Magenta wrapped around her. “There’s no one left to be hurt,” she said, her tone patient. Countless heartbeats warmed her skin. “Cry all you need. There’s no one left to hurt us.”

Doc did as she was told. She didn’t know how long she cried, her body racked with sobs. She felt numb by the end, only vaguely aware of Magenta’s still-warm embrace and the faint crackle of static in the air.

Magenta would not let go. Doc didn’t want to be let go. Tension melted down her limbs at last, a pleasant surrender, and she clung tight to a muscle she couldn’t see. The world was dark and full of sweet sensations.

Jet engines roared across the distant sky. They would be flying over Newark soon, their pilots eager to report with the naked eye what satellite imagery could only suggest.

Doc kissed Magenta’s skin. “They’re going to kill us.”

Magenta hummed with the earth itself. “They’re going to try. But show me everything you know, everything, and they’ll never touch us.”

Doc agreed. Her mind became an open book, and Magenta ran fingers down every page and played at each pointed corner. An orchard flourished inside, where roots of emotion intermingled. Memories floated in spores, but they were uncontainable things, whereas sensation lived bright and alive.

Things Doc could touch and feel and know. Beloved lightning lit her skin, her nerves aglow with Magenta’s tenderness. There was no past here, and no future.

The present was hardly an idea, clear and undeniable in its shape, and yet Doc couldn’t define it without the ahead and behind. She knew only now, right now, as a miasma of endless feeling and unstoppable bliss. Clouds swallowed her, but there was no poison here, only love in thunder and lightning.

A magenta storm without end.

Acknowledgments

This book began as it ended, slimy and wriggling, something I struggled to grasp as I had to tear it apart and remake it many times, a Frankenstein’s monster in its own way. Thankfully, I didn’t have to play mad scientist alone. The horror community overflows with wonderful people, and I can’t name them all here, but what an experience we can be together. There are a few who need a shout or scream of recognition in particular.

Thank you to Nicholas Day for everything in this strangest of houses, in particular his insightful editing, every bit helpful in sharpening this novel’s teeth.

To my dear friend Claire Holland and her co-host Blythe of the Sexy Books Podcast, thank you for countless deep observations on the romance genre and for assuring me that yes, everything is fine, go ahead and write this weird love story. In the same listening realm, thank you to Mary Kay McBrayer and her co-hosts Mary and Rachel on the Everything Trying to Kill You podcast for helping keep my brain situated right while writing in a year like no other.