019)

TRUE CRIME: 1978 killing of students Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy and attack of students Kathy Kleiner and Karen Chandler by Ted Bundy at Florida State University DA novel: Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll (2023)

TRUE CRIME: 1985 killing of Derek and Nancy Haysom by University of Virginia students Elizabeth Haysom and Jens Söring DA novel: With a Kiss We Die by L.R. Dorn (2023)

TRUE CRIME: 1999 killing of student Hae Min Lee from Woodlawn High School (by Adnan Syed? debated) DA novel: I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai (2023)

TRUE CRIME: 2022 killing of students Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin from the University of Idaho (by Washington State University student Bryan Kohberger? currently awaiting trial) DA novel: This Book Will Bury Me by Ashley Winstead (2025)

*(I go into this definition in further detail in my segment here on the StarShipSofa podcast, my graduate course on Dark Academia, and my 2023 academic essay "Dark Arts and Secret Histories: Investigating Dark Academia.")

[parkerbombshell]

Just Another Menace Sunday #1071 w/ Jesse Malin

New Shows Sundays 4pm EST bombshellradio.com Repeats Wednesdays 11am EST and Fridays 6pm EST Archival Shows available on bombshellradiopodcasts.com "Just Another Menace Sunday" radio thing. This Week: A Two Hour Special Show featuring almost all the tracks on the new "Silver Patron Saints: The Songs Of Jesse Malin" record + Clips from my 2007 and 2020 Conversations with Jesse + a few of his tracks!     This Week's Interview: Jesse Malin This Week – Episode #1071 TWO HOURS OF MUSIC FROM SILVER PATRON SAINTS -THE SONGS OF JESSE MALIN + 2007 & 2020 CONVERSATIONS WITH JESSE +A FEW OF HIS SONGS SUNG BY HIM TOO! (09/22/2024)   Theme Song Just Another Menace Sunday Theme (Dennis The Menace) - Mighty Six Ninety Hour 1 TWO HOURS OF MUSIC FROM SILVER PATRON SAINTS -THE SONGS OF JESSE MALIN + 2007 & 2020 CONVERSATIONS WITH JESSE +A FEW OF HIS SONGS SUNG BY HIM TOO! OPENING SONG: Greener Pastures – Graham Parker (Glassnote) Jesse Malin Conversation – Phoenix Hotel, San Francisco 2007 The Way We Used To Roll – Spoon (Glassnote) Dead On – Ian Hunter (Glassnote) All The Way From Moscow – Willie Nile (Glassnote) Meet Me At The End Of The World – Alejandro Escovedo (Glassnote) Jesse Malin Conversation – Menace Hollywood Knolls Studio 2020 High Lonesome – Susannah Hoffs (Glassnote) Room 13 – Lucinda Williams And Elvis Costello (Glassnote) Turn Up The Mains – Alison Mosshart, Wayne Kramer, Tom Morello, Steven Van Zandt (Glassnote) About You – Frank Turner (Glassnote) When You’re Young – Low Cut Connie (Glassnote) Death Star – The Hold Steady (Glassnote) Black Haired Girl – Billie Joe Armstrong (Glassnote) Mona Lisa – Jesse Malin (Sheridan Square) Hour 2 TWO SOLID HOURS OF JESSE MALIN IN CONVERSATION AND MUSIC (CELEBRATING SILVER PATRON SAINTS!) She Don’t Love Me Now – Bruce Springsteen (Glassnote) Oh Sheena – Counting Crows (Glassnote) Riding On The Subway – Tommy Stinson And Ruby Stinson (Glassnote) Broken Radio – Jesse Malin (One Little Indian) Jesse Malin Conversation – Phoenix Hotel, San Francisco 2007 Brooklyn – Dinosaur Jr. (Glassnote) You Know It’s Dark When Atheists Start To Pray – Gogol Bordello (Glassnote) Prisoners Of Paradise – Bleachers (Glassnote) Shining Down – Aaron Lee Tasjin (Glassnote) Almost Grown – Danny Clinch And Christopher Thorn with Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country (Glassnote) Shane – Rocky O’ Riordan (Glassnote) Don’t Let Them Take You Down (Beautiful Day) – The Wallflowers (Glassnote) Frankie – Murphy’s Law (Glassnote) CLOSING SONG: God Is Dead – Agnostic Front (Glassnote)   Read the full article

[screamingforyears]

IN A MINUTE: // A POST_PUNK_ISH EXPRESS…

“EXPIRATION” is a choice cut from BLOOD RAVE’s freshly dropped EP titled ‘Determinate Bias’ & it finds Fearing’s @jamesrogerx living that cheekily “something to keep me off fortnite” lyfe across a sub-4 min slice of deliciously dark_waving & deviantly Depeche_moding ElectroPop.

“HAVE SOME SHAME” is the lead/title-track from @dontgetlemontx’s forthcoming LP (4/23 @alacarterecords_@summerdarlingtapes) & it finds the Austin-based trio encompassing “the hidden desire for fame wrestling with the shame one feels being bare for anyone to criticize” across 4 mins of dizzyingly detached SynthPop.

“SPIRAL DOWN” is the second single from @exhyena’s forthcoming third LP titled ‘A Kiss of the Mind’ (TBA: @remissionentertainment) & it finds the Boston-based duo of Reuben Bettsak & Bo Barringe glitching out across a 5:20 clip of experimentally inclined, vaporously swelled & dankly dripped DarkPop.

“AS SPOKEN” is the blistering lead/title-track from @knollgrind’s latest LP & it finds the Tennessee-based outfit bringing the caustically sheered pain across 5+ mins of their relentlessly blk_metal’d, ghastly avant-garde & noizily bombastic FuneralGrind.

@profitprison are back w/ “SOPHIA,” the lead single from their forthcoming debut LP ‘Gilt’ (4/26 @avant_records) & it finds producer Parker Lautenschlager’s Seattle-based project soundtracking our bad dreams across 3 mins of hi-nrg-ing, salaciously synth_waving & pristinely pet-shopped DarkDisco.

////

[runilareads]

Review: The Favorite Sister by Jessica Knoll

Title: The Favorite Sister Author: Jessica Knoll Series: N/A Release Date: May 2018 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Rating: 2 stars

Favourite character: Layla Least favourite character: Stephanie

Mini-Review: What. The. Actual. Crap. Okay so… I have a lot to say about this book but I'm going to try and condense it. First things first is that for a thriller it's not very… thrilling. For the first 3/4 of the book nothing happens and then all of a sudden so much happens you can hardly keep track of it. I didn't like the use of present tense for what were supposed to be flashbacks. And Brett and Stephanie's "voices" for their povs felt similar so I often forgot whose I was reading from if I stopped in the middle of a chapter. The characters were insufferable and honestly, this book is high school drama with money and reality tv but with adults. Would've been a one star but I gave it the extra star for shocking me at the end.

Fan Cast: Brett Courtney - Barbie Ferreira Kelly Courtney - Maiara Walsh Stephanie Simmons - Teyonah Parris Lauren Bunn - Halston Sage Jen Greenberg - Emma Dumont Vince DeMarco - Toby Leonard Moore Jesse Barnes - Debi Mazar Lisa - Kristin Chenoweth Arch - Ritu Arya Dr. Chugh - Archie Panjabi Yvette Greenberg - Parker Posey Satya - Ace Bhatti

[maikeymonroe]

@mavaray

My little MyMy!

You're so young and I'm so mad about it. Thanks for being my ride or die, my favorite cuddle buddy, the Thelma to my Louise, the Romy to my Michele, the Meredith to my Cristina, the Tina to my Amy, the Fiona to my V, and so many more. As soon as I'm back from Canada, we're having a night all about you!

Your favorite person ever, M (to your &M, of course)

Gifts:

'sing to me paolo' sweater

do not disturb candle

parker knoll/the parent trap tee

i am everything affirmation cards

sparkling drops tennis bracelet

[svglandsc]

Parker Knoll Vineyard The Parent Trap Svg Graphic Designs Files

[portlandwithyou]

My dad has just informed me that one of the men that sat on the SVB Board was Garen Staglin aka the owner of the Staglin Family Vineyard aka the Parker Knoll from The Parent Trap (1998) and I am hollering

[thechemistryset]

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Ignoring the Whispers

Bright daylight painted the sky deep blue. Yellow police tape fluttered dreamily in the breeze.

Just another beautiful day in a haunted neighborhood.

FBI agent Derek Wells ducked underneath the crisscrossing lines of yellow tape, entering the abandoned home with cautious steps. Broken glass crunched underneath his shiny shoes. Agent Parker paused by the entrance, letting her gaze sweep over the surrounding neighborhood.

Enemies close, spoke whispers in her head. So very close.

“Earth to Special Agent Parker,” said Wells, peering back at her from inside.

She stared at the neighboring home across the street: idyllic, roomy, and expensive. Plenty of trees and green wherever she looked. A tall white fence shielded the property from prying eyes.

Everybody in the suburb of Manor Park Knoll lived on stacked bank accounts. A quiet street. Police must have responded quickly.

“Hello-oh?” asked Wells. “You zoning out again?”

Parker stared at a patch of asphalt on Central Avenue. A spot where she expected to see a shiny black sedan.

Instead, she only glimpsed an empty spot. People rarely parked on the curb in a neighborhood like this.

Yes, there. Look. The absence of something to come.

Listen…

“Seriously,” Wells said. “I’m starting to worry about you.”

The chugging of an engine, struggling to start. Listen. You will hear it soon.

She ignored the whispers and turned. Wells’ right hand twitched. The last time she had seen that twitch in his digits, he had drawn his gun. Shot her doppelganger on a truck stop parking lot.

His big brown eyes scanned her up and down.

Awaiting her next move.

He is no enemy.

“Yes,” she finally replied. “I am zoning out. Hearing whispers.”

Wells cocked his head and frowned.

“Still? What are they saying?” The frown transformed into an uneasy smirk. He emphasized his next words for comical effect. “Are they telling you to kill? You know, I’d like a little heads up if they are.”

Parker did not find it funny, nor did she laugh.

She shook her head and swooped underneath the police tape, following Wells inside.

“I’m trying not to listen to them, though they seem to be warning me of a presence that isn’t here. Or—not here yet.”

With that, she took a wide step to avoid the broken glass from a vase on the floor. Then realized there was no broken vase on the floor. She felt lightheaded. Like the first precursor of an oncoming headache.

Not here… not yet. Listen.

“Maybe you need to lay off the coffee,” Wells said.

He awaited no answer. Scouted ahead. Paused mere steps inside a roomy den, branching away from the hallway.

“Or maybe we need more of it,” he muttered.

Appalled at the crime scene clues unfolding before his eyes, he grimaced.

Blood splatters had dried all over the floor, furniture, walls, and ceiling.

A chunk of something that must have been dried human flesh still clung to a wall at the bottom of a brown streak, as if glued into place.

“This is where Agent Bennet was murdered,” Wells mumbled.

He took up position halfway into the room, shot glances back and forth until it felt right, then posed like a shooter, aiming with a finger-gun at one of the walls. Shooting an imaginary target.

“Bang. Bang. Bang,” he mumbled, voicing each pull of the invisible trigger. “Incident report says he was shot three times. Close range. Point-fifty Action Express.”

“The killer used a Desert Eagle?” Parker asked, examining other splatters.

The carnage painted in blood echoed multiple murders. More than one person had been slain in this den. Someone’s head had crashed into the TV screen, leaving a shattered electrical husk behind. White tape outlined two spots where investigators discovered adult bodies.

“They found no empty casings, so the killer either collected them before leaving, or used a revolver.”

Parker stared at the dried splatters, spellbound.

Making sure. Making sure they wouldn’t find it.

“Find what?” Wells asked.

“Huh?”

Parker blinked.

“You mumbled something about, ‘making sure they wouldn’t find it’ or something like that. That the whispers talking? Y'know, I mean it. I can go out and grab us more coffee if you need it.”

Parker swiveled and braced herself against the doorframe. Staving off a brief spell of dizziness.

This was bad. She felt a skeptical frown from Wells, his gaze drilling into the side of her head.

“I’m trying to ignore them, but they are becoming more… intrusive,” she breathed. Then… after a weary sigh…

Are you okay?

She answered, “I’m okay.”

Almost at the same time, he started asking, “Are you o—” The words died in his mouth. A different question arose yet stayed unvoiced.

“This is also where Betty Colliers was slain in the first killings. Where was Agent Murphy killed?” Parker asked instead.

Listen. You… listen.

“Yeah. The first killings involved no use of firearms. All committed with objects from around the house, all blunt force trauma.” He paused. Pointed. “The blood over yonder on that wall says a fourth shot was fired in the second killings, but it didn’t slay Agent Murphy. Not in here.”

Wells took the lead, guiding them back out of the den, through multiple doorways, across the hall, through a spacious dining room with overturned chairs, more doorways, stepping over two sets of human body outlines drawn onto the floor with white masking tape—one of a dead child, the other of Winston Colliers.

Then they wound up in a huge kitchen area.

Look. Look at the footsteps. At the doors.

Parker paid attention to the blood splatters; scanning the trails left behind. The pictures took a clearer shape before her inner eye, eerie afterimages—shadows—briefly illuminated by flashes from crime scene investigation cameras.

Ghosts.

Her own thought. Not a whisper. Sometimes, we find the ghosts and give them voices.

She paused by the white outlines on the hardwood floors. Something wielded with unnaturally great strength had beaten down Winston Colliers, then killed Adam Colliers, taking turns to bludgeon them to death.

They had begged while crawling away from their ruthless killer.

Days later, Agent Murphy had fled through the crime scene, leaving a bloody footprint every time his left shoe touched down—injured from being shot by the killer in the second incident. One such shoe print was right inside the white lines marking where Winston’s body was found.

Murphy had limped his way to the kitchen.

Wells gestured to the dried signs of carnage there. Agent Murphy’s brains had painted half of the stark white kitchen furnishings in a muddy brown stain. He had crashed into the island in the center of the kitchen space, where more splatters marked the area around a sink, some of the blood even having dried on a stray cutting board on the counter.

A knife was missing from a knife block.

Look.

Something was amiss—not the murder scene, but the tracks. Someone else’s shoe—a sneaker? The shoe had slipped somewhere in a puddle of Murphy’s blood. Just a bit—the tip of a sneaker. Distinct treads, carrying a specific imprint with their rubbery bottoms. A running shoe.

Trailing away from where the fight had ended, several wide steps away.

“Does something smell like rotten tomatoes to you, too?” Wells asked. He sniffed.

The glow of the refrigerator engulfed him as he opened it and checked inside. Glass bottles clinked.

More images flashed before Parker’s eye.

Listen.

“Just me?” Netting no response from Parker, Wells sighed. “Not coming from the fridge, anyway.”

Too engrossed in those mental images, Parker reconstructed the events. Still blurry.

Like a Polaroid photo slowly coming into focus as it developed.

The killer had disarmed Murphy. The streaks indicated how his service weapon had skidded across a pool of his own blood, stopping somewhere underneath another set of cupboards. Gone now, evidently, likely contained in evidence lock-up. Murphy had wielded the kitchen knife as a last-ditch effort.

“Knife is in lock-up,” Wells said, almost as if having read Parker’s mind. “Was covered in Murphy’s prints, Betty Colliers’ prints, and nobody else’s.”

Had she whispered out loud again?

He added, “Agent Murphy presumably survived a bullet to the head right there but took another three bullets to the sternum and heart. That’s why I’m thinking the killer collected his own bullet casings.”

Parker followed the sneaker print. Subtle. Pointed. Slender.

A running shoe. Brand unclear. It looked familiar—like she had seen it before, somehow.

She put her weight on her heel to hide where she was going.

“Seriously, what is that smell?” Wells asked, sniffing again.

With only the prints of eight steps to go by, Parker followed. She crept through the door to an adjacent laundry room, which led to a huge garage, currently housing a vintage sports car, a brand-new Honda, and a Ferrari. Everything smelled like bubblegum and cleaning detergents.

No more blood trails beyond the door to the garage. The concrete grounds of the garage looked pristine.

“You notice something the local P.D. missed?” Wells asked from behind her, peeking over her shoulder.

Look.

“All vehicles are accounted for, right?” Parker asked.

A door.

A cold breeze swept inside from the open garage doors. It carried the scent of motor oil and grit.

“Yeah. None stolen. Nothing taken from the house, or at least nothing anybody could find. This whole thing stinks of a mob-style hit job, given what little we know about Colliers and the witness protection program he was in. Makes the second set of murders way weirder, though. Unless…”

Parker studied the door, connecting the laundry room to the garage.

“Unless they knew something about the program,” Wells finished his thought.

The door… a door…

“Whispers, again?” he asked.

Parker shook her head.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Look, I know we’ve had a serious brush with the unnatural already—well, twice, counting what you described from the cafe’s backrooms—but I am concerned that some part of your experiences may be, well—”

“Special Agent Wells,” Parker said. Sharply. “You overstepped your boundaries when you read my file. But I’m not going to hold that against you. Instead, I ask you. Did you find any indication of mental disorders in my psych eval? Or was there something else you read in there—about my childhood diagnoses—that makes you question my mental stability?”

“No.” He rolled his shoulders with a sigh, venting some tension.

“Know this, then. I cannot tell where my gut instinct ends, and these whispers begin. But if it’s any consolation, I’m trying to ignore them.”

“Okay—okay. Look, I’m sorry I said anything. I’m gonna take a leap of faith with you and take your word for it. We’re partners on this case, and if I can’t trust you, I can only trust myself. Two brains are better than one, after all, and I got a sinking suspicion that we need to be watching each other’s backs on this.”

“Special Agent Wells, please, do not relax. I’m also asking you to stay alert. My experience with the occult may be limited, but I know enough to be concerned. There is a distinct possibility that someone or something is invading my mind and—at best—trying to influence me, or, at worst—attempting to assume complete control over me. If the worst comes to pass, you must be ready to neutralize me.”

His entire body turned rigid with a new wave of overwhelming tension.

Wells glared at her. Shook his head.

“Neutralize? Wow. Y'know, if you there was another clockwork robot masquerading as the real Agent Parker, I wouldn’t be able to tell you apart now.”

As always, Parker avoided eye contact with him. Now, she turned her back on him entirely.

She said, “Let’s just stay focused. Focus on the job.”

Icy. Cold.

That hurt…

A wave of that frosty air hit Wells, whose voice shuddered from her reply. He shifted his weight uncomfortably and reached out. His hand hovered behind her shoulder, stopping short of resting there.

“Hey. Ugh. I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Quinn, I’m sorry.”

“Agent Parker, please,” she muttered, focusing on the door between the laundry room and garage. “We’re not that close, so let’s at least try to maintain some level of professionalism.”

The heat of his hand withdrew. She pushed and pulled the door back and forth. The hinges did not squeak. Silent in every motion.

You… listen…

And the tracks ended there. Right at the door.

A door.

“No eyewitness accounts of any unidentified vehicles driving off?” she asked.

It took Wells a while to answer. Parker found him staring into a laundry hamper, lost in thought. Then he slapped the lid shut on the hamper and cracked out a quick reply.

“None. A neighbor two doors down heard every shot, called local P.D. immediately. Didn’t see anybody leaving the premises.”

Parker brushed past him, stopping to peer out the kitchen windows. A lush green backyard sprawled there, lined with trees and thick underbrush. The only thing that stood out was an expensive-looking playground set, barely used.

She peeled her attention from the garish yellow and red and blue colors of the plastic slide and dome-shaped jungle gym.

“I wonder,” she murmured. “What if the killer never left?”

Wells blinked.

Parker absently pointed at the door to the dining room. “How did the first responders discover the Colliers in the first place? What did the investigators conclude? Before Agent Bennet and Murphy died here, that is.”

Wells’ eyes widened. He snapped his fingers and shook a fist, following her train of thought. “Coroner’s report said Betty Colliers was stuffed with parts of a grandfather clock—”

“Which, knowing what we know now, means Winston’s wife was not Betty Colliers, but a clockwork doppelganger.”

Both agents spoke simultaneously.

“Where’s the real Betty Colliers?”

Parker’s eyes flashed with excitement. “They must have missed something.”

Beware. Doors.

The rising volume of Wells’ voice mirrored her growing enthusiasm until abruptly stopping. “Maybe there's—aw shit—”

He unholstered his gun in a flash. Tapped its side twice with an index finger. He used no words. But his eyes spoke volumes of their own, saying, “Eyes peeled. Killer might be here.”

Parker returned a curt nod and drew her pistol.

With pounding hearts and stances as stiff as taut steel wire, they shuffled quietly through the small mansion. Pointing their firearms through doorways, inching along walls, only to pop out around corners, scanning each nook and cranny of every room.

Scouring the entire building from bottom to top, they snuck their way upstairs after scouting the ground floor, searching everywhere. Opening closets. Peering into bathrooms. Never blinking. Cautious at every doorway they crossed.

Breathless minutes later, they paused on their way back through the second story hallway.

“There’s a room missing,” Wells hissed. “Floor plan don’t add up, no walk-in closets between the bedrooms to account for it.”

“Could be electrical or plumbing,” Parker whispered.

He shook his head. Jutted his chin out at a tall cabinet in the hall.

She followed his gaze. Noticed what he was hinting at.

A spot on the floor. Scuffed marks on the hardwood. Subtle. Someone had moved the closet repeatedly.

Exchanging a glance, they approached the cabinet with silent steps. The only thumping came from their beating hearts, the rushing blood in their ears. Peeking into the crack between the back of the cabinet and the wall from both sides.

A door. Hidden right behind it.

Wordlessly, they moved in sync. Quickly cooperating to move the towering piece of furniture. Too heavy to lift, they ended up dragging it. The wood groaned and moaned underneath its massive weight.

If anybody had been hiding in that hidden room still, they knew. Now they knew someone had found it. Then again, if anybody had been hiding in there, they couldn’t have moved the cabinet in front of the door.

Such thoughts circled the minds of both FBI agents, a conversation left unspoken. They paused by the door, flanking it left and right. After a nod in agreement with one another, Parker pushed it open, and they both aimed their guns inside. The door slammed against a wall, causing glass panes in wooden panels to shudder and rattle.

Darkness. Motes of dust danced in the natural light pouring in.

Plastic clicked in Parker’s hand—her flashlight switched on, with which she shone a bright cone of light inside.

Glass display cases and shiny objects within them reflected the illumination. Shelves, dressers, more furniture; all stacked and lined with books and countless objects. A small museum.

It smelled of dust.

And blood. And death. A woman’s body lay in the far back of the narrow chamber. Motionless.

Wells pawed around for a light switch and found purchase. A warm chandelier on the ceiling flickered to life, casting a warm glow from a dozen tiny bulbs.

Both agents flinched as they finally got a good look at the contents of this room. It resembled nothing else throughout the abandoned home.

Though a creepy crime scene overall and the murders notwithstanding, everything else in the house looked clean. Well-organized. Unpersonal. Big windows, lots of light. Few family photos, all of them sporting feeble smiles, and few other items to tell any personal stories about the family of four who once inhabited it.

This room, on the other hand?

A door.

This room painted a drastically different picture.

A window.

Plates on display in a glass cabinet featured swastikas, painted in black and gilded with the finest of brushes, crafted by skillful hands. An old black military uniform dressed a mannequin, crowned by a red-and-white-and-black swastika flag hanging above it on the wall. Helmets, officer hats, and firearms that looked like relics from World War II had been neatly arranged in another vitrine.

An entire private museum of items, all taken straight out of Nazi Germany.

“Good lord,” Wells whispered.

Though no threats responded, the two agents snuck inside, carefully scanning every corner, aiming down the sights of their guns as they paced through the room.

Parker holstered her pistol.

Wells cringed, recoiling at the smell rising from the dead body. Parker, on the other hand, crouched right beside it. She focused her flashlight on the corpse’s head.

It looked like a mixture of mashed potatoes, jam, and paste. It reeked faintly of decaying cabbage and rotten meat.

Wells said, “Well, crap. Looks like we found the real Betty Colliers.”

“Blunt force trauma to her parietal cranium,” Parker commented. “Multiple blows, from the looks of it. One took her down, the rest finished her off. Great strength behind every strike, suggesting a male suspect—”

“Or a doppelganger. That doppelganger of yours was freakishly strong,” Wells interrupted her. He holstered his firearm as well, then pointed to a black phone on a small dresser near the body. “Check it out. Blood sprayed on nearby furniture, but no blood on the phone. I’m no gambling man, but I bet she was using that when the killer brained her.”

Parker nodded and rose to full height again, casting another glance in the round. The flashlight clicked between her fingers, then disappeared in her pocket.

She sighed.

“We can only speculate what happened here. Actually, I feel like we now know even less than before.”

Wells grimaced as he studied the collection of Nazi paraphernalia. Cutlery, jewelry, clothing articles, notebooks, pamphlets, maps—all marked with Nazi swastikas, symbols of the Black Sun, Schutzstaffel ornaments, items all clearly hailing from darker days in history. A series of black and white photographs told an indecipherable tale.

While he tried to keep his gaze away from the corpse, he failed to hide his disgust at the rest of their current environment.

“What’s your theory?” he asked her. He clenched his jaw.

She shrugged. “Clockwork doppelganger of Betty Colliers invades the Colliers home, sent by the same people who sent my doppelganger after us. The clockwork murders the entire family. Then, someone kills the doppelganger? Or it self-destructs in the living room once its job is done—we don’t really know how they operate. Or…”

Doors. Windows. All alike. Passageways. Pathways.

Parker sensed the precursors of a migraine. She pinched and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

Listen.

“Or?” asked Wells.

Look. You are being watched.

“Let’s say there’s another actor in this scene, someone we’re not considering. A Mister X if you will. Mister X shows up last. Maybe Betty Colliers survives—manages to kill her doppelganger, like you got mine—then Mister X kills Betty—right here.”

Parker pointed at the phone on the table.

“Okay, so, Mister X closes up this room and evades arrest somehow. Local police and the CSU comb this place—completely miss this room. Real Betty is still rotting in here even after they clear out,” Wells said.

Parker continued theorizing, “Then Agent Murphy and Bennet show up, investigate the crime scene the day after. Mister X ambushes and kills them both. Disappears from the premises without a trace.”

No. There is a trace. The shoeprint. Parker’s own thoughts? Or the whispers?

The door. The whispers. Some of it.

Parker lost her trail of thought.

Wells grunted and crossed his arms. “Still doesn’t explain the disappearing trick. I was kind of expecting one of those secret passageways, you know, like in those old murder mystery flicks? And… what about all this crap?”

Parker followed his gesture. She was uninterested in the Nazi collection. It inflicted deep discomfort and only added a puzzle piece she couldn’t attach to any others. At least not yet.

“Impossible to say if there was any connection. Until we figure out why Colliers was in a witness protection program, well, I’m not sure we have any leads whatsoever.”

“So, someone was either protecting a bona fide Nazi, or someone in the Colliers family had a real unhealthy obsession with this shit,” Wells muttered.

You are being watched. The door.

Window.

Parker looked around.

Look.

The secret room was windowless. The only natural light entered from the single only door they had stepped through.

Wells cringed as he caught another glimpse of Betty’s mashed skull. He groaned in disgust.

Parker stepped outside. When she peered outside the window at the end of the hallway, across a trimmed green lawn, past idyllic row of trees—

A shiny black sedan. Sitting on the curb. Where she had expected it to be. Where it did not belong.

It hadn’t been there before.

You are being watched.

Parker’s sharp eyesight caught a figure fidgeting behind the steering wheel: a man dressed in a black leather jacket.

“Parker?” asked Wells. A million miles away. A distant voice, slicing through the haze of Parker’s concentration. “Check this out…”

Parker thumbed the curtains to the side, allowing her to stare through the second-story window. At the man in a black leather jacket, sitting inside the sedan.

A man in black. Like the man Steven had described in his letter to her. The man looking for the book.

It had to be.

She bolted. Ran. Her footsteps thumped down the stairs, leaping several steps at a time. Wells shouted something in surprise behind her, though she was now deaf to the world, focused blindly on a single task.

To catch this mystery man in black.

Their only living lead. A connection, a source of answers.

Perhaps their Mister X.

Dark bags underlined the eyes of the man in black—eyes going so wide she could see the white in them as his eyebrows shot high. He ducked behind the dashboard. The vehicle’s engine chugged.

And chugged.

Parker cut across the ridiculously large front lawn.

A hand slapped the shoulder of the man in black—a slender, feminine hand. A hand that gripped with fierceness. Shaking his shoulder.

He was trying to start the car with a pair of exposed wires from the ignition, rather than with a key. The car repeatedly failed to start. Chugging and choking and dying.

Only a few steps away, the man in black ripped his door open and fled across the street. A split-second later, a woman dressed in a brown tracksuit ripped open a backseat door and chased after him.

Wells shouted again—from far behind Parker—but she was not going to slow her sprint.

The man in black’s attire surprised Parker, because he was wearing jeans crudely clipped above the knee with scissors, exposing pasty white thighs and calves. He tripped and stumbled while he ran away, enabling the woman in brown to run ahead of him.

They fled across the street. Parker chased.

The woman in brown yelled at the man in black to hurry. They all charged towards the house on the other side of the street. The tall white fence. The woman in brown practically flew over the fence like a trained acrobat, disappearing on the other side.

The man in black scrambled, barely making it over in time. Parker gained ground on him, just two steps short of grabbing his ankle, soon leaping up, hoisting herself over, and landing on the other side with a grunt, only steps away. A barbecue grill tumbled onto the ground between them, shoved by the man in black, and a dog barked aggressively behind another side of the fences.

The chase continued, with only the man in black in sight.

“Stop!” Parker shouted. She no longer ran but jogged and drew her gun to aim.

The man in black raised his hands and slowed down.

Beware—

Glass shattered. Out of nowhere, two slender hands had seized Parker by the shoulders. She stumbled and saw stars. Her face and forehead burned brightly, registering a heavy blow with delay. The woman in brown had reached through the window and smashed Parker’s skull into solid wood.

The dog behind the fence barked even louder. The man in black was already scrambling to scale the next fence at the far end of the backyard, having rounded a wide blue swimming pool.

Wells no longer shouted, but his footsteps neared, slapping against pavement. Parker staggered about till she regained her bearings. The woman in brown had vanished into the darkness of the home and Parker dithered on who of the two to chase.

The man in black struck her as… kind of an idiot. He slipped and fell over the next fence, and the dog’s barking turning into angry animal growls. The man in black stammered out swear words between what sounded like someone pleading with a “good doggie”.

Parker relied on Wells to catch up to the man in black and chose to chase the faster suspect: she jumped through the window. She had misjudged the distance and tripped over the back of a wide sofa, tumbling over cushions, and crashing sideways into a low glass coffee table.

Sharp pain flared up across her lower back.

A sneaker nearly stomped on her face, which Parker narrowly dodged by rolling away. Glass crunched, fabric swished, Parker took a kick to the side which knocked the wind out of her lungs. Another kick sent her service pistol flying from her hand, skidding into shadows underneath another sofa partition.

She caught the woman’s leg before a third kick could connect and tugged with all her might. More glass shattered as her assailant took a fall to join her on the floor, where they grappled amidst a sea of broken shards. They gripped and slapped and punched and rolled over each other in a growing, violent struggle.

Warm and sticky fluid blinded Parker on one eye, and she caught the woman in brown in a reverse chokehold.

A swift elbow to the gut broke the headlock. The woman wriggled out of her grasp and elbowed her again to the tune of a pained gasp. They both slipped twice as they struggled to get back up on their feet, evading each other’s ensuing series of lunging punches.

Door.

Long, straight, raven-black hair, now frazzled, framed the symmetrical face of the woman in the brown tracksuit. Murder glinted in her steely blue eyes, studying Parker’s movements closely as they circled around each other for painfully long seconds. Long enough for every sharp sensation of pain to catch up and cloud the FBI agent’s senses. Countless tiny cuts and bruises already littered her body.

Beware. Door.

Blinking. A blink was all it took. She took Parker by surprise—suddenly jumping into the next room. Parker lunged to chase after her. Then saw another explosion of stars.

Someone had struck her on the back of her neck, sending her face first into the door’s frame.

Somehow, the woman in brown had reappeared behind her. Out of thin air.

Fingers curled into Parker’s short hair, yanked back. Sent her crashing against the edge of the dining room table. She kicked the woman in the stomach, not mustering enough strength to keep her at bay. They immediately wrestled again—the woman granted Parker another explosion of stars by headbutting her. Where they crashed, she sat on top of Parker with her full weight, pinning her down.

The woman in brown showed a set of perfect white teeth as she grinned, but something insidious and malevolent flashed in her eyes.

Parker reacted just in time. Gripped the woman’s wrists before she could sink her thumbs into Parker’s eyeballs. Her grip trembled under the strain, vying for the upper hand, and failing—sharp thumbnails hovering dangerously close, a hair’s breadth away from scraping her eyes.

The FBI agent thrashed once, then twice, then a final time with previously untapped reserves of force, landing a knee in her opponent’s groin. Those thumbs missed eyes, leaving a burning sensation where one nail scratched her cheek. A dining table chair clattered and flew away from their continued wrestling. The women flipped over one another, and the woman in the tracksuit hit her head against the doorframe, rolling right back into the living room to kip up.

They both frantically got back up, but the woman in the tracksuit dove through the next doorframe.

Door. Left.

A knee connected to Parker’s belly, throwing her into a violent coughing fit as she reeled, failing to grab hold of the nearby table, and collapsing onto her knees. Good bad luck. A chair exploded into cheap plywood and a shower of splinters where a sneaker crashed down, narrowly missing her head.

Door.

The woman in the track suit kept appearing elsewhere. In the wrong places.

Whenever Parker blinked—she had changed positions. Defying physics.

Door!

More stars—a vase shattered over the back of Parker’s head.

Doorways. Windows.

It finally clicked. Parker blindly smashed thin air behind her with her elbow—thin air it was not, and her elbow connected. The woman’s nose cracked behind her, provoking choking and gasping as she stumbled away from Parker through another doorway.

Parker dove backwards into the dining room table, awkwardly sliding over its top to gain distance, and tearing down the tablecloth with her where she landed on the other side.

It had finally clicked.

Doors—whenever you aren’t looking. Whenever you blink.

She had been trapped between a corner of two open doorways, connecting the living room, dining room, and a hallway. The woman in the brown tracksuit kept disappearing through one and reappearing behind the other.

But the architecture made no sense. Too many walls to separate them. Too much space.

Through the door, the woman in brown flashed Parker another crazed, sadistic smile. She picked up a leg from the broken chair, weighing it like a club and splaying her fingers around it before tightening her grip.

“I guess you have some trick of your own up your sleeve?” said the woman in brown. Her voice was melodical.

Evil.

Sticky warmth trickled down Parker’s nape, which she absently wiped.

“No matter. I’m Karma, and this is your lucky day. I’m supposed to take you alive.”

“Freeze!”

A silhouette had entered the opposite end of the living room. Wells stood there, aiming down his gun’s sights at Karma. He gritted his teeth, visibly unwilling to pull the trigger as Parker stood nearby. Too risky to take a shot.

Karma hissed at him like a snake. Then ran right through the nearest doorframe.

Door.

Wells was standing next to another one in the den, adjacent to the hall.

“Door!”

Parker’s cry had warned him too late.

The confusion on his face soon gave way to explosive pain—Karma had crossed the distance of twenty steps in a split second, popping in one passageway and hurtling out of the nearest doorway at Wells, kicking him sideways in his ribs. He tripped over the broken coffee table and crashed into the couch.

Parker flipped the dinner table to quickly gain ground, took a running start, slid across the floor, then extended an arm. She reached underneath the other sofa partition to retrieve her gun, accidentally pushing it farther away.

Deafening thunderclaps resounded from two shots. Wells had fired at Karma, though every bullet missed. Gone through the doorway. Instead, Karma’s hands reached through the broken window behind Wells, yanking him backwards, and wrestling with him to pull him into the knife-like shards of glass still jutting out of the window frame.

Doors.

He wheezed, “What the—”

“Nobody needs you, though,” Karma hissed at Wells.

Wells started screaming once glass broke skin and his blood painted a shard crimson. Karma tried to saw his flesh against the jagged edge.

He fired shots blindly behind him, missing twice. Parker finally seized her own gun. She whipped it up. Steadied her own aim.

Breathe. Focus. Release.

Training kicked in. Parker shot at Karma, but the woman ducked behind the window in time, releasing Wells. He flopped away from the frame, gripping his bleeding neck.

Door. Left.

Parker shot blindly to her left without thinking.

Karma screamed in pain. The shot hadn’t hit, but tiny splinters of wood from the nearby doorframe were sticking out of her face.

“Fuck! How—fuck you!”

Door!

Parker swiveled—a split second too late—Karma had disappeared and grabbed her from behind again, locking her gun arm and neck in a merciless chokehold.

Dragging her. Away from Wells, who clutched his neck, stumbling forward while he haphazardly aimed at them one-handed, unable to take a clean shot without risking Parker’s life.

Doors…

A blink.

Just in a blink.

The world had changed dramatically around Parker. The trashed living space of the expensive home had been replaced by the abandoned expensive home of the Colliers across the street. Karma dragged Parker underneath yellow police tape, closing in on two sets of white tape outlines on the floor, near dried blood splatters, while Parker started thrashing to break free—

Through clenched teeth, Karma sneered at her, whispered in her ear, “You’re going wherever I wa—”

Parker kicked down and up with greater force—managing to slip her arm free from the iron vice of Karma’s grasp. The pistol’s muzzle slammed down into sneakered toes, eliciting a shout. Parker snapped the trigger.

Her ears were ringing after the bright flash, allowing only the faintest echoes of Karma’s shuddering gasp to pierce her deafened hearing.

Finally, Karma let go, stumbling through the next doorway. She limped. Parker dropped backwards. In an upside-down world, she aimed the gun at Karma and discharged it multiple times, losing count in the panic, but the woman in the brown tracksuit had already limped out of sight, bullets merely shredding wood.

A groan. Pained. Shuffling footsteps, one of them dragging behind the other.

Door. Right.

Parker didn’t even bother looking where she shot—right—instead pulling the trigger blindly.

Karma shrieked, dropping to one knee after being shot in her leg.

“How the fuck—you bitch!” She stumbled backwards through another doorway and disappeared.

Parker could not have explained even if she tried. The whispers. Acting on raw instinct.

You… listen…

Breathing. Karma was still there. Somewhere. Lurking. Just beyond the doorways. Somewhere else in the Colliers house.

Wells? Probably still in the home across the street. Maybe he had heard her shots.

Parker scrambled to her feet, crouching, and hectically pointing her gun, swiveling, and pivoting to cycle her aim between different doorways and windows. Heart pounding with terror, threatening to beat its way out of her chest.

Now doubly aware of every corner.

Eyes burning as she strained not to blink.

Shuffling, limping. Karma was somewhere in the house. Still there.

Plotting her next move.

Through the doorways, Karma spoke. Her voice came from different locations simultaneously. All the sadistic melody in her voice had died.

All replaced by malice. Seething rage. “You could stop resisting. Make things easy on yourself—just come with me.”

Parker steadied her breathing. Ready to fire blindly in any direction she wasn’t looking.

Listening for a warning.

Listening for a whisper.

The shuffling stopped.

The fresh, bloody shoe print—the foot of Karma’s she had shot—it had left the same print as the ones disappearing through the laundry room door.

This… this was her.

Karma. Mister X. The killer.

Doors. Left.

Parker gasped, swiveled, aiming through every nearby frame.

Right.

“I’m tempted to take you up on your offer,” Parker hissed through clenched teeth. Listening intently for a response.

Careful.

Heavy breathing. Her own. Only her own.

Karma had gone silent.

Parker added, “If it means you stop doing whatever you’re doing, I’ll come with you.”

No! Don’t.

Parker twitched, aiming through another doorway. No sight of Karma.

Karma whispered through the doorways. “Oh, really? I was hoping you’d say no. 'Cause I really, really, really just wanna hurt you now,” whispered Karma. “You only need to be alive and able to talk. Not sure the Way King needs you with legs.”

The earth quaked. Rumbled. Windowpanes rattled in their frames.

Parker inched back against a wall, gaze darting back and forth between three doorways. The nearest window.

“Eye for an eye, leg for a leg. Actually, let’s start with your toes and work our way up. I’m thinking… acid. Something to just eat up all the flesh and bone.”

Don’t blink.

Furious whispers everywhere, all of them insidious.

Her attacks could come from anywhere.

Don't… blink…

But Parker had to blink. Her eyes burned. She blinked.

Left.

Parker ducked. Wood clattered and exploded—a chair shattered against the nearby dresser instead of smashing into Parker’s head. She fired blind shots to her left mid-spin, splitting more wood from a doorframe.

“Fucking—how do you keep doing that? Are you psychic?”

“You first,” Parker breathed between labored breaths. “I love learning new things.”

Behind you.

Parker swiveled again and shot Karma in the belly before she could lance a long metal rod—what looked like it had come from a broken standing lamp—right through Parker’s chest.

Instead, the metal rod clattered uselessly on the floor. Karma pawed at the injury, staring at her own blood on her fingers in disbelief. The gunshot wound wept blood in gushing bursts.

“F-fuck this,” Karma stammered, clenching her jaw, and sneering at Parker. “You absolute bitch, I love this suit.”

She shambled backwards through the doorway and disappeared after another blink of Parker’s eyes.

Every time Parker pulled the trigger, the weapon clicked without effect. The cacophony of previous shots was still ringing in her ears. She cringed from the afterimages of every blinding flash, blinking the stars and searing sensations away.

Between the rushing of her blood, the ringing, and her heavy breathing, Parker may as well have turned deaf to the world around her.

Gone…

Still, Parker swiveled, crouching, just moments shy of giving up and curling up into a fetal position on the floor. She kept shifting her aim to keep pointing the gun at different doorways.

Despite the slide of her semi-automatic pistol having long locked into a stopped position. Its magazine empty.

Breathing.

Gone.

Breathe. Focus. Release.

Her training. Internal voices melting into one.

Where did instinct end? Where did the whispers begin?

“Woah! Easy! It’s me,” Wells exclaimed, hands raised, his service pistol held sideways.

He was missing his jacket. The right sleeve of his shirt had been torn off, haphazardly wrapped around his neck. Dark red soaked the blue fabric on one side.

Parker lifted her empty gun, making sure not to point it at Wells while he ripped away the yellow police tape to barge back inside the Colliers home.

He switched into a ready stance with his firearm, then proceeded to scout the environs, back turned to Parker.

“She’s gone,” she breathed. She slumped against the wall, sliding into a sitting position.

Everything hurt. Her lower back, shoulders, neck. Her vision blurred after every blink.

“Did she—did she just teleport? Can that lady just teleport?” Wells asked. Much like his sanity, his voice cracked midway. “Is this just the new normal now?”

“What about the other suspect? The guy in the jeans-shorts?” Parker asked.

Wells shook his head.

Her hands trembled while she reloaded her pistol with a spare magazine. The slide clicked back into place. “Crap.”

“Sorry. Had to make a judgment call. I am deathly afraid of dogs.”

“No, no need to apologize. We just—our only two leads just got away,” Parker said, exhaling sharply.

Gone.

Wells emitted a clipped laugh.

“Well, not exactly. Before you hightailed it out of this house, I used the redial on that fancy new phone in the Nazi’s hobby room.” The smirk on his face faded, making space for a grimmer expression. “You’re not going to like what it connected to.”

Parker’s brow furrowed.

“What?”

Wells rolled his jaw. Set it. He winced as he absently touched the makeshift bandage around his neck. Finally, he holstered his gun after more seconds of quiet between them.

Police sirens howled in the distance.

“I mean, shit. I’m not even sure this is a lead. It’s more like… this—this is bad, Quinn.”

Parker stood up straight.

“Parker, still,” she breathed.

He scoffed past a semblance of a smile.

“The re-dial connected to our FBI headquarters in Richmond.”

The blood drained from her face. She had suspected it. The reality of it hit far worse than Karma’s multiple blows to her head.

“We’re on our own,” Wells grumbled. “We need to get outta here, pronto.”

Listen…

Emergency sirens.

Steadily nearing.