Rotted Roots — Part 13: Loose Ends
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Rotted Roots — Part 12: Adverse Parties
No one moved. Each breath was like sawing through steel tension with a handsaw. Only Ryder, adjusting his sleeves, seemed calm…
When Ethan Ryder stepped off the elevator for the fifty-second floor with his sister, the only thing keeping the fury from his face was the plastic surgery he had done.
Rotted Roots — Part 10: The Calm Before
The sirens had begun to abate, but the smoke column still rose like a skyscraper into the morning air. Sunlight tried to poke…
Servaes’ lungs burned in the night air. His feet skidded along the pavement as he took a turn at a sprint. Way hurled along the alley and leaped — in a single bound — over a chain-link…
Ryder stood patiently waiting outside Molly’s building waiting for someone to come out. The sun had set some time ago and the streetlamps now kept the night alive as…
Rotted Roots — Part 6: Family Reunions
“I’m here to see Ethan and Sarah Ryder.”
Rotted Roots — Part 5: Blood and Bruises
2324 Walker Place was built as a housing project for underprivileged families looking for low-income housing. It was…
Ryder woke up tied to a chair with the black bag still over his head. He could feel that his wrists had been tied to the arms of the chair. He blinked several…
Rotted Roots — Part 3: Contact is Lost
Ryder sat on a broken couch looking at a bank of phone booths in an empty lot on the outskirts of the city. An overpass above his…