Author's Note. I took a long break from this one because I was having trouble coming up with the next relics that would drive the story further. I have finally found what I was looking for and am looking forward to moving this story on.

Chapter 10 — The Weight of Two Relics

The Mine Shaft:
Jessie shakes her ass while dancing around on stage in her leather corset, garter belt, leather panties, stockings, and thigh-high laced-up leather boots with four-inch heels. The song she was belting out was written by another member of the band. Her long, neon-purple straight hair swirled around her head each time she twirled.

Alex had a terminal Cancer diagnosis and thought she would die before she got to be the girl she always was inside. That all changes when she's in the wrong place at the right time and gets transported to another world and into the body of a girl. So what if she's not human, she's alive and a girl. Now if only she had her sister with her to navigate this new world and her new responsibilities. Wait, she's here too? The passage of their souls between worlds may have doomed the Earth to apocalypse, but Alex and Michelle won't be there to see it and they have enough problems on their hands.
 

Myranda Whitmore: a woman in her mid-thirties, forged of unyielding authority and raw strength. She's the ultimate manipulator—the type no one dares refuse. No one, except her son, Eric Whitmore. At 13, he mirrors her commanding gaze and unblinking resolve, yet tempers it with a sympathy and kindness forever beyond her grasp.

Alex had a terminal Cancer diagnosis and thought she would die before she got to be the girl she always was inside. That all changes when she's in the wrong place at the right time and gets transported to another world and into the body of a girl. So what if she's not human, she's alive and a girl. Now if only she had her sister with her to navigate this new world and her new responsibilities. Wait, she's here too? The passage of their souls between worlds may have doomed the Earth to apocalypse, but Alex and Michelle won't be there to see it and they have enough problems on their hands.
 

Oh, hello! Please come in, handsome, and don’t mind the cats. But make sure you don’t step on any of them, hard as that may be considering the number currently in my “collection: you don’t want to end up like the last unfortunate fellow to darken my crooked doorway!

Alex had a terminal Cancer diagnosis and thought she would die before she got to be the girl she always was inside. That all changes when she's in the wrong place at the right time and gets transported to another world and into the body of a girl. So what if she's not human, she's alive and a girl. Now if only she had her sister with her to navigate this new world and her new responsibilities. Wait, she's here too? The passage of their souls between worlds may have doomed the Earth to apocalypse, but Alex and Michelle won't be there to see it and they have enough problems on their hands.
 

Girl Forgotten - Chapter Two – The Safehouse

Transgender FBI agent Julie Sanderson and deadbeat cop Bobby Keen take Caprice Capshaw, a Trans street hooker who had witnessed a murder for hire, to a safehouse. They plan to enlist Caprice as a confidential informant but Caprice has street-smarts and knows that what they are proposing is dangerous and she wants something worthwhile in return.

Chapter 42: Call to Carter

The next two days stretched on like an endless nightmare for Yuqi and Sapphire. They maneuvered around each other with a tension so thick it was almost palpable, each encounter a choreographed dance of avoidance. Every glance was carefully measured, and every interaction strained with an undercurrent of animosity, as they both played their parts in this twisted charade.

© Maeryn Lamonte 2025

It took me a moment to adjust to the mid-morning sunlight. We’d emerged in front of an abandoned factory building on an abandoned factory site. It was actually a pretty good place to have kept me. Difficult to isolate the building I was in from the others. Easy to spot when the authorities turned up. Maybe even with an escape route somewhere, though knowing Peter, that’s where he’d likely have stopped thinking.

© Maeryn Lamonte 2025

No dreams, just the sleep of the emotionally drained. It lasted all the way through to six o’clock.

“Three little maids from school are we,” blared from my phone’s small but powerful speaker, “Pert as a school-girl well can be, Filled to the brim with girlish gleeeeee. Three little maids.... from school!”

“Oh God!” I groaned.

“One little maid is a bride, Yum-Yum,” sang Alice.

© Maeryn Lamonte 2025

No erotic dreams this time. Maybe down to the delay in taking my evening pills, maybe down to my body adapting to the changes, maybe down to the worries I was carrying. What I did dream about was juggling Fabergé Eggs while keeping balance on a unicycle on a tight wire over such a deep drop that all I could seems below me was cloud. On the plus side, I didn’t drop anything. On the minus, I woke up in a sweat without the benefit of the night’s rest.

Janet was a tea person and had a pot on the go when I emerged.

© Maeryn Lamonte 2025

The shampoo and conditioner did their job again, leaving my hair feeling luxuriantly thick. I’d also noticed it was longer than it had been. I mean sure, hair grows so you’d expect it, but half an inch in a day? It looked untidy and ready for a cut when I put it into my habitual side parting, so I experimented, ending up with something that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Jamie Lee Curtis. Needless to say, it did look a little odd on me, but with a nightie on, decidedly less so.