Hey! Yeah, so the baby arrived on June 17th. I’m still recovering because babies are hard work! And recovering from surgery is a total whack job. I mean, really, the hardest part is the emotional surges and overall hormonal drainage. It’s like a hormone vampire came and sucked me dry and now I’m just a husk of a woman.
I’ve been posting pictures of the baby on Instagram, so if you want to see the adorable little tyke and her brother, sign up and follow me! I probably won’t post images here just because it’s kind of off-topic and I prefer to keep them on Instagram at this point.
But anyway, what you’re really here for is the teaser for Feed 2. I’m still not sure about the title, but I’m working hard to figure that out (The Second Feeding [?!]; Fast Feed [!!!] hahaha) and writing as often as I can (the baby is rather fussy, so the going is slower than I would like). I set a draft deadline for July 30. Whether I make it or not is up in the air. I’ll work my arse off, though, you can be sure of that!
Just a note on excerpts: these are generally rough drafts and are subject to change. Details may be wrong at this point because they haven’t been held up to the first book or compared to make sure there are no continuity errors and whatnot. With that in mind, enjoy!
Ramone flexed his throbbing fingers and squeezed his eyes shut. In the black of his brain where he confronted a massive darkness, he could still smell Blythe—her hair tangling around his shoulders as she hovered over him, the delicate flesh of her neck giving off the odor of jasmine . . . or coconut. Something. Ramone was horrible with the names of smells. In his mind he felt her body tense as he whispered—almost soundlessly—his plan into her soft ear. The nanocameras wouldn’t have heard it. He hoped. Once he had known their limitations. Now he was sure things had been pushed past a threshold even he hadn’t imagined.
The zip-tie around his wrist had been removed finally, but now he was stowed in a tiny bunker with a cramped bed, one small lamp on a table attached to the wall, and no way for him to leave without an escort. Staring at the ceiling, he rehearsed the tentative plan he’d told Blythe. Of course it was tentative, not that he told Blythe as much. It wasn’t like he’d been in a position to casually recite his idea, as though over coffee or tea. Not that Ramone was ever casual, he accused himself scornfully, reflecting back on that day in the coffee shop that preceded all this madness. What was it, a week ago? Less maybe? It felt like ten years had passed.
He’d been so nervous that night with Blythe. Even in those precious moments sharing a cot with her, the bumbling fool still hovered in the corner of his mind, mocking him and belittling his abilities as a lover and his capacity as a man.
Assuming that plan he’d shared with Blythe wasn’t tentative, he mentally worked on what he’d need to do to achieve the ends he desired. There was something he’d done from the very beginning, a safety device he’d programmed into his creation. Whether or not it remained, he couldn’t say. The nanocameras had become something so different from his initial vision. But if the design still followed his own concept, then there was hope. And if not, perhaps there was still a reason to hope.
If Ramone held his breath, he could hear, almost feel the hum of the building. Though it remained to be seen if this was the building, the throbbing feel of some kind of heartbeat coursing through the walls made him believe that it was. Was it the nest, like he hoped?
A scuffling sound at the door made Ramone sit up expectantly. When it opened and revealed the Director, he let the breath out that he’d unconsciously been holding.
“Come with me,” the frog-lipped man said.
Boom! Scary! Yeah! There’s more where that came from if you stick around.