Jeff Burton

That was actually a key thing, I knew total word count for this story as one unit was going to blow a 200k word count either way I did it. There’s just so much to friggen tell and you couldn’t gloss over any of it without doing damage.

This is the dilemma I’m working myself through too it’s been something I’ve been working on since the get go lol.

Me and @Jason Rimbaud have started a book club, no need to worry about the name or the details but here is the first pick A oldie by our own dear @Krista now I don’t have all the details yet but if you haven’t read this you should. Totally ignore all the recent comments on chapter 11. And yes @Jason Rimbaud I totally threw you under the bus by posting it in your thread. I can’t take all the sniper shots. 😉

Oh I don’t know if she can handle that LOL

@Krista I was going to wait till the end but Julie is a bitch lmao.

Well I’m reading all of the dirty little secrets from the past I’m totally tagging you in everything that involves filthy. And you are a distraction a delightful one. I’ll continue the deep dives though. This particular story didn’t get a lot of love, and she probably hopes it stays buried but totally not going to happen lmao.

This is what I fear as well but the honest truth is the sequel is really what would have been in this one had I did this correctly and written it in one go and posted it on a weekly schedule like a sane person. i think if I stay true to my notes and just continue as planned without trying to outdo what came before it’ll be okay.

@Jason Rimbaud I found evidence the Fabulous One can write filthy things.

Yeah talk about one hell of a long prologue, now I can actually do the real story.

Gonna give it a go either way at some point. It would be interesting to score it two years in a row with the same series lol.

Gotta have that teen angst added to an already precarious situation! I honestly don’t know if I could handle it in Josh’s shoes. He has pain that is yet isn’t his but hurts just the same, and the anger that isn’t is just makes him hurt even more. It’s a pretty precarious position to be in.

Shhhh… Remember that record was not here. It never was. Honestly I wouldn’t mind hearing about what readers think of Greg’s choice as well.

It’s already looking like it’s going to be a doozy lol.

Greg has really been the rock in this whole thing, he’s been able to keep that professional detachment for most of the story and at the end he has to make that hard choice. That choice is also in a morbid way for Josh’s benefit. I’m half and half on Josh actually being told and not ending up angry like Caleb, and having one mad is bad enough but if both of them are mad for the same reason I think the mental foundations that are holding both personalities up would start to crumble. Josh needs the grounding the Kincaids can offer, Walter was correct in that. I think Walter and Greg will hold onto their secrets until they can’t anymore. And Walter is already in an impossible situation which you’ll understand in the first chapter of the next story. Hell they all are and they just don’t know it yet. And you’re correct to feel the chills the true shit show hasn’t even happened yet.

Those are seriously good questions and those alone are enough for the second book. One thing I didn’t consider until towards the end was Caleb’s anger, Josh is really going to need to do something about it because as we see towards the end, because of the upheaval of the crash memory the void and the fog holding the partitions separate is unstable. The other thing I can see that makes this unstable is something Walter told Greg: This was done incorrectly. A false identity was never provided to him, so somehow the ‘Josh’ identity and personality was created from nothing — this hints at an unstable foundation, the sleeper partition that is basically Josh was created on the fly, something that wasn’t supposed to happen. From where I’m sitting these two are on day 52 of 90, and there is only 38 days left. Something that isn’t in the story but in Lindsey’s notes which somehow I have access too (😇) is that when they were testing the range, day 93 was showing signs of mental fatigue and cross contamination of the partitions IE Caleb was leaking through. Here we are at day 52 and we are beyond leaks, Caleb is able to control, fight, and now able to communicate outside of the void. That’s not a leak that’s a breach. Im no neurologist but something tells me the human brain wasn’t designed to have two different people in it for a long period of time (or any amount of time). So that could mean one of them eventually gets lost. If Josh gets lost and Caleb is free with no restraint and he’s still angry what does he do? If Caleb gets lost do the memories and training go with him and can the brain handle functioning with just Josh. Its really some crazy sci-fi stuff when you sit down and think about it, I kinda already know where it’s leaning because I have some good thoughts for book 2 that have been building for a while but it might get crazy for a minute in the middle.

Yeah we kinda gotta have it. I mean how often do you get the chance to write a gay high school romance novel with a character who was a CIA lab experiment who doesn't know he's a lab experiment yet? The more I think about it, the more i realize this was just the prologue for that book. 😂

Hah, and then there were 3. I kinda feel for Matty, another +1 for Kier for the way he handled him initially. If I was borderline sociopath I would have done it that way too. I also got to give Riley and Lee some major credit for coming together like they did. I had a feeling if push came to shove they would. I eagerly await to see how Matt handles himself in the next chapter.

Yeah I do as well. Probably for the same reason.

This was better, I'll give Kier the +1 respect for this. And +1 for that moment with Riley afterwards.

I absolutely love Liam, the poor guy. He can't handle all of this abridged chaos. Yeah Rick is like me. Calm, with a little chaos. I'm lucky my laundry makes it into the hamper most days. Other days I find dirty socks in the most random of places. So if you're like Liam, you don't want to co-habitate a space with me, you'll go nuts.

Yeah I was thinking the exact same thing when I read it lmao.

Encrypted is finally completed. I'm a little sad and relieved at the same time. Here's hoping for book 2, after i burn myself out on something else. ❤️

Washington D.C FBI Headquarters - J. Edgar Hoover Building Christmas Eve had settled over the building like a held breath. The corridors of the J. Edgar Hoover Building were dimmer than usual, half-lit and hollow, the kind of quiet that only came when most of the world had gone home. He wouldn’t be here long. With his investigation wrapping up he’d be free to return to the Washington Field Office away from the prying eyes of Bureau administration. Greg Kincaid moved through it on mu

To me this smells like Ohio\Indiana\Southern Illinois\Iowa. One of the states up there, where it's still stupid hot during the summer yet cold in the winter. Especially if baseball is better done than football lol.

I can see why this chapter was as long as it was. So much to close. But man what a close it was, even Colt dropped the 'adopted brother' line. And I feel vindicated because Gavin knew! I always had a feeling he did, but since it wasn't his business he kept it to himself. It's hard to believe only a month has passed in Joel's world because of everything he's done in that time. He's definitely in a better place now than when he was on that bridge. I'll miss waiting for the updates to this one though. No idea why I heard Aerosmith's "Dream on" in my head when I got to the end but it happened and it fit so there's that. And are we channeling each others energy because I thought I was the only one that had the grandma with an attitude.