08/03/2026 02:51

---

Sheemie looked up at him, gaping and puzzled. The place might have been deserted if not for the single dim light shining through one window. A faint glimmer of red light showed between her bunched knuckles, and there was a click. Yet for a blink or two, there at the end, he’d felt uneasy—almost as though he’d been scented.

I’ll come last. The drone of the thinny filled his head, making him feel dizzy, a stranger to himself. I’ll make a long story short and say that, after much talk and many proposals for punishment, we were sent here, on this errand. He opened his mouth to say something—an Eddie Dean Special, something that would be both funny and stinging at