The tenth installment of Out of the Shadows.

It had been a long time since Felicity had to dress up. What’s more, she had never had to do so when she wasn’t expecting trouble. She’d always had a reason to dress up and so she wasn’t sure what was appropriate when she didn’t.

She forced herself to go unarmed, partially out of respect for Howle, and partially because there was no reason to. She was a plus one for an intern. Her only job was to make Sally look good. Not gather intel on her behalf. Not take out her competition. Just make her look good.

Her barista job didn’t exactly pay for high end outfits, but she had options. Buy and return was out. She couldn’t trust that Howle or his people wouldn’t remove the tag when if she got frisked. She could go to a thrift store and cross her fingers that there was something high end that wasn’t too thrashed. She could steal something, but she really shouldn’t.

…or she could go to see Sally unprepared. She’d said to come early if she didn’t have anything nice. She’d implied she had something Felicity could wear. Felicity could trust her. It was a novel concept to willingly go in blind. She would never have considered it… before… It meant relying on Sally just because.
Felicity made her decision.



She arrived at Sally’s house in jeans and a t-shirt a few hours before the event. Sally beamed at her when she opened the door.

“Come in, I’ve got just the dress.” She seized her wrist and dragged her inside.

Sally presented her with a long, sleek, satin pink dress that she would never have picked for herself but suited her perfectly. It clung in all the right placed and flattered her figure. Sally added a clip with a pink cloth rose to pull back the hair at her temple that almost matched but was just a shade off.

She looked pretty. Not the calculated beauty that she had in the past. It wasn’t an outfit designed to be seductive, subtle, or overt. It was just her.

She’d been right to trust Sally.​

Forgive Me, Father is a short story that can stand on it's own. I ended up having it be a Blackheart story because it does seem like Bianca Black. It's only one page long. And it would take place somewhere between ten months and a year after Black Start. I'll try to work it in to the tenth story. 

This is also a story about the difference between a hero and a vigilante. It should come up again later during Wattage Jr.'s crisis of faith. 

I added two stories that I wrote some time ago. 

Hellrose & Nightstalker is the sequel to Symptoms. In the months since Anna learned the Memory Meddler's identity, Dr. Price has worked out a treatment for Anna's condition by studying the Memory Meddler; the Memory Meddler has told her friends at the police station about her new friend "Emo" (her nickname for Anna); and Megan, having revealed that she knows who Anna and the Memory Meddler are, is putting her own considerable talents to assisting them whenever needed. Hellrose & Nightstalker is the first time the new team is put to the test, after Memory Meddler is abducted by persons unknown. 

Silence is Deadly is a one page short story about the execution of an innocent woman. It received an Honorable Mention in the 2012 Fresh Ink Short Story Competition (Suspense Category). 

For years people have scoffed at the idea of aliens coming to Earth. “What can be here to justify traveling so far?” Earth is, in fact, rather isolated from the rest of the galaxy. That’s a small part of what makes it perfect. You see, Earth is where people, or maybe I should say aliens, come to hide. Something in the atmosphere makes scans virtually useless, it’s much harder to find what or who you’re looking for. In some areas there are trace minerals in the ground, which make even short range scans useless. With even the most advanced technology out there, you could not tell an alien from a human with a cursory examination. It is incredibly difficult to find people on Earth. That’s why aliens come. Refugees, fugitives, criminals, we’ve got all of them. Then there are the bounty hunters. Special skills are required to be an Earth bounty hunter. The bounty hunters though, a lot of them are virtually lawless.

The government can’t keep these aliens in check. There’s no unifying leader, or even species. As far as the government’s concerned, they can do nothing. No one else knew about the aliens, politicians get no recognition for dealing with the problem. So the government just ignores it.

That’s where Sìofra Alma and Cara Smith come in. They are the only semblance of law on the planet. Too fair to be vigilantes, and too sensible to be bounty hunters. They are the investigators. Living among the criminals and bounty hunters of the galaxy, they care about the crimes committed on Earth.

My name is Lyndsey Werner, and as part of my attempt to consistently release stories to the public, I have decided to release a monthly zine, both in print and online. There are a number of short stories I'd like to keep up with, however the primary zine should be the Crestwood Chronicles. 
Also on this site is my first published short story, The Angel's Heart. As well as Anomalies which won third place in the Fresh Ink Group science fiction contest 2012. 
So relax, enjoy, and let me know what you think of my work.