Brilliant! I think of you plowing away writing all of the time and I feel guilty because I get to read you for free. You get nothing. I want you to know that you are appreciated, your stories mean something. You have made my month. The characters ARE the characters. You nail them every time. Thank you for sharing your talents. You have a gift trust me on that and you're probably too young to know what that means right now. I trust you'll finish this and not leave it unfinished for decades.

OMG. Every time I read this I feel the same terror.

omg the doubt and inability to trust has to keep resurfacing because that can't change overnight.. i mean she was trained to hate and distrust him and chase him and all that and she said it herself in carthis so yes she would absolutely battle desire and intimacy and try to keep it separate. You say that subtly but yes I think it would keep coming back just like you've written and maybe one day with time she can trust him more and want to make love and be really intimate and not just f***.

OMG! I love it. Parker got there first and destroyed everything. I don't blame her. Forcing someone to parents... it's hard enough to be a parent without being forced into it. Very intense and emotional and those characters are very intense and emotional and it's so good to see someone who can write and do justice to them and this series.

Gahhh the heat in this part tho... so hot.

I always lol at this

lol I love it. Brandt is no nonsense. He knows they don't have much control and that Jarod can take all control and exclude them. Your original characters are real and well written enough to stand up and alongside the ones I know and love already.

"We're sharing sconces with Jarod," Rachel asked with a violent headshake, "She's annoyed by him, but he won't leave her alone. He's bugged her home, he bugs her. She chases him, but he's loyal to her. Why is he loyal to her?"

Best line eva. 

Ergghamerd. So close. I love your writing!

"I'm afraid," panted Jarod, "that you're out of your jurisdiction, Detective."
 
"I wouldn't be much of detective, would I now, Jarod, if I didn't possess knowledge of my jurisdictional limitations."
 
Jarod laughed smugly, took a large stride forward. "You can't arrest me."
 
"You're absolutely correct, Jarod," Brandt agreed congenially. "I cannot arrest you. Furthermore, the officers on your six probably won't arrive in time to arrest you either. And in all probability," Brandt said, "you will outrun the K-9 unit."
 
The Pretender broke into a run, more determined than ever to be free. Brandt observed with remarkable patience and a grimace of sympathy for Jarod's ankle, and then said with some delicacy, "But Rachel's going to be waiting for you when you reach that top rung."
 
A clearly horrified Jarod slowed to an ungainly halt and pivoted.
 
"What did you say?"

OMG. I swear I reviewed this chapter and all until the recent one but all I see is 11! So I will review again!! Well played by Sydney not giving any of Parker's secrets away and asking Jarod if he oberseved anything. I love that guy even if he is a headshrinker.

Omg I totally didn't see that coming. Parker still doubting Jarod.... such a Parker thing to do but Alex didn't lie. I'm like seriously.. where is the lie? He told her the truth. Can't imagine what the hell will happen now but I want more NOW lol. Please. You're so freaking amazing.

Holy hell!

This is freaking amazing. Everything you write it seems is freaking amazing.

"Sydney," cried Jarod, desperately. "Sydney, open the door."

Please. Sydney.

Refuge.

He put the toe of his black leather shoe into the door (in lieu of using his fist). Once, twice. The door flew opened on the third kick, and Jarod, still pressed against it, literally stumbled into the darkened kitchen with a shriek of surprise; the olive drab duffel skidded across hardwood flooring that had been polished to a high shine.

Regaining his balance, Jarod pressed himself against a bare burgundy wall trimmed with polished mahogany wainscoting. He heard the door close behind him, said raggedly, "Lock it, Sydney. I'm going to be here for a while."

"Don't be so certain of that, Jarod."

Jarod stiffened, and then heaved a dispirited sigh. I don't have the energy for this. For her. For her petulance and intransigence.

"Miss Parker," he panted in a voice tight with fatigue, and at last swung his gaze at her."

But Jarod gets an award for best line EVA here

"She wore a black pantsuit whose hip length jacket was unbuttoned, a burgundy camisole, and a sneer of unequivocal malevolence upon her face. She shuddered. Angrily.

"Sydney said you would come."

"Did he?" Said Jarod, intrigued. He brightened, briefly. Dark eyes glimmered with something that was entirely foreign to Parker.

"Mhm. I didn't believe him," she murmured, and then narrowed her eyes at him, and said, crisply, "Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you."

He advanced on her with surprising alacrity, obliterated her personal space, and with a grunt of exertion, sagged against the recently installed walnut butcher's block.

"Because, Miss Parker," he answered in a tight, grave voice, "someone may have beaten you to it." 

SOMEONE MAY HAVE BEATEN YOU TO IT.

That's a good reason I think.

"He hated feeling vulnerable, relying on anyone, let alone her. And he detested the weapon in his hand almost as much as he detested Parker in that moment—that, however, did not prevent him from employing the weapon, fondling it obscenely in an attempt to gain her cooperation.

Hypocrisy. The new black.

"I am not asking you," he snarled at her.

"You won't shoot me," she returned, disinterestedly, dismissively.

"Won't I?" Jarod hissed. "I can't think of a single reason why I shouldn't. Can you?"

Hypocrisy. The new black.

I can't even begin to write like that.

"It's," she began hesitantly, "it looks like a—a tangential laceration."

"Subcutaneous then?" He inquired with a measure of relief in his voice.

"Looks like it," she answered brusquely, and then added hastily, "Across the shoulder," she said, her eyes intently following the bullet's path. "Reentry at the upper right arm." Here her voice dropped lower, incrementally. Jarod had to strain to hear, but ascertained that the bullet had tunneled a two inch subcutaneous circuit though his arm.

Parker, however, imagined the bullet wreaking havoc on the brachial plexus, perhaps severing the subclavian artery. She was thinking of death, of Thomas.

The gunman (gunwoman, in this case) could have fired at closer range, could have been packing higher caliber heat, could have aimed a few inches to the left. The bullet could have struck Jarod in the left shoulder, penetrated deep tissue, wreaked havoc on all sorts of nerves, muscles, and bones that he might have spent years in misery (and in and out of various operating rooms, not to mention physical therapy) recovering from.

The bullet could have entered his chest, collapsed a lung, shredded his aorta, taken a piece of his heart with it as it bid his lifeless body adieu and exited.

Jarod could be dead.

Dead like Thomas."

You blow me away every single freaking time Mirage.

"Don't move," Parker cautioned.

Jarod started. Grimaced. Terror sharpened his eyes, hardened his features, intensified his anger. "Because you'll kill me?" He snarled at her.

"Because," she corrected frothily, "those sheets you're lying between, geniusboy, are a hundred percent Egyptian Cotton, ten hundred twenty thread count per square inch. I found them in Italy and paid nearly two-thousand dollars for them."

Realization touched his features as he struggled (but failed) to raise himself up on bruised and abraded elbows. With a sigh of exasperation, he abandoned his efforts, returned his head to the pillow.

Her house.

She doesn't want blood spilled in her sanctuary. More blood.

Her precious sheets.

Her sanctum sanctorum.

His gaze dropped to the odd tugging at his arm; he frowned at the IV line, the bruising. Dots of dried blood were evidence of failed attempts to start a line. He studied the clear bag hanging from a coat rack, read the label. It was a broad spectrum antibiotic. He'd forgotten to steal antibiotics, had been too preoccupied with an overwhelming fear of hemorrhaging to death at the time. Somehow, he was too angry and too afraid to express, or even feel, any sort of gratitude.

"I've often wondered," he murmured, "how it is that you're able to sleep at night, Miss Parker. Two thousand dollars, huh?" He inquired, lifting a cynical brow. His eyes danced across the room, met hers. He regarded her narrowly. His jaw tightened, his dark, probing eyes narrowed. "Well," he drawled, "I suppose it takes what it takes. Although," he added cruelly with a snort of disdain, "you're probably out cold before you even touch your precious sheets—it is still scotch, isn't it, Miss Parker?"

Two perfectly defined brows lifted over gray-blue eyes that maintained an expression of cool indifference. She straightened, fashioned a smile (a false smile that, quite literally, hurt her face).

Ah, the whiplash invective continues. Well! Fuck him. Him and his sanctimonious song and dance. The bastard.

The motherfucking bastard.

It's true: no good deed."

I love what he says. You give him some good zingers.

"Two thousand dollars. I suppose it take what it takes" he's talking about how she's able to sleep  and then says "but you're probably out cold it's still scotch isn't it?" WOW. Just WOW.

Back at the Centre it's all just so Centre-y and I get giddy reading it and so much nostalgia flooding me right now.

Parker's snark is spot on

""I've reviewed his plan," Raines continued in a laudatory tone, meeting Lyle's gaze, "and it's brilliant."

"Oh, yes," sang Parker bitterly, "it's a screaming success if the goal was multiple causalities," she said reproachfully.

She and Sydney exchanged glances. His expression was grave, oddly tender. He turned to Raines, said, "Jarod had the forethought to gain entrance to the adjunct, to target Centre-contracted personnel, to confiscate damning evidence. He was successful. You forget that this is Jarod we're talking about, Raines," reminded Sydney. "It would be rather unwise of you, of any one among us," he amended, alluding no doubt to the ever ambitious Lyle, "to equate his return to the Centre's radar with victory."

Lyle always thinks he's smarter doesn't he?

Lyle waved dismissively. "Meh. Doesn't matter. He's going to make a mistake and when he does—"

"Excuse me," a voice called from the open door. "You're going to want to switch on the television."

Lyle frowned, reached for the remote. "Which channel?" Inquired Lyle.

"Any channel, Sir," the sweeper returned.

"Mm, must be juicy," Lyle murmured, reclining in the leather chair to absorb the news:

"...gruesome scene early this morning. Randi Mann, from our sister affiliate, is live with the very latest on the heinous attack that has rocked the small community of Jupiter Bay, Virginia."

"Thank you, Jill. Authorities are saying very little until the families of the victims are notified. The police are, however, releasing several images of this man and they are asking anyone who sees him to please call 911 immediately and to use extreme caution as he is believed to be heavily armed and extremely dangerous. Back to you, Jill."

"It appears that Jarod isn't the only one making mistakes," taunted Parker when an agitated Lyle switched off the television. "That antique shoppe is a front for one of our annexes. The police take one look at the information we house there and—"

EVERY Channel. Every freaking channel I love it. Plus that last bit:

"When the room righted itself, Parker was staring at three lifeless bodies. She arranged her features carefully, retained her stolid self-possession. She displayed neither pleasure nor anger. Cox observed her for several moments, and then returned his gun to its holster.

She lifted a brow, observed the grins of satisfaction on both Cox and Mikalle's faces when she said coolly, matter of factly,

"I suggest someone call housekeeping before that stains the floor."

"VHS is unreliable by the way, not to mention obsolete."

"Mm, yes, well," she murmured dryly, "I have to admit, this gives a whole new meaning to 'eyes-only info."

"And it just screams intrigue and mystery, doesn't it?"

"Mm," purred Parker, "in a thousand languages."

I LOVE THAT.

This too.

"Indiscriminate rampaging," said Parker with a snort of disdain. "It's just Bobby's style," she murmured, expecting to see her twin's smug face in the next instant —that wouldn't have surprised her. He was a sociopath, after all, and he'd pulled the stunt before.

She'd cautioned the Director, to no avail, and could only shake her head in disgust when her twin was boosted to the tower where he'd no doubt take his havoc-wreaking to a whole new level and inflict systematic damage. Parker was looking forward to the I-told-you-so debriefing.

The smile disappeared from her lips, however— or rather was chased away. She drew a sharp breath when the surveillance feed began playing; it commenced unceremoniously at the precise moment of attack.

There were no wasted seconds watching live and unsuspecting employees doing their jobs, snapshots of life and death in lurid juxtaposition."

You're one of those authors who after reading I have to sit and have thoughts about. I have so many thoughts and ideas that I can't put in words. You make these scenes so vivid, it's all plausible.

You get your hooks in deep and don't let go.

Pens dipping in company ink get snapped in half. Parker is incredible isn't she? I love these characters in your capable hands.