R.L. Mathewson Chronicles

A Sneak Peek at Trace’s book: A Pyte/Sentinel Novel

The sound of glass shattering brought her fully awake with a gasp. Her heart pounded against her chest as memories from the night before came crashing down around her at the same time that she realized she was still gagged, but now sitting up and secured to one of the support beams running through the middle of the dimly lit basement.

Sam looked around and when she spotted what she knew from years of working in the emergency room was drying blood on the stone floor in front of her, she forced herself to ignore it and search for the source of the light. When she spotted the open bulk doors she nearly sighed with relief. As long as they stayed open she knew she had a chance to escape.

The doors were her best bet if she managed to get loose. She’d run for the woods and keep running until she found somewhere to hide. If they closed the doors she’d be running blind again and her chances wouldn’t be as good.

Where did they go? she wondered, but the sound of more glass shattering grabbed her attention in a big way. Swallowing nervously and forcing herself to remain calm and hopefully conscious, she slowly turned her head and craned her neck as far as she could and felt all the blood rush from her face.

The Vacation from Hell: Part I

“There’s nowhere to sit!”

“I want to sit in the front!”

“No, I’m sitting there!”

As the kids continued to fight over who was sitting where, Trevor rubbed the back of his neck, wondering why he’d agreed to do this. He must have been out of his fucking mind to agree to take his kids, Jason’s kids, and of course, Mikey on this trip. While he watched Cole take Jonathan down with an impressive headlock he decided that he’d definitely been out of his fucking mind to agree to this.

Just Tired: Part III

Cough. “I’m thirsty.” Cough.

“No,” Danny mumbled with a yawn into his pillow, as he shifted to get more comfortable, careful to keep his arm wrapped around his wiggling wife.

“But, I’m ever so thirsty,” Jodi said with a sniffle.

“No,” he said, too damn exhausted to play this game.

“But-”

“No,” he said more firmly, as he tightened his arm around her and pulled her closer to prevent anymore attempted escapes.

“But, I’m fine,” she promised him with a little wiggle and a sigh that he wasn’t buying, not again.

Just Tired: Part II

“I’m gonna go lie down upstairs,” Jodi mumbled around a yawn, as she grabbed her pillow and cellphone and headed upstairs while he sat there, wondering why she wasn’t terrorizing the neighborhood by now.

It had been twenty minutes and…nothing.

She wasn’t running around the house, stripping naked as she made her way towards the front door, throwing a bag of flour in the oven to bake him a cake, trying to jump out the window, or going live on Facebook so that she could reminisce about just good it had felt that time he’d bent her over the picnic table in his parents’ backyard and fucked her and it was actually scaring him a bit. By now she should be doing something to scar him for life, but instead of doing all those things that terrified him, she was going upstairs to take a nap.

Or was she…

Happy Birthday: Part V

“Oh, shit,” Trevor mumbled weakly, as he stood there in the crowded emergency room watching as the doctor slowly inserted the needle into Mikey’s arm to numb it so that he could stitch up the gash that was going to get him killed.

“That is so freaking cool,” Sebastian said, looking intrigued as he sat by Mikey’s side, holding her other hand, and looking like he was having the best time of his like while Mikey…

Was still not talking, which he was actually okay with since it meant that she wasn’t crying or screaming hysterically anymore. God, what the fuck had he been thinking when he’d suggested taking the kids to a baseball game instead of hitting that buffet? he couldn’t help but wonder as he rubbed his hands roughly down his face even as he couldn’t help but wonder who was going to kill him first for this, Kasey or Reese.

Happy Birthday: Part IV

“I don’t know about this,” Mikey said, worrying her bottom lip as she sent another nervous glance towards the bathroom door where Uncle Trevor was finishing up his shower.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Sebastian promised her, still smiling smugly as he plopped down on the queen bed that he’d shared with his father last night until Uncle Trevor got sick of Sebastian kicking him and hogging the blankets and tossed him onto her bed.

At that point, Mikey had spent a majority of the night trying to get her best friend to stop hogging the blankets and kicking her in his sleep. When it had become obvious that nudging him awake every five minutes wasn’t going to work, she’d resorted to slapping a pillow over his head until he’d woken up sputtering and glaring at her. Once she’d been assured that they had an understanding over the blankets, she’d curled up on her side, closed her eyes, and gone to sleep, ignoring his demands that she at least share the sheet.

 

Tired: An R.L. Mathewson Chronicle

“No!” Jodi said, stubbornly shaking her head as she released a miserable groan. “I’m fine.”

“Jodi…” Danny said, sighing heavily even as he glanced over his shoulder to check to make sure that his mother had everything she needed to take care of the twins for the day only to find his mother and Sebastian, her helper for the day, sending him the Mocking Jay sign from The Hunger Games and making him groan, because this was going to be a long fucking day.

 

Happy Birthday: Part III

“Maybe we should sleep in the truck?” Mikey suggested, which Trevor really didn’t appreciate, not after everything he went through to make this happen.

“Tent’s almost up,” he told her, even as he was forced to squint his eyes as he tried to make out which part of the tent that he was holding in his hands.

“Maybe we should go back to that store that we saw and buy batteries,” Sebastian asked with a frown, as he gently slapped the dying flashlight against his hand in attempt to squeeze a little more juice out of the batteries only to groan seconds later when the weak light finally went out.

Happy Birthday: Part II

“So, explain to me why I’m here with you,” Sebastian said, as Trevor sat there, wondering the same damn thing.

One minute he’d had Sebastian and was heading for his truck and the next…

He was standing here with his son, trying to make sense of the long list of things that he had to finish before tomorrow morning. He still wasn’t sure how she managed it, especially since one of them was supposed to bring Sebastian out for his birthday. When she realized that he had Sebastian, she should have realized that she’d lost and sucked it up, but instead, she’d grabbed hold of Jonathan, dragged him to her car, shoved him inside and torn out of the driveway while he’d stood there wondering where he’d gone wrong.

 

Happy Birthday Part I: An R.L. Mathewson Chronicle

“No! I just cleaned that,” Zoe said with a pathetic groan as she stared down at the muddy footprints on the floor that she’d just spent the last hour scrubbing.

“Damn it,” Trevor muttered as he looked down at his dirty boots and then back over his shoulder as the muddy trail he’d left behind. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

“It’s fine,” she said, waving it off with a sigh as she added cleaning the floor back on her list of things that she needed to get done before the twins’ birthday party tomorrow.

“I’ll clean it up,” Trevor said, backtracking to the front door and toed off his boots and set them back on the mat by the door next to his toolbox.

She was going to argue, but she already had too much to do. She had to finish cleaning the house, inflate the new pool floats, run a half dozen errands and she needed to get them done before tomorrow morning so that she could put decorations, set up chairs, and a hundred other things before the party started. As soon as this party was over, she was going to sleep and god help them if anyone that woke her up.

“Where are the kids?” Trevor asked, grabbing the mop.