2:10 a.m., Greenbeck Dermatology
Kristy
She rushed back into the room as soon as she heard the wife screaming.
Impatient as always, Rollins had already moved in for the kill. When Kristy entered, she found him on top of Jake, in the process of pinning the doctor to the floor.
“I told you not to fight it,” Rollins warned, but that only made Jake struggle harder.
“Please!” he cried out, now looking right at her.
“That’s right!” Rollins taunted. “Go ahead and beg.”
Still holding her gaze, Jake glanced to the right. Desperately trying to tell her something.
She followed his eyes, expecting to find Jess, only this time, he wasn’t leading her to his wife. He was trying to show her something else.
She instantly understood what he wanted her to do.
She backed up toward the drawer, watching with morbid fascination as Rollins raised the syringe into position, like a cobra poised to strike.
Don't let him see me... don't let him see me.
Palms slick with sweat, she opened the drawer.
***
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Crap Gray!! So, Bree is gonna identify with being an orphan. Well, I just thought of a crazy twist...all that unprotected sex with Jake...wouldn't it be something if Bree was pregnant...OMG! She couldn't kill her baby-daddy!! Now I'm just being silly.
I know we must only be one or two chapters away from the big finish and I look forward to it!!
~Ann
Hi Gray,
Yup, d-j all over again....
I'm waiting for the syringe to plunge, but instead, I've been getting sidetracked by these past two chapters.
I don't know what to say - the scenes in chs 33-38 (certainly the ones in Jake's head) were ultra fast and furious, and now I feel like I'm being slowed down in what should be the huge climax scene. The pacing should be increasingly frenetic... instead, I'm reading about K/Bs feelings. I want to see what's going on and hear Jake's heart thumping in his ears. I don't care about K/B... : 0 I care about JAKE!! : )
Puhleeze keep me in Jake's head and in the murder scene!
You've got such terrific tension going and you keep loosening it instead of tightening it across our throats....
I know, I'm whining...
Writing is fine, as always, but I'm too distracted by being away from the scene to be more specific than that. See, a plot-intensive story with great characters that makes me anxious to get back to (stay with) Jake is, ipso facto, a terrific piece of writing!
: )
Terri
Hey Gray,
I like this. But what if you lost that one last line about where Krisy is thinking, "In the end, it wasn’t Jake’s pleading, or the memory of what they’d shared together, that made her reach into the drawer. It was the thought of his daughter, the little girl she only knew through a picture. Whatever happened next, she knew one thing with absolute certainty.
She wouldn’t let that girl become another orphan.]
and just wrote, "She reached into the drawer."
That would leave us hangin', still uncertain about what she's going to do but giving us a clue.
Maybe you can throw in another hint about orphans, but keep it ambigious,
"She reached into the drawer. Thought of that little girl in the picture, So many orphans. Too many."
so we get the link to what she's thinking without a clear reprieve?
Just my thoughts...
Simi
Hey Gray, now I know something is amiss. I read this chapter, too.
I couldn't see how Jake could glance to the right with his head being held to the floor. Maybe show his eyes ricocheting to the right.
Don't let him see me(...)don't let him see me.
*So what am I thinking? I'm wondering what she could find in the drawer that could take Rollins down. A syringe of Replacidin?;) Hopefully, it's a scapel, and she'll give Rollins a big, bloody smile beneath his chin. I'm also wondering what will happen in the aftermath, should she be able to save Jake. Maybe Jake could become a Mormon and take Kristy for a second wife, and move to Utah. Okay, that's way beyond silly--even for me--but it's been raining all day, and I'm have early-onset cabin fever. I would've liked to see what's going on with Jess in this chapter. She was screaming when Kristy ran to the exam room. I forget. Is she tied to a chair?
One line edit: Palms sweating she reached into the drawer. *You could drag out the suspense a smidgen: Palms wet with sweat, (doesn't that have a nice ring to it?) she opened the drawer. Then, in the next chapter, she could choose her weapon.
later, gater
OMG Gray...!
Damn... By the time I finish this book my blood pressure is going to go through the roof... Kristy goes back and forth like a rubber ball, cuz now it looks like she's going to help Jake...
Of course if she helps save him and Jess, and she survives not getting knocked off, then who/how is going to choose between his women... So many decisions and not so much time to do it in... Keep Smilin'..... Jax
Gray....Finally back to reading again. Nice short chapter with lots and lots of tension built in. Like this chapter from her POV, somehow it elevates the suspense. Am determined to finish your story, so I will be moving on to the next chapter tonight. Didn't find any nits, so will move on....Denise
Hello, Gray. Wow! Short but very tense installment! Nice cliffhanger ending, too. I'm guessing Kristy will succeed with her mission, but of course something else will come about...maybe RC waltzes in with a mean handgun... Can't really think of much more to say reg. this chapter, Gray. But though very short, it was also very much an edge-of-the seat experience....
Off to the next...!!
Peace,
Mike
Author
Reply
Short chapter, indeed. Don't know if you noticed, but this is the same exact scene I open with in my prologue, only this time told through Kristy's POV. G;)
Nice tense scene! I thought for sure in the prologue he was talking to his wife, but this is a nice twist. Is she doing it for Jake or doing it to spite Rollins or doing it purely out of human decency? Hmm..
Again, not sure you need it, but maybe. It may end up a Scooby-Doo ending if you don't have it, so I'm torn.
Lauren
Author
Reply
Right. This is the opening prologue scene, but told through Kristy's eyes as she decides to save Jake and inject the reversal agent. Not sure how I can tell this through Jake's POV, since he'll be almost dead when she injects him to save him. Something good came out of all these plotting traps, since I learned to keep things simple in terms of POVs in the stories I wrote after this one.
Thanks again for reading on! Definitely don't want a Scooby-Doo ending, even though I loved watching that dumb show as a kid (the adult me has no idea why.)
Gray
Hi Gray,
Just a suggestion, but have you considered just switching the prologue to here?
So you can do away with Kristy POV and have the tension going from Jake POV, the prologue was just fantastic in upping the tension.
I do see why you'd want a Kristy POV, but it might be slowing down the pacing a bit. Especially because the last few chapters have been at breakneck speed, one blow after another.
Author
Reply
This is the prologue told through Kristy's POV. Totally unnecessary, so it will have to go. The next chapter shows this moment more effectively through Jess's POV, I think. Problem is, I don't know how I can narrate what happens next through Jake's POV since he's borderline unconscious in the next scene :)
Gray
No
Ann Everett