I glanced at Carson, who had promised things would be alright. His gaze was on the floor, and a muscle in his jaw flexed rhythmically but unhelpfully. If he was trying to send me a message, I was out of luck, because I'd never learned Morse Code for Assholes.

"Oh My God," I blurted, grabbing onto Phin as we faced the open bedroom door. "It's the axe murderer." "I doubt he would knock," she said, but she was whispering, too, and didn't move away from me.

That was easy for him to say when his cell phone was rounding third base. If anyone got a home run tonight, I didn't want it to be Verizon Wireless.

I glanced at Carson, who had promised things would be alright. His gaze was on the floor, and a muscle in his jaw flexed rhythmically but unhelpfully. If he was trying to send me a message, I was out of luck, because I'd never learned Morse Code for Assholes.

He rose to his feet in one fluid move, the better to look down at me. “You don’t know me, princess. Some people have reasons for doing things, and don’t just go wherever they’re told or drift whichever way they’re pushed.

Good writing is good writing. In many ways, it’s the audience and their expectations that define a genre. A reader of literary fiction expects the writing to illuminate the human condition, some aspect of our world and our role in it. A reader of genre fiction likes that, too, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the story.

She was the only creature in the world who would really care if something happened to me, even if it was only because I was the bringer of kibble.