[Complete. Wattys 2023 Winner] The Redding takes you if it knows your name. That's the rule that's kept Meg alive --- or awake, rather --- since the night the world went to hell. Nobody knows where the red stuff came from, but it acts like water, it's in the water, and it falls as rain every night. The people it captures drop like puppets with their strings cut. They're asleep, not dead, and you can wake them if you say their name again. But then they just try to kill you. Meg and the other survivors she's befriended think they've found a stable equilibrium, six weeks after the catastrophe began. Nicknames become real names, and Meg knows she's getting better at identifying safe houses. Her crush discovers that Morse code, like writing, is a safe way to say a Sleeper's name. It's the night after learning it that Meg wakes up just as the nightly rain is starting. Raindrops, as it turns out, can make dots and dashes, too. The Redding can talk. And it's telling her to run. ❖❖❖ Complete. Wattys 2023 Winner. Featured on: @Wattpad - Embrace the Fear: Horror Stories @WattpadExplorer - Embrace the Fear: Scary Stories @Creators - Scary Stories to Read in the Dark @Wattpad Explorer - From Our Creators @dystopianapocalypse - Featured D&A Stories @Wattpad Explorer - Why Not Buy Some Flowers @Fright - Featured Stories Comments and critiques are both welcome and appreciated. I write characters from many different backgrounds, with many different experiences. If you share those traits and find that I have misrepresented anything, please let me know! I am feedback-friendly and here to learn :)

when you get hurt by someone or you are hurting yourself

A new standalone novel from New York Times bestselling author Kendall Ryan. Paige finds herself getting more than she bargained for when her best friend's flirty brother crashes at her apartment, stirring up new feelings and a very tempting offer. ***** The last time Paige saw her best friend's younger brother, Cannon, he was a shy and studious teenager. But when he shows up to crash in her spare room, she gets a swift reality check. Now 24, he's tall, muscular and beyond sexy, nothing like the boy in Paige's memory-and more of a temptation than she expected. Unlucky in love, (but skilled in the art of romance) Cannon is fresh out of a messy breakup and doesn't want any entanglements. But when he claims his superpower is making any woman who sleeps with him fall madly in love, Paige is more than ready to prove him wrong. Until she realizes that maybe this is a bet she actually doesn't mind losing. [[Word count: 60,000 - 70,000]]