azurePondering with a Bear

@Azurepond

Hey Pond, I am sorry. I know you're going through something tough I hope that gets better for you.

I just had a really really bad moment with myself, I don't wanna talk about it at all, sorry, but I mostly likely will be taking a break from almost everything for a week or so. I might pop by tomorrow (the 8th, my birthday) and say hi and let some other people know. Also knowing me and how I can't stick to any I say I'll do, I will probably get on earlier, but I am not sure. Sorry really don't wanna just be talking about me, but I wanted to let you know in case you show back up before I decide I can handle the Internet.

I love you Pond, stay safe and take care of yourself. 🩵

@azurepond

Hey Pond, are you okay? Miss you, I know I took a break from everything (Internet wise other than music) for a bit but I don't see you here either. I really hope your okay, I have been praying for you during my break and play to continue to do so. 

Still really miss you and want to hear from you whether its good or bad (while I want good for your sake, I really just want to hear your ok). When ever you see this just know I love you and want you too know your not alone.🩵

@azurepond

Hey Pond, Bear here. It's been quite awhile and I really miss you. I know you mentioned a really bad day, and PTSD, for which I am very sorry for and pray and hope that you are recovering and healing. If there is anything I can do to help please let me know, cuz I am here for you as much as I can be. I umm really want to talk with you, your one of if not my closest friend (*I know right, Internet stranger how are they closer than anyone in your life!?” To that I say, well there are less repercussions for telling someone on the Internet something than someone you see at church every Sunday. So yea I guess I was able to trust you faster, and more partially because of the Internet, but mostly because you're you and you understand me a lot, also I like to hope that if we had met in person we would still have been friends.) anyways tangent over, I wanna talk with you but I don't want to overwhelm you with like a thousand messages when you show up, but I also don't want you to think I didn't care cuz I didn't type??? Ya know? So I guess I'll send you some stuff but try not to send too much? (I know delicate balance ya say, hopefully by the time you read this I'll have succeeded.)

So here is my message, working on getting a job finally got a partial offer and did a background check, now waiting for a reply. Hope that goes well. I've been having some really up and down moments after fully coming back to the Internet, so I am limiting myself somewhat starting tonight, tho not on cups that will stay with how it was/is. Trying to be better in my faith but not fully succeeding, I have been studying some more than I was but my bad habits and other things are about the same, hopefully the Internet influence I am trying to remove will curb that. Uhhh I've been trying to write poetry but either been busy, or didn't know what to write or wrote to God (that one was really good night share either eventually) but otherwise haven't been able to much. Idk I feel like that's about it for now, not much else I can say without talking to you first.

Once again I pray you are healing, safe, and supported. Know I miss ya and will do my best to love and support you too! 🩵

@azurepond 

Hey Pond , I know you got a lot to catch up on with everyone, so please don't rush or be worried cuz we gotcha and understand! Anyways uhhh life, yea it's something I guess, ohh yeah you said you grandma said hi! So hiya Ponds Gradmama! How art thou? Hope you're healing up good, and not getting worse, your still in my prayers. Uhh I got a lot of stuff that's happened but idk what to say, don't wanna just spam information with context or the right vibe ya know? Do you know what the fastest man made object ever was? Also I am not good at updating people, so yea I either rambling uselessly or don't say anything cuz there isn't a need or I don't want to tell them that? Yea nko . I had a decently long day, working on my grandparents property, weed eating an d other stuff with trees and stuff my dad was working on their driveway. idk I am rambling hard right now but just wanna talk with people, which I have been, I just idk your a really good talking buddy? (No pressure! It's bad for the ankle! ;) ;) lol sorry hop that joke landed on the good foot?) (but seriously hope that was appropriate enough, I am not always good at telling wge. And what people can joke about, but I generally joke about my smaller injuries, but never really had anything major, other than getting knocked out by a horse but I joke about that cuz it was FUNNY!!) UHH  chocolate or mint? fried chicken wing or pork butt? French toast at the end of the world? Or no? Idk I think I should stop before this gets out of hand ,Soo yea idk what I am saying other than get better for your own health and stuff

Love ya Pond your in my prayers and thoughts, take care, until next rambling 🩵

@azurepond

Hey Pond, sending a another check in and update. Still praying for you! Actually I am praying a little more consistently for a multitude of reasons. I hope you are still healing and not getting into anything worse. Also hi Ponds Gradmama! Would a ponds grandmother be a lake??? Idk maybe any if she is still with you (or you with her?) I hope that's going good! Once again if you need anything (that a person halfway across the world that you only know through a anonymous mental health website can do) let me know and I'll do my best!

Uhhh about me? Not sure when I last wrote, but I learned something new that shook me (something good) but it makes me terrified of the future, and is also motivating to improve myself. I can't say or talk much about it yet, but at some point I'll be allowed to tell you. I am trying to learn more general knowledge and advice, especially from a more conservative and or Christian perspective, but not denying knowledge from others.

Also I had a good day today, it was long and tiring but I started good, had struggled to put the mower deck on but got it finally and mowed for half the day, so that was nice, but obviously hot and tiring, ya know. I listen to some podcasts today especially stuff from a Jordan Peterson, he is very thoughtful and inspects his words so much before speaking, it's inspiring.

Anyways, love ya, take good care of yourself, I'll keep you in my prayers still so don't worry to much. 🩵

@azurepond

Hello Pond, sorry for replying late. I couldn't figure out the words or was busy laundry, with government papers, dissociating, of just ya know wasting time. Besides that, I am REALLY HAPPY your back, and hopefully much better! I uhh don't know what else to say, I will respond to your other messages soonish, but it may take a day or a few, I have to go deal with the government tomorrow, for who knows how long, and I might not even get on here tomorrow. so just know, I am not ignoring you, just busy with stuff I don't want to do, lol 😭

Love you, you're in my prayers, and do take care of yourself! 🩵

Heloo Bear... so I wrote a m@fi@  story  because of you. It’s all fictional... the characters, the plot, everything. I wrote it because you inspired me but soon I realised that I am not good at plotting mu.rders or cover up so stuff is happening offstage. Apologies for the swearing and the offscreen mu.rders.

Safer in Silence

I was hired to fix her sentences, not to keep her secrets.

Turns out, keeping the secrets was non negotiable according to the NDA.

Penelope Drake was a rising star in crime fiction- dark, meticulous, obsessed with structure. Or so her editor swore. My job? Punch up scenes, trim dialogue, maybe prod about character arcs if I felt brave. A glorified ghostwriter. The pay was good. No cubicle, no fluorescent h3ll, no pretending to care about tech startups. I signed an NDA thicker than a novella without reading it. The legalese boiled down to: Don’t even think about talking.

I’d signed weirder for rent money. Figured she was a recluse. Or into f3tishes she didn’t want leaked.

On day one, she answered the door barefoot, drowning in a sweater. Dry voice, lazy posture… not the fifty year old literary titan I’d expected. Mid twenties but her eyes looked like they’d witnessed every war and peace since the 1800s.

“Don’t touch the desk” she said. “Persian ink. It smudges.”

Her penthouse was spotless, sterile. White walls, white floor, white light. She didn’t live in it so much as haunt it. Though she talked to her houseplants like they were old friends. That’s when I noticed the silver horse on her desk. not some tame, corporate mustang but a blade disguised as an animal. Its body was stretched mid gallop, muscles coiled under polished metal, hooves forever suspended in the act of crushing something.

At first I thought it was an award.

“Family heirloom,” she said, catching my glance. “Ugly as h3ll, but they’d notice if I got rid of it.”

She poured the tea like it was a ritual. Black, no sugar, steeped for exactly four minutes. “Permanent brain damage starts after four minutes without oxygen” she added like it was a fun fact from a dinner party.

The first sip always made her flinch and still, she drank it down.

“Habit” she said, catching my stare again. “Some things stick even when you hate them.”

The first real crack  appeared the day the banker die.d.

We were knee deep in a scene. Clean ki.ll, carbon monoxide staged as su.icide. She dictated while pacing….. then stopped. Fingers suspended mid air. Her eyes fixed on the muted TV. A news ticker crawled across the bottom:

Prominent banker Rob Daniels found dea.d. Police suspect sui.cide.

She didn’t blink. But the corner of her mouth twitched, barely.

“You knew him?” I asked.

She just muttered  “Let’s cut the scene. The gas part’s boring.”

That night, I googled her. Same old results I’d skimmed back when I was just trying to find a photo before signing the NDA: a clipped Wikipedia entry, glossy magazine interviews with answers that read like they’d been ghostwritten twice. Her editor handled the Inst@gr@m which was sanitized, impersonal, nothing real. 

So I googled the banker.

Which led me to a condolences video by Equinox Logistics. The founder, Henry Marshall, had been friends or “business associates” with Daniels.

I didn't even know what I was searching for or why.

“Why write about mur.der?” I asked her one morning, pretending it was a question about craft.

Without looking up, she said “You write what you know.”

I held my breath. ‘And what do you know, Penelope?’

She paused mid sentence. Looked at me like she was choosing her answer.

Then: “Crime is boring. You wouldn’t believe how ordinary it is. That’s what makes it work.”

I was not judging someone who chose to write about mu.rders. Morals were expensive. I had made peace with that sometime between the third overdraft fee and the day my sister called saying the twins needed school uniforms.

I pointed to the victim’s backstory. "We should make her more sympathetic."

Penelope lit a cigarette. "Why?"

"So readers care when she d.ies."

"They won’t, Lloyd" She exhaled smoke. "They’ll skim the de.ad girl’s hobbies, then race to the mu.rder. Give them two lines: ‘She liked tulips and owed her dea.ler three grand.’ Done."

I hesitated. "That’s cold."

She smiled. "So’s the morgue."

I found the real reason for my uneasiness around her the day her printer jammed.

She handed it to me like it was beneath her. When I opened the tray, a half printed email slipped out.

Subject: Ghost E Lloyd
Debts.  No police/political ties. Clean. But curious —Tea

I froze.

Then tucked it back in and left it alone. At least outwardly.

But it stuck in my head like a splinter. E LLyod obviously stands for Eric Llyod– Me. Why did they do a PI level background check on me? And who the *** was “Tea”? Short for gossip? Or a codename?

The next day the penthouse was its usual self… white, silent, smelling of ink and something faintly antiseptic. I was elbow deep in a chapter about a p0isoned wineglass when I heard it: a delicate clink.

Then I saw her.

A cat, white as the walls, fur gleaming like polished silver. She stared at me with eyes that matched Penelope’s… too knowing, too old for something so small.

“You have a cat” I said, stupidly.

She didn’t look up from her manuscript. “That’s Silvy.  She’s not mine.” A pause. “A friend’s. I’m babysitting.”

“Oh?”

“ He’s taking her sister to the vet.”

I almost laughed. It was the most mundane thing she’d ever said. “Sister?”

“Mm. Spoony.” Penelope finally glanced at Silvy, her voice softening in a way I’d never heard. “They’re strays. Raised together.Silvy’s the clever one,” Penelope said, almost proud. “Spoony’s the one who falls off ***.”

The cat leapt onto her desk, tail flicking against the silver horse figurine. Penelope didn’t shoo her away, just scratched the cat behind the ears absently, like it was a habit.

I filed it away: Penelope Drake, has a soft spot for cats.

(And, more importantly: Penelope has a friend. A real one. One who trusts her with something alive)

Then Silvy padded over to me, sniffed my sleeve, and promptly bit my wrist.

Penelope smirked. “She likes you.”

A week passed. 

I spent Easter Sunday at my sister’s place, poking at dry ham while my nieces side eyed my untouched wine glass like I was a fallen saint. I just preferred whiskey.
She sat across from me, arms folded. “So. Still writing… whatever it is you’re writing?”
“It’s crime fiction now,” I said. “Technically. Pu.nching up someone else’s scenes.”
“Sounds… stable.”
I smirked. “It’s a paycheck.”
She didn’t respond right away. Just stared at her plate. “Rent’s due Thursday. I might need to float the power bill another week. Can you—”
“I’ll send something,” I said before she could finish. “Couple hundred.”
She blinked, surprised. “Seriously, Eri?”
I nodded. “Ghostwriters get paid too, you know. Even if our names aren’t on anything.”
Lily piped up. “Uncle Eri, what’s a ghostwriter?”
“Someone who writes books for people who’d rather take the credit,” I said, spearing another bite. “Like a stunt double, but for words.”
“Oh,” Emmy said, disappointed. “I thought it was spooky.”
I smiled as Penelope’s face flashed through my mind.  “Sometimes it is.”

When I returned to the penthouse, Penelope was already three glasses deep, red wine staining her lips. Her laptop was open to a scene we’d scrapped days ago. The silver horse had migrated to the windowsill, dipped in sunset.

“You have family, Lloyd?” she asked suddenly as if she did not do a background check on me. Maybe it was standard, procedural ones where they hired someone to check whether I was a convicted felon or anything.

“Yeah. Sister. Two nieces,” I said, slow. “You?”

She swirled her glass. “A business dad. A dea.d mother. The usual. A brother and a sister. They are all busy running spreadsheets.” A faint smirk. “I don’t bother with them.”

I caught myself checking her expression before I asked, “Not even on Easter?”

“Tea texted me a bunny gif.”

“Tea?” I asked, the syllable echoing the name from the printer email. Could “Tea” be “the Tea”?

“She shrugged. “My brother. Thinks he’s the funny one.”

I forced a laugh. “You don’t like his jokes?”

“Something like that.” She turned back to her laptop. “Scene twelve needs work.”

But I wasn’t thinking about the scene. I was thinking about  the Tea. The brother who allegedly  ran background checks?

That night I searched for Tea Drake. Nothing. Then tried “T. Drake.” Still no hits. Then: T-names, male—Thomas, Tyler,Taylor,  Tyson, Tim...even Teagan… Lin.kedIn swallowed me whole.

By 2 a m, I gave up.

The next morning, I was fifteen minutes late.

She’d given me a keycard by then, so I let myself in. She was at the desk, but as soon as she saw me, she scooped up her papers, stuffed them into a folder.

“You’re late. I thought you weren’t coming.”

I mumbled an apology.

That’s when I saw it—the symbol on one of the documents.

It hit me like a migraine: I knew that logo. A horse leaping from the curve of a Q.  I’d seen daily… on billboards across from my apartment, in subway ads, splashed across business magazines.

Equinox Logistics .

She didn’t notice me staring as she locked the folder away.

I didn’t say anything. Not then. Equinox had its own conspiracy threads—whispers of smu.ggling, offshore accounts, shell companies. People called them a corporate m@fia. But nothing stuck.

She put the papers in her safe and  came back with the manuscript and pointed to the  circled paragraph with her fountain pen. "This is ***."

I leaned over. The line read: The bl00d pooled like spilled merlot.

"Too purple?"

"Too wrong." She tapped the nib against her teeth. "Arterial spray doesn't pool. It arcs." She demonstrated with her pen. A drop of ink hit the manuscript. "See?"

I swallowed. "I'll fix it."

I didn't care what Penelope  did for money, not really. The panic in my chest wasn’t about the man who might di.e. It was about whether I’d be next. I thought about leaving. About vanishing. But debt collectors don’t respect mysteries. And my sister’s name was still tied to my emergency contact forms. I had chained too much of myself to the living.

But that day Penelope made me leave  early. One: because she saw I was distracted. Two: because she got too many calls.

I went home and searched again. Henry Marshall , the founder. Lucas Marshall , the CEO. And Tea... could that be Thierry Marshall? The thrill chasing, stunt posting Y0uTube guy who occasionally dabbled in "background research"?

But there was nothing on Penelope.

Henry Marshall’s Wikipedia said he had two sons. No mention of a daughter.
So… an illegitimate child? A secret sibling? Maybe that’s why her last name was Drake—unless it was just a pseudonym.
Or maybe she had a deal with Equinox. Did they ship her books? Is that how it works? Or was she researching them for something she was writing?

My head was a carousel of half-baked theories when she called.
“Family emergency,” she said. “Let’s postpone the next session. A week, maybe more.”

Of course, I said yes.

But something in her voice told me this wasn’t the kind of family emergency you send flowers for.

The next week, she asked me to meet her at a café.

Not the penthouse. Not the publishing office. A café.

Silver Spoon’s Café, tucked into a leafy by lane like it didn’t care to be found. The café's logo, a sleek black cat poised to pounce on a silver spoon, glared at me from the door. Either the owner had terrible taste in decor, or this was some rich person’s idea of irony. Given what I knew about this neighborhood, I was betting on both.

This was the kind of place with soft jazz and mismatched chairs. I almost laughed when I walked in. After every conspiracy theory I binge read on sub r3ddit about Equinox LLC, this felt…absurd.
Penelope was already there, at a corner table, sipping what looked like iced lavender tea. A pair of sunglasses shielded her eyes, but I could tell she’d been watching the door since before I arrived.
“There’s a monthly cleaning going on,” she said lightly. “Security checks. Pest control. Paper shredders. That sort of thing.”
Riiiight.
The café belonged to her friend, she said. Lyndon Hazard, who came out from behind the counter after a few minutes. Tall, broad, leather apron. Smiled like a man who knew too much and had learned to make peace with it.
She called him Indy. He called her Drake. Not Penny. Not Penelope. Just: Drake. And he said it with the ease of someone who’d been calling her that for years. Maybe Drake is her real name after all.
They joked for a bit, and then he glanced at me. Measured, amused. Like a bouncer pretending to be a barista.
“You the gh0st?” he asked.
“That’s what they call me.”
He grinned. “Drake’s ghost. Fitting.”
She rolled her eyes. “Shut the h3ll up, Indy.”
He chuckled. “This one’s a  Pirate in a poet’s coat. Swears like one too”

It took me a second. Then it landed.

Sir Francis Drake—pirate, explorer, crown sanctioned criminal. Privateer if you wanted to be polite. Mercenary if you wanted to be accurate.

And of course, Drake.

I didn’t react. Just tucked the reference away. 

He made jabs about misdirecting narratives, hiding b0dies in metaphor. I started to realize something: the way they looked at each other. Not friends. Co-c0nspirators.

"Complicity isn’t just about bl00dstains," Lyndon said, fingers pausing on his glass. "It’s not the kni.fe in the back—it’s slipping the bl.ade into someone else’s hand and counting the seconds before they use it."

Penelope exhaled a slow ribbon of smoke. "Did you crib  that from a bad courtroom drama, Indy?”

"Experience." His attention cut to me. "You’re the writer. Now tell me—what’s the difference between a motive and an alibi?"

I didn’t blink. "One’s the reason, the other’s the lie. But the best stories make them the same thing."

"Let’s test that." He leaned in, the table creaking under his weight. "Who really ki.lled the husband in this story?"

"The wife," I said. "Not because she swung the knif.e but because she left the window unlocked and the whiskey poured. She knew exactly how her lover’s temper worked."

Lyndon’s grin was a blade of its own. "Funny, isn’t it? How ‘innocent’ people never seem to notice their own fingerprints on the cri.me."

Penelope stubbed out her cigarette. "Indy thinks he’s philosophical."

"I’m philosophical as a h@nged man’s last words," he replied.

After about twenty minutes, he excused himself. Something about a delivery. Or a storm. Or both.

After he left, she watched the door for a moment before turning to me.
“We’ll meet next week,” she said. “At my place.”

I raised an eyebrow. “More emergencies? The deadline’s closing in.”

She actually laughed—a quick, surprised sound like it had caught her off guard.
“No,” she said. “My brother’s in town. He hates that I’m a recluse, so he drags me out for sightseeing and all that.”

It sounded… startlingly normal.

Except it wasn’t a normal week for me.

By Monday, I had the distinct sense that someone was wa.tching me. You know the feeling—you turn your head and someone turns theirs a second too late. Eyes that skim just a beat too long. People that look away too fast.

By Tuesday, I was sure of it.

Once, on the metro, a man in a black jacket got on three stops in a r0w with me. Didn’t blink. Didn’t scroll. Just stood, swaying slightly, pretending to exist. I got off early. So di.d he.

By Wednesday, someone br0ke into my apartment.

Nothing big at first. A desk drawer left open, the USB in the wrong port. You know your mess. You know when it’s not your mess. I filed a report. The officer gave me a mug of vending machine coffee and told me not to worry.

Thursday morning, the tank on my toilet cracked clean through. Fl00ded the whole damn floor. Pipes rusted through, they said. Seemed convenient.

By Friday, I wasn’t just paran0id. I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept in 40 hours and I was carrying a wre.nch in my backpack like a man preparing for gh0sts.

Then came the van.

No pla.tes. Back door. Classic. I barely had time to scre@m before the bag went 0ver my head and the world tilted sideways.

They be@t me up first.

Not professionally. This was the kind of be@ting that came with grunts, frustration, and too much adrenaline. One asked questions. The other h1t me when I didn’t answer fast enough.

“Let’s hope Pip Marshall loves you enough to take the b@it.”

Pip Marshall. The name h1t like a physical bl0w.

“ I don’t know Pip” Marshall part came out as a groan.

“You go to her penthouse daily” I didnt hear the rest as someone bashed my head onto something.

Pip. Penelope. Penelope Drake. Of course.

The pieces – Equinox, the background check, the secrecy – slammed together in the dark. "Wait… I’m just the ghostwriter," I said…

P.unch.

“I write fiction—”

P.unch. Kick. Cough. Blood.

Then the van stopped. They were taking me to somewhere. The bag 0ver my head smelled like gasoline and stale mint. A voice, calm as a dentist’s drill ...“Let’s talk about your girlfriend’s real research.”

Something cold pressed to my temple. Not metal but plastic. A sy.ringe? "Wait—" The sound that followed wasn't the hiss of a needle. It was the de@fening crack of a g.unsh0t— not for me. The bag went wet with someone else’s bl00d.

Close. Loud. Chaos. One, two—maybe four. The scre@ming stopped.

A moment of silence, broken by the dull thump of a b0dy hitting concrete.

Then, footsteps.

Slow. Confident. Leather soles, not boots. Whoever it was didn’t run. He walked like he was arriving late to dinner.

An oddly familiar voice.

“You look worse than your byline.”

I blacked out.

When I came to, I was lying on a white couch that smelled like rosemary and wealth. A cool compress against my forehead. My r1bs scre@med.

The first thing I heard was voices... faint, urgent, too calm to be panicked.

I must’ve bla.cked out again, because when I opened my eyes, the voices had moved closer.

“…they thought he was your boyfriend,”  Lyndon’s voice, voice low, clipped. “Wanted leverage. I told you using your real name was stupid.”

I pried my eyes open, but the light was bl.inding. The room spun.
I shut them again, waited, then tried once more—slowly scanning my surroundings. White walls. Sterile air.
I was at Penelope Drake’s place.

Penelope Drake... Pip Marshall, with the calm, clipped voice even when furious.
“They were supposed to think I’m d3ad weight, Tea. The reclusive writer. Not worth tai.ling.”

Tea?  Tea was here too. I shut my eyes again.

“We did everything right,” said the unfamiliar voice, probably Tea. “They still saw it coming.”

Lyndon let out a sharp breath. “Perfect. So now they read minds too?”

I groaned. My ribs were still furious and my thr0at felt like I’d swall0wed gravel.

That got their attention.

Penelope turned to me. “Lloyd?”

I blinked. “Define leverage.”

She exhaled. Sat down at the edge of the couch, voice gentler. “They thought you were my boyfriend.”

I let that sink in.

“The men who kidna.pped me.”

She nodded.

“And be@t me.”

Another nod.

“Because… they thought we were dating?”

Lyndon, leaning against the marble kitchen island like a bored prince, chimed in... “In fairness, you do show up to her place every day. Carry a leather bag. Look very earnest. Totally her type.”

I looked at him. “You people are in.sane.”

“No, they’re ins.ane,” Penelope said, quietly. “You were t@ken by a faction in Nusantara. Old partners of my father’s. They want a piece of the company or at least a deal. Kidna.pping a ‘Marshall boyfriend’ gets them both. They thought you were my soft spot.”

“Your father being…”

“Henry Marshall.” She turned. “You’ve heard of him, right?”

The horse pendant hung heavy on her chest now. She didn’t bother to hide it anymore.

“I’m not your boyfriend,” I said.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she snapped, irritated.

Lyndon chuckled, “He really is a ghost writer. still worried about the word choices after getting half his r1bs kicked in.”

At the same moment, Tea murmured from the corner, voice cool and unreadable: “Pip has exactly one soft spot. And that soft spot? Wears an apron while holding the p1n.”

Lyndon mimed biting the top off an invisible gren@de and lobbed it toward Tea with a deadpan b00m.
Tea didn’t flinch, just rolled his eyes like they’d played this scene a hundred times before.

Penelope said nothing.
I sat up slow. Pain bloomed behind my eyes, hot and humiliating.

I blinked.

Either they were ins.ane or the c0ncussion was making me hallucinate a bl@ck market sitcom.

 “So let me get this straight,” I said, one hand bracing my side. “I was kidna.pped, interrogated, and almost sh0t… because of you.”

Silence.

Then  Penelope said, “Yes. Because of me.”

"You’re in the m@fia."

Silence.

Then Penelope said, her voice c0lder than the penthouse air, "No, Lloyd."  A beat.  "We are the m@fia."

"Same difference."

"No." Another deliberate pause. "The former implies we answer to someone."

“So the logistics is a front for what? Dru.gs?”

She shook her head. “No. We’re cleaner than that.  We move numbers.  Money. Information, most times..”

"So you write about the cr1mes you have committed?"

“I am not a dumb ser1al killer who needs an ego stroke, Llyod. I write because I love writing. I write about cr1mes because they are all I know. ”

"And you just drop this on me like it’s nothing? What the is the catch?" My hands clenched at my sides, the heat in my voice surprising even me.

"You signed the NDA."

The words h1t me like a bull3t. Right. The NDA.

"I signed up to ghostwrite a novel, not to be part of some… some c0ver-up!"
My voice tore through the room, louder than I meant it to be. The room went still.

Tea’s gaze sharpened like he was running numbers in his head, measuring risk, damage, me.

Heloo Bear... so I wrote a m@fi@  story  because of you. It’s all fictional... the characters, the plot, everything. I wrote it because you inspired me but soon I realised that I am not good at plotting mu.rders or cover up so stuff is happening offstage. Apologies for the swearing and the offscreen mu.rders.

Safer in Silence

I was hired to fix her sentences, not to keep her secrets.

Turns out, keeping the secrets was non negotiable according to the NDA.

Penelope Drake was a rising star in crime fiction- dark, meticulous, obsessed with structure. Or so her editor swore. My job? Punch up scenes, trim dialogue, maybe prod about character arcs if I felt brave. A glorified ghostwriter. The pay was good. No cubicle, no fluorescent h3ll, no pretending to care about tech startups. I signed an NDA thicker than a novella without reading it. The legalese boiled down to: Don’t even think about talking.

I’d signed weirder for rent money. Figured she was a recluse. Or into f3tishes she didn’t want leaked.

On day one, she answered the door barefoot, drowning in a sweater. Dry voice, lazy posture… not the fifty year old literary titan I’d expected. Mid twenties but her eyes looked like they’d witnessed every war and peace since the 1800s.

“Don’t touch the desk” she said. “Persian ink. It smudges.”

Her penthouse was spotless, sterile. White walls, white floor, white light. She didn’t live in it so much as haunt it. Though she talked to her houseplants like they were old friends. That’s when I noticed the silver horse on her desk. not some tame, corporate mustang but a blade disguised as an animal. Its body was stretched mid gallop, muscles coiled under polished metal, hooves forever suspended in the act of crushing something. 

At first I thought it was an award.

“Family heirloom,” she said, catching my glance. “Ugly as h3ll, but they’d notice if I got rid of it.”

She poured the tea like it was a ritual. Black, no sugar, steeped for exactly four minutes. “Permanent brain damage starts after four minutes without oxygen” she added like it was a fun fact from a dinner party.

The first sip always made her flinch and still, she drank it down.

 “Habit” she said, catching my stare again. “Some things stick even when you hate them.”

The first real crack  appeared the day the banker die.d.

We were knee deep in a scene. Clean ki.ll, carbon monoxide staged as su.icide. She dictated while pacing….. then stopped. Fingers suspended mid air. Her eyes fixed on the muted TV. A news ticker crawled across the bottom:

Prominent banker Rob Daniels found dea.d. Police suspect sui.cide.

She didn’t blink. But the corner of her mouth twitched, barely.

“You knew him?” I asked.

She just muttered  “Let’s cut the scene. The gas part’s boring.”

That night, I googled her. Same old results I’d skimmed back when I was just trying to find a photo before signing the NDA: a clipped Wikipedia entry, glossy magazine interviews with answers that read like they’d been ghostwritten twice. Her editor handled the Inst@gr@m which was sanitized, impersonal, nothing real. 

So I googled the banker.

Which led me to a condolences video by Equinox Logistics. The founder, Henry Marshall, had been friends or “business associates” with Daniels.

I didn't even know what I was searching for or why. 

“Why write about mur.der?” I asked her one morning, pretending it was a question about craft.

Without looking up, she said “You write what you know.”

I held my breath. ‘And what do you know, Penelope?’

She paused mid sentence. Looked at me like she was choosing her answer.

Then: “Crime is boring. You wouldn’t believe how ordinary it is. That’s what makes it work.”

I was not judging someone who chose to write about mu.rders. Morals were expensive. I had made peace with that sometime between the third overdraft fee and the day my sister called saying the twins needed school uniforms.

I pointed to the victim’s backstory. "We should make her more sympathetic."

Penelope lit a cigarette. "Why?"

"So readers care when she d.ies."

"They won’t, Lloyd" She exhaled smoke. "They’ll skim the de.ad girl’s hobbies, then race to the mu.rder. Give them two lines: ‘She liked tulips and owed her dea.ler three grand.’ Done."

I hesitated. "That’s cold."

She smiled. "So’s the morgue."

I found the real reason for my uneasiness around her the day her printer jammed.

She handed it to me like it was beneath her. When I opened the tray, a half printed email slipped out.

Subject: Ghost E Lloyd

Debts.  No police/political ties. Clean. But curious —Tea

I froze.

Then tucked it back in and left it alone. At least outwardly.

But it stuck in my head like a splinter. E LLyod obviously stands for Eric Llyod– Me. Why did they do a PI level background check on me? And who the *** was “Tea”? Short for gossip? Or a codename?

The next day the penthouse was its usual self… white, silent, smelling of ink and something faintly antiseptic. I was elbow deep in a chapter about a p0isoned wineglass when I heard it: a delicate clink.

Then I saw her.

A cat, white as the walls, fur gleaming like polished silver. She stared at me with eyes that matched Penelope’s… too knowing, too old for something so small.

“You have a cat” I said, stupidly.

She didn’t look up from her manuscript. “That’s Silvy.  She’s not mine.” A pause. “A friend’s. I’m babysitting.”

“Oh?”

“ He’s taking her sister to the vet.”

I almost laughed. It was the most mundane thing she’d ever said. “Sister?”

“Mm. Spoony.” Penelope finally glanced at Silvy, her voice softening in a way I’d never heard. “They’re strays. Raised together.Silvy’s the clever one,” Penelope said, almost proud. “Spoony’s the one who falls off ***.”

The cat leapt onto her desk, tail flicking against the silver horse figurine. Penelope didn’t shoo her away, just scratched the cat behind the ears absently, like it was a habit.

I filed it away: Penelope Drake, has a soft spot for cats.

(And, more importantly: Penelope has a friend. A real one. One who trusts her with something alive)

Then Silvy padded over to me, sniffed my sleeve, and promptly bit my wrist.

Penelope smirked. “She likes you.”

A week passed. 

I spent Easter Sunday at my sister’s place, poking at dry ham while my nieces side eyed my untouched wine glass like I was a fallen saint. I just preferred whiskey.

She sat across from me, arms folded. “So. Still writing… whatever it is you’re writing?”

“It’s crime fiction now,” I said. “Technically. Pu.nching up someone else’s scenes.”

“Sounds… stable.”

I smirked. “It’s a paycheck.”

She didn’t respond right away. Just stared at her plate. “Rent’s due Thursday. I might need to float the power bill another week. Can you—”

“I’ll send something,” I said before she could finish. “Couple hundred.”

She blinked, surprised. “Seriously, Eri?”

I nodded. “Ghostwriters get paid too, you know. Even if our names aren’t on anything.”

Lily piped up. “Uncle Eri, what’s a ghostwriter?”

“Someone who writes books for people who’d rather take the credit,” I said, spearing another bite. “Like a stunt double, but for words.”

“Oh,” Emmy said, disappointed. “I thought it was spooky.”

I smiled as Penelope’s face flashed through my mind.  “Sometimes it is.”

When I returned to the penthouse, Penelope was already three glasses deep, red wine staining her lips. Her laptop was open to a scene we’d scrapped days ago. The silver horse had migrated to the windowsill, dipped in sunset.

“You have family, Lloyd?” she asked suddenly as if she did not do a background check on me. Maybe it was standard, procedural ones where they hired someone to check whether I was a convicted felon or anything.

“Yeah. Sister. Two nieces,” I said, slow. “You?”

She swirled her glass. “A business dad. A dea.d mother. The usual. A brother and a sister. They are all busy running spreadsheets.” A faint smirk. “I don’t bother with them.”

I caught myself checking her expression before I asked, “Not even on Easter?”

“Tea texted me a bunny gif.”

“Tea?” I asked, the syllable echoing the name from the printer email. Could “Tea” be “the Tea”?

“She shrugged. “My brother. Thinks he’s the funny one.”

I forced a laugh. “You don’t like his jokes?”

“Something like that.” She turned back to her laptop. “Scene twelve needs work.”

But I wasn’t thinking about the scene. I was thinking about  the Tea. The brother who allegedly  ran background checks?

That night I searched for Tea Drake. Nothing. Then tried “T. Drake.” Still no hits. Then: T-names, male—Thomas, Tyler,Taylor,  Tyson, Tim...even Teagan… Lin.kedIn swallowed me whole.

By 2 a m, I gave up.

The next morning, I was fifteen minutes late.

She’d given me a keycard by then, so I let myself in. She was at the desk, but as soon as she saw me, she scooped up her papers, stuffed them into a folder.

“You’re late. I thought you weren’t coming.”

I mumbled an apology.

That’s when I saw it—the symbol on one of the documents.

It hit me like a migraine: I knew that logo. A horse leaping from the curve of a Q.  I’d seen daily… on billboards across from my apartment, in subway ads, splashed across business magazines.

Equinox Logistics .

She didn’t notice me staring as she locked the folder away.

I didn’t say anything. Not then. Equinox had its own conspiracy threads—whispers of smu.ggling, offshore accounts, shell companies. People called them a corporate m@fia. But nothing stuck.

She put the papers in her safe and  came back with the manuscript and pointed to the  circled paragraph with her fountain pen. "This is ***."

I leaned over. The line read: The bl00d pooled like spilled merlot.

"Too purple?"

"Too wrong." She tapped the nib against her teeth. "Arterial spray doesn't pool. It arcs." She demonstrated with her pen. A drop of ink hit the manuscript. "See?"

I swallowed. "I'll fix it."

I didn't care what Penelope  did for money, not really. The panic in my chest wasn’t about the man who might di.e. It was about whether I’d be next. I thought about leaving. About vanishing. But debt collectors don’t respect mysteries. And my sister’s name was still tied to my emergency contact forms. I had chained too much of myself to the living.

But that day Penelope made me leave  early. One: because she saw I was distracted. Two: because she got too many calls.

I went home and searched again. Henry Marshall , the founder. Lucas Marshall , the CEO. And Tea... could that be Thierry Marshall? The thrill chasing, stunt posting Y0uTube guy who occasionally dabbled in "background research"?

But there was nothing on Penelope.

Henry Marshall’s Wikipedia said he had two sons. No mention of a daughter.

 So… an illegitimate child? A secret sibling? Maybe that’s why her last name was Drake—unless it was just a pseudonym.

 Or maybe she had a deal with Equinox. Did they ship her books? Is that how it works? Or was she researching them for something she was writing?

My head was a carousel of half-baked theories when she called.

“Family emergency,” she said. “Let’s postpone the next session. A week, maybe more.”

Of course, I said yes.

But something in her voice told me this wasn’t the kind of family emergency you send flowers for.

The next week, she asked me to meet her at a café.

Not the penthouse. Not the publishing office. A café.

 Silver Spoon’s Café, tucked into a leafy by lane like it didn’t care to be found. The café's logo, a sleek black cat poised to pounce on a silver spoon, glared at me from the door. Either the owner had terrible taste in decor, or this was some rich person’s idea of irony. Given what I knew about this neighborhood, I was betting on both.

This was the kind of place with soft jazz and mismatched chairs. I almost laughed when I walked in. After every conspiracy theory I binge read on sub r3ddit about Equinox LLC, this felt…absurd.

Penelope was already there, at a corner table, sipping what looked like iced lavender tea. A pair of sunglasses shielded her eyes, but I could tell she’d been watching the door since before I arrived.

“There’s a monthly cleaning going on,” she said lightly. “Security checks. Pest control. Paper shredders. That sort of thing.”

Riiiight.

The café belonged to her friend, she said. Lyndon Hazard, who came out from behind the counter after a few minutes. Tall, broad, leather apron. Smiled like a man who knew too much and had learned to make peace with it.

She called him Indy. He called her Drake. Not Penny. Not Penelope. Just: Drake. And he said it with the ease of someone who’d been calling her that for years. Maybe Drake is her real name after all.

They joked for a bit, and then he glanced at me. Measured, amused. Like a bouncer pretending to be a barista.

“You the gh0st?” he asked.

“That’s what they call me.”

He grinned. “Drake’s ghost. Fitting.”

She rolled her eyes. “Shut the h3ll up, Indy.”

He chuckled. “This one’s a  Pirate in a poet’s coat. Swears like one too”

It took me a second. Then it landed.

Sir Francis Drake—pirate, explorer, crown sanctioned criminal. Privateer if you wanted to be polite. Mercenary if you wanted to be accurate.

And of course, Drake.

I didn’t react. Just tucked the reference away. 

He made jabs about misdirecting narratives, hiding b0dies in metaphor. I started to realize something: the way they looked at each other. Not friends. Co-c0nspirators.

"Complicity isn’t just about bl00dstains," Lyndon said, fingers pausing on his glass. "It’s not the kni.fe in the back—it’s slipping the bl.ade into someone else’s hand and counting the seconds before they use it."

Penelope exhaled a slow ribbon of smoke. "Did you crib  that from a bad courtroom drama, Indy?”

"Experience." His attention cut to me. "You’re the writer. Now tell me—what’s the difference between a motive and an alibi?"

I didn’t blink. "One’s the reason, the other’s the lie. But the best stories make them the same thing."

"Let’s test that." He leaned in, the table creaking under his weight. "Who really ki.lled the husband in this story?"

"The wife," I said. "Not because she swung the knif.e but because she left the window unlocked and the whiskey poured. She knew exactly how her lover’s temper worked."

Lyndon’s grin was a blade of its own. "Funny, isn’t it? How ‘innocent’ people never seem to notice their own fingerprints on the cri.me."

Penelope stubbed out her cigarette. "Indy thinks he’s philosophical."

"I’m philosophical as a h@nged man’s last words," he replied.

After about twenty minutes, he excused himself. Something about a delivery. Or a storm. Or both.

After he left, she watched the door for a moment before turning to me.

 “We’ll meet next week,” she said. “At my place.”

I raised an eyebrow. “More emergencies? The deadline’s closing in.”

@azurepond

Hey how you feeling? Hopefully still on the path to recovery! An arduous journey that one is. What you been up to? Eat any good food? ECT ect

Been drawing a bit recently tho not a ton, might add a picture of some later, would need to take it first.

@azurepond

Sorry for the delay, but as promised my sketch's and music list.

The big one isn't finished, but it's getting there.

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6UTaDALX62q2PcoosICrcBBCfBRdh-p2&si=JWcBZpQPeQtAr0BD

These are in no particular order, listen to whichever ones you want. *Some are AMVs (sorry I didn't want to take the time to find the originals.) Also EPIC the musical has some of the best music ever so listen to that if you can! ;)

P.S. Also if the YouTube link doesn't work or just don't want to use it (which is totally fine if that's the case) I will spend the time typing out at least most of them to share. ;)

Good luck, and hopefully happy listening! Love and shade 🩵