Caliber began as a short story that I was going to give to my husband for his August birthday in 2023, and turned into something that equates to 4/5 novel lengths. I began it in early July, and finished it on March 4^th 2024; writing as much as 30,000 words a week at times.

It’s 100% mine, and at the same time 100% Valorant / Riot. I make no claims over the characters, (except characters like Cory, Finola, Barbara, Austin, and Marielle)…

The story mostly revolves around Marielle and the love story that she falls into, but as the novel progresses, other original characters shine. Due to this, it’s being updated in three parts as if it’s three distinct / long novels, all part of the same story. You’ll see this reflected in the headings.

My husband named this book. I had no title for it, but was calling it “Between Dimensions” (which I knew was corny and was NOT going to stay the title. I often name something just to name the document…) My husband told me to call it Caliber one day. I scoffed at him, but he explained himself. By the next day I knew that he was  right and it had to be called Caliber. This is the first time that my husband has ever named one of my books.

-Caliber because the book is (in part) about “Chamber.”

-Caliber because it means- the quality of someone’s character or the level of their ability.

-Caliber because it is also – the internal diameter or bore of a gun barrel.

When my husband and I play Valorant, I exclusively play Chamber. I’ve literally never played any other character except Sova when I first started. My husband plays Viper, Killjoy, occasionally Brimstone. I believe this semi- influenced who got more story time in this novel. Sabine / Viper obviously, and there are times when Klara / Killjoy is a main focus as well in my mind. I have also always secretly adored Sasha / Sova.

You do not have to know Valorant, have played or know the lore to enjoy the book. I did my best to build a world for you that was self-contained and explanatory.

• Joe Goldberg is of course a reference to the main character in the show “You.” Or the books written by Caroline Kepnes. When I presented this story to my editor, they tried to remove that line. I kept it because I felt that it was … ironic for things later on.
• Marielle’s last name is “Chaenes.” This is pronounced, “CHAY – NESS” but with a softer emphasis on the ness… Due to this, her last name sounds like “Chains.”
• Marielle’s “nickname” is “Masin…” This is pronounced “May – sin.” Later on, it’s revealed that her Code name is “Masin Chaenes.” (Mace and Chains.)
• I believe that Sabine hung up on Marielle because she didn’t want to talk to her. But it’s possible that they were disconnected. I imagine Liam making Sabine do it, and then barking at her for hanging up, so she was forced to call her again. Haha.
• I’m not knocking anyone who loves pokemon, but I’ve actually spoken to women who said that some of the worst dates they went on were with men who talked about almost nothing except for pokemon.
• Marielle is a “gamer girl.” You see this a little bit in the book, although it’s more talked about than shown.
• Being a profiler and Marielle’s empathetic nature makes things like love difficult for her. She almost always knows when someone is lying, and never feels like she can trust a romantic partner.
• In the game, many abilities are purchasable while others are inherent. Obviously, in a story you have to fiddle with reality a little bit regarding game mechanics. In this version of the Valorant world, one has abilities, however, using them makes the person exhausted, or decreases energy. This also explains why “not just anyone with abilities” can be (say) an agent at Valorant, or why abilities are not constantly used on the battlefield. Their combat approach (similar to the game) is a more tactical or militant approach; use guns, knives, and training first, use abilities and powers when necessary.
• The only other character that I have ever played in the game is Sova. Which is one of the reasons that he gets an early mention and description. I also think he’s quite handsome. This shows in my descriptions of him, Marielle’s reactions to him, and even another character’s admittance to thinking that he is “attractive” later on.
• If you know anything about the game, you know who the “stranger” is… or is it?

• “Ugh, no one can hold their breath forever.” Is the first of many times that I added game lines into the novel. Sometimes these lines are dialogue, and sometimes they are in descriptions of a scene or something. I spent hours listening to Valorant voice lines. Haha.
• The flashback in chapter two is important to set the stage for Marielle and Sabine’s relationship. The addition of Morgan as a secondary background character is equally important. He’s not in the story much at all, but he definitely has a place.
• Yes, Liam’s daughter’s name is Molly… yes, this is a reference to the grenades.
• Marielle and Sabine look similar- most people think they’re sisters. Both have black hair and green eyes. Although Sabine is much taller, and Marielle has a poutier, innocent look in my mind.

• The reference to Liam playing video games with Mateo is a reference to one of the cinematics.
• I am extremely aware that the game makers say that Vincent is like 5’10. That doesn’t add up to me when looking at the main image of his body. He’s too long in the torso, and in the legs. This is the reason that I made him 6’2 / 6’3ish.
• It’s also never stated in this novel, but Vincent is 29.
• I am also extremely aware that RIOT says that Vincent has no radianite abilities. This (to me) is not only silly, it’s incorrect. It’s obvious that he does, and it’s the teleportation. Obviously you can put guns into your body via nano-technology, but you can’t cause your entire body to materialize or dematerialize with this same tech- unless we’re all in star trek… and if this were the case, why not let everyone do this? So yes, I decided that he could teleport due to radianite exposure, but the teleporter was a conductor as controlling teleportation was nearly impossible, and teleporting more than once every 30 seconds could be deadly. This makes the most logical sense to me.
• RIOT has stated that Vincent’s tattoos do not stop where they appear to… hehehe.
• The first thing that Vincent says in this book is “That would be embarrassing, yes.” And as I write literally everywhere I go- often talking to myself for dialogue so I look like a raving lunatic, I actually wrote this entire conversation whilst having it with myself as both characters in a Joann Fabrics.
• As much as I love the Vincent / Chamber character, I dislike much of his general design. What I have been given to understand is that he might have looked a bit more like Midas from Overwatch- but since copyright issues might have occurred, they changed his overall look as much as possible from Midas. My issue with this is that his original design looked less like Midas than the current one. Chamber originally wore a dark red / burgundy suit and his tattoos were not gold, but more black symbols.
• “Guided conversation,” is used often in this book, but never specifically stated as so. Watch out for it.
• I didn’t actually know that Guided Conversation was a “real thing” until literally this moment when I looked it up. Google says- A guided conversation is a structured form of dialogue where one participant, often referred to as the facilitator or guide, steers the conversation in a specific direction to achieve predetermined objectives or outcomes. – in this book, it’s often used for the purposes of seduction.
• Bonne chance – is of course a Chamber line in the game.
• The line about croissants is a vague reference to game stuff as well.

• The once over that Sasha gives Marielle when she steps out of the elevator followed by his touching her and then doing something to show off is meant to tell that audience that while Marielle thinks that he’s handsome, he thinks that she’s beautiful, but would never pursue it.
• 207 is a number that shows up in my life a lot. I put it into all of my books; often as a room number.
• We don’t know who the other prisoners at Valorant are, but I can tell you with confidence that the female is Clove.
• This is not mentioned, nor does it matter to much but it’s a little thing. Marielle’s birthday is in November. The owl that Sasha is carving is a gift for her.
• The books that Vincent has in his room all relate to the story and the characters in some way. I’d say how, but that would be spoilery. I hope you’ll figure it out later.
• Boxers or briefs was not important. Marielle just wanted to know. Haha.
• Marielle is using her own manipulation on Sasha when asking to take the book. She knows that he’s attracted to her, so she’s making sure that he responds to that.

• In this scene, Marielle prepares herself with a lovely dress and make up, makes a delicious meal, pours wine, lights a candle, and forces her mind through a series of scenarios in which she imagines Vincent brutally attacking her, and killing her. In one, he SA’s her, but it cuts off before it actually reaches him doing so. During this sequence she discovers that he is an assassin. You can return to the sequence after she says, “That’s it, you’re an assassin…” if you wish to read the rest of the chapter because it is far less graphic, intense, or distressing.
• Like the game, Jamie is cocky, and personable, but doesn’t want to talk about his past.
• The “fire” is a direct reference to the game lore and is never truly answered.
• Once upon a time – when I started writing this novel – the chapters actually had names and this chapter’s name was “A thousand ways to die.”
• While Marielle never does this “playing scenarios” as intensely as she does in this chapter, she does do it again far later in the story. It take a deep emotional and physical toll, and I believe that she’d really prefer not to do it.
• “Focus now, eyes off me.” Will seem familiar if you’ve played the game. It’s obviously a Vincent line. Marielle steals a few of Vincent’s lines in this book.
• I had to give Marielle a middle name for this chapter. I decided quickly that it was JEANNE.
• When I started writing Caliber, I read both The Old Man and the Sea, and Dracula. I didn’t like either, and Marielle’s annoyance at The Old Man and the Sea comes through because I wasn’t thrilled with it. Similarly to Marielle, however, at the end I developed a strange fondness for the tale and where it went.

• I personally love some of Gunship’s songs so the band gets a mention in this novel…well, more than one. The song that Marielle is listening to is this one-
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syzHPv3-hH4
• Both chapters 5 and 6 are meant to – at least in part – show the audience that Marielle’s abilities are a bit more than just “reading” people. She can do that, too. But when she really focuses in on things, she can understand things in a greater detail than others. But as a deep side note- not even she knows that she can do this.
• Chamber is known as one of the more untrustworthy characters in the game.
• “Cover going out,” is of course an Omen line, but in my head, since John is still human at this point, he sounds odd- because he still sounds like a man.
• Enter Austin Rancor, a major player in this story. Pay attention.
• Occasionally, characters in this book will say things like “there.” – Sabine says it here in chapter six. This is a reference to the game. You can make characters say things like, “yes,” “no,” “there” and “here.”
• I am aware that in the game Chamber / Vincent built weapons- he is also French military (ex if I remember correctly) so, this works, but I took some liberties in certain areas for varying reasons.
• “Surprise me” is in fact a reference to Ratatouille.

• The first of many flashbacks in this book. The flashbacks in this novel play an important part in not only unravelling the story, but also making the present make more sense / mean something. So pay attention.
• Vincent punches his pillow here, proving that Marielle’s assessment was correct.
• “I’m dating a prisoner who I’ve literally spoken to only twice and have known for just over a day. Mm-hmmm, and we’ve also made violent love”—she lifted a finger – is a minor reference to It’s a Wonderful Life. “He’s making violent love to me, mother!”
• Enter Klara. I love this character.
• The fountain and the courtyard play an important part in this novel.
• I came up with this bit about Florian completely spur of the moment, and it ended up being particularly important to the storyline.

• Klara’s quip about the thing she’s creating- that Vincent might just see it as a toaster – is a game reference. When Vincent kills KAY/O he will sometimes say, “Toaster is Broken!”
• I understand that Klara did not make KAY/O – this is me taking liberties just for the fun of the story. (Also in a cinematic, Klara is messing with bots they use to train with).
• It’s not stated until much later, (and maybe this is evident based on the fact that she called Marielle) but the person in charge with trying to get Vincent to “talk” before Marielle was called in was Sabine.
• I love Austin’s sort of playful behavior toward the beginning of the book… watch that shift as the story goes on.
• Sabine and Austin’s reactions to being told that Vincent is a widower are interesting and should be noted.
• Everyone who plays the game and knows the lore well knows that Kingdom is sort of always in the “background” – while the they appear in the cinematics, often, we are not given too much information on what they are. (You can see a crate of theirs clearly in Ice Box- a map in the game). Kingdom plays a very background, but important part in this novel.
• I had originally listed the names in the folder, and amongst them were a few people from my past that I have had “beef” with (although the names were slightly changed). Hehehehe.
• Twenty questions, five lies, twenty truths happens a few times in this book. I loved each time because it gave me an opportunity to fit things in here about myself, or family members on occasion.
• I love Wingman interrupting them, here. It always makes me laugh.
• Marielle’s “would be” agent name is “Gall.” She tends to run / rush into things, and beat the crap out of people. This is seen a little much later in the book.
• Everyone in the game wears gloves. Marielle wears gloves when she trains.
• “I buy these by the dozen.” Is a line that Phoenix says in a cinematic. The same one mentioned above with Klara / KillJoy.
• “Come on, let’s GO!” Is a Phoenix line.
• Maybe it should have been stated earlier, but Felix literally exists because I run a writing group on facebook where you have to use prompts. In the prompt for last August (2023), the genre was “Fan Fiction…” But in it, there had to be a cat. Enter Felix. He is actually one of my favorite characters, despite being an “add in.” He adds so much heart to the story in very specific places.
• Similarly (and again, it probably should have been stated earlier…) Barbara got her name because in the SAME prompt, a name you had to use was “Barbara.”

• I hate Chamber’s shoe design. Can you tell? Haha.
• It is mentioned much later in the book, and I mentioned it earlier in trivia, but before they called in Marielle, Sabine had been tasked with trying to get Vincent to talk. This is one of the reasons that she is guarding him often at this point.
• I briefly studied popular French food for this book. When I say briefly, I mean on and off for about two weeks during this section.
• Erik was a character that I originally wanted to do more with in this book. I use him the best during this chapter. He doesn’t have tons of scenes later in the book.
•  The courtyard, and particularly the fountain area is vital to the book and its plot.
• I absolutely invented Vincent’s past for this book, but I have to admit that I love it. You get little bits of it peppered in throughout the story, but this is the first time you understand his teenage years.
• My editor pointed out that I actually hadn’t named either of Vincent’s guns until much later in the book (Chapter 27 if you can believe that) – so I added a small blurb in the dialogue in which Vincent states that the little one is Headhunter, and the rifle is Tour De Force. These are the actual names of Vincent’s guns in Valorant.
• The best way I could describe the teleport sound was voomp. However, in my mind I hear the sound of the teleporters in “bind.” (Bind is a map in the game Valorant.)
• While I understand that RIOT insists that Chamber is not a radiant, I personally believe that this is not only silly, but wrong. You would not / could not “create the ability to teleport” from nanotechnology (in my mind, anyway, you’re free to disagree with me) – instead, I believe that radianite gave him the ability to teleport, but not conduct it. The teleporter device helps him to conduct it.
• An online friend actually put me in contact with someone French to help me translate the French in this book. I took French as a child for a few months, and as an odd result, I can sometimes understand it, but can not speak it. I am forever grateful to this person for helping me with most of this.
• I personally hate the character Deadlock. Her real name (which I’m fond of) is Iselin. Because I dislike her in the game, I decided that I was going to use her early in the story, and only here. So, if you’re here for her, you won’t like the fact that she never really shows up again. At least not with a “part” or story. That being said, I feel like she is well utilized in this sequence. She’s obviously the “leader of the pack” in this part of the book and terrifying.
• “That’s a good spot,” – a game line.
• Sasha’s quiver contains arrows that create a sonar that causes him to see where everyone is standing within the range. This is what starts this sequence off.
• “This is my territory, these are my rules!” – a slightly altered game line. Deadlock always cries, “My territory, my rules!” When she sets her ultimate off.
• “Watch your eyes!” – a Phoenix game line.
• “They are so dead!” – a Chamber game line.
• “Watch it, Chamber has his gun!” – Something that someone said one time when a Chamber on the other team pulled his rifle. I loved it, and the sound of her voice when she said it, so I decided to use it here.
• Deadlock / Iselin’s ultimate is a cocoon that she uses against members of the opposing team. It grabs you, cocoons you, and pulls you toward her as you slowly die. Unless the other members can shoot you free or help you are dead no matter what occurs at that moment. Generally, she shouts, “Pull them to their grave!” – I didn’t know how to use that here. But this moment for Marielle is terrifying and equally terrifying in the game.

• There are technically two healers with Valorant. Wei Ling (AKA Sage) and Kirra (AKA Skye.) Wei Ling can heal and revive others as well as heal herself. Kirra can only heal others. This is all game accurate.
• “Mein Gott,” said here by Klara translates as my God.
• In both the game, and this novel, Tayane and Klara are dating. That might have been obvious before this, but I’m saying it now.
• Enter Wei Ling AKA Sage. I love her in this novel. She doesn’t get seen a lot in the middle, but here, and much more toward the end as her role is infinitely important there.
• The first “I’m with you.” Austin says the words, “I’m with you,” something like fifty two times in this novel, and each time they mean something different.
• Vincent looked at him, his left eye purple and swollen shut.  “Maybe you don’t know, mon ami… I am ex-military,” he said coolly, giving Erik a haughty smile. “I’m not even here anymore.” – No reason for sharing this except that it’s one of many of my favorite moments in the book.
• Marielle is incredibly empathetic. There have always been other stories / offshoots in my mind where this idea is actually far more explored, but it is not beyond Marielle to starve with someone, or cause herself pain to understand / experience life the way the person does / is. There is a side story (that sadly does not exist for the public to read) in which she describes having cut her own wrists in high school, not because she was depressed, obsessive or wanted to, but because one of her classmates had done it, and she wanted to understand how much someone must be hurting to do such a thing.
• “So you’ll wake up and understand what you’re doing to yourself… and to me.”  … loaded statement? *wink wink* 
• I wanted the end of this chapter to make everyone fearful… for good reason.

• Originally, I had a different idea for Austin when I brought him into the book. It looked kind of like what it looks like now, but around this mark- he sat me down over some coffee and said, “This is who I am, Lisa, and you’re going to have to trust me on this because it’s going to change the direction of everything.” – since I needed a direction for a lot of things, I let him do what he wanted to do… best decision ever.
• The torture sequences are some of my favorite parts of the first bit of the book.
• I wish that I had had more story for Yoru. I use him sparingly in this novel.
• For some reason, I decided that Kirra was headquarters forensic specialist, and the person who also dealt with bodies. I actually really love her in this role. Which is funny because I don’t actually like the character Skye in the game.
• “They look like us, but are they us? I have so many questions…” – A Klara / KillJoy game line.
• I loved the fact that Austin was playful toward the beginning of this story, so when I went to edit it the first time, I added this little moment where he leaned on Marielle and kind of tripped when she walked away. I thought it was cute.
• I felt it appropriate to use Fade / Hazal as an interrogator, I admit that I took liberties with Fade’s powers during this novel, but I love it.
• “You will face your worst fears.” – a Fade game line that I added to.

• Even though it doesn’t sound the same in my head at all, when Liam finds Austin and Marielle pretending to sleep and Austin replies, “Eh?” I can’t help but see Jack Sparrow in the first Pirates movie on the prison floor and it always makes me laugh.
• In the shower, Austin is singing – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPYSRjWE36o and promptly after, this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=795bZDddX1w
• Most Valorant characters wear gloves in game except Phoenix, Reyna, Sage (who wears something akin to arm braces) Breach (metal arms), and Astra (a metal arm).
• Time in the “training room” is meant to look something like what it does in RIOT’s cinematics.
• Marielle pointed the tip of her laser weapons upward, making sure they were aimed at approximately head level. – I classically have a “cross hairs up” problem while gaming. For some reason, at times the cross hairs seem to be up for me, but not for others while they’re watching me. Other times, I’m just not realizing approximately where people’s heads are. Due to this, I end up missing a lot of shots. This particular bit of notation about Marielle is me telling myself to raise my damn cross hairs. Hahaha.
•  All game missions are set at a minute forty, with the first countdown starting at 1:39. I actually hate this, and think that RIOT should at least make the rounds two minutes a piece, but think that the game itself would do better if the time frame were around three or four minutes. One of my reasons being that for characters like Chamber, when he “sets up” (puts down his Trademark and teleporter…) if he’s set up in the wrong spot, and rotation happens, these items have a cooldown of thirty seconds. In most cases, after thirty seconds, almost everyone is dead. This happens often. My reasoning is that everyone is “rushing in” due to the time restraints and not plotting / thinking clearly. With an extra amount of time (even 20 seconds) someone could try and surmise a plan, or set up again if they’re a sentinel.
• If Marielle Chaenes / Gall were a real character, she’d be the only Valorant character to use two pistols at once.
• “Chill.” “Cool off.” “Iced.” – campy “Tundra” lines that would be in the game.
• “Time, time…” (said by Marielle) Is a vague game reference. Often when playing, a player will tell another player to “play for time…” – meaning to try and let the clock run down before anything major happens.

• Due to the fact that Vincent has tattoos, and that he gave them to himself, and based on how cultured he seems in many of the cinematics, I assumed that he was a pretty good artist.
• The only line that even partly reveals Omen’s name in the game comes from Sabine in which she says- “Joh-…I mean, Omen. Keep yourself together, you’re still needed.” I promptly decided (although one might argue that it’s obvious) that his name was John, gave him the last name Erickson, and also decided that he was African American (although I am aware that his voice actor is not.)
• There is lore somewhere that suggests that he was her brother-in-law. For the sake of the story, I decided that he was her (now gone) sister’s husband. I am aware that this doesn’t necessarily add up with RIOT’s ideas. But not a whole lot of this is clearly laid out, anyways, so I definitely took liberties. I’ll also reiterate that due to the fact that Valorant obviously deals with dimensions, I figure that things that happen in one dimension might be slightly different from things that happen in another.
• On that note- toward the end of my writing the book, RIOT came out with the cinematic Reckoning, which actually reveals that Omen / John was an assassin who once tried to kill Sabine / Viper. Despite this, I plugged away and carried on with my own storyline seeing John Erickson as more of a docile chemist type in this world who worked at Valorant in the chemistry department before the Incident. Like in the game, John has no memory of his former life.
• There is research to suggest that distracting the mind, or creating something new after trauma will help process the trauma. This includes (but is not limited to) things like playing Tetris (look it up). Hence the reason that Vincent is “painting” something new.
• “It teaches me to breathe meticulously… calmly.” – “I also play violin and a little classic piano, although I am much more skilled at the violin.” – Both vague references to the “French” Chamber cinematic reveal / release. Seen here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgpbN7QSpmM

• I’ve complained about this before, but I feel like RIOT does this thing where they go, “We need a German name!”- Open google, search names, and pick one of the first names that pops up…This is how we ended up with Kirra, and Klara – Tala and Tayane… and so on. I feel that their name game is not happening, here, and wish they’d do a little better. It gets really confusing in a room full of people.
• Vincent stands at the table in a way that is shown in the videos and cinematics that exist of him. My editor said, “I can see him doing this in my mind!” And yes, it was very much on purpose.
• Sabine is particularly upset because (as I stated earlier) she was tasked mostly with watching him and trying to get him to talk.
• Austin raised a brow, tucked his chin in, and shook his head. “Fold,” he muttered under his breath. – is one of my favorite moments in this scene. It’s one of those moments that I feel is underrated so far. The implication of course – that they’re playing a game with each other, one of them is bluffing. Austin “folds” in this moment. He has no cards left to play.
• “Ah. See, now you’re all afraid,”- a vague reference to one of Chamber’s game lines- “Now they’re nervous.”
• Vincent is known to be one of the most untrustworthy characters in the game. Some of that line of thought was where some of this story started for me… I asked myself, “Okay, he’s untrustworthy…Why?”
• Cory and Finola – Nightwatch, and Blackout are not RIOT / Valorant characters. They are created by me for this novel. While Finola is not seen as much as I’d like, I love both of these villains deeply.
• To match with the game- Cory and Finola are dead in this world, but in almost all others as well. This would explain why they do not play a role in the game. They almost never exist.
• This sequence where Marielle startles Vincent awake almost didn’t end up in the book. I battled with it for a while before finally writing it in. My editor loved it so much, that she repeated it to me several times and it made me so glad that I went with my gut on this one. Especially because I feel that it is self-serving after his comment that he is “known to be untrustworthy.”

• “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain… Anything.” – I have a habit in books of referring to other books, movies, and stories. This is not the only time that My Fair Lady gets a reference in this novel.
• When they got into his car, he turned it on, and loud, aggressive music came blaring out. – Eh hem. Briefly, this- … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4wYZsAJb2Y
• She picked a song at random, and off they went, both of them singing along to the loud music. – Eh hem… this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Iu3LBmxQ-4
• “Can I use the bathroom real quick?” – Austin just wanted Marielle to ask him to stay. He didn’t actually need to go.
• I cried far more than a normal person should while writing the “event” flashback.
•  In the game, the lore implies that Sabine lost everything. Apparently there’s a vague reference to children somewhere in the lore as well and to Sage not being able to help them. There’s also “Joh- Omen.” For the purposes of the story, this is my version of events although it might not line up with lore, or anything from the game.
• John says a few of Omen’s lines here and it’s odd in my mind because he still sounds completely normal, here. – “One less.” “Cover going out.”
• “It’s okay,” he said to Sabine, squeezing his son. “I’ve got him.” 
  It wasn’t okay. Both of them knew this. – some of the most heartbreaking lines in this sequence to me besides, “Uncle- John.”
• Sabine collapsed like a marionette whose strings had been cut, – my husband wrote this line. My editor made it slightly better.Originally all I’d written was something like, “collapsed.”  
• I recorded the entire sequence – dialogue, voices, and all (as it came to) between Austin and Erin in a Walmart into my phone. I’m sure that I’ve never looked so crazy in my entire life to anyone near-by. I still have the recording and laugh at it sometimes.
• The reason the dialogue in the Austin / Erin sequence looks so real is because I recorded it in real time, and then copied each beat / stutter, and repeat. Only after I wrote the entire thing did I make slight changes, edits, and do repositioning.
• Austin is playing this- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy709iNG6i8

• She held Vincent out on a golden platter in her mind’s eye, and he looked up at her as she briefly dangled him like a marionette. – A minor game reference. In the game, Chamber sees others as puppets he can manipulate. There is a card- (this one) in which he is actually dangling other Chamber this way. https://staticg.sportskeeda.com/editor/2023/09/e70b1-16958975135317-1920.jpg
              -Fun fact, this card is called the scylla and Charybdis card… which is often associated with a Greek tale, in which the term – “to choose the lesser of two evils” seems to be derived.
• “Please do,” Mateo said. Wingman garbled something, and Mateo nodded. “Yeah, that’s true.” He looked at Marielle. “Sorry, you wouldn’t understand.” – Gekko says things like this often in the game.
• “You can. Efia is guarding the room, just so you know. She might be in one of her… states,” Liam cautioned.
              – Reference to Efia / Astra’s trances. She floats off the ground in game as she places stars and powers up.
• I have invented most of the backstory for Vincent in this novel. While it’s true that Vincent is ex-military in the game, and a weapons designer- in this novel, he is all of those things, and an inventor, but at this point in his life, he’s an assassin (in the novel).
• “So this is you. You’re always going to be… Mr. Gold.” – A vague reference to Once Upon a Time (the show.)
• I’m pretty sure Vincent’s favorite color is gold, or blue, but go with this one.
•  “What did you dream of being when you grew up?”
   A pensive smile. “A racecar driver.”
              – this is both game lore, and me making crap up. The gloves that Chamber wears are classic racing gloves.
• “Okay, keep your secrets.” – Yes, this is a Lord of the Rings reference. (although I’m aware that it’s “alright, then” that Frodo says.)
• “If you came with a warning label, what would it say?” 
  “Don’t trust me.”
              – Chamber is known as one of the more untrustworthy agents in the game.
• “I don’t exactly like the shape of my nose,” – I don’t exactly like the shape of his nose. Hahaha.

• Some of the first truly strong references to what is going on in the game are here at this table.
• In the game, there really isn’t a clear reason for why there is this constant back and forth with the “spike” and defusing it. My take (for the novel) is that Cory’s group is doing so to take over the planet. Cory also has plans of bridging the dimensions entirely and attempting to have control over them and all radianite. Which is mildly in line with the game.
• Vincent put his left hand behind his back and straightened his posture. – a move that is very / Vincent. /
• “Vincent…” Liam began, then paused. “I understand that your double is also Vincent, but for the sake of clarity, I’ll refer to him as Chamber from now on.”  – This gets complicated in the story because when the doubles are in Marielle’s world, they are often referred to by their Agent names and not their first names (whereas those who belong in Marielle’s world are referred to their first names – Liam, Wei Ling, Sabine, etc…) but Cory (for instance) is / not / a game character, so he is mostly just “Cory…” (although occasionally he’s referred to as NightWatch) same with Finola (who is BlackOut). And in flashbacks- they would obviously also call one another by their first names. So, this can get confusing at times, and I apologize for that. I feel like I did a good job of trying to keep things clear. Just remember where you are (in a flashback? In Vincent’s world?) and things should be straight.
•    I feel like I did a good job capturing Gekko / Mateo’s personality and even giving him some as well. I don’t play him in the game, but love him in general. Equally, I love Wingman in this novel and feel that he adds some levity in a really intense story here and there.
•    Austin came a bit closer. “Yeah.” True. There was an odd, tense pause. “Are we about to kiss?” he asked. – When I was like seventeen or eighteen, I went to a friend’s birthday party. I didn’t know anyone and felt awkward, and I believe my former boyfriend Taylor (dead now) had recently broken up with me. I felt odd at this party and a mutual friend of Taylor’s and I’s ended up in the bedroom, laying on the bed, talking (mostly about Taylor)… Later on, he told me, “I kept thinking that we were going to make out…” (we didn’t.) I never forgot it, despite not being in contact with him anymore, and this is a vague reference to that.
• Near the beach was an area that melted into the pier that was alive with restaurants, an arcade, a brightly-lit Ferris wheel, a bowling alley, and small shops that sold candy, hot dogs, silly toys, seashell bikinis, and flower leis. It was raucous with noise, and the scent of the sea mixed with the sweet and savory food aromas in the air. Marielle and Austin walked along the pier for a while, talking about nothing in particular. He purchased cotton candy and ate it as they strolled, chatting about the hot weather. 
  – I live near an area like this. There is no Ferris wheel, but my husband and I love to take our daughter here sometimes.
• His smile started to fade. “When I’m trying to seduce you?” A pregnant pause. “You’ll know.”
   – This line was actually also in chapter 15 and I’d accidentally re-written it just the same. I removed it because it’s timing was awful (shortly after the deep conversation about their pasts). I felt it was better here.
• “And why did you want to become a profiler?”
  “Uh, my dad got me into it… My adoptive father, actually.”
  “Oh, you’re adopted.” She flicked her eyes at him curiously.
  “Yeah.” He pursed his lips for a moment in thought. “I think I’ve always been able to read people well because of my difficult past.”
  – I came back and added this little bit of conversation after I finished the story. ^_^
• She drew lines in the sand with her fingertips. “But you’re thinking about it,” she whispered, and he nodded. “Planning your moves…”
  “Yeah,” he replied, a frustrated, tortured look on his face, “and then clearing them and starting all over again.” He smirked. “It’s fun.”  – When my husband was reading this, he made a comment about these statements, and I don’t remember what, but he re-wrote something small here. I asked him why and my husband said, “He hates himself…”
  – and believe it or not, that very statement changed some of the course of the entire story.
• And yet, the devil always knows… – I’m a Christian. And while I don’t always mention God, or the devil in my stories, sometimes I do. Here, this is to illustrate that “the devil” knows our temptations and places where we slip. So he makes sure that we come into contact with them. Even if you don’t believe in these things, I hope these things make you think about how to stop certain bad habits or be prepared for the fact that you will have to face your addictions.

• Alisa looked at him, her eyes brimming with genuine emotion. “Really, thank you. That was fun. You’re a nice guy, Joe. You didn’t try and hurt me or something the way a lot of those other idiots do.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry you can’t have her, whoever she is.”
  – These are interesting lines to remember.
• Vincent flicked a hand. “Very well. Etes-vous sortis la nuit dernière?” – Here Vincent says, “Did you go out last night?”
  – his speaking to Austin in French indicates that he knows that Austin speaks French. Which is interesting.
• “What do you know about Chamber?”
  “Not a whole lot—or everything, depending on how you look at it.”
  – I love this because since Chamber and him are the same person, but sometimes different things occur in different dimensions, this isn’t exactly a lie.
• Obviously some vague stuff in this Austin / Vincent conversation. I love theories.
• “Feel free to take Marielle out whenever and wherever you want,” Vincent said with a confident smile. “Vous serpent…”
  – Probably obvious, but Vincent called Austin a snake.
• Sabine took a step toward Vincent. “You’ve made promises we expect you to keep.” She glared at Marielle. “Less flirting, more focus, thank you.”
  – A fun Viper line in game (although she addresses Chamber).
• John looked him over. “You…” he rasped in that distant, detached voice. “I see you in my dreams.”
  – this is not an Omen line, but I love it, and feel like it should be to someone.
• “How many times was I torn apart and put back together?”
  – This IS an Omen line.

• Some of the jargon here between Vincent and Klara (and later with the jacket and Macklemore) was inspired by fan art that I saw a year or so ago, and by the line in the game, “I could never wear that jacket, but on you, superb.”
• The fact that Vincent slept with Sabine in the other dimension seemed logical to me considering the fact that he hits on her in the game a few times. While Chamber seems to have a “thing” for other characters as well, he seems to truly be after Sabine. I changed the dynamic, here, but I felt like it fit.
• “Ha ha… Don’t mind me.”  
  – I picture Klara saying the “ha…ha…” similar to how she says it in the “Everyone makes fun of German efficiency” game line. Hehehe.
• During those two weeks, she spent some extra time with Austin instead. They texted almost every night—mostly business, a little goofing off. They went to a movie together one Saturday and threw popcorn at each other, ducking down low when someone turned around and glared at them for laughing too loudly.  
  – I did this with someone once, and I will never forget it.
• At a fast food restaurant the next day, Marielle was flabbergasted when he suggested that she steal their order number stand while the cashier’s back was turned. “What? No!”
  “Take it,” he growled, a grin plastered onto his face.
  “No!”
  “Take it!” he coaxed.
  “No!” But the moment the cashier started turning around, Marielle slipped it into her purse, and they both grinned innocently at the woman giving them their receipt.  
  – Something else that really happened to me. My parents were actually mad at my boyfriend at the time because he “made me steal…” all I thought about was how hilarious it was.
• Vincent tapped the glass below the needle. “It’s a bit difficult to explain… Basically, what we are attempting to do is give John something of a”—he bobbed his head a bit—“suit. Something that coalesces over his body and interacts with the residue created by his celestial body and builds a bridge between it all with the nanobots here…”  
  – I don’t pretend to know how Omen works in the game. Most of his “lore” for this novel is made up entirely by me. However, my husband and I sat down and came up with this together.
• “I’ve been having nightmares again. They’re me,” he whispered, his voice distant and detached. – Not an Omen line, but I feel it should be.
• Vincent shook his head. “No, no, it was mine. Remember, I’m not dealing with the John from my world. I’m trying to adjust, but… échec.” He weighed imaginary scales in his hands. Marielle gave him a pointed look to remind him that most people didn’t speak French. “Failure,” he added. She gave him a half smile.  
  – echec here just means “failure.”
• This interaction between Sabine and Vincent where he tells her that Peter isn’t in John always makes me cry as does the descriptions of the funeral and what was put into the coffins.  
  – My husband and I received a bottle of champagne on our first wedding anniversary that we never drank. I think we still have it, nearly 17 years later.
• Vincent looked down at the chocolate in her hand and smiled. He opened it and took a small bite from the side. It was dark chocolate with orange peel, a famous French brand. “This is one of my favorites. You read my mind, Marielle.”  
  – I wrote this scene in my head (and the scene about his hazing) when I went to Whole Foods and bought chocolate for myself.
• “Macklemore,” Austin said. “The right word is Macklemore.” And then he stalked out of the room.
  Jamie and Mateo burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. “You’re right, bro!” Mateo shouted after Austin. “He does look like Macklemore.”
  Jamie marched off toward the exit singing the chorus of “Thrift Store” under his breath.  
  – Just funny to me.
• “I was running, and I tripped… sprained my ankle. Noir et bleu…”  
  – this means black and blue.
• I’ll state again that RIOT claims that Vincent has no radianite powers, but I heavily disagree with this. I believe that / teleporting / is his power (as I don’t believe that nano-bots would accomplish this) but that the nano-bots and the anchor conduct his teleporting, which he needs to do this safely.
• “What they don’t know is that if they picked a fight with me now, I could easily kill all of them. They all have mundane lives. I found out years later that one of them died in a work-related accident. None of them were brave enough to touch me again after they saw what I could do during recess with a target and practice bow and arrows.” 
  – I was heavily / physically / and emotionally bullied as a child in school. I wouldn’t trade my life for any of theirs now, and that is the truth.
• “Gratefulness” is a theme in this book often as it relates to life, grief, etc.
• Often, when a child is lonely, bullied, etc they “decorate” themselves later in life as a form of self expression. That’s what is being referred to here.

• Vincent sat in the corner of the lab, hands laced together, leaning his forehead on his thumb knuckles. He took a deep breath in and slowly let it out again through rounded lips. Then he reached up with the fingers on his right hand and gently stroked, then straightened, his wedding ring. He wondered when the right time to remove it would be… the right time to move on. He’d purposefully worn it for years.  
              – Random and maybe this should have been said earlier, but I got the idea that Vincent was a widower from Chamber’s choose agent screen. When he’s standing a certain way, his tattoos look like a wedding ring.
• After glancing around to make sure he was alone, he checked his watch, then lifted it to eye level and pushed a few buttons on the side. Something clicked, and he pressed all the buttons at once. A small, almost inaudible beep began as if a signal was going out. He nodded, put his wrist down, and continued to drink.  
              – Chamber’s watch in game seems responsible for a lot of things. So, I had fun with this.
• “You should have picked a different game. One I could kick your ass in.”
  “Yeah, like what?” he asked, taking a drink of water from a cup nearby.
  She paused for comedic timing. “Candyland.” He roared with laughter, eyes pinching shut in an incredulous expression. “Hey, we could also play Pretty, Pretty Princess.”  
              – This is an extremely vague reference to one of my husband and I’s favorite little-known movies called, “My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend.” (With Christopher Gorham.)
• She felt cool silk drop around the front of her face and tighten, plunging her into darkness. Simultaneously, her head pulled back a bit. Her heart pounded with excitement and momentary terror.  “That was it. You got it,” he breathed against her ear. She could hear the salacious glee in his voice.  
              – Long before I was ever married, and the first time I took an acting class that I re-took eight years later (same teacher) my “partner” did this to me and I’ve never forgotten it.
• The clock said 8:39 when Austin slid in next to her. He smiled and said nothing. She knew. He knew she knew. He’d leave it there.
  “Vincent kissed me,” she blurted.
  He kept his shock to a minimum but pressed his lips together. “I need a drink. Want something?”  
              – one of my favorite moments in this chapter. She confessed something to him, and his response was, “I need a drink.”
• She turned. “Yeah?”
  “Smooth…” It hung in the air for a moment.
  “What?”
  He shook his head, changing his mind. “Mind Eraser,” he decided. She nodded and set off to mix coffee liqueur, club soda, and vodka.  
              – I happened upon the name of this drink sometime during the writing of this scene and thought it appropriate given what Marielle just told him.
• The acrid flavor refused to appease the demon raging within him.  
              – Austin’s addiction is referred to as demonic many times in this book.
• “Tu as de bons goûts, mon ami,” Chamber said, hands in his pockets as he turned toward the two women.  
              – Chamber is saying, “You have good taste, my friend…” which, if any of you play the game, you’ll know is his agent screen line.
• “Are you two sisters?”
  “No,” they said in unison. Sabine’s reply was harsher and more filled with bitterness than Marielle’s. Chamber smiled at this.  
              – A repeated joke in this novel.
• “You knew not to trust me,” he reminded, but his tone was too compassionate to sway her mind at this moment.  
              – A Chamber game line.
• “Tu ne peux pas m’en reprocher d’essayer.” 
  Vincent flicked an eyebrow at Chamber as if to say, “I know something you don’t know, but you’ll find out in a second.”  Not catching the hint, Chamber continued, “Magnifique, mon pote. Superbe.”  
              – Chamber is saying, “You can’t blame me for trying.” Vincent flicked an eyebrow at Chamber as if to sa… and “Magnificent buddy, superb.”

• In the game, there are lines that imply that Liam / Brimstone does not like Chamber. Chamber comments on this sometimes saying things like, “At least pretend to like me, I’m your ticket to the other side.”
              – I comment on this here, in the first lines of this chapter.
• “No, no, the deal is still on. But I need more from you.”
  “You can’t have more. I can’t keep teaming up with you at the drop of a hat.”
  “My God, I thought we were looking out for each other.”
              – Chamber is the only character in the game who has been known to work with his other half / doppelganger. However, Sova has MET his, and apparently almost killed him.
• Chamber entered the lab with bounce in his step. “Bonjour!”  Kirra screamed—not a long, drawn-out horror film scream but a short, quick scream that made Marielle quell a laugh.  
              – this never ceases to make me laugh in my mind.
• Marielle waved a finger in Chamber’s direction. “Can you juggle?” she asked, eyeing Vincent.
  He looked at her with an expression that was just as confused as she felt. “Apparently, he can.” His eyes widened for a moment, then he met her gaze again. She was angry with him, and it was written all over her face. 
              – My father is a musician… a GOOD one. This is a stretched reference to him. One time at church, we were missing a drummer, so he got up and played the drums. We were asked if he could do that (as no one- including us had ever seen him do it.) “Apparently…” my mom had said.
• Vincent flung his trademark camera into the corner near the elevator, and Chamber did the same with the stairway on the opposite end. “That’s a good spot,” he noted. 
              – Chamber game line.
• Vincent sighed, but Chamber merely smirked and said, “If any of you die today, I will remember you forever.” 
              – Chamber game line.
• And an ocean of water burst through the doors and engulfed the hall, destroying all of the machines in its path and plunging them all underwater. The hall lights flickered, then died, dropping everyone into cold, wet darkness. 
              – Obviously, this is Harbor. When writing from a game that has rules, and specific situations, sometimes I take liberties. This is one of them, but I love the effect. Harbor’s ultimate is drenching others in water in a pool that he opens up on the ground beneath you. I felt like having it burst from the elevator in a tidal wave was fun.
• He smiled. “I’ve got you,” he said gently. Then he gathered her against his chest with one strong arm and held her there as the water passed over them, through the doorway, and eventually drained out of the hall entirely.
  Once the water had receded, leaving only an inch or two on the ground, he let go of her. She instinctively grabbed his arms, terrified to leave the safety he offered.  He shook his head. “You’re okay,” he whispered.
  She pulled away, belatedly realizing she was clinging to Chamber, not Vincent.
              – I…love this part of the novel.
• Chamber nodded. “And teleporter’s broken.”
              – another Chamber game line.
• Chamber nodded. “One shot for thirty seconds.”
  “Share?”
  “Eh…” Chamber cocked his head, lifted his hand, and seesawed it back and forth quickly. “It’s risky.”  
  “Call it out if you use it. I’ll use the watch to count.”
              – Me taking liberties. I would assume that this is how this would work in real life. They both have the same DNA, so to me, this seems at least a little bit reasonable. (That they’d both be able to use the same teleporter.)
• “Any time now, Austin,” Chamber growled as he and Vincent drew their golden pistols again and Vincent ran to replace his teleporter.
  Another wave began to emerge, and Austin sighed. Wiping water from his face, he lifted his hands and took a wide stance with his feet apart and palms pointed toward the wave. His eyes blazed icy blue, and frozen air passed from his hands toward the wave, first slowing it as it crumbled in on itself like an avalanche, then freezing it to sloshy bits of ice. 
              – this just sort of “happened” when I was writing this scene. I put two and two together. It was entirely unplanned.
• A voice—Cypher’s—came from the bottom of the stairwell, shrill and eerie. “I know exactly where you are…”
              – Cypher game line.
• The second they stopped, Chamber lifted both hands. “Okay, you want to play?” He pulled the enormous sniper rifle from his body, the tattoos vanishing. “Let’s play.” – When Chamber uses his ultimate (which is pulling out Tour De Force- the big gun) MY team hears “They are SO dead!”
              – THE OPPOSING TEAM hears, “You want to play? Let’s play.”
• “Start the count!” he cried as he vanished in a flurry of color.
  Vincent pressed the buttons on the side of his watch again. “Mon Dieu,” he muttered under his breath, raising his pistol and firing at Harbor. 
              – In game when you teleport, you get a little timer counting down from thirty.
• “Healing over here,” Kirra whispered with a sweet smile.
              – A Skye voice line.
• Chamber finished him off with a single blast from his rifle, taking no chances. “I would apologize to you, but alas, you are dead.”
              – Slightly altered Chamber game line.
• Kirra agreed. When Vincent and Chamber turned left down the dark hall, they encountered a seven-foot tall dome of water and a flood of bullets coming from around the sides of the dome. 
              – Something that Harbor can do in game.
• Tears fogged Klara’s glasses, and she drew in a ragged breath, slightly lowering the weapon, then clearing her face of all emotion and using both hands to bring it back up and aim at Raze’s lovely face. She began to tremble again, and her breath snagged in her throat.  “I can’t,” Klara whimpered. “I can’t.”
              – I honestly can’t read this part without crying.
• Everyone else was silent and stunned. “Don’t get cocky,” growled Austin.
  “A little cock never hurt anyone. Isn’t that right, Austin?” Chamber said with a smug grin.
              – A joke that just kind of “happened.” It was completely unplanned.

• Cypher’s real name is Amir El Amari
• Harbors real name is Varun Batra.
• I always find it funny that Chamber snaps and disappears here.
• “Wait, I thought his teleporter broke,” Marielle said, glancing at Vincent.
  “It did. He must have had a reload,” Vincent said.
  – this is a minor reference to the fact that originally Chamber had two teleport anchors.
• “You haven’t called me Masin in a while,” she stated.
  He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow at her, his expression implying that the reason should have been obvious to her. “You”—he bit his lip for a moment—”told me not to.”
  – one of my favorite moments in this chapter.
• “I don’t know where you stand, but…” He glanced down for a moment, then his eyes returned to hers. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
  – I can’t stop thinking about you is one of my favorite tropes / lines in literature and anywhere.
• “It’s called recalling,” he explained. “It’s similar to what you do when you read someone… what you did with me.”
  – This is something that I made up, but it felt plausible. (recall / recalling I mean).
• My editor told me that Vincent recalling his wedding night would be the “standard” for many women after this. Hahaha.

• Makes sense,” she murmured, feeling small. She chewed for a moment, pulling her hair over her right shoulder. “Were any of them men?” He chuckled, looking a little embarrassed. “Eh, no. I promise that despite the jewelry and”—he glanced down at the golden tattoos running up his arms—”decoration, I am very much straight.” 
  – Welp, RIOT has apparently decided otherwise due to some of the new voice lines. They imply (or at least hint at) the idea that Chamber swings, or is bisexual. Whatever. To me, actually, if there are infinite dimensions, this still tracks because in my version of things, people can be slightly different one place to another. It’s very possible that Chamber is bi or even gay in other dimensions. In this book, however, Vincent is straight.
• “‘Didi, Didi, no! Not my lab-or-a-tory!’” she mimicked the classic cartoon Dexter’s Lab.   
  – this is merely meant to remind us that Marielle has a playful, childlike side. I actually never watched Dexter except maybe a few times, and it’s actually not mentioned again in this novel.
• “He’s still masked,” Marielle said, her tone confused.
  Kirra sighed and shook her head. “It didn’t feel right,” she said distantly. None of them had ever seen his face.  
  – This entire scene was so odd to me because when I wrote it, I didn’t know what was going to happen next, and for a moment it was like I was standing there with them and I believe that I spoke the dialogue out loud as it happened. When it did and I wrote it down, I sobbed uncontrollably and I couldn’t tell you why. The lines felt so right to me- the idea that Kirra (Skye) wouldn’t want to unmask him because they would know that that wasn’t what he would want, and how that would play on their subconscious. When they do the actual unmasking- I went and looked at various fan arts of “unmasked Cypher” to guess at what I thought he’d look like myself. I settled on something that was part fan art, part my own imagining. This entire scene makes me so sad for some reason every time I read it. I always cry.
• He wouldn’t ask for a corpse… he was one. This bordered on nightmarish for Marielle. She’d killed him, after all. 
   – My editor wrote me and asked, “why would he ask for a corpse if he’s dead?” – hehehee… it’s a game reference. Cypher says, “Give me a corpse” and can use it to detect others.
• Austin nodded. “Often people don’t realize they’re traumatized for a while after the incident occurs. This is especially true in children.” He looked distant when he said this.  
  – pointed statement and action.
• Chuckling, he raised his hands, then scratched the back of his head. “Not in the slightest. There’s a piano and a poster from a space film I saw once just out of college. I hardly even remember the movie—the person I was with that night pulled it from a trashcan.”  
  – I saw the movie Broken Down Palace (with Claire Danes) when I was about 13, and a few months later when I saw a different movie with my father, he pulled a nine foot tall vinyl poster of that movie out of a garbage can at an AMC. I kept it for years. This is where this idea came from.
• He smiled. “I’m Italian. I know a few tricks… like olive oil and bread.” 
  She giggled. Uh-oh… giggling. Stop that, Marielle.  “And butter and garlic,” he continued, raising fingers and counting them off.  
  – this always makes me laugh. As an Italian myself, this is often how I look at things. “My tricks include garlic, garlic, olive oil, bread, garlic…”
• Marielle took it as improvement if not warmth. She’d always try to get her friend… her sister back.  
  – this story arc is one of my favorites in the book.
• “When they told me that I had a wife… and that she committed suicide… I didn’t know how to feel,” John said. “I don’t remember her.” Vincent looked at him with an expression of complete incomprehension, and Marielle understood. What if Vincent couldn’t remember his wife, but she had still died? “Will I remember now?”  
  – Heartbreaking to me.
• Another scene that always makes me cry  
  – the John transformation.

• My husband asked me, “Did you do this (the ball / banquet) just so you could have Marielle and Vincent dance?” I giggled because that was a large part of it. There was a fan art that someone had drawn of Chamber and Viper that semi- inspired this.
• I adore cats and have two black cats of my own. Their names are Malzahar, and Chamber (maid) haha.
• This bit about the French Café was added after the completion of the book, but remains one of the earlier made additions.
• “Why not?” he asked, arms up in a shrug.
  – I can’t describe how he says this, but I love it. It’s semi-hilarious in my mind.
• The first two had been royal- and navy-blue with gold trim, while the third had been burgundy. – Minor reference to some of the earliest Chamber designs / concept arts.
• She took it off the door and gave the simple design a once-over. “It feels… old or something.”
  “Well, what do you want to look like?”
  “I don’t know,” she growled, then turned, went back into the dressing room, and slammed the door. “A goddess.”
  – If this dialogue feels familiar it’s because these lines are a minor reference to the movie “Ever After.”
• He leaned over his knees. “I doubt that,” he said under his breath as he rubbed his palms together.
   – This is a Bill Pullman “I doubt that,” – While You Were Sleeping.
• He wanted to taste that shoulder so badly.
  – My editor added the “taste” bit here, and said to me, “I felt this was more appropriate to him.” I grinned and said, “You have no idea HOW appropriate…”
• The freezing of the wrists was my husband’s idea. He said it would be like “snapping a rubber band against the skin.”
• She swallowed. “You are the hunter,” she said, trying to project confidence in him.
  – Anyone who knows Sova’s character, knows that this is his ultimate line.

• Minor 007 references here with the “naked lady” statues as the beginning of many James Bond movies are nude women dancing.
• In the “family photo” of Austin and his “mother” – there was originally a man in the photo as well meant to be his father. I painstakingly removed all traces of that man as there was originally going to be a story line about how his father had died at a young age not that dissimilar to Vincent. I removed this storyline. But in case anyone was wondering- the man was older, with a larger build, dark thinning hair, horn rimmed glasses and a polo shirt. He was unattractive, which contrasted Austin’s attractiveness.
• She shook her head even as she stood to meet him. “This is why men die younger than women,” she sighed
  – my husband thought that this line was utterly hilarious.
• He took a deep breath. “Marielle,” he said seriously, his eyes dancing fire, “s’il te plaît, fais moi confiance. J’ai besoin que tu me fasses confiance. Je veux que tu me fasses confiance…”
  She looked down, not wanting to meet his gaze. “Don’t do that.”
  “What?” he asked, suppressing a chuckle.
  “Don’t speak to me in French,” she whispered, feeling exposed.
  He swallowed and took a drink of his wine. “Pourquoi pas?” She felt her heart speed up. “Qu’est-ce que je pourrais bien te faire, à part te désarmer?”
  She knew she was blushing. “Stop it,” she said, no longer trying to hide her response to him.
  “J’ai dit que je ne tenterais rien. Je n’ai pas dit que je ne dirais rien.” He flicked an eyebrow at her suggestively.
  —
  Austin said- “please trust me. I need you to trust me. I want you to trust me…”
  Marielle, “Don’t do that.”
  Austin, “What?”
  Marielle, “Don’t speak to me in French.”
  Austin, “Why not? What could I possibly do except disarm you?”
  “Stop it.”
  “I said I wouldn’t try anything. I didn’t say that I wouldn’t say anything.”
• – Marielle’s favorite room in this book is also my favorite room. In fact, as I write this, we were there today. (7/28/04).
• – Fuselage is one of my favorite words.
• – The fact that Marielle likes daffodils is a minor reference to the song “Another Love” by Tom O’Dell and is used a few times in this novel. I have my sister to thank for this.
• Her “worst gift she’d ever gotten comment” was a minor reference to the movie Bye, Bye Love with Matthew Modine. He talks toward the end about how “his father gave him a tennis racket, and he didn’t play tennis…”
  – this reference has sort of a double meaning as his character “David” is a lot like Austin in many ways.
• The spin the bottle story actually happened to me, once, almost word for word.
• The story about the “pet mouse death” is also true, except that it was a good friend’s hamster. It’s something that I’ve never entirely forgiven myself for, or- it hurts terribly when I remember it.
• He paused. She felt what was coming. “Avez-vous pensé à nous?” She felt her heart slam into her throat. He became serious. “Ne me mens pas.”
  —
  – Austin said, “Have you thought about us? Do not lie to me.”
• When she reached it, he was there, shoving the door closed before it was open more than an inch. It slammed, and Marielle froze against it, her palms and forehead pressed against the wood. Shutting her eyes, she took in several hot breaths, her chest pounding. She knew he was watching her, waiting for her to look at him, willing her to look at him. She refused.
   – if this scene looks familiar, it’s because it is a reference to the scene in Blade Runner when Rachel tries to leave and Deckard makes her kiss him, then make love with him.
• Austin plays this when he’s alone- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id7GU5Gwh0c
• I wrote and re-wrote the prostitute scene a few times. I wanted to express what was happening without going too far and show you the intention.

• Trying to ignore the stares of the two boys, she pulled her cell out and scrolled through text messages from Austin.
  – interesting.
• Something like this sequence with the two boys on the train happened to me one time at a mall. I was with a friend, and there were two boys watching us. Sure enough, one of them approached me. To this day, I have no idea what he said and because of that, I believe that I responded something to the effect of, “Huh?” and he walked away. Apparently he was telling his friend that I wasn’t “nice” a few minutes later.
• “Pardon, monsieur,” said a familiar voice. “I don’t think so.” “You want to play? Let’s play,” “Excusez-moi?” “Please do not mistake my smile.” He forced the expression off of his face. “I take this all very seriously.” “Our new acquaintances are not too friendly,”
  – All Chamber game lines.
• “Sa femme était aussi profonde que l’océan.” – His wife was as deep as the ocean.
• If you know anything about the game, you know that Viper and Omen (Sabine and John) have a close relationship. Vincent shrugged.
• “You love him,” he said matter-of-factly.
  “I’m not in love with him,” she growled.
  – I think it’s interesting that Vincent said, “You love him” – but Marielle added the “in love.”
• He swallowed hard. “I don’t know if you know anything about the face and the golden ratio… but you are damn near perfect,” he breathed. His eyes roamed her body again, claiming it with his gaze. “What are you doing to me, Masin?”
  – My husband said this about the golden ratio to me moments before I kissed him for the first time. He’d never been kissed, and we were not in a relationship, but I was laying in my car over the front middle divider and his fingertips moved over my face in light that was coming from a lamp outside. He said those words, and shortly there after I grabbed his face, said, “Screw it” and kissed him.
• He put his ear to the door. “No.” His gaze flicked to her. “Fade.”
  – Fun fact. This was a typo, the “he’s here.” Part. It was like 1AM and I when I wrote it, I tilted my head with every intention of changing it… then I paused, “What if…….”

• In the “stop reading” scene, Fade / Hazal mildly assaults Marielle, ripping her shirt, and pressing himself into her with Austin’s face. He threatens her, stilling her, and tells her that her worst fear is “ironic” but that she won’t “get to know about that until later.” – Marielle gathers her strength and gets away from him by pushing herself through the wall, back into the hallway. He gives chase.
• So, yeah… in Vincent’s dimension- Fade / Hazal is a man. 😊 A happy accident. I love this character so much that I found any excuse to put him in the novel series.
• The fact that Hazal “didn’t teleport in nearby” explains Chamber’s momentary stop while he was walking with Marielle. More than likely he heard the “voomp” sound, but half a mile away or something so it sounded like it was just noise on the wind.
• I took some liberties with Fade and Fade’s abilities because they seemed “logical” to me. It seems logical to me that when you see Fade’s ultimate, that we are all supposed to be experiencing our “worst fears” – the problem in the game of course is that there is no way to express this in that state, so we see / hear the black, red, swirling smoke, the “I’m in your head…” I have also made it that Fade has an ability to help alleviate fear in someone and experience it himself / herself.
• Sasha tipped his head forward, his eyes flicking one way, then the other. “He?”
  “I don’t have time to explain, but Hazal is a man in my world,” Vincent said rapidly.
  “Okay.” Sasha accepted that without question.
  – This is actually meant to be funny on a different level because originally Sasha was a woman. So, the fact that Sasha just sort of accepts this is funny to me.
• “This bow has taken man and beast alike. I have found there is little difference,” Sasha replied, brandishing his weapon.
  “I have Tour De Force.” Vincent nodded to his rifle. Sasha smirked.
  “Vincent, you are a good shot, but when you can bounce your bullets off the wall, then I will be impressed.”  
  – Couple of Sova game lines, here.
• A distant and unfamiliar voice came rolling through the hall, calling out a familiar phrase. “Nightmare, take them!” 
  – The Fade ultimate line.
• A low, rumbling laugh that filled the entire space emanated from deep within Austin’s—Hazal’s—throat. “So easy,” he hissed. 
  So… easy, a high-pitched whisper echoed after him.
  – supposed to mimic how we hear / see Hazal’s abilities in the game.
• “I’ll find you,” he roared, stepping into the hall.
  – a Fade game line.
• Chapter 27 marks the first time that we ever actually see Cory. *shivers with excitement* And please don’t ask me why, but in my mind he looks exactly (Cory’s hair is a bit redder) like the internet personality / talent Stuart Mackey. Someone tell him. Haha.
• “The monsters you command are imitations at best,” he growled.
  – A Sova game line. Then of course, an amazing usage (IMO) of “I AM THE HUNTER!!” (here).
• Hazal’s hollow eyes rolled back into his head, his ashen skin slick with perspiration. His face was gaunt, skin clinging to bone. “You’re better,” he wheezed. “You’re all just better.” – this line is a “general” game reference. In Valorant, people will often call other players “better.”
• Hazal looked down at himself, his sinewy body, his own trembling hands. “I paid a heavy price to commune with Nightmare.” “Everyone’s afraid of something,” he heaved.  
  – Fade game lines.
• This entire scene is game lore with me taking some liberties. In the game, Fade is looking for a “person of interest” – we learn “here” that it’s his father.
• This entire scene with Vincent and Hazal makes me cry each time I read it.
• “But after this… It’s game on.”
  – An imagined NightWatch game line.
• “You’ll sleepwalk another day.”
  – Another imagined NightWatch game line.

• “Viens, rentre dans le lit,” he whispered. She scooted up toward the headboard before tucking her feet under the sheet. She removed her shorts again and tossed them aside; it was too hot for both, even at this hour. 
  “Mets toi à l’aise,” he added, another whisper.
  – “Get into bed,” he whispered. She scooted up toward the headboard before tucking her feet under the sheet. She removed her shorts again and tossed them aside; it was too hot for both, even at this hour. 
  – “Make yourself comfortable,” he added, another whisper.
• The only other thing she heard from Vincent was “Shhhh,” and then, “Tu es en sécurité Marielle. Tu ne seras plus jamais en danger.”
  – The only other thing she heard from Vincent was “Shhhh,” and then, “You are safe Marielle. You will never be in danger again.”
• “Tu veux que je te parle en français.” She shuddered—a good shudder, the kind that makes you hungry. “E Italiano,” he whispered even more softly.
  – “You WANT me to speak to you in French.” She shuddered—a good shudder, the kind that makes you hungry. “and Italian,” he whispered even more softly.

• He pulled back a little, a pained expression on his face. “Oui, Masin.” Then he paused. “The first thing I said to you a few weeks ago was, ‘That would be embarrassing, yes.’ And then you said, ‘Well, only if you don’t talk to me.’ And we both laughed.”
  – I love this little callback to their first meeting in Chapter 3.
• I added some of the internal shower monologue about Austin and Vincent here, thinking it might clarify some of Marielle’s feelings at this time.
• His chest hurt. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath.
  He put a hand to his heart and rubbed his chest. This wasn’t indigestion; this was a physical manifestation of pain from within his spirit.
  – I can’t say what exactly, but my editor pointed something out to me that I planned subconsciously here. As in, I didn’t realize that I did it, and she picked up on it before I did. HAHAHA
• I adore this little phone conversation that Marielle has with Cypher / Amir. I can hear him so clearly in my mind.
• “I will not share his particular secrets. It is better, I think, if we remain friends.”
  – While this is a Chamber line in the game, I thought it appropriate to give to Cypher / Amir here. Afterall, Chamber says it to Cypher in game.
• It was the word “never.” It floated in the water all around her. Never… like a ghost flittering past, or a shadow glimpsed out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t know what it meant. Sure, it meant Austin… but why? Never.
  – I have a long, personal story about this word and someone that it applies to. That someone is dead now. But I definitely used this situation to inspire this bit of story, here.
• “You breathe me in like you’re coming up for air every time we’re close.”
  – My editor commented, “Well, there’s a line for the ages.” Lol
• My editor loved this “wear red” thing and how it mirrored Vincent giving his wife a pearl necklace when she wanted to “make love.”
• I love how during that entire scene, Marielle says not a single thing. Lol. He says, “Glad we talked,” and she had said nothing hahaha.

• I think this scene with Mateo and Jamie (Gekko and Pheonix) adds some levity to the story where it’s desperately needed. These two (and Wingman) crack me up in this scene.
• Ah, Han. ^_^  I am quite aware that Jett’s real name is Sunwoo… I could NOT go through this story calling her that. So, Marielle and everyone else call her Han. I love this, and I adore this character in this book even though I have little thought about her in the game.
• “I couldn’t let you take up all of the cooking duties, now could I?” she replied, her chin resting on Marielle’s shoulder.
  – Jett is a chef. ^_^
• “That’s true,” Mateo said, answering Wingman. He was now knee-deep on the steps, while Jamie was paddling like he was drowning as he tried to adjust to the temperature. “Don’t mind him.”
  – Mateo says things like this in response to Wingman often.
• “Something happened in Venice. It’s one of the reasons I’m back. We’ll talk more later, though.” 
  – This is game lore, and I felt like I fit it into this story nicely.
• “Dizzy’s up top!” The little, blue armadillo-like creature’s wide eyes stared down at her with a clear “halp” written in them. – A Gekko game line / with / a Gekko action. Poor Dizzy hahahaha.
• “But that Austin Rancor?” She made a little groan and fanned herself with a laugh. “I’ll take five.” 
  – I often say “I’ll take five” in real life when I love something hahaha.
• “There is a stable fusion device at a site in New Mexico, the Everette-Linde Research Facility. We’re going to see it. That’s all.” 
  – Anyone who knows the game, Chamber, Vincent, etc knows EXACTLY where this is going. This “site” is Fracture.
• Austin’s eye roll was so large Marielle thought he might be able to see the back of his head. She almost laughed. – One time, my sister said, “I rolled my eyes so hard that I saw my big toe…”
  – this is a variant on that. Hahaha. My sister makes me laugh often.
• He got up, went to the bench, and sat down, plinking out “Claire de Lune.” Of course that was exactly what he’d play.
  – Vincent is playing this in this commercial – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgpbN7QSpmM
• — Ironically in the commercial above the newspaper at the beginning says “Kingdom wishes to reassure the population that radianite has no adverse health effects” (supposedly anyways)
   – which is equally funny and some of where my concept for Vincent’s dimension’s situation came from.
• Exhaling, he shook his head. “Why, little one?”
  – Sometimes my husband says “little one.”
• So she paused, not pushing in, not trying to reclaim territory, while he sat staring at her, making her wait, forcing her to ask for him. 
  – Some clever wording about the game itself there… “Not pushing in… not trying to reclaim territory.” Hehe.
• “S’il te plaît, embrasse-moi, Vincent.” He cocked his head a little and smiled, still not moving. Simpering, she leaned in a little more.
  – Marielle is saying, “Please kiss me, Vincent.”

• I added some of the conversation about Hazal at the dinner table here long after the story was finished. I realized that they never fully discussed the situation.
• I just sort of “made these pictures on the wall” up on the fly haha.
• Marielle and I hold similar views about “pink” as a color to wear haha.
• She thought for a moment, then laughed. “Oh, that’s Scott. We had theater together. He was gay and didn’t have a date, so I went with him. We had fun.” Shrugging, she turned to him and grinned jokingly. “No sex, though.” 
  – A reference to my sister. ^_^ She did this for BOTH prom dates I believe. 😀 And she was in theater with at least one of them.
• She tucked her knees under her and stretched up toward him. “Je veux que tu me fasses ça, Vincent.”
  – She tucked her knees under her and stretched up toward him. “I want you to do this to me, Vincent.”
• Great… the whole problem.
  – my sister and I call attractive men “problems” – we call attractive, tempting men “whole problems” – but since we’re both married, this is more funny than anything. Haha
• It seemed that her options were “Tell Austin that I want him,” or “Tell Austin that I definitely want him.”
  – this bit always makes me laugh so hard.
• She would call him flawless in appearance, but that was almost going too far.
  – This is supposed to be funny. In the game when you kill everyone on the other team and no one dies, the narrator says, “FLAWLESS.”
• She took a sip of the cocktail in her hand and tasted pineapple. It delighted her, and made her a little heady. “It’s about trying to escape something you’re already becoming anyways. There is no escape. The liquid is embracing the figure at the center, drowning him… and he holds onto it, trying to claw his way out but also embracing it right back.”
• He looked it over, tilting his head. “Yeah,” he agreed. 
  – Obvious symbolism here. My editor asked if this was a real sculpture. I wish that it was, and you fan art types, I would love to see this someday. It’s all silver / mirrored.
• I actually watched large parts of Madame Butterfly to write this scene.
• Austin saw the moisture on her cheeks and drew her into a hug, holding her for a moment. “I know,” he whispered. “I know.” And he did; he knew…
  – This was a special moment for me between my father and I. Many years ago, now (when I was thirteen – er… that was almost 30 years ago) my father (who is a talented musical writer and a prodigious singer) was in something of a commercial for a proposed musical. He was ensemble only, but many of the characters at the end of this “play” died, and I didn’t (at the time) know that this was coming. When he came to us after in the audience, I was sobbing and he had to hold me. To which he said, “I know… I know…”

• “They are so dead!” he growled. – Chamber ultimate line.
• “One less!” he cried into his earpiece as he snapped his fingers.
  – Another Chamber game line.
• My husband maintains that I need to write an entire novel about Vincent AND Chamber. I have to admit, when they are together, I find myself cracking up. I love them.
• Chamber nodded. “Near the bac— You know what, I’m going to call left B, and right A. I think if we go B, back, we can work our way down into that area.”
  “Then what?”
  – hehehe just an excuse to call parts of this map B and A. (This is how they’re labeled in the game.)
• “Not only has he been here, mon jumeau… he’s already working with Kingdom in this world. He’s definitely trying to bring other doppelgangers into this fight.”
  – mon jumeau means “my twin” essentially.
• Some of their casual banter here, and acting like they will kill one another is meant to reference game stuff.
• The attacker peeked out again only to be met with Chamber’s bullet between his eyes. “I missed on purpose. He got cocky.”
  – in the game, people “peek” and it gets them killed often. Learning how to peek ups your chances of winning. I have no figured this out yet.
• This area they are in is in fact “Fracture / Everette Linde.”
• “Why is this even here? It makes literally no sense.” He narrowed his eyes at Chamber, suspecting that he’d obtained plans for the facility long ago.
  Chamber shrugged and squinted against the bright sun. “You know I don’t make the rules.”
  – Because it’s there in the game. XD
• Enter KAY/O.
• “‘As…youuuuuu… wissssh,’” Chamber quipped, pulling a twig from his hair.
  – Of course a Princess Bride reference.
• Vincent pushed shakily to his feet and pulled Tour De Force from his arm. “Well, this suit is ruined,” he snapped.
  – A Chamber game line when he’s low health.
• Chamber calls KAY/O a “toaster” more than once in his lines.
• “A gift,” he whispered.
  – A Chamber game line.
• I am well aware that RIOT says that Clove is a they / them… initially I had written it in that way. However, (and I try and be realistic in all things, here) Chamber doesn’t KNOW Clove at this point, and is internally calling her female just based on appearance. No offense to anyone or anything- but Chamber doesn’t have her pronouns ATM.
• Clove calls Chamber a “waiter” because they do in the game at one point.
• And here is Iselin again (Deadlock) She is the only character in the novel series who is basically labeled as a “villain” as her only two appearances are in Vincent’s dimension. I wrote the flashback LONG after the story was finished in part to include Clove, and in part to try and smooth out some of the story.
• “Toaster is broken,” Chamber said, dancing toward the fallen hunk of metal.
  – A Chamber game line when he kills KAY/O.
• Chamber gave a theatrical shrug. “Just wondering where the bread goes.” 
  – This is a nod at “Dramatic (Danny)” (someone tell him haha).
• The last bit of this chapter is LITERALLY them quoting the commercial for FRACTURE. 😊

• Marielle traded the sweet makeup look for smoky eye shadow that gave her a sultry and untamed appearance, thick mascara, inner eyeliner, deep cheekbones, dark-red lips—
  She stopped. Oh, no…
  – This was one of those things that happened in real time like the situation with “male Hazal.” I was just writing this scene minding my own business, writing that she was putting on red lipst- oh no… So, I went with it.
• She blotted the red off and dug in her drawer for a minute before finding black lipstick. She applied it and looked in the mirror, hardly recognizing herself. She was a gorgeous… slut. 
  Good.
   – This makes me laugh so hard.
• Klara was in a tuxedo with a yellow tie and that beanie she loved so much.
  – Yellow because her in game jacket is yellow.
• Mateo wasn’t doing much better in a lime-green getup that looked like he’d pulled it out of a bin at a thrift shop.
  – This is a minor reference to their commentary about Vincent and Macklemore.
• Fate has a funny way of handling awkward situations. If you fear something, you’ll inevitably encounter it, and it’s no doubt Fate’s way of throwing you a curve ball from your worst nightmares.
  – I love this and I don’t know why.
• Austin let out a ragged breath. “You’re killing me, Marielle,” he whispered.
  – I’ll keep it personal, but this is a reference to my sister and her husband. ^_^
• His expression was odd, like he’d noticed something. – He did 😉
• Austin is singing this- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD9D_rg2QPA
  Originally, scenes like this had full lyrics written out, but since this is illegal, I removed them all.
• Then this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1acEVmnVhI
• “C’est de la torture,” she breathed, unable to look Vincent in the eye until she stopped speaking. She pinched the top of his tie, wanting to pull it out and lead him to the exit by it.
  He narrowed his brown eyes at her. “Qu’est-ce que?”
  She put her cheek to his chest, hearing and feeling the rhythmic pounding of his heart. “I think you know,” she whispered.
  
  – “It’s torture,” she breathed…
  – He narrowed his brown eyes at her. “What is?”
• Then Austin is playing this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PMKa3s2xp8
• It glittered and spun, detecting all around them. 
  “That’s a good spot,” he whispered, straightening his collar.
  – GAME LINE
• “Oh, you don’t want to play? Then why did we come up here?” he asked, a chuckle hanging just beyond the statement. 
  – A twist on the ultimate line, “You want to play? Let’s play.”
• I wrote the “love scene” as one of the first scenes that I ever wrote in the book. Which was funny to me because it was just “floating” around in my Caliber folder and I had to wait at least two months before actually GETTING to it, and marrying it with the rest of the story. Haha.
  I also wrote and re- wrote it about ten times. My desire was always to portray the intensity of the moment and not so much make it about “seducing the audience.” This was in no way meant to be erotica, more to show the audience his love for her and give them a moment to realize what this specifically meant to Vincent.

• Her eyes widened as she glared at him. “Marielle was a profiler!” she growled, then put her fingertips to the sides of her face and shook her head. “You said was! Past tense!”
  – Fun fact. The book always said, “Marielle was a profiler,” in the scene that Marielle is referring to. However, my editor pointed this out and was attempting to make sure that it was proper grammar. I told her (my editor) NOTHING, and just ignored it. Then I wrote this little bit in this scene because I thought I should mention it / bring it up. Haha.
• She knew exactly what she’d say. “‘No, Vincent, I’ll die a whole woman.’”
  – this is exactly what she said in chapter 7 in the flashback.
• “I felt disgusting, dégoûtant, after each one and lost all of their numbers. It’s amazing how much a little sex can numb the pain, but then how it can accuse you in the late hours when you’re alone.”
  – he just repeated the word disgusting in French.
• “What were we like, married?” she ventured.
  He grinned and flicked an eyebrow at her. “French,” he said matter-of-factly.
  – I love this. You can imagine the two of them yelling rapidly at one another in French and throwing loaves of bread across the room, only to end up making out the moment they touched.
• “Well, we did just make love,” she purred.
  He pulled back and looked down at her with a smirk. “Oh, you caught that?” he asked.
  – He said this to her when he kissed her for the first time.
• Why him? he asked himself as confused thoughts and feelings tangled around the core of himself. Didn’t he have a plan already in action? Vincent wasn’t supposed to interfere with that; Austin’s plans never failed. And why did he care so much? What did it matter if he failed this time? This kind of thing didn’t affect him, so why did it feel like it was affecting him deeply now? He’d waited too long, like a snake waiting in the grass to strike, only for its prey to run when it heard something else. He’d waited… too… long. Now what? Anxiety swirled around his middle, threatening to make him sick. He already felt that familiar feeling of falling beginning to rise in his core.
  – This scene had been added post story write, and my editor praised it saying, “I love that this could simply mean his plan to get in Marielle’s pants, or it could be something bigger/more ominous. Really hooks the reader. :D.” – yessss.
• “Shut up…” he demanded one final time as he turned the key to start the car. “Mother.”  
  – my editor said something like, “You could see this coming a mile away, but the reveal was still great.”
• A moment later, the door opened again, and Vincent set Felix in the hall, patted his head, and closed it again.
  – My husband thought this was hilarious.
• “I’m not entirely sure. When m—when my wife died… I had a string of lovers. Many of them are faceless now.”
  – This from chapter 23. This happens a few times, and it is me deliberately telling, and at the same time keeping secret, the fact that Marielle is in fact his wife. He almost says “When Marielle or Masin died,” but instead changes it to “my wife.”

• This description of the train track nightmare is the vaguest of vaguest of references to the movie “The Sandlot” where smalls talks about a baseball falling from the sky and nailing him into the ground like a railroad spike.
• When I wrote this novel series, my husband read each chapter as I wrote it. I gave him as little spoilers as I could. He believed these “two names” from the dream were “his and Chamber’s.”
• A brief memory occurred to her. He’d told her that day in the courtyard that he’d “so missed” her food.
  – Yup. I always wondered if this was too obvious, and strangely, now that two people have gotten to this part of the book, both have said they did NOT see the big reveal in 32 coming. I suspect others will, but yeah. It’s interesting.
• “You can dress whenever you please,” he purred against her temple, “but the beauty of Aphrodite shouldn’t be covered for too long.” He nibbled her left ear, his hand moving up her front and finding her breast. 
  – This was so cheesy to me- I even state that Marielle thought so – but I just couldn’t erase it, no matter how many times I hit delete. I kept putting it back. Because, it honestly feels (to me) like something that Chamber would say to someone who he was intimate with.
• “Oui. You were very close with him long before you knew me or…” He cut himself off and looked down for a moment, as if fighting back tears. “He was the best man at our wedding.”
  – This is important, but I won’t say why. (him cutting himself off) a few chapters from now 😉
• He nodded his agreement and sat back down beside her. “But first,” he said, “petit déjeuner avec l’amour de ma vie.” 
  – “But first,” he said. “Breakfast with the love of my life.”
• Statues can tell you a lot of things if you take a moment to truly observe them. They can tell you about the artist, about what he or she was trying to convey and why. They can tell you about the material the artist used and how skilled they were with their tools. They can show you immense beauty in their carefully crafted folds, wrinkles, and lines, and they can speak to you if you listen carefully enough, just still yourself and stare.
  – This is meant to make you think about to the sculpture that they observed in the opera house in chapter 30.
• He hadn’t moved in a while, leaning on his knuckles over the table top. At last, he lifted a hand, picked up a playing card, and moved it to another stack. Then he reverted to being a statue, staring at the game of Solitaire he was playing. She finally approached and sat across from him. He didn’t acknowledge her. Instead, he moved a red two over a black three. Then he put the red ace of diamonds over that one and collected all the cards. He’d won against himself. Austin shuffled them a few times and dealt five cards to each of them. The game had changed.
  – My editor loved this imagery and stated that I may have in fact written this book for her. I said, “I think maybe I did.”
• He tucked his lips in for a moment. “That took you long enough,” he sighed.
  – Austin obviously had some idea that this was the case. He was probably afraid to even bring it up to her.
• “No, you’re not. Your double was in another dimension. You’re you here, and you never married Vincent,” he hissed.
  “Why? Because I was supposed to marry you?” she bit back. Maybe I should have been called Viper… 
  – I love Marielle’s retort, here. That’s all. Lol
• Austin gazed at her like she was the ocean, and his pleading eyes were a dry, desperate desert.
  – There are many references to Marielle and the “ocean” in this book. The old Man and the Sea, for instance. What Chamber said to Marielle in chapter 26 on the subway- all are because the name Marielle means “of the sea.” (Or bitter, but we’re going with the French meaning here)- I also think that it’s interesting to note something here- I often name my characters on a whim. When they show up in my mind, they often tell me their names instantly. Marielle said that her named was “Marielle” long before I ever knew that Marielle was a French name. In fact, I’m not sure where I ever even heard the name. I know no one named Marielle. Subsequently, Austin showed up in my mind as “Austin Rancor.” – I kept trying to change his name because saying it out loud is awkward to me. I kept writing “Raynor…” but, he insisted, and let me tell you… It works.
• This scene with the Queen of hearts card became so important to the story. It’s amazing, really because it encompasses so many things and so much symbolism all at once- including the fact that I often make references to Alice in Wonderland in my stories, and this also does that. If you’re part of the Caliberbook Instagram, you’ve possibly seen a picture that I made with this card in a reel.
• A stranger thought occurred to him… The Queen of Hearts… Wonderland… Off with his head! Was she going to kill him? 
  – Remember this for many chapters later.  

• “I’m not fooling myself, Marielle. We all saw him wait for that waiter last night. His intention was pretty clear, but no one is going to say anything to him. That’s his business.” She shrugged. “I’m not judging him. You know how I do.” 
  – When I was writing Han (Sunwoo) I really wanted to give her something of a broken past as well. That past is never explored, but I told my husband a few weeks ago that I (personally) believe that she had a lover, or a husband and they were killed / died and that she has sort of let go of the idea of wanting to stay rooted to anyone. She likes to run around with whoever she can, now.
• In this dream, she is actually standing in B site on Bind (the map) from the angle that faces the teleporter. This is one of a few times that I use maps in this novel series. Everything in this part of the dream is game related; mentions of the spike, the overhead voice, and so on.
• A disembodied female voice whispered against the wind, “Spike planted. A…” 
  – I am aware this is never said in the game. However, I chose to add it as if it was.
• The fact that Marielle has a knife in her hand here is meant to be indicative of the game as well.
• “The blast… You’d need about a thousand perfect health to survive it,” he said with a warm grin. 
  – In the game when you die to the spike blast, you see that it killed you 999 lol.
• I believe that it’s Cory who says the most “F words” in this novel series next to Austin, who says it the most.

• In her office is one of the few times that we truly see Vincent lose control.
• “You would cause… an entire world… pain, for me?” She asked against his heart as it pounded. Each beat seeming to say her name.
  “I would cause a hundred thousand worlds pain… for you.” 
  – For some reason, this is one of the few parts of the book that I started using as a “snippet” early on.
• I waited until I saw her finally respond to me and I knew that I had her.
  – An extremely vague Vincent reference. Vincent says, “I have them” when his Trademark actually catches someone in its slow field.
• From the beginning of my conceptualizing this novel, I always knew that I wanted Marielle to have two guns in her body with tattoos like Vincent.
• Austin is most definitely listening to this in his earbuds as he’s running on the treadmill.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWPpFmuyOFQ
• We never see John “without” his mask, cape, and outfit in the game, so I decided that he would be jarring without all of that, and would thus want to be covered.
• Yeah, I’m making crap up for how John’s “Dark Cover” ability.

• In the game, of course Jett flies / hovers and I thought this was a neat time to show that during her secret conversation with Austin.
• I may have mentioned this before, but for this story I decided that KJ (Klara / KillJoy) made KAY/O.
• “Ayy, I like this game,”
  – a phoenix game line.
• Chess is a major theme in the cinematics.  
• “Okay, but I can already do that,” Wei Ling said with confidence. Then she bowed slightly as if realizing that she may have said something offensive.
  – Technically what Sage uses is / not / ice. It’s “soul” / “life.”
• I make a great snow machine
  – one of the many lines I think would be great in the game.
• “Awww, come on, don’t give me the cold shoulder,” Austin quipped, sarcastically.
  – and another line that I’d love to see used in the game. Something to the effect of “cold shoulder?” when shooting someone from behind.
• “Cold hearted prick,”
  – I think this would be great to see in game as well. Viper would say it as a response to him doing something like shooting someone in the back.
• I decided that I wanted John and Sabine to be in love. It made sense to me. Of course, RIOT came out with a cinematic toward the end of me writing this novel called “RECKONING” that suggests that she is actually controlling him. However, as I’ve explained in other trivia, since this involves multiple dimensions, I feel like some of these things can be assumed to be different in other worlds.
• “Weapon choice, it is so personal, no? You pick a gun, and it tells me who you are.”
  – a Chamber voice line.
• “Okay, so in this part of the match which I’m going to call the buy phase-”
  Austin broke in, “Why?”
  Vincent shrugged, and turned his head to him, “It… sounds cool?”
  Austin raised an eyebrow.
  “It’s as good an answer as any,” Sabine quipped.
  – Literally just for laughs and giggles. When a match starts in Valorant, you pick a gun with credits, thus buying it. It’s called the “Buy phase…” and this is just my way of laughing about it a little in the book and giving it a nod.

• “Switching Sides…”
  – a narrator game line.
• I used a random name generator to name the club haha.
• He gestured for her to join them. She nodded and went with him, but stopped for a moment at the bar. Asking the bar tender for a cocktail; an old fashioned.
  – This was for my sister’s fiancé (probably husband now).
• “Oh man,” Han said, taking Marielle’s hand and twirling her under her arm, “You…are…hot… Can I take you home?” she asked playfully.
  Marielle was blushing. That statement’s…not going to be good for Austin’s nerves or mind, she thought.
  – this actually happened to me once. Haha. I would have been Marielle and the other woman, a good friend at the time. The poor guy looked like he’d faint.
• Apparently, Han was convinced that Tala needed to ask Mateo out.
  – This is not cannon and I’ve heard “talk” that Gekko might be gay / bi, but I did love this idea for this story.
• You finally get what happened after the “what about you?” in chapter two, all the way back at the beginning.
• “Goodnight, Marielle,” he’d whispered and he smiled at her knowingly, and whirled, skipping down the stairs, whistling the whole way.
  – My husband added “whistling the whole way.” Which was funny, because I had seen it that way in my head, just neglected to write it.
• He set the beer down, and came back to her, taking her hand, and pulling her against him. He began to gently rock and sway with her, and in the middle of the swirling and pulsing lights, the heavy EDM, and the bodies pressed against them from all sides, they slow danced. The clear memory of his voice and the piano from the night before overpowering the sights and the sounds, and once again everything was slow motion. For a moment, everyone and everything melted away and they were the only two people in the room.
  – Minor reference to West Side Story, and the dance scene in Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightly.
• “Make you shiver?”
  – A desired game line.
• “Are you ever going to stop being a fourteen-year-old in a forty-year-olds body?” she demanded.
  “Whoa, whoa, firstly, I’m thirty-two,” he chuckled, breathing hard as he stopped before her. “And nextly…” he lifted a finger, “n-no.” He stammered.
  – an interesting note here, when I first started the story, Marielle was much older, as were all of these characters because I, myself am about to be 41 (I will be by the time this posts), this line is the only line that remains to show that this was the original intent. Austin corrects her, as I corrected the book, making her 30, and him 32.
• “I’m Austin Michael Rancor,” he replied. “Joe Henry Bargs is my-”
  She broke in, “Your double O seven name,” she joked.
  – There are a few references to James Bond in this novel. They are for my father and now my sister’s (probably at this point) husband. ^_^
• The entire explanation that Austin is there to spy on Chamber makes Austin’s reaction to seeing Chamber for the first time in chapter 21 make more sense. (She approached him. “Are you okay?” “No desire to get involved in… whatever that is,” he growled, gesturing to Vincent and Chamber with his head.- chapter 21)
• “I don’t mean to butt in,” a voice from the front. Oh… apparently, she’d said some of that out loud. “But do you love him?” the driver thumbed over his right shoulder. A pair of blue eyes that reflected age, and years of experience in the rear view.
  – I have a thing for minor characters giving the MC’s a grain of wisdom.
• While he brushed his teeth, he avoided the mirror.
  – something else I have a “thing” for. Often my characters won’t look themselves in the eye.

• Because there is a character in Valorant named “Viper,” I very much enjoyed referencing snakes in this book series, and specifically as they pertained to temptation, and the devil when it came to Sabine’s venomous attitude and Austin in general.
• I debated for a long time about the moment of “female self-pleasure.” When I first wrote it, it was quite a bit more graphic. Not erotica so, it just went on for longer, and was a few sentences more. I have probably written and re-written it several times.
• “You do all of these things and use others to gratify yourself over and over again so you can ignore your worst fear.”
              He rolled back on his heels for a second, then came back, “Okay, what’s my worst fear?”
              “That you’re going to die alone,” she said, quickly.
  – Sometimes when I write, I don’t actually know what’s about to come next. This was one of those crazy moments. When he said, “what’s my worst fear?” I had no idea. I just wrote the next thing that came to my head… and let me tell you, it molded the story so well.
• This is actually one of my favorite moments in the entire novel series. When she lays into him here, because it’s such a stark vision of his future.

• The date is September 10^th. This is my sister’s birthday.
• Marielle is extremely empathetic- this also means that she is often very forgiving. Even if the person doesn’t deserve it.
• I often make references to other works of literature, movies, or TV shows in my books. Already, I’ve mentioned Alice in Wonderland, Once Upon a Time, My Fair Lady, and a few others. Here I bring in Gone With the Wind.
• Han saying that Marielle “dripped” was a minor reference to a comment that I saw one time about Chamber. Someone said that he “dripped.” Obviously, this is a reference to jewelry, and what not, but I think it’s fun here.
• “Aye, aye, Captain,” he intoned.
  – This might be implying that Austin likes Spongebob, although I make no such claims. Haha.
• Marielle leaned forward, looking John over, and she nodded her approval at his new dark face mask and hood. He was, for lack of a better word, a ghost.
  – This is meant to be similar to the outfit that Omen wears in the game, although I make no mention of where he got it or how.
• “One gun per team-mate to start, and one pistol if you can handle it.” Vincent said, eyeing Marielle.
  – In the game, you get to buy a pistol, and another gun to use.
• “I thought you hinted yesterday that you wanted there to only be five of us,” Sabine said, her arms crossed as she looked over the table. – Because teams are made up of five people in the game.
• “Oh, and I think it’s probably a good time to announce that Austin knows exactly what he’s doing, and is probably a better shot than almost everyone in this room… well, except for me, of course,”
  – a bit of a reference to when we’re all playing the game and some jackass comes in with an “I’m better than all of you.”
• “Do you know how many times I’ve had to be a team player with a person who betrayed my very life, my very existence?”
  – I don’t know about anyone else, but playing this game, several times I’ve been blocked, blinded, cheated, sabotaged, and so on in this game by my own teammates.
• “I don’t care if he screams, insults you, says the N word, and calls you gay this entire match, he…is…family…”
  – indicative of what actually happens in some matches because people are lunatics and sometimes the community is toxic.
• The lights came back up, and to everyone’s shock he was there with them, and he lifted a pistol that he’d taken from the back, and fired straight into Marielle’s chest.
  She gasped, looking down at the flashing red light. She was dead.
  Vincent slowly lowered the shaking hand that held the gun that had just killed his wife, his eyes wide, and reflecting real sadness. “And that’s how quickly that happens.” Vincent proving that this little therapy session wasn’t just about torturing them, but torturing himself, as well.  Marielle couldn’t read his expression exactly. “Now you are all down one. It’s five to four… and this game isn’t over.” Sabine, eyes still blotchy from crying looked around at everyone else, sadly. “And might I point out that this is the one that you all care about to varying degrees.”
  – We have all played games where the instant the walls disappear, one of our team mates dies. Four to five makes the odds more daunting. – “You’re dead… I want them all to remember it as they do this.”
  – When you play the game, you have to walk over your fallen teammates bodies when they die.
• “Okay, I’m going right, there,” he gestured upward to an area where boxes were raised high above a large part of the arena. He’d be able to sit and wait for a head, or body to reveal itself. “Han, come with me?” She nodded her agreement.  
  – Austin starts this match by telling them what his plan of attack is because often no one does this in the game. My husband and I are often planners and will clearly communicate what are moves are to others so that we have some shot of being militant if not winning.
• “I don’t even know where he came from,” Austin growled.
  – A common thing said in game play.
• “Everyone watch, these guys are coming up from behind us, as well.”
  – a common way that I get kills in game is to sneak up behind.
• “It was a nice try,” Vincent said with a nod to Austin before he turned to the others.  
  – when you fail, everyone says, “Nice try…” or  “NT” in chat in the game. It’s just common curtesy.  

• “I hate to say it, but… probably best that we play as a team?” Han said looking from one to the other, “So, what’s the plan?”
   – A Jett line in the game.
• “Cover going out…”
  – this remains one of the last things that John said before he became Omen and because of this, he uses it often.
• “And Zippy Jett here, set it all up.”
  – Chamber calls the opposing Jett “zippy Jett” in the game.
• “If you want to be a hot head, you do that on your own time and when no one else’s life is at stake.”
  – Minor reference to the song “Fire Again.”
• Vincent chuckled, proudly, “You have no idea, mon ami. Ah, my little marionettes… dance for me,” he whispered under his breath. He was staring at Austin, “I wonder what he’ll do. He’s beyond distracted,” Vincent said low and giddy.
  – in the cinematics, there is heavy implication that Vincent sees everyone as his puppets to manipulate as he chooses.
• He smirked, “Do you like it hot?” He took in a deep gulp of air, “Or cold?”
  – Austin’s “imagined” Ultimate (ability) line.
• “I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to dieeee,” Marielle was singing, and she blew some hair out of her sweaty face.
• – An imagined “Gall” defuse line.
• “Back to the wall,” Marielle whispered catching up to him.
  – An imagined “Gall” game line.
• “Sometimes,” he began again, “you find a weak link.” Sabine glared at him, abhorrently. He took a step towards her, “If I can find it… You’d better believe that your enemies can find it, too.”
  – Minor reference to a Chamber game line.
•  I have no idea where… but this would be playing during some part of this three chapter sequence. XD – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNcY409o56c

• Vincent shrugged, carelessly, “Then leave.” He nodded once, “Jeopardize your team-mates by unplugging and walking out. You obviously have better things to do with your time. We won’t be able to replace you right now, and the game will be unfair, but hey,” he lifted his hands, “at least you’ll have the pleasure of giving us all your backside as you move out of here.”
  – This is meant to reference when someone disconnects in game, which happens often. The team is supposed to be comprised of 5 players, but sometimes someone has internet issues, or has to abandon the game, at which point there are four.
• “I’m hungry,” Han was saying, “Anyone hungry?” She looked to the balcony, “Lunch on Liam after this…”
  – A Jett game line.
• I have the spike,” Austin said, crouching down.
  – Actually a Chamber line in game, but I believe other characters say, “I have the spike” when they grab it from the ground if they spike carrier is killed.
• We’re calling this area A, this B…” He said quickly, and simply after diagraming a box shape, and dotting it with several little shapes. He pulled the cap from his mouth and put it on the back of the marker. “They’re going to be waiting for us at both spots, it’s the most likely scenario…” He tossed his hair and looked from Sabine, to John, to Han, “So I think we should go to one area, and all push in there,” he looked up, waiting for feedback.
  – All common planning and game jargon.
• Okay, then I’m going to go, B. I don’t know how Vincent feels about it, but I don’t ever feel like the spike carrier should go in first. It sounds like a recipe for disaster.”
  “Can you give the spike to me?” Han asked.
  He shook his head, “I’m sure I can… let’s just try this first.”
  – People in game often ask for the spike. I almost never give it to them unless it’s someone like Mateo / Gekko as Wingman can plant the spike for you.
• Han nodded, “Just let them try to catch me,” she said, feeling her heart start to pound with excitement.
  – A Jett line in game.
• Austin put his hair behind both of his ears with his hands, “Okay, let’s say forty-five seconds…that sounds right.”
  “It is right, Austin,” Vincent said under his cupped hand.
  – this is how long it takes in game.
• Their backs will be towards at least one of us.” John rasped.
  – An Omen game line.
• She smirked, “Don’t get in my way,” she growled, and from both arms came a thick geyser of green gas that filled the space and expanded outward.
  – A Viper ultimate ability line.
• Now, she watched him as he meticulously smoothed his face, clearing it of any stubble on the right side, then the left. He was shirtless, and she was intrigued by his muscles- the way they tightened and loosened in his back, his shoulder blades squeezing together then smoothing out as he moved, the gold in his body shimmering like the sun setting over the ocean; the marks glinting with every twitch and sway.
  – I tease about this. I am not a big fan of big muscled men, but as a writer, sometimes I have to write something like this. The day that I wrote this sequence, I was typing and said, “bla, bla, bla,” out loud and my husband eyed me. I said, “Oh, just writing about Vincent’s muscles.” And he smiled. He knows me well.
• He pressed his palms into his eyes, and rubbed at the ache.
  – a reference to the song Duality by Slipknot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezq_naTwWK0
• pleasure god. – it was my husband that actually re-wrote this scene (not changing much) and giving Austin the name “pleasure god.” Another moment in which my husband had no idea how much this very thing would change the direction of the story.
• Austin is playing this in this scene – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkpgz3uQ58U

• Klara continued to watch the globe on her machines for any suspicious activity and tears in the dimensional fabric. She saw nothing, but admitted to often being distracted by Tayane. Still, there were no alarms, bells or whistles.
  – There are times in the cinematics where Klara / KillJoy misses something because she’s distracted by her girlfriend.
• This first bit proves that it was Sabine who was charged with trying to get Vincent to talk in the first nine days that he was there. This might explain why Sabine was so upset with Marielle after she succeeded after only a few moments.
• Sabine glanced away silently, rage brimming just below the surface.
  – Brimming… Brimstone…heh…heh…
• Vincent knows who the enemy is right now!” He shook his head, “I always thought it was Kingdom… but I think he’s right. I think the enemy is these others… these twins. They’re always going to be coming after us, and once we’re done with this group that Cory’s leading? I have a feeling that we’re on to the next group, and so on.”
  – Minor reference to the Sunset Map commercial.

• “Oui. I want you to think about something lovely to wear. I’m taking you for dinner and dancing.”
  – Minor reference to Chamber’s line to Viper about “dinner and dancing.”
• Hazal lifted her hand, “I have to return to Turkey tomorrow night. New intel…” She looked down. “I’m still trying to find him,” she added quietly. Marielle hurt for her. Both Vincent and Marielle understood this; her father had disappeared – Hazal suspected kidnapped – a few years prior.
  – In the “lore” Hazal is searching for a mysterious “someone…” (a man) both her, and her male doppelganger are searching for their “father” in this story. This doesn’t get a big side arc, but I wanted to mention it a few times.
• Sabine glared daggers at her; everyone needed Wei Ling.
  – A minor reference to Sabine’s upset at her in the game. In the “lore” Wei Ling may or may not have failed at resurrecting Sabine’s “children…” (obviously child in this book.)
• Obviously we are also still down Amir, Varun, Zyanya…”
  “Where is Reyna?” Han asked, stuffing the rest of a pastry in her mouth. Her words had come out slightly muffled.
  – Reyna’s real name is Zyanya.
• “It’s the best way she can put it. Basically, we told the computer to start scanning for any copies from my world, specifically. We started in Italy since Han had an…encounter there.” Han chuckled ironically. “We found some… as we suspected they’re in Venice, Italy. They’re also working with Kingdom.” Everyone glared at Vincent.
  – In the lore, Jett DID have an encounter in Venice Italy.
• She produced a black, long-handled device that looked like the kind of contraption that a police officer used to read how fast someone was driving. “Tada,” she said in a sing song tone.
  – That IS actually what the spike defuser looks like… and in the lore Klara did make it.
• Austin is listening to this in the parking garage… *wince* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlLFDGkxrGg
• In the scene where the book is describing all of the things that Austin wishes that he could do with Marielle, it states that he brought her coffee the way she liked it- two creams, three sugars. This, proving that in chapter 11, he knew how she took it and made his the same in case she rejected her own.
• I want the lobster, thermidor.”
  – a minor reference to the French commercial for Chamber.
• He smirked, knowingly; the slight raise of his left brow making her giddy. “You’re my wife. What pleases me? Is what pleasures you,” he replied, and she melted under him, her head rolling back in ecstasy at these words.
  – Believe it or not, one of the first lines of dialogue that I wrote for this book.
• I put myself into almost all of my novels somewhere. I’m usually a “woman behind the bar” or “at the bar” or “a waitress”
  – the list goes on. In this novel I laugh at myself by making my character an old woman in a memory of Vincent’s who is eating a croissant, and sounds like a cartoon character who smokes in my head.
• I always knew that I was going to give Marielle silver wings across her back, from almost moment one of deciding to write the novel and that they were going to be two pistols.

• “That’s it,” Liam growled. “First things first when we get back to Valorant… we’re getting or…” he glanced back at Klara and Tayane; they were sharing headphones and smiling as their upper halves swayed to whatever they were listening to, “building our own plane.” Sabine chuckled into her book, but didn’t say anything.
  – These two are seen sharing headphones in cinematics.
• One hour down, twelve to go. Maybe he could watch a few movies. The Lord of the Rings was long.
  – I personally love LOTR.
• “You know about Friday night?” Vincent hung his head, shamefully for a brief moment and nodded. Austin had cheated on her again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
  “I thought it best not to get involved. It’s your marriage… it’s your life. It’s your personal affairs.”
  – I actually hint at one of my favorite movies to watch with my husband several times in this book. This is one of them. The movie is Bye, Bye Love with Matthew Modine, Paul Reiser and Randy Quaid. While Austin’s character was not inspired by “Dave” (Matthew Modine’s character) the fact that both are sexual addicts meant that a few times I thought of him.
• – Another side note on the above… I am a pantser. While I knew that Austin and Marielle had been together in the other dimension before she married Vincent, I did not know that they were married literally until I typed it.
• “Okay, keep your secrets,” she purred. “I know how you are.”
  – There are many times in these books that characters say the same thing from the past and in the present and sometimes they hold deeper meanings. This is a callback to chapter 16 where Marielle said the same thing in her world when she asked Vincent if there was a plan to date one another.
• He was biting back tears. “I’m not done with you.”
  – A callback to chapter 38.
• Cory pulled his pistol out, “and I’m going to start with this,” he pointed it behind him, and fired a shot straight into Liam’s chest.
  Liam caught it in shock, and looked down at the pool of red moving outward across his chest. Cory turned back to Vincent, a cool look on his face like he’d just pet a dog. “I have no heart for sympathizers.”
  – This was something else that I had no idea was going to happen until I literally typed it.

• For instance, the Chamber in this world was a weapons designer and a hit man, who probably saw some combat in his life. Vincent was all of these things, but had actually been in the military and seen combat several times in different countries.
  – I did a bit of “mixing” for these two characters based on the Valorant lore.
• The O’fallons had some of the rest of that puzzle at the Everette Linde research facility.
  – if it wasn’t clear, this is my personal reasoning as to why Chamber blew up Everette Linde.
• Vincent used to tease Liam, saying “Please Brimstone, I am your key to the other side, you should at least pretend to like me,” back when he was still trying to open worlds.
  – Game line.
• Well, before Everette Linde. After that, the death of the O’fallons, and something that he was certain that Austin had told her, – because this is so vague, it’s a reference to a flashback way later in the book in which Vincent uses a homophobic slur to refer to Austin. Austin threatens to tell Klara. Not really spoilers of any importance, but this has no context.
• The same event here – in Marielle’s dimension – had been for another reason. He and Chamber had shut down the research facility to stop the teleportation of more doubles… but there, in Vincent’s dimension, he’d done it to steal the O’fallons technology, research, and blueprints.
  – this is referring to chapter 31.
• When Klara had come through to help Iselin, Sasha and Jamie steal Marielle on August fourth, Vincent’s heart had sunk.
  – this is my husband’s birthday.
• “I know what’s in your head,” Hazal was saying, following closely behind.
   – in the game when Hazal is using her ultimate, she says, “I’m inside your head…”
• “This was one of the hardest things I’d ever done in my life,” he explained, moving his fingertips over the gold lines on his left arm and over a few grooves of skin that were deep enough to be scars.  
  – this is explained more in full in chapter 78.
• He paused, and shrugged. -I’ve always called you darling in my mind.
  He had, hadn’t he? He’d done it the first day in his office.
  – he did. In a southern accent.
• He felt like someone had actually stabbed him. She was right.
  – stabbed is an interesting (and purposeful) word choice.
• Their eyes found one another again. -Whatever, I’ll just speak in Italian from now on in my thoughts, In questo modo non capirai cosa sto dicendo. A proposito, tutto questo è per te, e non posso ancora ammetterlo a me stesso, ma sono abbastanza sicuro che mi sto innamorando di te. Better?
  –That’s right, I do… E forse voglio proteggermi dal potere che hai su di me. Oppure, diavolo, forse voglio solo parlarti tutto il giorno di come voglio che tu mi cavalchi tutta la notte, non lo saprai mai, e forse questo mi piace. Almeno sono onesto.
  -Please don’t hide from me like that… at least let me know what you’re saying.
  -No. Ma mi sto innamorando di te, e questo mi sta spezzando a metà dentro. Perché mi sto rendendo conto che in realtà non sono mai stato innamorato di qualcuno prima. Non ho mai conosciuto questo tipo di dolore. Fa molto male. Ma non te lo dirò mai.
  – – –
  Austin said- That way you won’t understand what I’m saying. By the way, all of this is for you, and I can’t admit it to myself yet, but I’m pretty sure I’m falling in love with you. And maybe I want to protect myself from the power you have over me. Or, hell, maybe I just want to talk to you all day about how I want you to ride me all night, you’ll never know, and maybe I like that. At least I’m honest. But I’m falling in love with you, and that’s breaking me in half inside. Because I’m realizing that I’ve actually never been in love with someone before. I have never known this kind of pain. It hurts a lot. But I’ll never tell you.

• Austin is singing this:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyh8Mj96m3k&list=PLOu6cBY8V_t1G9JltgJHgPbhU6Fwr6WOH
• “Hey, hey, Tayane Alves, or Tata’ if you want. Raze. Channel twelve.”
  – According to RIOT- Tata is a nickname for Raze.
• But you can call me the Great Reclaimer, mates
  – Also something according to RIOT.

• “Go, go, go,” under her breath as she sprinted.
  – a famous Neon line.
• “Revealing area,” he added as the sonar arrow blinked yellow where it landed, showing the location of three of them. The attackers all backed away from the sonar.
  – Obviously a Sova line.
• Jamie broke into the line. “Okay fam, if any of you die I’ll be vexed so just keep alive, yeah?”
  – An obvious Phoenix line.
• One of the masked attackers had made their way to the top of an open storage crate to try and pick them off, and Han was already flying up to the top. “Get out of my way!” She cried, using her throwing knives on him. He was dodging each and every one of them.
  – Jett’s Ultimate line.
• A flurry of pops came from the east, upper window of the building. “Heaven!” Liam cried. – When someone is “above” everyone else in the game, it’s common to say, “heaven!” Thus directing everyone’s focus upward.
• “Uh, guys,” Klara’s voice broke in from the rental, “Looks like you’re not alone,” she finished.
  “Thanks, a little late,” Vincent said back into his piece.
  – Something of a joke. There’s at least one cinematic in which Klara is distracted by Tayane’s affection and they miss something important happening.
• The black clad figure turned, aiming, and Vincent fired into the distracted man’s back. “One less!”
  – game line.
• Han shot and killed the man still trying to follow them. “One down!” She cried. Then she threw a cloud of smoke toward the end of the alley of wreckage. “Blocking sight.”
  – More fun Jett lines and abilities.
• Jamie sprinted forward, and tried to shoot, but the black figure got him first. Jamie took a bullet straight to the chest- his body went up in a blaze of gold and orange and his entire form disappeared. Then he reappeared where he’d left his marker and dusted his collar off; he was fine, and as he peeked around the corner again, he was able to shoot the figure. He thrust a fist into the air, “Skrra!” Han’s smoke vanished.
  – Phoenix using Walk it Back, and doing the famous “skrrrra!”
• Vincent stepped over the body that he’d taken down from under the truck, noting the weapon that lay next to his body. Some of the others weren’t armed, “gun here,” he called into the earpiece, gesturing.
  – hehehe, common in the game.
• The one who held all the cards right now; the one who had more control over him than he’d ever let any woman have.
  – An obvious reference to the Queen of Hearts card.
• “Yes, Marielle, walk with me.” She bit her lip and looked back into her room as if considering what a bad idea it was to leave. He extended a hand to her. –Vincent told me to protect you, and I plan on it. Look at me. She did. -I won’t try anything, I promise. I won’t do anything that you don’t want to do. I won’t touch you inappropriately, or try to seduce you. I know how confused you are right now. I’m confused too. It’s okay. We’ll figure it out together. I promise, Marielle. I won’t betray your trust. I just need to protect you, and I just want to be with you. She swallowed hard, searching his eyes. -I just…want…to be with you. I’m being honest, here. I just want to be with you. And I need food.
  – My husband wrote the last sentence and I laughed for several minutes and kept it.

• “I don’t like pickles.”
  – My husband doesn’t like pickles. At all. This was for him.
• He faked a smile, put his pointer finger to his nose and pointed to her with the same finger on the other hand as if to say, ‘you got me… you figured it all out. Look at that. Are you watching closely? Hit it on the nose,’ all in one stupid gesture.
  – Ryan Gosling does this in Murder by Numbers, and yes, it’s exactly what I’m describing / referencing here.
• “At what point did you realize that you couldn’t wear that red lipstick without telling me how you really felt?” She swallowed hard, remembering putting the red lipstick on and quickly wiping it off. He still knew… how? “When we were dancing, I could see just the smudged edge. You realized and you removed it, but you missed a spot. And you thought, ‘If I remove this, he won’t know, or, think I’m saying otherwise…’ Right?” –
  CHAPTER 32 – “Did you arrange all of this?” she asked. Austin nodded, his eyes moving down to her lips, then back up in half a blink. His expression was odd, like he’d noticed something. “It’s lovely,” she whispered.
  – I do a LOT of this in this book. I wish that anyone would pick it all up. 😀
• She ate in silence for a moment, and he did as well, letting those words hover over her head for a moment. “Come on, Austin,” she growled. “You know that the moment that I was yours you’d have me in eight-inch heels and fishnet tights and miniskirts and midriffs.”
  – A callback to Vincent’s memory on the plane.
• “I’m keeping it,” he whispered. It was obvious she didn’t understand. “I want my name in your mouth, always. Context almost doesn’t matter… when you say it, it doesn’t feel real sometimes, so I repeat it to hear it again, and to see your reaction. OCD? Maybe. But when I see your reaction, I know that you said it, and I know that you wanted to.”
  – I’ve said before that Austin is an “insert” character (for myself). I have OCD, and I definitely repeat things in my head or out loud sometimes until they sound right.
• “Of course there is,” he chuckled, put his fork down and put a hand up, starting to count off on his finger. “Let’s start from moment one, hesitation when you first met me, taking my face and body in, lip bite, minor trembling in your hand when you shook my hand, purposefully trying to bother me by throwing my name, knowing you got to me,” he paused and smirked, “checking me out as we walked back to my office.”
  – She did all of that, hehe.
• He took in a deep gulp of air and let it out slowly, “Behold, I am a dead man.” He smoothed his tie down and sighed.
  – A biblical reference. This is God to Abimelech in Genesis 20, because Abimelech (the king) took Abraham’s wife.
• “We could only have right now,” he reminded. “And I only know how to go too far,” he hung his head. All of his dark hair fell into his eyes. “I’m sorry.” There was silence for a moment. She wouldn’t look at him. “I told you, I’m going to push it for a while. I’m used to pushing it.”
  – A reference to the Ed Shereen song “Bad Habits.”
• She tried to push away, “look at me… look at me,” he insisted, his tone calm and desirous. She dared it, eyes meeting eyes. -Am I lying?
  – a reference / mirror of chapter 32. Vincent told Marielle to “look at him” during their love making.
• He nodded slowly, and rolled forward on the balls of his feet, then back, “Uh… I – I haven’t kissed anyone…” he stuttered. “I’ve never kissed anyone on the mouth again since… since Erin.”
  – I didn’t know this until I wrote it. Then I went back over his encounters- nope, no kissing. He didn’t even kiss her in chapter 38- he bit her on the shoulder a few times.
• Swallowing, he dared his hands on her arms, and tenderly guided her away from the railing. At first, she thought that he was going to hold her, instead, he slowly spun her under his arm and when she came back against his chest, he dipped her over his knee and brought her back up. Now he was holding her.
  – Mirroring Vincent in chapter 32.
• But I think it should also be said that one of my initial ideas for this story happened when I saw a “fan art” of “Chamber / Viper” dancing, and he was bending her over his knee. It’s one of my favorite fan arts and I have it saved to my phone and in the “Caliber” part of my Instagram (Story / highlights).

• “I don’t even know where that came from, yet,” he said squinting into the dark distance.
  – Austin said this in the training room when he got shot from behind and it’s a vague game reference. People often say, “I don’t even know where that came from…”
• Austin was certain that he was breaking his hand in the process, but the pain didn’t register- his only thought was to keep Marielle safe.
  – A reference to the song “Another Love.” By Tom Odell.
• She smirked at how dumb he was. “You drive, I’ll shoot,” she purred into his right ear. “Focus now… Eyes off me.” He grinned, letting her wrap her fingers around his weapon, and ignoring the pain in his hand.
  – a Chamber line. Now that we know for sure that Marielle is Chamber’s / Vincent’s wife, I feel like I can say that these lines are meant to reflect the idea that Marielle (in the other dimension) would have said them, and Vincent / Chamber repeats them to keep her memory alive.
• Once they pulled back onto the street from this current alley, however, Austin lost control of the bike… because for a moment, they were engulfed in a giant purple cloud, and in the midst of it, Austin was gazing at what appeared to be a massive…purple…eye… Austin had been staring directly at it for a moment; he wasn’t sure if Marielle had seen it at all.
  – The hunt begins. Enter Reyna.
• She was taller than most of the other women he’d fought, and he had fought a few in his time working for the government.
  – Reyna is apparently the tallest woman in the game.
• I personally think that Reyna is one of the most overpowered characters in the game. Every time I play and we are getting slaughtered, it’s often a Reyna. I think a few of her abilities need a slight nerf / overhaul. I show my personal thoughts about this in this sequence a bit.
• He laughed, tightening his grip with the tie, “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
  – an imagined Austin game line.
• He glanced down at the arm with the teeth marks on it. “That might leave a mark, and I’ll definitely need a new suit,” he sighed.
  – another imagined Austin game line. Also meant to mimic / mirror Chamber’s, “Well, this suit is ruined.”
• She leaned down, “Deep breaths, Austin… your heart is pounding.”
  – Slightly altered Reyna game line. “Deep breaths, everyone. Your hearts are pounding.”
• “Mine is the last face that you get to see before you die… lucky you.”
  – Slightly altered Reyna game line.
• Purposefully moving his left arm, so she’d focus on that, he lifted his broken right hand, stretched all of his fingers out, and Marielle, who was free from the other two for a moment, watched in stunned silence as a white pistol with a long barrel materialized in his hand. He struggled with the left, distracting Reyna, and slowly put the gleaming, pearlized gun that had appeared to the back of her head and fired.
  – I remember exactly where I was when I decided that this was where this was going. I had just left Whole Foods, and was going to meet my husband and some friends at a Red Robin for a final dinner before they moved to a different state. I burst out of the car shouting to my husband, “I know what is going on with Austin’s arm! DUH!!!”
• Chamber shrugged a shoulder, “He could cut his arm off…” A slow, sardonic smile crossed over Chamber’s mouth, “but we all know how much he likes that hand.”
  – quips like these from Chamber are hilarious to me, and it came out of nowhere. When I was writing this bit, the joke practically wrote itself.
• The reveal that Autin’s arm is a gun like Chamber / Vincent’s makes his comments to Marielle on the plane make more sense when he says, “you’re a damn fool.” He knows this annoyance, and pain. (Chapter 45).
• Originally, Tundra was not going to be revealed until much later in the story. I like how this went.

• I think that I knew from the start of the book that Tala was going to die. I have no problems with Neon as a character, but the fact that she is the youngest of all of them felt like it was well set up for a death that would hit home.
• He was gently combing her hair behind her left ear over, and over again, and his eyes, although strong, were hiding sadness, and a desperate need for her to love him. “You know some of this already- I was helping them try to open the portals. It was Chamber and I that originally figured out how to travel, but he could only come to me through the door, I couldn’t go to him at first. We helped Cory with the rest until we were stuck.
  – Minor reference to the Chamber reveal trailer as Chamber comes through an actual door to help Vincent help Brimstone.
• Chamber looked at Vincent, glanced around the room and shook his head.
  “Has anyone called Nathaniel?” Sasha asked, glaring at Vincent. Nathaniel was Tala’s father, and Sasha knew this; he always kept track of things like that.
  – According to RIOT, Tala’s father’s name is actually Nathaniel.
• Jamie – who’d been silent – came from the other side and held onto her as well, noting Marielle’s discomfort. “From the other side, too,” he whispered into Marielle’s ear. Both Han and Jamie held her, tightly as Han also sobbed into Marielle’s shoulder.
  – One time a friend was helping me up some stairs and a good male friend of mine joined me on the other side to support me there and said just this.
• Vincent pursed his lips, and threw back a third shot and shook his head, grinning ironically, “No, Austin… that’s me.” He dragged his gaze up to Austin’s handsome face, hatefully.
  – a callback to the flashback scene in chapter 45.
• “Cory? Someone at Kingdom? It doesn’t matter,” Vincent walked back to the fireplace, throwing Austin a look, “He’s just lurking. There’s no reason to go hunting.”
  – often in the game, it’s down to one player on the opposing team somewhere and someone will say, “stay where you are (guard the spike) don’t go hunting.”
• Vincent shook his head, “Heh, don’t engage my double,” he warned. “I wouldn’t let him shoot you… you will die.”
  – “Do not let my double shoot you, you will die…” a Chamber line in the game.

• “Easy, tiger,” she growled under her breath.
  – a callback to chapter 7.
  Finally, after weeks of spinning his tires and getting nowhere, she took his strong hand in her shriveled, bony fingers and looked at him with red, sunken eyes. “Give it up, tiger…” – The fact that Marielle calls Austin “tiger” here (and does it a few other times in the story) shows that they are and were the same person in many ways.
• She put the bottle down and tried to leave. He thrust a hand out and grabbed her wrist, keeping her. She phased, moving through his grip, briefly causing him elation in the process, and eyed him. “No,” she growled.
  – Yikes… mirroring the other dimension? Hmmmm.
• Then he started picking at the keys until another song came out. He only played it, he didn’t sing. Desperado, the Eagles version.
  -When I was six years old, my family went to Florida for a vacation. Back then karaoke was popular. We made videos at a place that we paid money to do so at and my dad sang this. There is a tape somewhere, but it’s probably unplayable at this point.
• Austin is playing this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkj36B1YuDU
• And then this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aelpqWEBHR4
• It’s a good time to mention that my sister actually brought up the song Another Love, and after I listened to it, it sort of became Austin’s theme for this novel. I actually picture this version as being his theme (it’s romantically haunting and disturbed) and I always found it interesting that the thumbnail on this song looks vaguely like him. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gZFWhRfGw8&t=406s

• I added a lot of dialogue to this scene between Marielle and Vincent upon revisiting it (and long after it started to post here). I wanted to strengthen some of it and make sure some of the larger plot holes were cemented a bit.
• This flashback is so interesting to me. I was doom scrolling facebook and came upon a reel for Bluey (yes, the kid’s show about a blue dog) that showed clips explaining that Chili might have had a miscarriage. The soundtrack for this reel was Lord Houron’s – The Night we Met, which I had heard before, but watching this reel I started to cry. Then this entire scene came to my mind and I knew that it had to go into the novel. I even remember writing it one-night when my husband was gone. I cried the entire way through writing the scene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtlgYxa6BMU
• Someone laughed inside and there was the sound of a glass shattering. “Here comes the party!” Tayane had called from the celebration taking place.
  – A Raze game line.
• Bewildered and drawn to him, she slowly put her fingers into his. He’d noted that when she did this, she was trembling a little. If he’d been honest with himself, so was he.
  – Mirroring Austin and Marielle in Chapter 32.
• Marielle tells Vincent about Florian in this flashback for the first time… giving new meaning and revelation to the reader if they go back to chapter 7.
• Words passing between them that neither spoke. Words like, you don’t deserve that.
  Followed by her, I know.
  – Mirroring the idea that Austin and Marielle can speak with their minds. Sadly, Vincent and Marielle cannot.
• If this scene reminds you of a scene from a movie- you might be right. I think I was subconsciously inspired by the scene at the “birthday party” in The Lake House (Keanu Reeves / Sandra Bullock.)
• Tell her that he wanted to know her more? Ask her out anyways? Express love? Pick her up like a bride and carry her off to a room upstairs or to some office at the top of the building so that he could make love to her on a desk? All of the above? He did nothing. She wasn’t his.
  – A callback to chapter 32.  
• Towards the end pf the song and their dance, he slowly dipped her over his knee and brought her back up.
  – another callback to chapter 32.
• The song was done and had changed, and they were still as statues. This was the moment that a kiss would occur, had either of them been brave enough to dare it. Neither were.
  – a callback / mirroring from chapter 30 with Austin in the theater before the opera begins.
• “Why don’t you go back to talking to Reyna…That seemed like it was working out well for you,” she hissed.
  – we don’t get a story, but based on the fact that Reyna had a bite mark / scar that she showed Austin during their fight, we know they had an affair of some kind (Reyna and Tundra).
• Hell, this could be the day he died. But he wanted to look at least a bit good for her; black jeans, black boots, and his pistol strapped to the inside of his shirt.
  – Yes, this is a sneaky reference to the song, “die for you.”

• “Relax… I’ve thought of everything.”
  – a KillJoy game line.
• “They’re going to go between the two sites. We need someone guarding the middle ground.” He looked at Austin, giving him a nod of approval. “Austin can handle it.”
  – a common game tactic. There are two or three sites to plant on a map, and often an entire team rushes one, but sometimes, they split up, calling B site, or middle “mid.”
• Klara’s / KillJoy’s hatred of what Chamber did at Everette Linde is lore. There is a series of “answering machine messages” on youtube, and in one of them, Klara expresses distress and sadness about what happened there.
• This chapter sees two teams of five people and while they’re not facing each other, it’s meant to reflect the 5V5 rounds in the game. The teams are Chamber, Vincent, Sabine, John, and Kirra and Han, Jamie, Liam, Sasha and Tayane.
• “What about me?” Wei Ling asked, leaning forward a bit from the couch.
  “I’m sending you mid, but closer to this site than Marielle and Austin,” Liam said gesturing at the map. – “mid” for “middle”
  – Wei Ling is being sent there to be helpful in the event of someone dying. She’s halfway between both.
• Often in the game cinematics, characters are fighting masked kingdom people.
• He spoke into the earpiece, “Going mid.”
  – common game speak.
• “Sabine,” Chamber began as he wiped something off Tour De Force with the edge of his sleeve, “you must let me take you out sometime… dinner, dancing? I know the perfect place.”
  Vincent was shaking his head adoringly at himself as he took off toward B site. 
  Sabine rolled her eyes as she fit her gas mask over her face, “Chamber, I would rather drink my own poison.” 
  – the line set that maybe everyone was waiting for. This is a famous line set between Viper and Chamber. The only difference is that he calls her Viper in the game.
• “Enemies spotted, going toward site B,” Vincent said into the earpiece.
  – something we say commonly in the game, “Enemies spotted A/ B.”
• “I win again!” Chamber cried, throwing his fist with Headhunter into the air. The golden gun gleamed.  
  – Another Chamber game line.
• “He’s so damn cocky,” Sabine hissed.
  “He knows who he is,” Vincent replied, grinning.
  – Originally these lines were between someone else and Marielle about Vincent. I preferred them here.
• He smirked when he caught Sabine’s eyes darting away from him.
  Vincent had seen this in the rearview and smiled, thinking, maybe she’d never respond to him in any way that was romantic… but she secretly maybe kind of thought that he was a little cute sometimes…
  Sabine smiled softly, and touched her bottom lip before turning fully to John.
  – In the game Sabine says that Chamber “is charming” but not as “clever” as he thought. This implies that she maybe sort of kind of who knows sure has a bit of a thing for him secretly…hence some of this novel haha.

• “Shit,” Austin growled under his breath, and he pulled his black, long barreled pistol from the holster inside his shirt, and held it ready.
  –  This gun is meant to resemble a “ghost” in game.
• “Tu es mon âme, mon cœur, mon esprit, mes raisons de vivre. Tu es tout pour moi. Restez en sécurité, s’il vous plaît.” The line went dead.
  –  Vincent said, “You are my soul, my heart, my mind, my reasons for living. You are everything to me. Stay safe, please.”
• “Tu veux un baiser aussi?” Chamber asked, lifting his right hand, and throwing down her teleporter near the front of the SUV.
  –  I had an extremely rough time with this translation…for some reason it kept back translating with the F word instead of kiss, and that was NOT what I wanted. Hahaha.
  – Chamber said, “You want a kiss, too?”
• This exchange between Vincent and Chamber (the quipping I mean) is another moment that I find hilarious in this book.
• The one on the far left was as tall as Vincent, with dark hair, and green eyes. The next was a dark-skinned woman with a pretty mouth that harbored a cruel smile.
  –  Funny note here… originally this particular “no named” character was actually going to be Sabine’s son, Peter. He hadn’t died in the other dimension, a brother had as well as Morgan, and there was a big fight planned where they were going to have to fight one another and she was going to let him go. I decided this route made little to no sense, especially because he’s just too old. However, he still has “dark hair” and “green eyes,” showing that this was in fact where I was going. As a side note, he was also going to be a radiant and his “secondary name” would have been Jester.
• Vincent thought, Japanese, and he was pulling what looked to be a sword from his back.
  –  Something else never stated because I decided not to bunny trail with these characters. But this character’s name is “Yoshiwara” (from Metropolis the book by Thea Von Harbou). There is a fan fiction OF this fan fiction (also written by me, and a more personal work that probably no one will ever get to read) and he appears in this piece of work as a confident / someone who works with Austin.
• John threw out a swirling, purple dome towards the men and women approaching them, “Cover going out…” Then he jumped, teleporting to behind the taller of the men with the dark hair. “Boo.”
  –  Couple of fun Omen lines.
• The man with the long sword whirled it around his body, elegantly and gave Chamber a sinister grin. Chamber glared at him, lifted Headhunter and shot him through the head. The man and his blade smacked into the pavement. “Ces clowns doivent utiliser leurs pistolets,” he growled under his breath. “One less,” he announced to the rest of them.
  –  Yes, this is a Raiders of the Lost Ark reference.
  –  Chamber said, “these clowns have to use their guns.”
• He stammered biting his lip, “I’ve kind of always hated it… it means rage, after all, or deep hatred,” he was rambling now, speaking fast. “In Latin it means, ‘I hold a grudge,’ And like I’ve been teased about it- the most classic was obviously, ‘Oh no, the Rancor!’ from Star Wars, and-”   
  –  had to get one of many Star Wars references in here.
• He swallowed, pausing. “It’s a classic story, isn’t it?” She looked at him with interest, “well, there’s a monster- or a monster of a man, anyways,” he said with the ghost of a smile resting on his lips, “and there’s perfection… in the form of a woman… and she changes him.”
  “This isn’t a fairy tale, Austin,” she retorted. “And that’s not how this works…” She looked distant, “The only thing that’s going to change you is yourself.”
  – This is meant to be a Beauty and the Beast reference and it was in part for my editor and dear friend.

• Just a small note, when I first wrote the action sequences, I used a lot more wording, phrasing, and action verbs. The truth is that action often feels better with less. It’s quicker, and flows better, giving the reader less to digest making it feel more intense. As a result, I removed a lot of words from this section of story.
• The second was that if she could fight her, she was going to clip Jett’s wings.
  – Vague reference to a Phoenix/ Jamie line in the game. “I’ll clip that Jett’s wings.”
• “You’re not better than me,” she chuckled cruelly.
  – Another “common in game” thing. Often when people win well, the other team says, “You’re better.”
• As the fire around him died, he flicked his coat collar, whirled to the other stunned Han, raised his pistol and fired three shots straight into her chest.
  – Jamie / Phoenix does this when he “revives.” (the collar flick).
• “If you actually die, I want your jacket,” Han replied, sniffling and clutching her fingers around the knife.
  “Ah don’t be like that, you know you’d also want my shoes,” Jamie chuckled.
  – Fun game lines between these two.
• “Hold up a sec, lemme find something.” He kicked through the rubble until he found a short piece of rebar. He wiped it, then heated the end until it was cherry red. Han gulped, biting her jacket’s hood. “Trust me love, this works a treat until we can get to Wei Ling.” She eyed the glowing red for a moment with wide, terrified eyes. Then nodded her agreement. “On three, pull the knife.” Han bit harder, and squeezed her eyes shut. Then “one, two, three!” She jerked the blade out, and Jamie quickly applied the brand, making a sickening sizzling.
  – I had written something like this originally, but my husband cleaned this up and re-wrote it and most of the dialogue here.
• Vision clearing, Wei Ling raised her crossed hands and made a motion that lifted a wall blocking off Gekko’s path and trapping him in a corner. “Hey!” He cried; they heard him start to chip at it with a knife. “Man!” He continued to work away at it.
  – Sage’s wall is breakable, but generally you have to shoot it multiple times or go at it with a knife. It disappears after some time, as well.
• Marielle looked up to Sasha, “Owl drone?” she asked.
  He briefly lowered his bow to talk to her, “Shot down,” he replied quickly, throwing a glance at the broken machine on the ground.
  – Just meant to be a running gag. This thing is never not shot down instantly.
• “I’m guessing introductions are pointless,” Austin quipped.  
  – An imagined Austin game line to his double in combat. This would probably occur when he killed his double.
• Tundra looked like he took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly by the rise and fall of his chest. “Okay…” he said under the helmet. “We’re doing this again.”
  – Austin literally just said something very similar a few lines ago. But you might have already picked up on that.
• “Fear me… paranoia!” He hissed.
  – This particular ability is called “paranoia” in the game, and Austin is generally anxious. Omen / John knows this, and is basically mocking him here, but also calling out the ability.
• A quick survey of the space showed Marielle that they were at the steps of what looked to be a bank or courthouse; it was difficult to tell after the destruction.  
  – This is actually a 7 days to Die POI (another game I play all the time).
• “Let’s rush in,” Tayane suggested, pumping her arms.
  “Oh, be careful, love,” Klara’s voice came in from back at the rental.
  – It’s common to “rush” a site in game.
• “I’ll say Open up the Skies,” Liam said with a strong nod.
  – Because this is in fact Brimstone’s ultimate line. Teehehehe.
• That’s when the entire team heard the sound they’d been dreading. The spike had been planted. There was an audible timer counting down.
  “Spike planted!” Austin called into the ear piece.
  – Game stuff.
• Austin cocked his head, “I can’t freeze time, Marielle,” he replied in a rushed tone. The device began to beep faster.
  – An imagined Austin “nearly dying to the spike” line.
• It’s funny, I don’t actually like Skye, (I don’t hate her, either) but for some reason she had a bigger role in this book than I think I’d originally intended. Take a moment to appreciate this moment (the second Chamber kiss) and remember it at the end of the next chapter.  

• Marielle pressed her finger to her ear, “Kirra, are you okay? I have visual of everyone but you.”
  “Yup, I’m ratting it out in a corner.” Marielle heard a loud pop. “And, I just took one trying to sneak in out. Jerk didn’t check the corner.”
  –  This is a common tactic in the game. Wait.
• “W-why can’t we just hug it out?” – a Gekko game line.
• “Hello, Cailín,” he whispered, smiling down at her. 
  –  This is slang for “girl.”
• “A stor” means “my treasure.”
• “Away with the fairies” is Irish slang for when someone isn’t living in reality.
• Austin paused at the bedroom door. This had been a young man’s room. There were the remnants of what looked like a basketball hoop on the wall, and a quick glance up above the bed showed naked girls peeling off the ceiling.
  –  As strange as it may sound this scene and these descriptions are vague references to the song “I want to get Better,” by Bleachers.
• “I will. I’m not just an archer, you know?”
  –  A Sova game line.
• Then he heard in the distance, “here comes the party!” followed by an explosion.
  –  A Raze game line.
• Drumming his bottom lip, an itch began to stir in Vincent’s mind. He zoomed in once, then again, and one more time, focusing on Austin’s heart under all of that black.
  –  While it’s his “heart” and not the back of his head, this is meant to look like the moment in Chamber’s trailer where other chamber considers killing his double. Then this – Vincent just barely moved the tip of the rifle up a little… If he shot Austin in the head, then there was a good chance that Wei Ling would not be able to revive him. – reflects that.
• When they’d first come in, Vincent had raised his voice for the first time in days, pointing to the flowers, “Get those red roses out of here!”
  –  Because Austin’s favorite color is red.
• He was standing at the back door, pale as a ghost, eyes bloodshot and swollen, cheeks dripping. In his trembling left hand, a bouquet of yellow daffodils tied with packaging string. “You’re not welcome here…” Hazal seethed, ready for a fight.
  –  A reference to the song “Another Love…” Which Austin just played in Chapter 52. Ironically, Marielle told Austin that her favorite flower was daffodils in chapter 25 (the reverse of 52.)  
• In an instant, Vincent held it straight out to the side of his body, and sucked it back up into his arm.
  –  This literally looks exactly like the choose agent screen to me.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p65NXkzLOb8
• “Get him out of here,” Vincent growled, jerking his head towards the door. Cory nodded signaling to Sasha to help get him there. 
  –  A variation on “get them out of here.”
  –  A Chamber game line.
• “Sweet dreams, asshole,” he growled, slamming the door. “Something to follow you home.” Austin had screamed and started to run, and what Vincent heard later was that he had spent a significant amount of time in an asylum after that encounter; at least four weeks.
  –  “Sweet dreams, asshole…” a Fade line.
• “Just one bullet… that’s all it will take, Vincent. He won’t even feel it.” Chamber assured gently as he took aim. He had Austin in his crosshairs. “I swear it will be quick.” Chamber’s finger rested on the trigger.
  –  A variation on the “one bullet per enemy, that should be enough yes?” game line.
• Two names… two names that never made any sense together. Marielle Rancor.
  –  This references the dream that Vincent had in Chapter 34.

• “Chamber,” Vincent said, and he took Tala’s hand and gently pulled her until she was standing with him. “This young woman… is too valuable to me, right now. Can you please take her back to the rental, and protect her?” Chamber smiled at Tala, whose face was still tear-streaked and red. She was shaking and covering her chest with crossed arms. “Tala is only nineteen,” he explained. Then he smiled at Chamber, “this will be one of her first serious fights.”
  –  A lot of lore here. Tala / Neon is the youngest in the game. And Neon “is” important to Chamber in the game.
• “Let me borrow one of your guns?” She beamed. “Please?” He smirked at her, and crossed his arms, tightly over his chest. “Please?” She twiddled her thumbs, “Ah, come on, man… Please?” He shook his head. She walked away sadly, “I said please…”
  “Go help them,” he reiterated.
  She obeyed, throwing a “yes, I’m pumped!” over her shoulder as she left.
  –  Raze game lines.
• Austin noted this, and decided it was time to stop playing.
  –  Just minor referencing to the “you want to play? Let’s play…” line.
• He had gone as Hugh Hefner. He walked around all night in a velvet red robe, a glass of alcohol in one hand, and a lit cigar that he smoked in the other as people in the party called him “Heff” left and right. – a former neighbor of mine from many years ago now (almost ten) was very attractive and slightly resembled Austin in my mind. One night he came over in a red velvet robe and my husband and I, and he and his girlfriend all walked to the store with him in it. We jokingly called him “Heff” the whole time. Good times.
• Vincent’s eyes grew distant, dark. “You would hold her against a wall, or a corner, and freeze her skin until she was forced to go through you just to get away.” Austin gagged, and squeezed his lips with the palm of his hand. “If she tried to tell you no, you’d hit her… black eyes, frostbite burns… I think you broke her rib once.”
  –  When my husband and I were going through this novel together earlier on, I had explained that the Austin in Vincent’s dimension abused Marielle pretty badly. I had said that he probably wanted her to go through him as Austin find’s it calming, and Cory (my husband) said, “Yeah, she’d have to go through him just to get away from him…” and that gave me insight into how and why he abused her in this way for the whole story.
• Vincent sighed and swallowed, “Do this,” he said, holding the cigar between his teeth for a moment. He pressed both thumbs in under the semi-circle bones under his own eyebrows. He closed his eyes, and took in a deep breath. “Count to ten slowly.” Austin copied what Vincent was doing. “No, no, breathe slower…” He did that, too, and both breathed together- in…out…
  “Thanks, that’s helping. Where did you learn that?”
  Vincent smiled distantly. “You…”
  –  Originally the “you…” said, “I’ve had to improvise a few times…” but considering they are talking about the fact that Vincent once knew and loved Austin as a brother, this felt like it made sense, especially since Austin is an assassin as well, and would have already known something like this, even if only in Vincent’s dimension. I feel it deepens the moment.
• The conversation here about (Alfred Hitchcock’s) Vertigo is deep and meaningful in so many ways, and my husband was the one who suggested it / made me think of it. Vertigo is one of my favorite films of all time. And one day, my husband said, “Vincent has really done Vertigo, here…” I was confused, “Well, he’s found a woman that’s like his wife, and turned her into his wife.” This conversation burst into my mind and I knew that I had to put it in the book somewhere. I pictured it taking place just like this, after a fight, with them covered in blood, sharing alcohol, or a cigar. I reference Vertigo in many of my novels.
• Both lost their wits and began laughing uncontrollably. Austin’s side hurt. “Oh, there’s the plot twist that I didn’t see coming.”
  Vincent took another drag, “It’s bullshit.”
  “I know!” Austin was in stitches; holding his aching ribs.
  –  Kind of a joke to myself. I didn’t see half of the plot twists in this novel coming. They just sort of “happened.”
• -Show me, darling. He whispered. Nothing happened. He said it again, in a huskier, more pleading tone. -Show me, darling.
  –  In my mind, if Gall, and Austin were characters in Valorant, and BOTH of them were in play at the same time (and only then) this would be an ability that they had. This would be useful if one of them were in A, and the other B. If either could “peek” they’d see what the other saw for a moment, and have intel about everyone’s whereabouts.

• “Where are you, exactly?” Vincent asked, trembling. He kept the barrel trained on Cory’s handsome face.
  Cory approached from the shadows and shrugged his shoulders with his hands in his pockets, “around.”
  ‒  This is asked and answered just like this repeatedly in this book series.
• “What I want? You can’t give me…” he said sadly. Vincent hung his head as Cory approached, his fangs becoming large, protruding. “I want my family back, you son of a bitch,” he growled, irately.
  ‒ Not sure if the similarity to the line from the Princess Bride was purposeful or not, but – it was at least subconscious.
• After the story was completed, I actually went back and added a ton of dialogue to this (the scene between Cory and Vincent) sequence to make things more succinct and understandable.
• “And we killed yours when she tried to attack us. She’s dead. So, that plan’s nerfed.”
  ‒ This is a reference to TALA who is Neon – considering how often they have to “nerf” Neon, or how often people want her to be, this is absolutely a reference to that.
• What about Neon?”
  “Neon is the answer, you arrogant ass,” Vincent said proudly.
  “And just how’s that?”
  ‒ In the game lore, Chamber actually does think that Neon’s suit has something to do with all of this.
• The crowd parted, and to Austin’s surprise and terror, as well as Marielle’s, up walked none other than Barbara.
  ‒ Yes, this was basically planned from the beginning. I wanted her to be a double crosser of sorts.
• -I don’t think it’s a good idea… Austin replied, throwing a glance at the helmeted rider staring at them.
  She looked to him, fearfully, and as she did, he slowly removed his helmet…Tundra.
  ‒ In TRUTH I did NOT know that this was Tundra until I wrote it. The truth of the matter is that Tundra was going to be revealed later in this book series, but that would have also meant that he was almost not in the book at all.
• I like that it’s Austin’s perspective that kind of takes over in these scenes. It shows how he works a bit internally.  

• In another instant, he was an adult, standing tall and handsome as ever and now his twig sword had been traded for nothing but his hand, he looked into it, empty except the rain that was beating down against it. Marielle was briefly an adult as well. “What do we do?” she asked over the storm.
  ‒ In my novels, I often “work things out” for my characters and myself in dream or fantasy sequences. This moment is meant to show the reader that Austin has nothing but himself. There is no Excalibur, and he is no knight, he’s just “him.”
• He nodded, gently pulling some of her hair through his finger and thumb.
  ‒ This occurs a lot in many of my novels. I am convinced that it started with the scene at the end of The Secret Garden (1993) between Mary and Dickon.
• Austin is singing this-
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEFmFS9OgI4
• We’ll get them. They can throw the whole playbook at us. I’ve seen it all before. Different battlefield, same crap,” Liam said with a nod. 
  ‒ Brimstone game lines.
• Tundra hated himself… so what better way to take care of that than to destroy his own image.
  ‒ This is purposeful rewording of certain scriptures so you understand how depraved and sick Tundra is. He believes that all other “hims” are made in “his” image.

• -Because I’ve been in torment every day since I met you. And it’s worse than bleeding but far more appealing to me than my need to escape from it…
  ‒ This line was always deeply emotional and sexy to me.
• Maybe had a deep desire now to prove them both wrong, or maybe the idea that he was going to die soon made him throw all caution to the wind… screw it.
  ‒ The first time I ever kissed my husband I said, “Screw it,” first.
• “Something to that effect,” he replied, wiping his face of moisture. He shrugged a shoulder, looking down into her green, childlike eyes, “there was something in there about you riding me all night long, too… but what do you want? It’s me,” he chuckled, feigning innocence.
  ‒ The first time that my husband read this line, he found it enormously funny for some reason.
• “The moment I’m free I’m going to kill all of your friends in front of you,” Austin said with a chillingly controlled smile. “Then I’m going to break your neck… but I’ll make sure that you know that you’re going to die before I break the last bone, four two seven,” he added turning that smile into a smirk. “I promise.”
  ‒ Don’t make Austin mad.
• Marielle heard the first disgusting pop break the room apart. His eyes bulged as he realized he was about to die. “I… promised,” Austin hissed. Then he jerked Four two seven’s neck in such a way that a series of bones popped and shattered, and the man went limp and fell to the ground.
  ‒ I turned to my husband and said, “I didn’t mean this, but what does this make you think of?”
  He grinned and quoted Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) from Into Darkness, “You should have let me sleep!” And I laughed. Yup. He knows me so well.
• He raised a shaking hand to her and approached slowly. “Hey,” he whispered. “Hey, it’s me.” Her eyes were big, full of tears and horrified.
  He took a few more steps towards her and for a moment she looked like she was going to try to phase through the wall just to get away from him.
  ‒ This looks so heartbreaking in my mind. She’s never seen him do anything like that.

• In chapter 38 Han takes Tala to the “club” and they both leave with men. I think they are good friends and that losing Tala has deeply affected Han on many levels.
• Chamber entered the room and everyone acknowledged him before he went to the coffee, pouring an obscene amount of sugar into his cup.
  ‒ This is not the only time Chamber does this with the sugar in this book.
• “What we do know is this… their main objective was her. They will absolutely kill him in a matter of a day or two once he becomes a liability.” His gaze landed on Vincent briefly, “Once they don’t need him to control her.”
  ‒ While reading this chapter, my husband added the line, “Once he can’t control her anymore,” and I narrowed my eyes at it and went, “ooooooooooooo…” like (burrrrn) and realized that I wanted it to say something like that. So we worked it out and came up with this.
• “So, we think that’s why they have them… Kingdom has always been on our radar as possible enemy territory… now we know the real enemy is and always has been our doubles… but they’re working together.”
  ‒ This is crazy… but at the time that I was writing this sequence (them invading Kingdom) the commercial for the map SunSet came out and in it, Liam / Brimstone says / implies something close to what I have him say here, but also, the team infiltrates Kingdom. Again, not the first time that this happened when I wrote this book. It almost made me mad, but gave me this Brimstone line to add.
• “Four, maybe five,” John replied. Vincent nodded and looked to Chamber who was stuffing what seemed to be an entire pink sprinkle doughnut in his mouth. He paused, wide eyed noting the room’s gaze on him.
  “Oui?” he asked.
  “I don’t know, maybe something,” Vincent said, thoughtfully eyeing John.
  ‒ The Chamber doughnut thing is just meant to be funny. It has no connection to anything. Apparently, Chamber likes sweets. Lol.
• “Bonjour…” he paused, “breadstick?” Chamber asked nonchalantly before dropping the entire armful to the ground, pulling Headhunter from his arm, and shooting both men in the face before they even had time to react.
  ‒ This entire scene had me in stitches to write.
• Chamber slid to the ground, eyes wide on the food that he’d dropped, cracked the bag open and pulled out a second breadstick. “Au, pain! Pain!” he mocked, watching Vincent drop another man.
  ‒ Au Pain is “with bread” in French haha. (Because they just asked if these guys wanted a breadstick?” … dad joke)
• I may have already said it, but some of my husband’s favorite parts of this book are when Chamber and Vincent are together. They’re hilarious. We both agreed that they almost needed their own novel.
• “Stay close, kill anyone who we don’t know,” he replied and at this Austin pulled a bowie knife from the dead man’s belt, whirled, and in one good chop, he cut off doctor Kyle’s right hand. “Uh…” Marielle tilted her head at him, confused, shocked, and a little disgusted; also slightly interested in his precision in doing such a thing. He’d managed to get the entire hand in one good thunk.
  ‒ Another minor reference to SunSet map commercial. Sova uses a thumb in that one.
• Austin ran to the elevator, pressed the button to call the car, and then turned to the fire alarm and pulled it. The building was instantly blaring from both the alarm that was sounding due to escapees, and now the fire alarm as well. He set the bloody bag on the floor across from the elevator.
  ‒ This is something of a tactic that I use in game, sometimes. Often, I will open a door, or press a button, or break glass merely as a distraction. Generally, I’m nowhere near there when everyone is aiming at that area. It helps my team often.
• When the elevator dinged open, Austin was flush against the wall, and Marielle had done the same on the other side. Both stood still, waiting as four more men pushed out of the elevator, guns up and ready. There was a pause when they noticed the bloody bag.
  ‒ My husband and I do this often in this game to kill people.
• “Okay, we’re playing like that,” he hissed, before he whipped the weapon he was carrying across his back and vaulted the railing straight into falling down the middle of the stairs.
  ‒ An imagined Austin line.
• Both Jamie and Sasha looked back at Vincent. Jamie aimed imaginary guns at Vincent and fired them with a wink. “Just take a seat, I’ve got this,” he said. 
  ‒ A Pheonix game line.
• “I plan on taking from them what they took from me…” she growled, then she aimed and hit another man in the chest, “Everything.”
  ‒ A reimagined Viper line.
• He said nothing, and continued to aim and fire at the brigade still assaulting them, “If I must live in this nightmare, my enemies might as well join me,” was all he rasped.
  ‒ An Omen game line.
• I added the second kiss in this scene after the entire book was done. To me, it was to prove what he was internally thinking- that he would kiss her bald, bruised, and fat lipped. He would, and he just proved it.

• “We think they might be on the fourth floor, someone said they saw some blood up there,” they were saying. Good. The elevator was about to stop on floor three. He glanced up, stood, and replaced the panel.
  – I always inadvertently think about the stormtroopers in A New Hope here.
• This moment with Barbara is yet ANOTHER moment that I didn’t know was going to happen until it literally did. I had no idea that she was going to do this, or that she was altered until it happened and when it did, it made so much sense to me… all of it. So, I went with it. It’s been revised a few times, but I love the whole darn scene.
• “Where’s Marielle?” she asked, casually.
  “Go to hell,” he growled through clenched teeth.
  She aimed the pistol down a little, pausing for dramatic effect and fired between his legs, just inches from anything important. He winced, and jerked his head to the side, but stared back at her, unflinching after the initial blast. “Where’s Marielle?”
  –  Another “movie” moment. This moment reflects the end of Kindergarten Cop- “Where’s my grandson…” “Go to hell…” “Where’s my grandson?”
• “Tundra and I are good… friends.”
  “Ew,” he said flatly, flicking his eyes to his blood spilling out between his fingers.
  “Oh, what did you think that I was implying?” she chuckled, coldly.
  “Ew,” he replied, in the exact same tone.
  –  Yes, she is implying that she’s slept with Tundra.
• “We’re using you, Austin… we’ve known about all of this for quite some time now. Years, actually. You two have more power than you understand… the thing is… it’s nothing without her.” She smiled and put the barrel back to his lips. “You’re nothing without her,” she taunted, and the slug began to slither down the barrel.
  –  I love this bit of dialogue.
• -You’re like an extension of my arm… a piece that I didn’t know was missing until I found it, Marielle. I don’t ever want to be apart from you. – when my husband and I reconnected after college, we spoke on the phone for a good 5 hours, during that conversation, he told me, “You’re like an extension of my arm…”  
  –  I put it here in the book.
• Sasha set up his drone and sent it out, moving over the area and shooting reconnaissance darts at anyone trying to find them. It tagged two soldiers before being shot at and dying in the air.
  –  Minor joke. This thing always gets shot down.
• “Watch it, they know you’re there, now,” Klara’s voice from their ears.
  –  Also minor joke… what is the point of Sasha’s / Sova’s owl drone? Hahahaha.
• “Tripple, baby!” He cried, lifting his hands and doing a little dance.  
  –  Pheonix game line.
• The double put Sasha’s body onto his back, jerked the arrow out, and said with a sardonic smile, “You should have dug a deeper grave, my friend.”
  –  A Sova game line.
• Liam fell next to her, and did the same. “We’re here,” he said tenderly. “You fought well. Duty fulfilled, hunter.”
  –  Can’t ever get through this without weeping.
• This chapter truly broke my heart. Sova is the only other character that I ever played in the game Valorant. I have no idea why I decided that he was going to die, but here we are.

• It’s been stated a few times in this book that Austin does not smoke. The Austin from Marielle’s world does not, now- at this stage with the Austin from Vincent’s world’s stress and anxiety at an all time high, we see him with a cigarette, underweight, dripping in makeup, and adding several piercings to his appearance.
• The September before, Vincent had been sure that he’d seen Austin following closely behind them as he and Marielle had walked down a street together in Sacramento. It was their anniversary. As soon as Vincent checked, the shadow had disappeared, which only confirmed to Vincent that it had been Austin following them
  –  Something that only I would know but I’m going to share it with you. This states that their anniversary (Vincent’s and Marielle’s) is in August. The book begins August 4^th (my husband’s birthday) and the events that transpire lead up to the night that Marielle and Vincent make love in the office building in early September. The night that they make love was / is their anniversary. Marielle is never told this, and neither is the audience, but there it is.
• Originally, I did not want to reveal “other Austin” much at all until later in the book series… then I made scenes like this one and I just let it all “happen.”
• Hazal uses one of his / her abilities in this scene to spy.
• “love now? Or love later?”
  –  Vincent does this in chapter 36 in her office.
• The photo of the three of them at the beach smiling, alive, happy… Vincent had burned it.
  – Vincent lied to Marielle about the location of this photo in chapter 42.
• This scene shows Marielle marking The Old Man and the Sea for Vincent to take with him when he finds her again, showing the reader that she did in fact want him to find her, and be happy once more.
• Hazal not only admits here that he is in love with her and always has been, but that most of the other men at Valorant feel the same way about her. He lists the reasons- her beauty, strength, the way she treats all of them and doesn’t judge them even when she knows all of their secrets. But what I find truly beautiful about this scene is that Hazal really and truly / loves / her. He was grateful for his time with her regardless of how it ended.
• “I don’t think that I could hurt you in any universe,” he growled under his breath. He swallowed and looked back to her, “he never deserved you.”
  –  These lines and this scene explain some of what happened in Chapter 27. He gave up chasing her because despite it being a double- he loved her deeply and dearly and simply couldn’t torment her any further, especially not with Austin’s face.
• I can not even read over these last few moments with Hazal and her without crying (As I’m doing now) – they both know at this point that Hazal is also sick, but neither know that he’s dying. What’s ironic is that if Austin and Vincent had never showed up to Valorant, Marielle might have ended up with Hazal, and in doing so, both of them would have died within a few years of each other.
• I also always break when he says that he can’t tell her goodbye, but forces himself to do it anyways after the kiss on the cheek.
• The two sobbed for a moment, and Hazal whispered, “Thank you,” into his left ear.
  “For what?”
  “Everything.”
  –  Hazal is basically telling Vincent thank you for caring for the woman that I loved. Male Hazal just be that way.
• She forced a small smile at him, “Focus now,” she said, thinly, “Eyes off me.”
  –  Me taking a Chamber game line and making it utterly heartbreaking.    
• One of the darker endings to a chapter in my opinion. It honestly hurts.

• Vincent’s eyes watered, and he shook his head from side to side, “Non, Marielle. Tu es belle. Les fantômes sont présents et j’ai peur,” Vincent breathed against her neck, both wrapped tightly in the sheet, as their breathing calmed. They were still one being, he hadn’t left her, yet.
  “Comment puis-je aider, mon amour?”
  Vincent cleared his throat, and lifted his head, looking down at her. “Tu n’es pas moche, Marielle, mais je pense que tu comprends pourquoi c’est difficile.”
  —
  This conversation says-
  Vincent, “No, Marielle. You’re beautiful. The ghosts are present, and I’m scared.”
  Marielle, “How can I help, my love?”
  Vincent, “You are not ugly, Marielle. But I think that you understand why it’s difficult.”
• This scene where they’re still trying to bring Sasha back and Wei Ling says goodbye breaks my heart each time.
• “You can do something that you might not know that you can do…” he explained. “You regrow cells. You can regrow hair,” he explained.
  –  According to RIOT – Skye’s abilities work with cell regeneration. This means that this particular thing might be possible. Yes, I’m taking liberties, but I liked this part of the book, because it also gives Kirra / Skye a win in this moment.
• “I saw you do it, once.” He sat in her chair near a window. “It’s difficult and it takes a lot out of you. You won’t be able to grow much, but-”
  –  This implies that she did this for Marielle in his world, possibly toward the beginning of her getting sick and probably only with a small patch.
• Vincent smiled and silently looked down, feeling himself eyeing their closeness more than admiring her elation.
  –  Chamber is also attracted to Kirra, so we have to assume that Vincent is as well and like any “guy” Vincent is staring at them being intimate in a non-sexual way and trying not to “let it go there” in his head hahaha.
• She was definitely not going to tell Vincent how she’d almost said the same back to him in a moment of despair when she was about to be forced- for the third time- to move through Austin and how it would have actually killed her.
  –  Confirming that when she was saying, “I can say it!” she was going to say, “I’m in love with you, too.”
• just get to the next day… the next night… the next hour…the next minute… the next second… keep moving.
  –  A reference to the chapter before… a heartbreaking one.
• He had to, he was about to lose himself. He’d heard somewhere once that you have five seconds once you have a thought; five seconds to act on it, or you’d change your mind, or talk yourself out of it.
  –  I had read this a few days before writing this scene.
• The company could call him, but he was already reassigned for the end of the year; Hong Kong. This guy was a killer, supposedly bulletproof. He’d have his hands full watching him, following him- and Austin knew that his entire mind would be filled with nothing but Marielle, except he wouldn’t have her- he’d be alone, again, hiding in shadows, spending endless hours at bars, drinking a single cocktail and pretending to read some inane book that he cared nothing about.
• Iso, or The Dead Lilac- that was the target’s name- would see Austin sooner or later, that was for sure. He briefly wondered if this relationship would turn the way that his and Chamber’s had. Preferably without any further additions to his personal armory.
  –  I was writing this sequence at the end of September and I had ALREADY planned this part of the story (That Austin was going to leave for ((originally)) Japan)- and then RIOT released a character from China – ISO… so I had the ability to fit him in here. I was so happy.
• -I’m drowning, Marielle. I don’t know what to do other than pick what to drown in.
  –  This line originally said, “I’m drowning, Marielly.” And that was it. My husband wrote the rest.
• … I saw someone that I thought was perfect, so my lust turned to love. Then I saw that you were imperfect…and it only fueled my love and desire more.
  –  This is an altered famous quote.
• –That you’re always going to be mine? Maybe it doesn’t matter what Vincent has to say about it… maybe you’re always mine. He said we were married in other dimensions, too.
  –  This is a callback to the flashback in chapter 65. Tundra said something very similar in that flashback.
• -Oh, God, I want you to love me so badly…
  –  My husband’s truest confession to me, ever.
• -I want to fall into those flames with you right now and just let them eat us alive, Marielle.  
  –  Minor Phantom of the Opera reference from the song “Point of no return.”

• “I need you, Vincent,” she pleaded. “I do.” She shook her head. “I’m very confused. He saved me… he… he’s so lost.”
  –  A callback to chapter 48.
• “At this point I think it’s pretty obvious that whether we’re here or on the map we’re pretty vulnerable.”
  –  Austin just means “in play” here, but I also mean it like “playing in a map in the game, Valorant.” 😊
• “Look, I hate to say this, brother… but I’m afraid that you asked for this.”
  –  This is actually a reference to the song, “True Friends,” by Bring me the Horizon. I felt that this song was written for these two characters – albeit, TUNDRA and Vincent, but here Austin says the line that Tundra would have said to him if he could. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpmJh2CjSIA
• “You know what that was for,” he hissed before he turned and started out into the hall; everyone else was already rushing to the room downstairs for a debrief.
  –  This is Austin repeating Vincent’s actions in chapter 40.
• “Austin- you and I… we have always been doomed from the beginning, and yet we were friends at one point. We used to go to the bar, play pool, have a whiskey. We saw The Color of Blood together for your birthday.”
  –  It’s true that “The Color of Blood” is a name that I made up for a movie, but also interesting that the COLOR of blood is red… Red being Austin’s favorite color.
• “Austin…” she turned to him, and met eyes with him, looking him in the face with an intensity that caused his hubris to wither. “It’s not about the girls. I care about you… I care about you so much,” there were tears in her eyes.
  –  My husband wrote the line “it’s not about the girls.”
• I know that there will be people who are upset at me over some of Austin’s story arcs here because they think that I’m trying to say that all porn users, or anyone who’s seen porn is bad. I’m not. I personally think that PORN is bad, but this is about AUSTIN and what it does to HIM… it in no way is suggesting that anyone who’s ever seen or used is going to become an awful person.
• The SUV that held Chamber, Vincent, Sabine, John, and Kirra was speeding towards a black van that held the group that everyone suspected was carrying the spike.
  –  This scenario would never happen in the game as you can not choose a character twice. However, this is five people – a full team.
• Although Skye (Kirra) has a lot of interaction with Chamber and Vincent in this novel, she has almost no interaction with him in the game.
• Vincent said with the kind of smile that said that he pictured her on one of her four AM runs at eighty five years old.
  –  There’s a Skye line where she says that everyone can join her for a run and that wake up is 4AM.
• Chamber’s attention was immediately drawn to the left, where another man was shooting at them from above. “Heaven,” Chamber said, gesturing.  
  –  It’s common to call out anyone from “above” by saying, “heaven” in game. It’s easier than saying something like, “look up” or “Up in the one area.” In most map sites, “heaven” is clear and it’s known what is being said.
• Sabine crept up behind one of the disoriented shooters, whispering, “welcome to my world,” into his ear before slicing his throat.
  –  “Welcome to my world!” Is the Viper / Sabine Ultimate line. I love its usage here.
• “One or two more,” she hissed, whirling towards another attacker. “Then I’m coming for you, Sabine!”
  –  A Viper voice line.
• He leaned into her barrel, pressing it between his eyes, showing her that he trusted her in that moment. Chamber looked away. “You brought me back to life,” he repeated, more softly.
  – This action mirrors what he did with Sabine in this world in chapter 19. It shows how deeply Vincent actually cares for her despite her not having deep feelings for him. She has power over him.
• Ice.
  – A truly intriguing ending to a chapter IMO. Terrifying, and brimming with perceived knowledge of what is coming.

• Crash into me by the Dave Matthew’s Band
• Closer by Nine Inch Nails
• Cease to Exist was written by Charles / Charlie Manson. Yes, the serial killer. You can hear it here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCBPlpPnVpk
• This entire scene was much different when I first imagined it, with Austin and Marielle ending up dangling over a bridge. The end result was similar, though.
• “No! You will not die, today!”
  – Sage’s line is of course, “You will not kill my allies!” Or “Your duty is not over!” This is one of the only Ult lines that I completely changed. I don’t know why, but I felt that it fit the best as this.

• /// HELL ///
  
  In this scene, Austin descends into none other than, hell. In it, he encounters a weird creature that disrobes him, an endless line of other “hims” waiting to get into a room, a specific “him” (Tundra) that looks like a ventriloquist dummy, and after being forced into the room, demons chained to the wall that pick up and eat the doubles alive, dropping pieces to the floor. As Austin shouts that he doesn’t belong there, he awakens, only to realize that he’s in another dream when his nude mother places a crown on his head from behind and pours blood on him. He says, “God, Jesus, please help me…” and wakes again, but is not at peace.
• “Kirra?” She paused in the hallway. “Thank you for trying to save my life, and thank you for healing Marielle first.”
  “You’re welcome, love,” was all that she said as she turned and followed Klara away.
  –  These lines were added in the “go through” that I did before I sent it off to my editor.
• Ice ran up Austin’s spine; that sheet was going to sit up and turn to him any moment now, wasn’t it; then the real horror film would begin. The one where the doppelganger chased him down the hall, cornered him, slit his throat, shaved his own head, and stole his life, no one the wiser.
  –  This is a deep fear connected to someone that I personally love, and I was terrified thinking about this sequence.
• He rubbed his arms
  –  Was it cold in here, or did he just have the creeps? – minor personal reference to the movie “Blast From the Past.”
• He found it odd that his only thought for a moment was good shot.
  –  I don’t really know why, but my husband found the “good shot” bit funny. Albeit, it’s meant to be a bit funny, but he really laughed at this.
• What am I looking for? He wondered. Any sign that I am not…him.
  –  Terrifying in my opinion.
• “You’re a serial killer, Austin.”
  –  I cannot tell you how long I had been writing to get to this moment, but oh man… when I wrote these words it was wild. I knew this like chapter 8.
• “Oui. That’s not shocking to me.” Vincent bent, looking Tundra over, and shook his head. Vincent took a moment to stare sadly at Austin’s white face before putting his fingertips to the sides of his face and tipping his head down as if praying. “Goodnight, brother,” he whispered, before standing tall again and addressing Austin whose face was white as a sheet.
  –  White face, dead… White face, terrified of yourself.
• “We don’t really know, but best guess? Shortly after Marielle died.”
  –  This explains a few things, although there is no more information on when these events started. It explains the flashback where Marielle says goodbye to Austin, and Austin tells her “things” that leave her in a state of deep fear when Vincent comes back to her. It also explains why Marielle told Vincent that Austin was “so lost…” before she died. I do not believe that Austin confessed to killing anyone to her, however, I do believe that he said things to her that implied insanity, and a desire for blood.
• The bit about the snake brand changed a bit. Initially it was that Tundra used to brand the prostitutes with it. I didn’t like this, so I changed it. Now, Tundra has a snake branded into his skin from Vincent, and Austin has a snake tattoo from Chamber. Both times this was Vincent’s way of calling Austin a “snake.”
• He wanted to make love to her; he felt like if he could just make love to her, he could heal her somehow. / Hell, if she’d asked him to marry her, he’d have done it then and there.
   – Call backs to the flashback in chapter 53, also proving how alike Chamber and Vincent are at least in their desire for Marielle.
• “Did you know, Marielle… that my mother used to take me to a little French village every Christmas?” he asked, trying to put her mind anywhere except wherever it was. He knew that she was having nightmares and flashbacks.
  –  Confirming what Chamber told Austin during his torturing of him.
• There was a little candy shop and she’d let me buy whatever I wanted from it… uh… dark chocolate with orange peel.”
  –  Confirming that Chamber and Vincent both like this particular chocolate as is shown in chapter 19.
• He swallowed and looked down, “Je suis là, Marielle.”  
  –  Chamber is saying, “I’m here, Marielle.”
• I always feel so badly for Chamber, here. He so desperately wants her, and he can’t have her.
• He could find no scream in his throat, even though he knew he was wailing internally as he ground his teeth together in anguish.
  –  Matthew 13:42

• She took in a deep breath and looked down into the coffee cup. It was the right color. She wanted to enjoy it. Could she enjoy it? Was she allowed to? Could she enjoy anything ever again?
  – I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel like this often when I’m in a panic attack, or something traumatic has occurred.
• Was? You kill her or something? Marielle’s voice echoed in his head.
  – This was said by Marielle in chapter 21.
• I’m not sure why, but I had decided early on that I wanted there to be at least one more flashback of the Austin torture sequence, but I wanted it to show Vincent / Chamber’s compassion for Austin. Vincent says repeatedly in this novel series that he loved Austin- which of course is ironic because Austin (in a way) expresses love (or at least deep respect and empathy) for Vincent in chapter 38 to Marielle.
• He combed through Austin’s dark, sticky hair again. “It’s okay, brother. It will end… I promise…It will… end.”
  – These were the words in Austin’s dream in chapter 38.
• This is what Marielle is singing – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRzKFPUJvbw
• “On our wedding day… she wore red lipstick.”
  – The sign that she “wanted / loved” Austin. Presumably in their dimension, she didn’t believe that Vincent knew about this, but he did.
• Obvious reference to It’s a Wonderful Life- “You’ve been given the chance that no one else ever gets. You got to see where your life could go if you didn’t get things under control,” Vincent spoke.
• “Reloading,” Vincent whispered.
  – A strange place for a Chamber game line, but there it is.

• IN :THIS FLASHBACK Austin is a child as his nude mother and others chant over him and – she approaches him with a twig crown and the blood, orders him on his knees. Marielle Tries to protect him. He begs. The flashback ends.
• “You are part of me,” he whispered. She swallowed, hard and let out a ragged breath. “Before Tundra… you were angry with me again,” he bit his lip, still brushing the tip of his nose against her shoulder.
  –  He has a thing for that shoulder. But as where Tundra bit her and made her bleed, Austin bites himself here subconsciously reminding himself that he’d rather hurt himself than her.
• “French toast?” he asked, gently running his thumb down the back of her arm.
  “Yes, darling,” she replied absent mindedly.
  –  Originally this said, “French toast, darling?” and she replied, “Yes, love…” but love is her name for Vincent. He calls her love, Austin calls her “darling.” They both have their reasons.
• Maybe he wanted to distance himself from Tundra as much as possible.
  –  I do things often subconsciously, and sometimes my readers are the ones who tell me what I subconsciously meant. My husband was the one who told me that Austin did this to distance himself from Tundra. I realized that he was right.
• He breathed out through rounded lips, searching his memory banks, then lifting an eyebrow. “Carpet… rough, coarse.” He breathed deeply, and put both hands on his chest, folding them, and trying to relax the rest of his body.
  –  Austin’s first memory is “my” first memory.
• Austin scoffed, but it was more like a chuckle, “Isotta means Ice ruler,” he turned to her and narrowed his eyes. -So, this is really interesting (I might have already mentioned it but I’ll give it another go, here) I had initially chosen Isabella for Austin’s mother’s name, but decided that I no longer liked it after the first time I wrote it in the book. I had never heard the name Isotta before and decided that that was the name I wanted. When I did this, I had no idea that A, the name meant Ice Ruler, and B, that Isotta Stella was the name of a famous witch in Italy.
• Originally there was a story here where Austin’s father- like Vincent’s also died of some disease when he was young. But since Isotta was a prostitute and a witch / satanist / whatever she was, I decided that Austin’s father would remain an unknown. I removed several lines in this conversation about Austin’s father and him “going into the hospital and never coming back out.”
• “What if I want to be there? What if I want to help you through that prison because…” she paused, “it’s like what you said in Kingdom. We’ll get through this together, right? Because we’re together.”
• He chuckled, silently, “Is that why we’re going to do it?”
• She shook her at him like it was and always had been obvious, “yes.”
  –  Exactly their conversation in Kingdom, but the roles are reversed now.
• His body went rigid and his head rolled back slightly in ecstasy. -Oh, darling… please, just love me.
  –  Another moment reflecting my husband.
• “P-protect me, mom!” He cried. –This not only shows us what happened in the “training room” with Sabine in chapter
  –  It is also an extremely personal moment for me for reasons that I will not share.
• “On your knees, sweetness,” Isotta said, eyeing Austin.
  – This is why Austin doesn’t “get on his knees for anyone.”  
• “And then I saw you… and you were there, and you were inside of me… and you could feel my heart, and I could feel your little hands around it. You kept me alive for a few more moments, I know you did… just long enough,” he said, looking into her eyes.
  – Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5aibZNVqS4
• “Your birthday is November fourth?” She asked, incredulously.
• He nodded, “yeah, I didn’t think you’d believe that one even if I was telling the truth.”
• She looked down into her own lap. “We have the same birthday,” she whispered.
  –  I didn’t know that this was going to happen until I wrote it. It was another thing that shocked me. Subsequently- many serial killers are born in November.
• He waited for her to drive away before he took the plates to the sink, scooped up some leftover butterscotch syrup on hers with his finger, licked it off, and rinsed them, wanting her there the entire time. He imagined both of them washing the dishes together, and he smiled.
  –  My husband wrote this bit, and I don’t know why.

• This entire section regarding Tala Is New.
• “Marielle, when I came here for you, all I wanted was you. I have been trying to outrun a derailed train this entire time. I just want you,” he explained, cupping her cheek.
  – A minor reference to his dream where the two names (which we now know were “Marielle Rancor”) were coming at him from the railroad track.
• “She can hate me for all of time for making her leave the fight, but I will not take her into one again.”
  – Neon hates Chamber in the video game. When Chamber kills her, he says, “I’m sorry, but, you didn’t like me anyways.”
• “But also, all of this is coded to very specific movements so that you don’t accidentally pull a gun out. I took an extra few steps with mine-”
  She cut him off, “the cards.”
  – I always wonder about this in the game. The “cards” that Vincent pulls seem to have no purpose. I understand them in theory, but he could simply pull a gun, or Trademark without them. Oh well, I guess.
• Amazed, she lifted them in her hands, and her green eyes welled as she looked them over. Bright, shining silver like a polished blade, they twinkled and danced like glitter. There was diamond cut wedges down the barrel and along the back of the grip on both of them, and on the grip panel, she saw a word in Vincent’s handwriting- GALL. These were more than weapons, they were jewels, and they were perfect.
  – I love how Vincent’s guns and machinery are gold, hers are silver, and Austin’s are white. He might be a “snake” but I think the fact that his gun ends up being white implies something more. Ice could also be portrayed as “white.”
• Like before, some of the Austin / Marielle dialogue at the funeral about Tala was “added” post story completion.
• Marielle was also aware of everyone speaking one at a time about Sasha, his love for life, the cold, and photography.
• Liam closed their words with his own. “He believed in all of you,” Liam said, his fist at his chest as he bit back tears, “like he believed in himself.”
  – True of his character, and a Sova line from the game.
• Everyone else did the same, and more hearts broke and eyes flooded with tears when they all spotted a little elderly lady shakily stand from one of the back chairs with a cane for sturdiness. In a pink dress and hat, she made her way proudly down the aisle, refusing anyone’s help in the process.
  When she reached Sasha, she bent at the open casket, whispered some things in Russian, and kissed his cheek. No one knew what she said, but Marielle – because of her time spent with Sasha in the past – recognized the words, “grandmother” (babushka) and “grandson” (vnuk).
  – In Sasha’s “lore” he loves his grandmother. I had to have her make an appearance here.
• “Vincent?” he asked. Chamber paused, and turned back to him. He approached him, and put an arm around his shoulder, “I need a friend,” he said quietly. “Are you available?”
  – A callback to what Vincent said Austin (Tundra) used to do in his own dimension.
• He’d just traded with Wei Ling, who’d actually gone into Tala’s room. Before he walked away, he heard Wei Ling ask if she was alright.
  – This scene is directly from the cinematics.
• Several floating rectangles dotted the air around her and floated, waiting for her to open fire.
  – You see these in the practice map on Valorant.
• “I’m never as handsome as you are beautiful,” he replied with a smirk as he gently brushed some hair behind her ear.
  – He said this on the plane.

• Chamber shifted his gaze a little, eyeing the seven ball. “I have a beef to pick with you…”
  Austin narrowed his eyes and glanced up at the ceiling for a moment as if trying to figure out what language he’d need to translate that. Then he turned to Chamber, “Do you mean bone?”
  – This is an inside joke between my husband and I. One time I was mad, but talking to fast, I ran in and said this very thing, and he replied the way Austin did. We both laughed. I don’t remember what the fight was about to this day. We routinely tease one another about it.
• “Real friends? They stab you in the front, Austin.”
  – Another reference to the Bring me the Horizon song.
• “tchin-tchin.”
  – Like saying cheers in French.
• “Why not.” Austin checked his watch.
  – I like to give characters something that they do that returns in the story. Austin said “why not?” To Marielle when she was trying on dresses in chapter 24.
• Austin said with an exasperated sigh. He lifted the pool cue into the air like it was a long blade and gestured to Chamber with it, lifting his left hand as he took a fencing stance.
  Chamber shook his head, chuckling, and turned, meeting his cue with Austin’s. Then playfully swatted back and forth at one another. Chamber obviously knew how to fence.
  – Austin said that Marielle was the only one who ever made him want to play… here we see Austin attempting to make a friend and not quite knowing how to do it. I find this charming.
• “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine…” He mimicked in his best British accent as he tried desperately to hide a smile.
  – I have to get Star Wars in here somewhere. I’m a major fan of the original trilogy.
• “Oh, so you think you’re the good guy?”
  “Am I not?”
  – These questions carry so much more meaning to me than they appear to here in this moment.
• “Merci pour la boisson.”
  “Prego.”
  – Vincent said, “Thanks for the drink.”
  Austin said, “You’re welcome” in Italian.
• Austin lingered back a moment, smoothing his coat over his button up… He leaned on the bar for a moment, near the blonde guy who was occasionally taking drinks of an Old Fashioned.
  – This drink makes an appearance again for my brother in law.
• Here we meet Larson Gray. He’s one of my favorite “minor but important” characters in the book series.
• It was almost frightening; the tight black mask that covered his entire face and neck and the white eyes that were partially hidden underneath the wide brimmed hat.
  – IMO- Hatless Cypher is terrifying in the game.
• She cocked her head at him and took in a breath; there was a difference between him and the man she’d killed, but she wasn’t going to say anything about it to him.
  She smiled softly at the appearance of his face; he had Vitiligo.
  – This is a nod at the man who acts Cypher’s amazing voice. ^_^ I love people who have something “different” “unique” and amazing about them. This signs that book for me.
• “If I am around, no one is alone. I know exactly where you are.”
  – Just me getting one of his more famous game lines in here somewhere.
• He nodded, “the number of things that you have been through in the last few weeks is unprecedented, Marielle. A vacation might be in order? Nora and I are willing to open our home to you if you choose to ever visit Morocco.”
  – Nora is Cypher’s wife. The fact that he is talking so openly to Marielle, showing his face, and mentioning his family shows how much he trusts her.
• She turned to him, “You know Chamber?”
  He nodded, “Not only do I know him… I like him a little. We-” He shifted his eyes around suspiciously, “know things about one another.”
  – Referencing some of the lines from the game in which Chamber basically says that he thinks it best if he and Cypher remain friends.
• “Yeah, so like- I like to watch like classic Marvel movies? Uh…Star Wars? The Lord of the Rings?”
  “The Bobbit?”
  He let out a snort, “Darling… The Hobbit.”
  – I actually purposefully call The Hobbit “The Bobbit” often to be cute.
• He snorted. “We could always read Pierce the Hippopotamus,”
  “Oh my God, Austin Rancor, I can’t even believe that you remember that.” She set the cup down and leaned over the tub, watching a candle flicker.
  – Reference to chapter 25.
• “Capisci. Ti amo come non ho mai amato niente e nessuno. Voglio essere parte di te fino all’ultimo respiro.”
  – Austin said, “You understand, I love you as I have never loved anyone or anything. I want to be part of you until my last breath.”
• “Dormi bene, Tesoro. Sognami. Goodnight.”
  – Austin said, “Sleep well, darling. Dream about me. Goodnight.”

• “I can’t keep living this way, Austin. I can’t keep giving into you in one corner of my life, and trying to live with Vincent in another. It’s true that I’ve made no commitment to Vincent, and he knows that, and it’s one of the only reasons that I’ve kept this charade going… but… but…”  
  – Meant to reflect something that Vincent said in chapter 33. – And I obliged at every opportunity. We were the kind of lovers, Masin, that would sneak into a corner or an empty room if we wanted one another.”
• Mateo scratched his fish tattoos and gestured outward with his hand, nearly decapitating Liam with it.
  – Gekko has many tattoos, but the fish on his neck stand out well.
• Zayana gave him a strong nod, locking eyes with him and giving him a soft smile. Their closeness had always been evident to everyone who knew them. How they knew one another and what they were- short of having a sibling kind type of relationship- was not too keenly known, but they definitely loved each other in one way or another.
  –  This is made evident by cinematics.
• This conversation where Marielle sits on Austin’s bed and watches him pack was written way in advance of the rest of the chapter. In fact, it had been written many chapters prior and I was merely waiting to insert and marry it to the rest of everything.
• Originally, Austin was going to go down a path where he broke all of his promises to Marielle. But neither fit the narrative of the direction of the story, nor did it work for some of what I had planned. I started to write it, and was going to go there a bit with his night in the bar (in which, when he left, Marie would have been standing there waiting for him, and basically dragged him into a kiss, and then more in her car- but the difference would have been that he would have been fighting the whole time and not really wanting to do it-)
  –  The darn novels were already so long I decided to let this go.
• I went to Ulta the day that I dreamt up the airport scene and purchased a tube of matte red lipstick that I call, “Tell Austin I love him red.”
• From when Marielle is saying goodbye to Austin (before the lipstick) and through the rest of this sequence in my head, this is playing in my mind- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FITSPSA8gQs
• On the phone, Austin is singing this- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv8czIoAw5w
• “Oh Marielle,” he murmured like she didn’t understand at all. “I’ll sing to you while we make love,” he shot back.
  –  One of the sexier lines in this book series, I think. Honestly it’s his tone in my head too. *GAH*
• “Austin,” he repeated. “Oh, darling, you love me…” He whispered incredulously.
  “I do,” she breathed, ignoring a brief flashback to Tundra.
  – I honestly love this. Tundra said the same thing to her before he got violent. Ironically, though, Tundra ALSO meant Austin.
• In my original plan for this “phone call” scene, it actually turned into an intense love scene in which both of them felt one another, but weren’t actually there.
  – This didn’t feel right to me. But some of the original dialogue was, “Never again,”
  “Okay, just this once.”
• It’s interesting to me that in her scenarios with Austin, the opening line from her is always, “for you.” Whereas with Vincent was “TO you.”

• “Of course,” Chamber lifted both hands, “how could she not? You’re handsome, charismatic, charming, you know how to please her in the bedroom… French.”
  Vincent flicked an eyebrow at him, “Did you just call yourself a handsome, French, lady charmer with sexual prowess?”
  –  I love Vincent and Chamber talking about “themselves.”
• Vincent narrowed his eyes at him, “back then, I really didn’t trust you. I even thought about killing you a few times.”
  – There’s a moment in Chamber’s reveal trailer where he contemplates killing his double.
• Vincent’s jaw tensed several times in a row and he looked off. “The true and real tragedy of all of that – I believe, I have no evidence of it – is that I think that Marielle got sick because she left Austin.”
  –  This question / theory is never answered in this book. However, it was something that I wondered and wanted to explore a bit. It is very possible that Marielle’s illness declined rapidly because she left Austin, and their support for one another was gone entirely. So, while Marielle’s body decayed, Austin’s mind did.
• “If I had a glove, I’d slap you across the face.”
  –  Referencing the comical classic French move.
• Then she turned back towards the window putting a wall up between them so that he could look over it again like he was alone.
  –  This is like referencing what Wei Ling / Sage does.
• He took in a deep breath, and sat back down on the couch, digging his nails into the arm rest for a moment before releasing it from his attempt at strangling something other than himself.
  – he doesn’t want to hurt her. He wants to hurt himself.

• Another wave of tears came over her when she saw an old woman and her husband start to cross the street.
  The woman was still mobile, but the man was hobbled over a walker, and the woman linked her arm with him, and helped him with each step with a loving affection on her face. She could almost read her mind… you were always there for me… now I’m here for you, love.
  – One time many years ago, now my husband, family and I were in a Coco’s restaurant and there was a feeble, non-verbal older gentleman seated next to his wife, who was feeding him. We had a brief conversation and she said something to the effect of, “He took care of me for 50 years. Now it’s my turn to take care of him.”
• I imagined this during the motorcycle ride- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra52JOPdvis
• Motorcycles show up a lot in my books. I think they’re incredibly sexy and I wish that I was able to ride more of them.
• -When was the first time that you thought about us? I know that you did, you told me that you did during the twenty-five questions at my house.
  -Yeah, I had. Briefly… remember that at that point I was extremely stuck on Vincent. But I did think about you and I.
  -When?
  –  I had had other ideas for Austin toward the beginning of the novel series, so I actually went back and added the brief fantasy that she has about him in chapter 7 shortly after I wrote this sequence.
• It was dark outside, and since Halloween was soon, all of the trees were laced with twinkling white lights, and pumpkins made trails everywhere.
  –  I said in the trivia for chapter 25 that Marielle’s favorite room is also my favorite room. The last time that my husband, child and I were there this was what it looked like. We also ran into a man named Matt who we told “this room is going into a novel that I’m writing.” He thought that was so cool.
• You want a churro?”
  “Yes!” She squealed.
  “What kind?” he looked to a kiosk, “Cinnamon, apple cinnamon, fruity pebble, salted caramel? Reeses?”
  –  I had a reeses churro that day as well. It was limited time only, and it was delicious.
• I love this whole scene about the Star Wars store. My husband and I always go in there and have lots of fun.
• I described this scenario as it was the last time that I was here. Even the man carving pumpkins and the gingerbread house.
• Austin is singing this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRfCFf-vlEk
• “What are you thinking?” he whispered, sucking a little sweet and sour from his thumb. It was on purpose, but he was good at making it look natural.
  –  I used this description in chapter 17 as well.  
• “Did you ever play that game? Where you add in bed to the end of all fortune cookies?”
  She shook her head. He tossed her the little white note. She looked it over… don’t hold onto things that require a tight grip. He snorted. She shoved him in the arm. “What I didn’t write it.”
  – My husband and I do this and crack up.

• Admittedly, some of these next few chapters feel more intense and pornographic than the actual sex that occurred in this book. Because of that, here’s the summary of this chapter – (76)
  Austin came back, and spent some time kissing her against the door where he used his ability to talk in their minds to sense what would feel the best for her. Then he took her to the bedroom and they continued their deep make out session. He gives her attention with his teeth and tells her that she’s his. She agrees.
  Austin continues to use their mental bond to make sure that these moments are as torturous and exciting as possible.
  They take a moment to “check one another out” (although clothed) and talk about how they know that they’ve “checked one another out” before and how this is different because they are momentarily each other’s.
  Marielle sets tea lights up and turns the lights off to give them a more romantic atmosphere.
  Austin gives her a bit of a “show” (to torment her as a way to get her back for all of the torment he’s felt like she’s given to him over the last three months) and he asks her if she’d like to actually “see” him.
  She stops him short and asks for a break.
  – Start reading there. [LINK]
  – If you’ve come back to avoid some of the more intense parts, he proceeds to find that she’s incredibly “sensitive” in the navel (something that apparently she didn’t know either) and they banter about it being a “land mine” as he forces her to the mattress to give her attention there with his mouth.
  The actual action proves to be so intense that she has to stop him, and they joke more about it being a landmine to which she says, “can we stop with the landmine metaphors?”
• “What do I taste like, Austin?”
  He gave her another gentle bite, and paused as he thought. “You…” he finally replied.
  – My husband was being silly one time and tickled me with the tip of his tongue. When I asked him what I tasted like, he said, “meat.” Hahahaha. This is reference to that in a sexy way.
• He sighed, desperately. She was blooming for him, and it was making him crazy that he couldn’t caress her petals and water her; quenching her thirst… her misery.
  – One of the sexiest descriptions in this book to me.
• She leaned over the left side of her bed and slowly brought a box up onto the mattress. It was about a foot wide and long and about eight inches tall. He shifted again, but remained, keeping his eyes locked on her. -Please, don’t hurt me.
  -I won’t, Austin, trust me… trust me.
  –  With this scene… I’m personally working some things out for myself. And while I won’t share any of it, it was extremely cathartic to write.
• It reminded him of The Fortress of Solitude as she lifted it from the box and it glimmered and sparkled in the dim candlelight. -I use a few descriptors in this book to imply that Austin is “Superman.” Even his general look- fair skinned, blue eyed, black hair, lean muscle.
  –  Not in a literal sense, but there’s something to it. This is one of those moments.
• In the moments where Austin tells Marielle that he just “wanted his mother to love him”
  –  There was originally internal dialogue between him and his mother in which he asks his mother if she saw that he seduced someone and said something to the effect of, “that’s what you wanted me to do, right?” and his mother replied, “Oh sweetness, it’s not enough…” – I felt that it interrupted what was happening here. But here it is in trivia as a mental note.
• “You bow and scrape for no one,” she insisted.
  – Minor reference to the movie EverAfter. “You look down to no one.”
• “Because there was nothing ever wrong.”
  –  Minor reference to the Half Alive song, “I’ll Stop” in which the lyrics are, “I’ll stop tryin’ to make you better, there was nothing ever wrong.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNhehYCmfGA
• “All of the Star Wars movies?”
  She giggled, “All forty-five?”
  He chuckled, drumming his lip. “Well… maybe just the original three.”
  – This is meant to be a joke of the futuristic kind. The idea being that this is like twenty years from now (2023 when I wrote this) and that by then there would probably actually be a lot more Star Wars films.
  {{AdminRemark: You mean like how The Land Before Time was ruined?  God forbid!}}

• “Can we plan ten or fifteen thousand?” he asked, his eyes full of tears.
  – Fifteen thousand days is a little over 41 years.
• -Come with me. Come with me to China. We’re not supposed to be apart, Marielle. I don’t know how to explain this, but I know that we were made for each other. It doesn’t matter what he says… I get you back. I always get you.
  – Tundra said something like this in chapter – and Austin said it as well earlier.
• Hours must have passed, and Austin subconsciously felt Felix lay against Marielle’s front. He wrapped his arm around Felix as well as her and Marielle regained just enough consciousness to hear Austin think to himself, –my little family.
  – When I wrote this, I sobbed.
• “Are you okay?”
  She cleared her throat, “Yeah,” she lied.
  “No, you’re not,” he answered. “You’re clothed, right?”
  –  This mirrors their moment in chapter 35.
• -The facial hair? She nodded. -I can let it go today if you want to see more. I’m Italian, I’ll have a full beard by noon. He chuckled.
  – This is meant to be a joke. I’m Italian, and some Italian men grow hair really well. I always laugh here. Austin doesn’t grow facial hair that quickly, but it’s funny.
• “Ten. So…” he leaned into her face a little, kissing her tenderly, “as I said at the restaurant in Italy… I’m always carrying.”
  – This was what he meant in the restaurant in Italy. He didn’t actually have a pistol the night of the announcement, except for in his arm, and it was always a back up plan.

• This entire chapter was written after the novel / novels were complete.
• There was a moment earlier in the book where Vincent and Austin had a conversation about the movie “Vertigo”
  –  This sequence with Vincent on a “tower” and a “staircase” is also a brief reference to that and the lost feeling that he has right now.
• “Deadeye, checking in.”
  –  Deadeye is actually Chamber’s “code name.”
• He shook his head. “Focus now,” he breathed, “eyes off me.” Vincent always thought it ironic; he’d taken that line from Marielle and said it whenever he felt that he needed reassurance and comfort.
  –  A brief explanation of where this line originated.
• This moment with ISO was always supposed to happen (there’s a chapter coming up where he mentions it) but I hadn’t written it, so this chapter happened to show it.
• Originally, there was no break or shift in the “affair” chapters, my husband suggested it. I knew that I wanted to have an ISO scene, and a some sequences that dealt with Vincent’s childhood, so I decided now was a good time to break up the affair, but also to really punch home some of the emotions.
• The slow motion with ISO when Vincent kills him is meant to feel like winning a round in the game. When you win, everything goes slow mo for a moment.
• This flashback with Vincent’s father is one of the only times we see anything from his childhood. I love this scene and it (like the other in this chapter) was added long after the book was completed. I had always wanted a sequence with Vincent and his father (at least) and I wanted it to mean something. I felt like this meant something here.
• I often use my writing as a way to make commentary on a particular topic that’s popular so I don’t have to talk about it openly. I’ll let you make your own assumptions on my commentary in this chapter.
• They’re obviously speaking French, but as I said in the scene, Vincent pictures it now in English (also so I didn’t have to write all the French in haha).
• So many references to Chamber’s (of the game’s) guns. His father has a rifle called “Tour De Force” which would obviously inspire the one in his arm later.
• “I’m not sure,” Vincent shrugged. “It’s like… the target becomes the only thing that exists, except me.”
  –  Hard to explain but this is like a reference to multiple Chamber lines.
• Then Michelle handed it to Vincent, “are you ready to shoot her?”
  “I think.”
  “You can’t think.” Michelle tapped the side of his head with his fingertip, “You must know. Do you know, Vincent?”
  –  Sort of a Yoda reference. “Do or do not. There is no try.”
• don’t complicate it, Vincent,” Michelle said. Vincent let out a breath, took aim, and fired. The tree – about sixty feet away, fell away from itself like a cocoon opening; except there was nothing inside. Michelle pumped a fist into the air, “My son!” He cried with pride. Vincent smiled. “So, she has chosen you, then?” Vincent nodded, certain. “Then she is yours for sure. A gift.”
  – – Michelle touches on two lines here that are partly Chamber’s. “Take aim, then fire, let’s not complicate it.” And “A gift.”
• Michelle opened his vest and handed Vincent something from inside. Chocolate with orange peel wrapped in tinfoil.
  – here’s that chocolate that Vincent loves again.
• “Now they are nervous,” he chuckled.
  –  Another line that Vincent (as Chamber) would adopt later on in the game.   
• Michelle also obviously quotes one of Chamber’s ultimate lines here. “Oh, you are so dead!” Also implying that Vincent took this line from his father.
• When next Vincent awoke, he was in a starched hospital bed, and when he looked down at his right arm, he saw three large lines with stitches from his elbow to his wrist. He stared at it, and swallowed…
  – Hopefully this is obvious, but this is meant to be the “beginning idea” of what he’d do with his arms, back, and body later with the tattoos.

• “I’m going to take you to a coffee shop near the water- where I first started realizing that I had feelings for you. Then to the sand to watch the waves, and later tonight to the opera.”
  – this is interesting because it implies that their cinnamon latte coffee date (in chapter 17) was one of the first times that he truly considered that his feelings were actually real, and not just desire to bed.
• Their conversation about “when he started to have feelings for her” (in chapter 17) was added post book finish.
• “Si, amore mio,” she corrected.
  His eyes danced wildly. “You spoke Italian.”
  She shrugged a shoulder, “It’s a recent interest,” she replied dismissively.
  –  My husband loved these lines.
• “I want… to burn that thing,” he hissed, glancing at the contract. “Let me burn it, Marielle, so the fire in me can burn us both up,” he begged. She wanted to say yes. “Let it…consume us.”
  – A minor reference to “Past the Point of No Return” in Phantom of the Opera.
• “Tell me, dammit!” He pounded the wall above her head. She wilted, and went to her knees.
  –  This originally said, “Tell me!” but it felt too much like people would hear Loki in their minds haha.
• Some of the sand that they were standing in now would be stuck to him longer than their relationship would last. He’d find some in a few days still in his pocket, or on the bottom of his shoe.
  –  This is a reference to the song “Could it be Any Harder?” By The Calling. “Like sand on my feet, the smell of sweet perfume will stick to me forever, baby.”
• She opened the box that he’d given her and pulled the earrings out, examining them a little.
  –  Originally this had a bit about there being little “O’s” hidden among the jewelry’s gems. I honestly feel like this entire affair sequence is so sexy that it doesn’t need more “help.” So, I removed it.
• “My heart was breaking when I danced with you. I knew that’d be the only time you were in my arms that night.” -Where you belong.
  –  Austin says “where you belong” in reference to her being in his arms about 7 times in this book (if you’re not including when Tundra said it in the flashback where he came to Vincent’s house.)
• “Don’t put any on. This is all I need,” he said, handing her the lipstick.
  – My husband added, “handing her the lipstick…”
• He nodded again, staring at her mouth. Leaning in, he brushed his lips against hers, –do you want this kiss?
  -Si.
  –  This is because when they were here before, in this same spot, they both felt the urgency for a kiss, but neither was brave enough to dare it.

• Austin is playing this- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9JWwLZr0mI
• This movement where Austin “rubs an expression off” with his hand happens a few times in this book series. He always looks into his palm afterward. It’s never explained, so I’ll do it here… Austin is subconsciously afraid that he’s wearing a mask, and that it has slipped or fallen, or that he’s taken it off and is now exposed.
• “Not exactly in this context, darling.”
  – My husband grinned and said, “Context matters.”
• “Just take the damn pictures, Tiger,” she purred.
  –  One of the few times that Marielle uses the term of endearment “Tiger” – she did this in a flashback from Vincent’s POV in the hospital in chapter 7.
• “This is for your eyes, only.”
  –  A 007 reference.
• My husband thinks that this scene is the sexiest scene in the entire book series.
• The song that Austin writes here is comprised mostly of things that Austin has said or hinted at through the entire book series up til now. “I can’t freeze time,” – when he was trying to defuse the spike in Italy. “And they say I’m cold hearted,” to Vincent when they found out about his arm gun, and several others. “Cause there’s nothing I’ve ever been through that’s hurt this bad, yet.” – He said “Nothing’s ever hurt me this bad” to her when she presented him with the contract. “It’s easy,” (about bleeding in Kingdom).
• It hurt… oh, how it hurt.
  -Yes, it hurts. He whispered.
  –  Occasionally Austin hears a thought that she’s having that is just written as the “book.”
• “I…am…ruined…” he cried.
  –  A reference to the song he played at Downtown Disney, “Hot Tea” by Half Alive. “I want to be ruined by love.”
• “I’m not interested in Reyna,” he whispered. She nodded; this was basically the name he’d remember her by. She’d told him to call her that in Italy. “Not even a little after Italy.”
  –  This is interesting since the night that Marielle and Vincent met in his world, apparently Austin had gotten drunk and was talking to “Reyna” in a seductive way.
• The scene where they’re holding one another in the living room and she asks why he’s crying and he says, “I’m so happy.” And she says, “…false.” Was the first scene of this entire affair that I wrote and I cried through all of it.
• Marielle says, “I adore you so much,” in Italian. It was added long after the book was finished.

• In this scene, in a memory of Tundra’s, which Marielle now possesses, Tundra makes his first kill to a hooker in a hotel room. He uses an icicle and stabs her to death, then goes a little nuts as he momentarily tries to force her inside of him, and realizing what he’s done, that he must freeze her.
  ———————————–
  
• The fact that the teddy bear is egregiously cute is a reference to her answer in chapter 25 during the 25 questions game.
• This is one of the only flashbacks in which we see Morgan aside from his death. I personally love this character and wish that I had the opportunity to write more about him.
• “If anyone would know fear… I would… give your fears to me.”
  – Male Hazal said something like this to Marielle in Vincent’s world when trying to urge her into him to see if Marielle could bond with someone other than Austin.
• “You are afraid, but not for you, and not of me,” she said, thoughtfully.
  – A minor reference to Batman Begins. IYKYK.
• I adore this sequence between Marielle and Hazal. It’s to show the reader that while Hazal is not a man, and not in love with Marielle, she has also had a secret fondness, and even sistership / kinship to Marielle that is deeper than Marielle understood before now. Hazal always loves Marielle, even if only as a deeply devoted friend.
• The flashback was added long after the book was completed. I wanted to show the reader a moment that truly was Tundra- the first moment.
• This flashback with the prostitute is meant to minorly mirror the scene in chapter 38 in which Austin tried to seduce Marielle. Which is one of the many reasons that Marielle is terrified.
• “Sounds very nineteen seventies boxer…” Austin chuckled silently. He understood the reference, and it reminded him of all of the reasons that he loved her.
  – Obviously Rocky.

• In this scene where Vincent confronts her about the affair, I had originally written dialogue for it that implied that Vincent had gone through this a few times in other dimensions when he’d found her- that he had found her, tried to be with her, and she always had an affair with Austin, or snuck off with him. He said a line that was something to the effect of, “you were not so careful in other dimensions.”
• Oui, Vincent…” She caressed his cheek, “Je suis tombée amoureuse de toi en premier. Je n’ai jamais arrêté,”
  – Marielle says, “I fell in love with you first. I never stopped.”
• Note that in this scene where Vincent is “taking control” he continues to ask her if she wants this. She does, desperately. He knows her, and who she is in the bedroom, but he also wants to make it one hundred percent clear that he only wants to do what she wants and needs.
• “Tu n’étais pas censé me briser le cœur ce week-end, Masin…Alors maintenant je vais briser ton corps.”
  – Vincent said, “You weren’t supposed to break my heart this weekend, Masin.” “So, now I’m going to break your body.”
• “Mais ne t’inquiète pas, Masin. Vous allez en adorer chaque minute,” he added.
  – Vincent said, “But don’t worry, Masin.” “You’ll love every minute of it.”
• “Don’t worry,” he breathed. “je ne laisserai aucun bleu.”
  – Vincent said, “I won’t leave any bruises.”

• Austin was always wearing glasses in my mind in this sequence on camera and I hadn’t written it into the book until the second or third time that I went over it. It just stuck out so strongly in my mind, that I decided that it simply must be.
• Sono rovinato. Non riesco a dormire, mi manca il calore del tuo corpo accanto al mio. Il sapore della tua lingua sta scomparendo dalla mia bocca e lo odio. Continuo a chiudere gli occhi e cerco di immaginare te, il tuo corpo, il tuo seno, il sapore del tuo amore. Sto fallendo. Voglio il mio nome sul tuo polso, sul tuo collo e sul tuo cuore. Voglio che tu mi ami così tanto. So che mi ami ed è per questo che non riesco a capire perché mi hai lasciato. Sogno le tue labbra rosse e quel vestito. Immagino la tua bocca sulla mia. Ci immagino tra cinque, dieci, quindici anni, camminare per strada, tenendoci per mano, con la nostra bambina in mezzo a noi. Ma questo mi distruggerà per il resto della mia vita, Marielle. Vorrei che fosse uno scherzo. La mia regina rossa.
  Austin said:
  I’m ruined. I can’t sleep, I miss the warmth of your body next to mine. The taste of your tongue is disappearing from my mouth and I hate it. I continue to close my eyes and try to imagine you, your body, your breasts, the taste of your love. I’m failing. I want my name on your wrist, on your neck and on your heart. I want you to love me so much. I know you love me and that’s why I can’t understand why you left me. I dream of your red lips and that dress. I imagine your mouth on mine. I imagine us in five, ten, fifteen years, walking down the street, holding hands, with our little girl between us. But this will destroy me for the rest of my life, Marielle. I wish it was a joke. My red queen.
• Relating someone’s “screams” to music in Austin’s mind call up a number of things that happen in this novel series, one of them being Tundra singing over Marielle’s pleas before she killed him.
• No, Austin. Press yourself in. Work might be the only thing that gets you through this.
  – My husband has said many times that if I ever died, he would probably throw himself violently into his work, because it might be the only thing that saves him.
• Closing his eyes, he reached out. -Are you sleeping? Are you dreaming? Am I in your dreams? Do you hate me? Will you always hate me?
  – A reference to the song “Hate me” by Blue October.

• The conversation that Vincent has with Marielle makes it clear that there are many other dimensions, and that regardless of whether he’d done this or not, sooner or later doubles would start coming. It also solidifies the idea that they’ll be coming again in the future from other dimensions and thus- the game.
• She melted against him and the power that he had over her and before she had time to say no, or desire to stop, he pulled Trademark out of his arm, set it down, and gently moved her behind the column.
  –  This little tryst reflects a moment where Vincent told Marielle (in chapter 33) that they were the “We were the kind of lovers, Masin, that would sneak into a corner or an empty room if we wanted one another.”
• Vincent paused along with Marielle for a moment. “That’s what she said.”
  “Did you just that’s what she said?”
  –  A running gag that I have with some friends, my husband and I.
• Austin explaining to Marielle how he ended up outside her window is meant to be another reference to My Fair Lady and the “street where you live.”
• “No, you made it very clear that I do not.” He looked up, perhaps trying to hide the fact that his tears were winning. “I will do what you say,” he breathed.
  –  One time, when I was saying a difficult goodbye- the man that I was with was staring up. I asked him why he was doing that and he said, “I don’t want you to see that I’m crying.”
• “You didn’t see that coming,” John’s voice.
  –  An Omen game line.
• “Yeah, reevaluate tactics,” she sighed.
  – A Killjoy game line.
• In the game lore, KillJoy is extremely disturbed by the fact that Everette Linde was blown up.
• I imagined this moment with Vincent at Sasha’s gravestone long before I wrote it.

• “There’s really no reason for name calling,” Efia stated flatly.
  “That’s true… and let’s not fight each other,” Amir said stroking his hidden chin, “let’s fight the real enemy.”
  “Who…is the real enemy?” Zayana asked, tossing her hair over her left shoulder and giving Liam a pointed look. She glanced at Austin, who was still pretending that she didn’t exist. “They are…” He said as if it were obvious, “the doubles. Those who wish to destroy us so they can be the only.”
  –  This is a reference to the cinematic map for Sunset.
• She scoffed, -Focus now, eyes off me.
  –  Obviously her using Chamber’s voice line.
• “I try and live in a state where I judge less, ask questions later, and make decisions quickly… the current problem is this Cory and his desire to not only hurt some of our own,” he gestured at Marielle, Austin, and Vincent, “but to take over this dimension and live here, outside of the radianite that’s killing him.”
  –  This little monologue is all my father. ^_^
• Kiritani narrowed his eyes at Vincent and they stared at one another for a moment. “You’re making a stupid argument,” Kiritani said, puffing his chest out.
  “Stupid or not, you’re not backing down, so unless you think that we’re going to kiss or something, maybe take your opinions and roll them outside?” Vincent made a gesture with his hand that started like him rolling a bowling ball toward the door and ended with him winding the inside of his elbow up under the other arm, fist clenched.
  –  I debated some guy on reddit a few months ago who was basically telling that I couldn’t tell the difference between a smurf in game and someone with “real and true skill” (despite the person being a level one, and headshotting you with a op or something 9_9 ) anyways, I said to him that he was making a ridiculous argument since he wasn’t involved in any of the games I’d been in, “so unless you think we’re going to kiss or something, you can stop now.” Haha.
• Someone handed one to Tala, and Marielle gave her a soft, knowing smile, and gently took it away. “You’re not old enough to drink,” she whispered, memories engulfing her mind.
  “I’ll…I’ll take a coke?”
  –  This is a callback to chapter 8 and it always makes me tear up.
• “that I am both shield and sword… and neither help me when I desperately need it,” she explained bitterly.
  –  A bit of a Sage game line.
• “I was told – taught – to search for the beauty in all things, and if none was found, to act decisively… violently.”
  – While the real line is “good” in all things, this is still a Sage game line.
• The Phantom of the Opera often makes its way into my novels somehow. Here, it’s revealed that Austin was planning on going to the Halloween party as Eric and he states that maybe he’d still go as Eric since she chose “Raoul.”

• Because this scene mentions them going to a movie- I actually went back and added a bit about Austin and Marielle going to a movie.
• I list Austin’s abilities and ultimate here the way I believe they’d be in the game. (I’m aware he has an extra from most characters) His ultimate was used in “training” in chapter 41.
  –  His ultimate line being, “Do you like it hot, or cold?”
• -Of course, you are. You’ve never been in love. For the first time in your life, you want to care about someone more than yourself.
  –  While perhaps not obvious, this line is meant to be a variation on the line in the cartoon Beauty and the Beast, “After all this time, he’s finally learned to love.”
• At some point in time during the writing of this book I started writing these love poems and letters “as” Austin. I decided that they had to go into the book somewhere and several of them made it in here. I decided that these were Austin’s way of “letting off steam” and after the song he wrote during their affair, this seemed appropriate.
• I love this flashback between Austin and Rick.
• When Marielle and Vincent came home, Vincent gave her an adoring smile as he leaned against the kitchen wall and watched her start to take pots out as she prepared to make dinner. He crossed his arms over his chest and took her in; her movements, how she stretched on her tip toes to search the upper shelves in the cabinet, how her figure was accentuated by the movements.
  – Austin did this during the last night of their affair before she “danced” for him.

• It’s never stated exactly what Tundra had in his wallet as far as photos go, but we can gather that it was several photos of dead women.
• Obviously, Austin’s realization that he’d drawn a “kingdom”
  –  Is meant to remind him and the reader of the fact that they were both prisoners in Kingdom.
• “You know what this is about,” she explained flatly. “Get off the floor and stop with the pity party. There’s a café on fifteenth and Olan that’s twenty-four-hour service, and you know that I like giant turkey sandwiches at three in the morning. Now it’s almost three and I want my damn sandwich, Austin.”
  –  Olan is a vague reference to Olan Rogers. – The fact that Han wants to eat is funny because she is a chef.
• “Because maybe they know what’s good for you, you greaseball!”
  “Okay, racism aside…” he raked his hair and sighed, flicking his gaze down at her. “Marielle called, didn’t she?”
  –  Greaseball is an unsavory name for an Italian.
• “Don’t make me tie you down, Rancor, because I will cut you,” she hissed, whipping a kunai around her finger.
  –  Jett’s ultimate ability is with knives.
• “All of that aside, you completely ran off to send out for sushi-”
  –  Send out for sushi is a euphemism for sex.
• There was expectant silence for a moment, “healing hurts, doesn’t it?” Han asked, tears behind her tone.
  –  We never get a backstory for Han in this novel series, but whatever happened to her, it was heartbreaking and she is well aware that in part- it’s led her to be who she is now; someone similar to Austin.
• “Then I’m a widower,” he replied looking at her, sadly.
  – Like Vincent.

• “I want to get better,” he whispered at himself as he slipped into the white coat and gave himself the once over.
  – This is a reference to the song, “I want to get better,” by the Bleachers.
• This is playing overhead when they walk in – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d9–enjMKc
• I took a long time trying to figure out who each person in this “cast” of characters would be at a Halloween event. I wasn’t sure for all of them and filled in some blanks with some random stuff, but my husband insisted that Liam / Brimstone was Santa Claus, even making an offhanded comment about how he didn’t know what holiday it was. That stuck.
• The “Austin Powers” joke just came to me as I wrote this scene. There was no previous planning.
• The scene with Austin out in the courtyard and sitting on the fountain is meant to mirror Vincent doing the same the night that he met Marielle in his own world- on a night just like this one.
• At the end of this chapter, when my husband was reading it, he let out a very loud, “Oh, fuck you!”

• I think some of the saddest lines in this book are – This wasn’t the kiss that she’d wanted, it wasn’t the one that she deserved.
• It’s not stated anywhere, but in my mind if Larson (who’s last name is Gray) was an agent, his name would be “Rubber Band Man.”
• “Dreams are a funny thing,” she hissed, whirling him around to face her. His eyes grew wide. “One little twist, and it all turns dark.”
  –  A Fade game line.
• “Your duty is not over!” Wei Ling wailed, and spiritual energy erupted from the ground, lifting Hazal from the dead.
  Hazal sat up, glaring at Wei Ling and gripping her side. “I’m up, I’m up! Shit!”
  – Sage and Fade lines.
• I don’t really like Skye / Kirra in the game, but I don’t hate her or anything. I knew, however from almost moment one that I was going to kill her off at some point.
• I felt that this was a good use of Astra / Efia in this moment. We don’t really see her much in this novel series and this felt right.
• This bow that Vincent gives Sabine is important.

• Originally, as Marielle drifted in the car, she recalled several of the more intense moments of her affair with Austin, which was what actually made her sick. But as I told a few other people- in going back over the story, I wanted to remove more of the “sexual tension” and “sexy” moments and actually focus on the story. The story is sexy enough as it is.
• “I’m going to get you some warm milk, or would you prefer chamomile tea and cream? It might help with the anxiety.”
  She was finally breathing a little more normally. “I’ll take the latte,” she replied.
  – Chamomile lattes were one of the things that helped me through my intense PPA (post-partum anxiety.) I would drink them at night. Sadly, they didn’t stop the 4AM panic attacks.
• Despite the depravity of the line, “Isn’t that what you? To be Austin Rancor’s whore?” and the slap that follows is one of my favorite single moments of the book, because it shows just a touch of Vincent losing the control that he’s fought so hard to maintain up until this point.
• I added the conversation in the bathroom where Marielle asked Vincent why he came there long after the book was finished.
• “You are Marielle, after all – but you are not exactly the woman that I married.”
  – This was something that my husband had said that I felt belonged in this book somewhere.
• It was both. He wanted both. He wanted to lay on his back and watch the dots bounce as she typed to him in anticipation of her words. He wanted to reply. He wanted to feel the boyish excitement that she gave him as he waited for her thoughts. They never came.
  – This is a reference to this song – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jhbHGWmTjU
• I told my husband that this stripper at the end of this chapter signified to me a “Rehab” moment. While it’s true that there’s nothing biblical in this scene, this woman had a moment of clarity for Austin that was profound enough to change his life. I love this character, and will tell you as the author that I know that her real name is Crystal. ^_^

• I’ll reiterate for the sake of the people reading this book who I KNOW will take offense, I am not suggesting for one moment that someone who looks at porn, or does these things is going to become a serial killer. This is Austin’s addiction and struggle against what he is inside, and some of this is the starting point that is all you should glean from this.
• This flashback and the firelight living room conversation were added after the story’s completion. I had written the flashback as a sort of “one shot” and decided that I wanted to actually add it into the story as it’s based on something that Vincent says later in the novel.
• The first dialogue of this flashback is referring to Austin telling Vincent about his past. Something that Vincent told Austin he did once in his own dimension in chapter 69.
• Chamber turned his lips down in an attempt to stop a grin that he couldn’t. “I like her.” He whispered. “But, I’m pretty sure that she just thinks that I’m an idiot.”
  –  Game implied but not directly stated.
• “Oooh! Hooo! I win again!” Chamber jeered.
  –  Chamber game line.
• Austin swallowed and put his hair behind his ears with both hands. “I want to get better,” he whispered.
  – Again a reference to the song “I want to Get Better” By the Bleachers.

• “You crumbled and fell, and drank and slept and suffered…people called you a villain.”
  –  In the game lore- according to Fade, Chamber’s biggest fear is that people will eventually see him as a villain. This is ironic since Marielle called Vincent a villain in chapter 53.
• “Yeah, only because his master snaps his fingers and he comes running like a good little dog,” Kiritani sighed.
  –  Just a reference to Chamber and his “snapping.”
• “I heard Cory say that there is actually an Alpha and an Omega world out there somewhere. They’ve been doing this for a while,” she said flicking her eyes to the ground. “Vincent’s not the cause of all of this, and I kind of wish that everyone would stop beating him up over it,” she said.
  – Me explaining some of the reasoning for the game. Honestly, the fact that NEON is defending Vincent here warms my heart. In the game, they definitely do not like each other. When Chamber kills her he sometimes says, “I’m sorry, but you didn’t like me anyways.”
• I added this bit about Tala and Mateo NOT fighting after the story was written. This made the most sense to me from Liam and Vincent’s perspective after losing Tala the first time.

• Unlike Barbara, Aaron Falk doesn’t really have a part in this story. He’s just there to prove that Austin has a new handler.
• “I know that now. I’ve done all of this. I am the villain that you once said that I was.”
  –  Minor reference to the movie The Three Musketeers with Tim Curry. Rebecca De’mornay’s character says to Kiefer Sutherlands, “I have become the nightmare that you once thought me to be.”
• She swallowed. “Damn me for being so romantic, Austin Rancor?”
  –  This is a reference to chapter 25.
• Austin was playing this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nl9srSO8n0
• I personally love the Hazal / Austin relationship that occurs through the rest of the book and how it unfolds- specifically because we don’t really know what it / was / but we know that the Hazal of Vincent’s world might have had a serious part in driving Austin to insanity when he “gave him a friend” after the (Marielle’s) funeral.
• He was sitting three feet from Vincent, after all; he could smell the Frenchman’s cologne.
  –  Minor game reference. One of Yoru’s lines says that he can “smell Chamber’s cologne from here.”
• The fireplace was going and the television was turned on to a Formula One race.
  –  Reinforcing the idea that Vincent likes race car driving.
• The scene at the table is meant to feel awkward.
• He put a finger into the rest of the souffle and put it into his mouth. “That is delicious,” he said with a smirk.
  – I knew almost from moment one of this book, that this very part was going to go into the book somewhere. I actually had written some dialogue and a scene where this was a cherry pie instead, and he was complimenting her, although the sequence was very much as it is now; dream, Austin there, etc.

• The line fuzzed, “Bonjour.”
  –  In the game, when everyone says “hi” – Chamber says, “Bonjour.”
• “Alright, lovefest later, focus now,” Vincent said into the piece.
  –  “Focus now, eyes off me…”
• With gun in hand, Vincent waved a hand behind him, “Walk, walk,” he whispered, the other two obeyed, going silent with their footsteps.
  –  This is one of those minor game reference things. Often when a round starts, people go running in and others will try to get them to “walk” – which makes you silent to the other team.
• “This is where Mateo’s forgetfulness really helps situations,” Marielle chuckled, “Several months ago, Liam told Mateo to file lots of information from the storage room. He got distracted and started playing video games. There’s like a ninety nine percent chance that my records and address are not even in the archive.”
  – – Mention of a literal scene from the game cinematics.  
• “You want us to split up? Isn’t that like… the most common cause of everyone dying in horror films?”
  –  I just love this line.
• I’ll reiterate that I know that the Chamber / Yoru ship is extremely popular. I don’t see it. Sorry, guys. The one line that Yoru has regarding Chamber is about how he can “smell his cologne from here…” and that line screams disgust to me, not attraction. Like, “You’re trying to cover up how much you stink with thick cologne, and I can smell it from across the map.”
• I love this scene between Skye and Austin. I honestly nearly fall apart each time I read it. They’re both grieving the loss of each other. She’s grieving the fact that she once loved him when he was still mostly sane, and he’s grieving the fact that she’s dead and he’ll never see her again after this moment. Skye confirms here that she was in love with him, but it’s pretty clear that she didn’t know what he was going to become in Vincent’s dimension and as a result he used and abused her. I have so many “pictures” in my head for fan arts, but one of them is two different side by side photos of them. One Tundra / Skye and the other Austin / Kirra. In one he’s obviously possessing her, in the other he’s holding her tightly as a friend. In the Tundra / Skye one the caption says, “you’re my slave.” In the other it says, “you’re my friend.”
• I always find the scene between Hazal and Marielle so touching. I added a bit of dialogue to it when I re-edited it, but overall, I think it’s so perfect.
• The war in Cory’s eyes evident; he loved Vincent, he hated Vincent.
  –  One of my favorite movies from the nineties is a film staring Robert Redford called Sneakers. In it, there is a brothers to enemies storyline and toward the end, there’s a moment where the antagonist says, “Don’t go…” while training a gun on the protagonists head. It’s a threat, it’s a plea, and it always makes me cry after the events of the film, and Ben Kingsley (the actor) delivers the lines so well, that I always think, “He loves him, he hates him.” This is my nod at that moment.
• “What did you do all of this for?”
  Vincent’s hand trembled and Headhunter started to drop a little, but he raised it with both hands as sweat beaded his brow and tears formed. “I- I hardly know anymore,” Vincent admitted.
  – Minor reference to the ending of the film, We Need to Talk about Kevin.
• I added the bit of dialogue where Austin asks Marielle (in her dream) why she didn’t just rip his heart out when re-editing the story. I’d had this thought earlier in the day- if she can reach in and hold his heart, she could in theory- pull it, and anything else out of his body. Yikes…

• I want to say that I planned Austin’s “birthday gift” from Marielle from moment one. But I didn’t. I had no idea what she was going to give to him. Then it became extremely clear when I got to this moment and I went back and changed a few things.
• Something that he was continually trying to block out – something that loomed over him like a shadow of himself with blazing white lightning eyes. She’d never be able to confirm it, but she suspected that this was the thing that the Hazal of Vincent’s world had done to him that never fully let him go and was constantly there driving him insane. He could never, ever escape himself. That shadow bonded itself to him, and invisible smoke like chains were wrapped around his wrists, and strapped to his back, never letting him go.
  –  There are many religious allegorical references to the character Austin- being made into a false god, for instance (and interestingly, he knows in Marielle’s dimension that this idea that he’s a “god” is not only ludicrous, but an abomination and repeatedly says “I’m a man, not a god.” But one of them that I find interesting is this bit that I referenced here. This is a reference to Romans 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? – In which the Romans would literally tie a dead man, or the man that the perpetrator killed to the his murderer and make him carry around the “dead weight” as punishment. Eventually the dead infected the living, and the living slowly died a gruesome, slow death. With this “shadow Austin” following Tundra around and being literally shackled to him, he was slowly driven insane.
• Regarding the above- originally, we never knew what it was that Hazal had done to Austin, but the answer to me is so clear… he showed him himself, dead, 100% alone and strapped to himself to carry for the duration of his natural life. Tundra was truly plagued by constant terror.
• He was going to sink, or swim, and if he swam and learned to handle all of this without her? Then maybe… they had a future somewhere.
  –  A reference to something that Marielle thought in chapter 25 right before she “passed through him for the first time.”
• “What is it a snake or something?” he mumbled under his breath, looking down at the gift that was now in his lap.
  –  The snake… the tempter… another reference made often to Austin.
• He looked down, “I’m sorry… I’m a little drunk, I just got carried away.”
  “Like you always do?” she growled, staring at his office wall, her eyes filled again.
  –  Almost exact quotes from the night that Vincent and Marielle met in the flashback in chapter 53.
• “Let’s actually be in love for once in our existence. Let’s be fully in love and lost in it and not playing somebody else’s game.”
  –  Vague reference to the fact that they are some of the only characters not actually IN the game.
• He felt like his life was settling nicely into flagellation, scraping and bowing, however each time that he said it, he was sincere.
  –  This is meant to show the reader on a subconscious level that he and Tundra are in fact the same person whether they will make the same mistakes or not. Earlier, it was noted that Tundra was always truly sorry for what he’d done.
• “Til death do us part,” and “Forsaking all others.” She was grinning at him, tears brimming her eyes as she waited to return the words to him.
  –  Because he’d “cleverly left them out” in his vows to Erin (reference chapter 44).
• She could feel the baby’s face!
  – TMI but when I gave birth, that’s what happened haha.

• She shrugged, “maybe someday he will be.”
  –  We all know that Vincent will be at Valorant one day. ^_^
• Vincent leaned back for a moment, crossing a knee over the other.
  –  Vincent seems to sit like this in many of the cinematics.
• “Are you working on a second anchor?” she asked, leaning over his left shoulder.
  –  Once upon a time in the game, Chamber had two teleporters, and you could teleport from one to the other.
• Sabine drummed her lip, noting the maybe five feet or less that was between them. “She was my friend, you know? One of my best friends… the other is-” Her voice trailed off.
  –  This is an extremely vague reference to Vyse.
• How ironic… she remembered Vincent telling her that before she’d died, some of her last words were not to kill Austin… he was so lost.
  –  This is extremely ironic, since Marielle herself is the one who killed him.
• Then something in her mind clicked… she had known, hadn’t she? When he’d come to say goodbye to her, Austin had moved through her one last time. She had seen something hadn’t she?
  –  Marielle is very disturbed after Austin says goodbye in the flashback where they shaved her head. (Chapter 64) We don’t entirely know what she knew, and according to Vincent, Austin hadn’t started murdering in that way until after Marielle had died, but I personally think that she sensed that he was on the edge. I think that he said something to the effect of, “I’ve been having some really dark thoughts, Masin…”
• Trying her best to let all of those thoughts go, Marielle set the beautiful art piece down on the floor and turned it on, then sat back on the couch, watching it fill the room with brilliant yellows, oranges, reds, and blues as it turned and swirled, causing an unreal effect on the dimly lit walls of her office.
  –  It’s interesting to me that without me trying- minus the purple, these are the colors that Vincent uses and what show up when he teleports.
• He’d said, Marielle, I won’t even… and she’d slapped him. What was he going to say she wondered… she’d never know.
  –  This is something that I touch on a few other times in the book, and it’s a personal joke for me. Because when I wrote chapter 38, I knew what Austin was going to say… then I forgot… and never remembered again.
• The owl was mentioned in chapter 4.
• There was a hint of whiskey and somehow it reminded Marielle of the forest at nighttime; deep, dark and worth exploring.
  – My husband wrote the part about “deep, dark, and worth exploring” and I thought it was sexy, so I left it.

• He wanted to twist his tongue inside of her navel again and hear the beautiful song that she made in response. Sing for me, darling…
  –  A definite Phantom of the Opera reference.
• But he couldn’t remove it any more than he could remove his own heart and still go on living.
  –  An interesting reference considering that Austin asked Marielle in one of her dreams why she hadn’t just removed his heart.
• I want you out here with me. I want to dance in this with you, and as Frank once said I won’t dance. You know that about me, darling.
  –  Austin doesn’t “dance.” The “Frank” he’s referring to, here is Frank Sinatra as one of his songs is “I won’t dance, don’t ask me…” My husband loves this song, and the reference is basically in this book for him.
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaVByEQsxtw
• Chamber was right… You squeeze the life out of everyone that loves you. That tattoo is appropriate. Austin looked down at his arm.
  – Chamber said this in chapter 50.
• Austin growled and stared up into the rain considering how interesting it was that now that he seemed to have excised his mother from his insides, he had taken over the voice himself to taunt, torment and torture him.
  –  Follow this for a moment. I love Valorant, and RIOT games. I don’t play LOL – but I know Arcane well, and this idea is also present in Jinx’s story with how she haunts herself, but uses Mylo’s voice / visage and words.
• “I won’t make your decisions. My future will listen to me.”
  –  Literally a reference to Half Alive – Tip Toes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJ72vHad1k
• It wouldn’t be clear to anyone who’s never seen the movie, or isn’t a fan necessarily, but the sequence where Vincent tells her to wear what she did the night they first made love, and tells her how to “make herself up” is a mild reference to the movie Vertigo, which was already referenced in this book.
• I cleaned up this scene in the car hahaha. It was a bit sexier, and I just felt that the intentions were clear without the “extra.”

• I had started writing these really deep and / or romantic / erotic / sappy love poems, sonnets, prose, etc and decided that many of them would turn into “Austin’s writings.”
• I lay in bed at two in the morning, and this doesn’t pass, but rolls over me in waves as I stare at your smiling face from the light of my computer screen and whisper your name.
  –  This is again a reference to this song –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJPg72FB0Us
• Marielle… Marielle Rancor, a raging sea; perfect and beautiful in the eye of the storm in my heart.
  –  Austin’s last name means “rage” and Marielle’s name refers to the “star of the sea.” Together their names are like a torrent sea.
• In such nightmares, he was usually faced with the men who’d held him and tortured him in Africa.
  Generally, there were bright white lights above his groggy head and he was staring into the void just beyond them. There were usually voices nearby and often they could be heard saying what they were about to do to him. He always dreaded that part of the dream because that had been when he’d looked over at Larson, only to see that he had already been bruised and bloodied; his face distorted and misshapen, an eye sealed shut.
  –  It has been mentioned a few times that Austin had been captured with Larson in Africa, this was my way of showing you a smidgen of what that was like.
• He was still shaking five minutes later, and he looked up, first staring at the picture frame with the two card pieces as he briefly imagined an image of Vincent between the two, Headhunter in his hand having just blown the card- their relationship, their love apart.
  –  I made an actual picture of this very thing.
• I wrote the flashback in this chapter long after the story had been written.
• He looked down at the gold ring on his left hand, and used his thumb to twist it a few times, feeling the promise, the vow; the weight of gold.
  –  Mild reference to his gold tattoos.
• He looked down at his lamb sandwich and his stomach twisted. It wasn’t like hers. He missed her food so much that sometimes he would rather starve than force another bite of something so paltry down his throat.
  –  A vague reference to one of my favorite movies, and one of my favorite scenes in it. Meet Joe Black.I think it’s amazing that in this scene, all that Anthony Hopkins does is say a few words about his wife’s dress, and it always has me in tears.
• Marielle sat up and looked around. Tundra had been in her dreams again – the man of her nightmares  
  –  This has always been one of my favorite plays on “man of your dreams” for psychopathic characters.

• I don’t know about anyone else, but Sabine and Morgan’s wedding feels like “Sabine” to me, and I loved describing it.
• I love the idea that John and Vincent have a strange sort of kin-ship because they can both teleport.
• In Vincent’s own dimension, there had even been rumors of her trying to control him once Vincent had helped to give him something of a life back.
  – This is a minor reference to the Valorant cinematic “Reckoning” which came out quite long after this storyline was established.
• There were some cement blocks in between along the walls and a few jutted out from them as well creating places to duck and hide.
  – I have no idea what Valorant headquarters looks like “personally” however; I’ve made this to seem a bit like a map.
• She stood for a moment twisting her hands together. He gave her his profile. “I- I’ll never forgive you for Everette Linde,” she began. Then she winced and bit her bottom lip, “but I think that I can still call you friend.”
  “Why are you telling me that?” Vincent asked.
  – In the lore, it seems that Klara is really upset over Everette Linde, I loved making this an aspect of the book.  
• I always get a shiver when I read Austin saying that Vincent knows who would take who apart.
• I added this bit about Sabine and his conversation long after the story was written. The scene actually originally ended with Austin leaving.