It doesn't matter how she ended up in this four-walled room. What matters is she gets out. ***** After a night out in New York City, Liliana Rossi wakes up in a windowless room with no recollection of how she got there. And she's not alone. The dark and tattooed Mateo Aguilar is also held captive. As the two struggle to survive and hatch an escape plan, they also struggle with growing attraction toward each other, facing Lili with the biggest question yet: is Mateo the reason she's here, or the one who's going to save her? ✨ Wattys 2018 Shortlist & Featured Story ✨ Content warning: this story references themes that readers might find triggering, including drug use and sexual assault. [[word count: 60,000-70,000 words]] Cover designed by Stefanie Saw

Police officer Tom Bevans is nicknamed the Sad Man by his colleagues. As a Family Liaison Officer he is always the bearer of bad news - it is his job to tell the friends and family of victims the fate of their loved ones. But Tom is weighted down by crimes both old and new - haunted by the death of his best friend Dani, whose murder has never been solved. When a rare opportunity emerges for Tom to take the lead in a horrific murder investigation, he is determined to get justice for the victim. A young girl has been found in her own home, cut so badly - and so carefully - that she has bled to death, leaving a deliberate pool of blood in the shape of angel wings....

Evoking the paranoid tension of Rosemary's Baby and the unnerving atmosphere of the cult horror film Jacob's Ladder, The Cracks in the Labyrinth is a disturbing psychological thriller set in present-day Caracas, where the government has devolved into a "democratic dictatorship"-a creepy suspense novel meant to challenge your deeper, subconscious fears of losing control. It consumed the sanity of an entire country... And it was not from this world. It couldn't have been. Whatever caused the incident known as "The Red Christmas" drove Venezuela into madness. Even ten years since it happened, none of the survivors of that night dare to attempt to make sense of it all, including Adam. Living ostracized to hide from the brutal way of life in Caracas, he's working tirelessly as an online writer to help his brother and sister flee the country. Now, as he's about to have enough money to take them to safety, he receives an email from his old girlfriend ... which is remarkable, considering she's been presumed dead for years. Adam tries to think nothing of the email or the broken video file attached to it. He convinces himself that it has to be a computer virus of some kind until he discovers something terrifying: the video might link his sister to the worst night of his life, the night his girlfriend went missing, the night of "The Red Christmas". Then he realizes this could be a threat; his sister's life could be in danger. As he starts to investigate who sent the video, Adam begins to uncover dark truths about his neighbors and finds evidence that there might be a larger conspiracy at play. The problem is that he's starting to suffer from hellish hallucinations that make him question what is real. Soon, the only clear thing to him is that someone doesn't want him to dig up the past. Will Adam be able to stay sane long enough to find out what really happened the night of "The Red Christmas"? Will he succeed in helping his family escape the country?