O.E. Soderberg

MARKERS UNKNOWN, Speculative Fiction Thriller

Opening Pages—Introduces protagonist, antagonist, setting, tone, and foreshadows the primary crisis and conflict.

 

ONE

Present Time. Colorado Springs Police Station. South Interrogation Room.

That bastard cuffed me to the table and left the room, but we both know my petty theft isn’t what the FBI is after.

In the harsh overhead lighting, I pull hard against the restraints in a continuous succession of aggressive tugs until I draw my own blood. The minute the warm, wet sensation meets the cold air of this unwelcoming environment, I cease all fighting. This is what I was after—not freedom, blood.

Looking down, I study the small drops of liquid beading to the surface of my skin. We all bleed red is the saying, but I’m wondering what that even means at this point. The scars on my arm make a little more sense now that I can remember the tubes running between our bodies. Somehow—call it a good Samaritan, call it altruistic abandonment—I’d been spared years ago. Mine may be a sad fucking existence, but I exist.

After everything I’ve learned in the last forty-eight hours, it’s as if I can see the particles that make up my blood. Human cells that are all determined by genetics, one gene inherited from each parent. But that’s assuming, the person came to be using good old-fashioned sex. That’s not where I came from, and it’s the very reason the FBI has gotten involved.

Footsteps sound behind the door before it swings open with a scratching sound. Special Agent Max Baker steps inside with a demeanor that hints at his calculated intent. His eyes roam my body, from the top of my head, down my face, and settle to where my hands are secured to the center bar of the table. He sees the blood I’ve drawn to the surface and seems to analyze it in the same way I had been. His jaw works as he dips into his front pocket and removes a set of keys. I imagine an apology sits on the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t let it slip.

This is his domain. He’s walked every step of this case. His investigation began over a year ago. There was a whistleblower inside the pharmaceutical giant, Lander Medical. This informant was a young scientist with a budding career. After only a couple months of preparing transfusions for the general public, he began to doubt that the product Lander touted as being on the cusp of reversing aging for the general population wasn’t made up of something nefarious. He filed a report with the FBI, but remained working in the lab. He’s now serving as an informant to the special agent standing before me.

Max’s investigation led to the discovery that a different hemoglobin was being mixed into Lander’s product. It carries human DNA but doesn’t have any of the usual markers. Across all the labs in the United States, only one person in the last three decades has been on record to have a blood type masked of any markers. A random girl working as a bartender at the base of the ski slope of Cooper Mountain in Colorado. She was only a little over an hour away from the Lander Medical Compounding Lab. That was too fucking close for the FBI to ignore.

The blood drips down the outer side of my forearm. I know it’s just a collection of proteins, metabolites, ions, and other substances drifting around in water. For other people, that’s the whole truth, but for me, there’s something else beneath the surface. I examine it further like if I look hard enough, I’ll be able see what got me here, what makes me that one girl on record.

Our eyes lock as Agent Baker takes my hand in his. Neither of us blink as the chain between the restraints falls to the table. I’m freed, but for some reason, his touch on me feels more restrictive than the silver cuffs ever had. Running his whole palm down my arm, he leaves behind a smear of red.

Taking two steps back, he wipes his hand on a pant leg that is already soaked in blood that I know isn’t his or mine. Swallowing hard against the lump forming in the back of my throat, I try to push the image of a man falling from a bridge less than two hours ago from my mind.

I focus on Max, to the power imbalance between us. It’s strange seeing him out of his usual dress. He’s not even wearing his badge, just jeans and a bullet proof vest over a dirty t-shirt. He’s unshaven, hair disheveled. I’ve seen him look like this before, but that was in my bed, never on the job. During sex, I’d been the one in control. Now? I worry it may be him. But he’s as off his game as I am. He’s as shaken up about what’s transpired today as me. Gone is the agent who caught me snooping around the Lander Medical facility fifteen months ago. Gone is the man who’s been following me since. 

Pulling out the chair, he slides it across the linoleum floor by its back two legs and takes the seat across from me. He’s silent, like we’re strangers, like he may hate me as much as I hate him in this moment, like we’re both blaming the other for what happened today. But there’s more behind his hard stare. The way he’s looking at me now implies he thinks he knows everything he needs about the girl sitting in front of him. He couldn’t be more wrong.

Max’s eyes sweep around the space, taking in the interrogation room the same way I had done when he first left me in here. It’s cold and empty like a hospital, just not as sterile. I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s attempting to push that same image of a man falling to his death to some hidden corner in his mind, but he plays it off like he’s searching for a clock. Finding nothing on the walls, he settles on raising his wrist to check his watch. Then, two dark forearms rest on the lip of the table, and two cold eyes meet mine.

“Look,” he says. “I’m about to tell you everything that happened on my end. I need you to tell me everything that was happening on yours. We need him to understand we’re not the bad guys here, Quinn.”

I can’t tell if I’m going to laugh or cry. Everything that was happening? This fucking asshole should realize it’s a little late for that. People are dead. He’s had months to share this information and only now is he willing to come clean. Not because he should have from the very beginning, no, because we’d better get our stories straight on the events over the past forty-eight hours. Max needs to form a united front to get Russell Drake on the record or this special agent will be the one to shoulder the blame.

He’s absorbing every inch of my body language, following my eye movements, and reading into all of my involuntary tells. Truth is seeping out through the cracks in my armor. I was his responsibility, and I went rogue. A post-mortem can’t change that fact or why I snapped in the first place. Did I do this? Are these people dead because I couldn’t wait? That’s a truth I can’t harbor. What choice did I have? Max didn’t help me before. We wouldn’t be here, like this, if he had. The fight between personal culpability and blaming him must be painted on my face because Max sucks in a breath to say something more.

I cut him off. “This is why everything was stalled, isn’t it? You knew about him.”

A smile cuts across his face. One I’d been tricked into thinking was devastatingly handsome but have come to realize is condescending in the best light. Here under the neon bulbs of the Colorado Springs police station, it’s nothing but vicious. “You didn’t sign up for this because of him,” he reminds me as if that means anything now. As if that’s what I’m even implying.

“I didn’t sign up for this at all,” I correct. “You approached me. I had no choice but to help.”

He doesn’t reply. Just mouths that last word as he leans back, sucking in a deep breath and pressing his eyes closed. He can mock it all he wants. But my help transitioning from him to myself. My help spiraling into this fucking mess is on his betrayal—not mine. And I want an answer on how deep it goes, Agent Baker.

Pulling my body over the table, I lean in.

“When did you know?” I don’t recognize the ice in my voice. I want to blame him for everything and one small layer beneath that, it’s almost as if I’m begging him to lie to me. Free me from this guilt.

A raw flicker of pain fire behind his irises. With one blink, it’s gone. A brief flash of the man I’d come to know only to watch his face return to the emotionless void he’s offering. A stark contrast from the man I may have said I was falling in love with.

“I can’t tell you that,” he says.

“We’re way past confidential. Don’t feed me that bullshit. When did you know?”

Now it’s his turn to lean in. He creeps toward my cold glare, using every inch that he closes between us to build courage for whatever lie he’ll tell me next.

“Through satellite imagery. We knew someone was with Theodore. A second POI.”

“POI,” I mock. Even when telling the truth, he can’t help but lace it behind the sterile formalities they’re trained to use. Code names and acronyms designed to do nothing more than help stomach the manipulation and tyranny they bestow upon innocent people. “He’s a fucking person, don’t abbreviate it. And I’m not talking about him. When did you know I wouldn’t be finding my sister?”

“Quinn, as much as I’d love to dive into finger pointing right now like, oh, I don’t know — the fact that you were plotting a fucking rescue mission behind my back. Or how about your pilot friend and the longstanding vendetta with Lander Medical you’d conveniently never told me about?”

His words land like a slap to the face.

Max has never acknowledged my pilot friend, Sean, or our foul play before. I knew that he knew. Whether before or after I figured out my insignificant crime wasn’t what the FBI was following, I can’t say. If pillow talk with him has taught me anything, it’s that Max Baker lives strictly by the code of on the record and off the record. He’d told me more than he ever should have, but I guess I hadn’t anticipated the freedom in that philosophy could go both ways.

If I had, maybe this wouldn’t have spiraled so far past complicated. Getting deep into the nature of what the FBI wanted with an orphan bartender was nothing more than self preservation. I’d like to think of it as self sacrifice for Sean. We’d assumed we’d been caught.

We were two stupid kids who aged out of the Leadville, Colorado foster care system, set up on a work program through Cooper Mountain. But four months later, Lander Medical put in a bid for the community owned ski slope, and next thing we knew, the program we’d been surviving on was disbanded.

It’s that very truth that reinforces what I already know in this moment. I’m not the thief this agent sees right now. I’m not the criminal my past actions portray. I won’t apologize for any of it. What other choice did Sean and I have? We were survivors before we were ever vigilantes. Nothing can change that truth—not the past five years of skimming funds from Lander Medical’s investments in the Valley, not the past two years working with this agent, and not even the past forty-eight hours can strip that away—no matter what has been learned and lost.

We. Were. Surviving.

Sometimes that looked like a day of honest work. Other times, it looked like this.

Max becomes amused by my silence, like this is only a game, and he’s already won. It’s no surprise when he licks his lips and redistributes the tension by whispering a single statement to keep us on track. “You were in this for your sister.”

The mention of my sister sends a burning acid pain through my extremities. A bolt of electricity, seeking the nearest exit point.

“A sister wasn’t even on my radar until you came in and fucked with my head,” I say, unloading the building pressure.

He wants truth, there it is. He ruined me. Before the great Special Agent Max Baker came into my life, I hadn’t even known I had a sister. With every new off the record reveal, new memories were forced to surface. I’ve been haunted by flashbacks and remembering being used for human testing wasn’t even the worst part. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t alone, or at least I hadn’t always been. I remembered a vague image of a father, but also someone else. Someone who wasn’t just a sibling, but a sister whose body and mind I still feel connected to. When I focus on the reflection in my memories, I can vividly see us together. Two identical little girls—twins.

“Don’t get it twisted, Max,” I say. “I was waking up in cold sweats and vomiting because every night when I’d close my eyes, I was forced to flip through the family photo album I never knew I had. You used my past against me.”

“I wasn’t the one who did this to you,” he says.

All I can see is the face of the man who betrayed me. It’s funny, all that time in the foster care system, even the time since Sean and I aged out, I always felt sorry for myself. But this bastard has rewritten the story. It no longer feels like abandonment when staying would have meant I’d still be used as the lab rat for Lander Medical.

I drop my head to the table and look up at Max through my brow. “Do I even have a fucking sister?”

He reaches out and takes my hand in his with an expression that says my pain is his pain, but he doesn’t answer. For all the rules Max claims to follow, I still question why he only breaks the ones that hurt me. Anything he knows that may set me free seems to remain locked behind a rule he’s suddenly unwilling to compromise. But what the FBI was really investigating in Lander’s testing, my blood, the origin of the scars running down my arms? That information seemed to slip from his tongue. I didn’t fucking snap, he bent me until I broke. That’s on him.

I tried to do this his way. I confided in both Max and Sean about these flashbacks. The sister, the past I’d never known coming into light. I’d begged Max to help move things along, help figure out what’s happening to me. While Sean only grew angrier with Lander Medical, Max always insisted I hold back. But sitting here in this room, gathering information, is exactly why I couldn’t stand around and wait for the FBI. My life is the product of what waiting on government organizations looks like. Red tape. Paperwork. Warrants. It all takes too long.

This is taking too long. Two days ago, I was convinced my sister was still alive. It was an instinct only twins can know. I felt it in my bones that an extension of me was alive beyond the Lander facility gate. So yeah, I decided to break into the compound on my own. Because of this slow fucking process. And with every minute that is passing, that instinct is becoming less and less, and now, I think Russell Drake was right when he said she had never been there.

I wrench my hand free from Max’s touch. “What do you know?” I can’t tell if I’m begging or accusing. Whether I’m asking if he’s known about her all along, or if he knows I’ll never find her.

He gives me another non-answer. “This is a line of work that can blur the border between right and wrong. I won’t try to justify every decision only that you trust me that I’ve done everything I can to ensure those decisions have a mean that leans toward justice.”

“Is that what happened back there? Justice?”

“What are you implying?” he asks with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. He knows exactly what I’m implying. The unasked question of Did you push him off the bridge? lingers. And just when his facade of calm seems to falter, he shakes his head with that same vicious smile. “I guess I can’t blame you.”

I let out a breath. I don’t even know why I care what he did at the end. What’s done is done. I set all of this in motion. The guilt crawls back to the surface.

“What now, Max?” I say, hearing the fear in my voice, hoping he doesn’t notice.

He slides a device between us and leans in. “We tell them everything.” He pushes the record button.

“Start at the gate. What do you remember?”

MARKERS UNKNOWN, Speculative Fiction Thriller

Opening Pages—Introduces protagonist, antagonist, setting, tone, and foreshadows the primary crisis and conflict.

 

ONE

Present Time. Colorado Springs Police Station. South Interrogation Room.

That bastard cuffed me to the table and left the room, but we both know my petty theft isn’t what the FBI is after.

In the harsh overhead lighting, I pull hard against the restraints in a continuous succession of aggressive tugs until I draw my own blood. The minute the warm, wet sensation meets the cold air of this unwelcoming environment, I cease all fighting. This is what I was after—not freedom, blood.

Looking down, I study the small drops of liquid beading to the surface of my skin. We all bleed red is the saying, but I’m wondering what that even means at this point. The scars on my arm make a little more sense now that I can remember the tubes running between our bodies. Somehow—call it a good Samaritan, call it altruistic abandonment—I’d been spared years ago. Mine may be a sad fucking existence, but I exist.

After everything I’ve learned in the last forty-eight hours, it’s as if I can see the particles that make up my blood. Human cells that are all determined by genetics, one gene inherited from each parent. But that’s assuming, the person came to be using good old-fashioned sex. That’s not where I came from, and it’s the very reason the FBI has gotten involved.

Footsteps sound behind the door before it swings open with a scratching sound. Special Agent Max Baker steps inside with a demeanor that hints at his calculated intent. His eyes roam my body, from the top of my head, down my face, and settle to where my hands are secured to the center bar of the table. He sees the blood I’ve drawn to the surface and seems to analyze it in the same way I had been. His jaw works as he dips into his front pocket and removes a set of keys. I imagine an apology sits on the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t let it slip.

This is his domain. He’s walked every step of this case. His investigation began over a year ago. There was a whistleblower inside the pharmaceutical giant, Lander Medical. This informant was a young scientist with a budding career. After only a couple months of preparing transfusions for the general public, he began to doubt that the product Lander touted as being on the cusp of reversing aging for the general population wasn’t made up of something nefarious. He filed a report with the FBI, but remained working in the lab. He’s now serving as an informant to the special agent standing before me.

Max’s investigation led to the discovery that a different hemoglobin was being mixed into Lander’s product. It carries human DNA but doesn’t have any of the usual markers. Across all the labs in the United States, only one person in the last three decades has been on record to have a blood type masked of any markers. A random girl working as a bartender at the base of the ski slope of Cooper Mountain in Colorado. She was only a little over an hour away from the Lander Medical Compounding Lab. That was too fucking close for the FBI to ignore.

The blood drips down the outer side of my forearm. I know it’s just a collection of proteins, metabolites, ions, and other substances drifting around in water. For other people, that’s the whole truth, but for me, there’s something else beneath the surface. I examine it further like if I look hard enough, I’ll be able see what got me here, what makes me that one girl on record.

Our eyes lock as Agent Baker takes my hand in his. Neither of us blink as the chain between the restraints falls to the table. I’m freed, but for some reason, his touch on me feels more restrictive than the silver cuffs ever had. Running his whole palm down my arm, he leaves behind a smear of red.

Taking two steps back, he wipes his hand on a pant leg that is already soaked in blood that I know isn’t his or mine. Swallowing hard against the lump forming in the back of my throat, I try to push the image of a man falling from a bridge less than two hours ago from my mind.

I focus on Max, to the power imbalance between us. It’s strange seeing him out of his usual dress. He’s not even wearing his badge, just jeans and a bullet proof vest over a dirty t-shirt. He’s unshaven, hair disheveled. I’ve seen him look like this before, but that was in my bed, never on the job. During sex, I’d been the one in control. Now? I worry it may be him. But he’s as off his game as I am. He’s as shaken up about what’s transpired today as me. Gone is the agent who caught me snooping around the Lander Medical facility fifteen months ago. Gone is the man who’s been following me since. 

Pulling out the chair, he slides it across the linoleum floor by its back two legs and takes the seat across from me. He’s silent, like we’re strangers, like he may hate me as much as I hate him in this moment, like we’re both blaming the other for what happened today. But there’s more behind his hard stare. The way he’s looking at me now implies he thinks he knows everything he needs about the girl sitting in front of him. He couldn’t be more wrong.

Max’s eyes sweep around the space, taking in the interrogation room the same way I had done when he first left me in here. It’s cold and empty like a hospital, just not as sterile. I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s attempting to push that same image of a man falling to his death to some hidden corner in his mind, but he plays it off like he’s searching for a clock. Finding nothing on the walls, he settles on raising his wrist to check his watch. Then, two dark forearms rest on the lip of the table, and two cold eyes meet mine.

“Look,” he says. “I’m about to tell you everything that happened on my end. I need you to tell me everything that was happening on yours. We need him to understand we’re not the bad guys here, Quinn.”

I can’t tell if I’m going to laugh or cry. Everything that was happening? This fucking asshole should realize it’s a little late for that. People are dead. He’s had months to share this information and only now is he willing to come clean. Not because he should have from the very beginning, no, because we’d better get our stories straight on the events over the past forty-eight hours. Max needs to form a united front to get Russell Drake on the record or this special agent will be the one to shoulder the blame.

He’s absorbing every inch of my body language, following my eye movements, and reading into all of my involuntary tells. Truth is seeping out through the cracks in my armor. I was his responsibility, and I went rogue. A post-mortem can’t change that fact or why I snapped in the first place. Did I do this? Are these people dead because I couldn’t wait? That’s a truth I can’t harbor. What choice did I have? Max didn’t help me before. We wouldn’t be here, like this, if he had. The fight between personal culpability and blaming him must be painted on my face because Max sucks in a breath to say something more.

I cut him off. “This is why everything was stalled, isn’t it? You knew about him.”

A smile cuts across his face. One I’d been tricked into thinking was devastatingly handsome but have come to realize is condescending in the best light. Here under the neon bulbs of the Colorado Springs police station, it’s nothing but vicious. “You didn’t sign up for this because of him,” he reminds me as if that means anything now. As if that’s what I’m even implying.

“I didn’t sign up for this at all,” I correct. “You approached me. I had no choice but to help.”

He doesn’t reply. Just mouths that last word as he leans back, sucking in a deep breath and pressing his eyes closed. He can mock it all he wants. But my help transitioning from him to myself. My help spiraling into this fucking mess is on his betrayal—not mine. And I want an answer on how deep it goes, Agent Baker.

Pulling my body over the table, I lean in.

“When did you know?” I don’t recognize the ice in my voice. I want to blame him for everything and one small layer beneath that, it’s almost as if I’m begging him to lie to me. Free me from this guilt.

A raw flicker of pain fire behind his irises. With one blink, it’s gone. A brief flash of the man I’d come to know only to watch his face return to the emotionless void he’s offering. A stark contrast from the man I may have said I was falling in love with.

“I can’t tell you that,” he says.

“We’re way past confidential. Don’t feed me that bullshit. When did you know?”

Now it’s his turn to lean in. He creeps toward my cold glare, using every inch that he closes between us to build courage for whatever lie he’ll tell me next.

“Through satellite imagery. We knew someone was with Theodore. A second POI.”

“POI,” I mock. Even when telling the truth, he can’t help but lace it behind the sterile formalities they’re trained to use. Code names and acronyms designed to do nothing more than help stomach the manipulation and tyranny they bestow upon innocent people. “He’s a fucking person, don’t abbreviate it. And I’m not talking about him. When did you know I wouldn’t be finding my sister?”

“Quinn, as much as I’d love to dive into finger pointing right now like, oh, I don’t know — the fact that you were plotting a fucking rescue mission behind my back. Or how about your pilot friend and the longstanding vendetta with Lander Medical you’d conveniently never told me about?”

His words land like a slap to the face.

Max has never acknowledged my pilot friend, Sean, or our foul play before. I knew that he knew. Whether before or after I figured out my insignificant crime wasn’t what the FBI was following, I can’t say. If pillow talk with him has taught me anything, it’s that Max Baker lives strictly by the code of on the record and off the record. He’d told me more than he ever should have, but I guess I hadn’t anticipated the freedom in that philosophy could go both ways.

If I had, maybe this wouldn’t have spiraled so far past complicated. Getting deep into the nature of what the FBI wanted with an orphan bartender was nothing more than self preservation. I’d like to think of it as self sacrifice for Sean. We’d assumed we’d been caught.

We were two stupid kids who aged out of the Leadville, Colorado foster care system, set up on a work program through Cooper Mountain. But four months later, Lander Medical put in a bid for the community owned ski slope, and next thing we knew, the program we’d been surviving on was disbanded.

It’s that very truth that reinforces what I already know in this moment. I’m not the thief this agent sees right now. I’m not the criminal my past actions portray. I won’t apologize for any of it. What other choice did Sean and I have? We were survivors before we were ever vigilantes. Nothing can change that truth—not the past five years of skimming funds from Lander Medical’s investments in the Valley, not the past two years working with this agent, and not even the past forty-eight hours can strip that away—no matter what has been learned and lost.

We. Were. Surviving.

Sometimes that looked like a day of honest work. Other times, it looked like this.

Max becomes amused by my silence, like this is only a game, and he’s already won. It’s no surprise when he licks his lips and redistributes the tension by whispering a single statement to keep us on track. “You were in this for your sister.”

The mention of my sister sends a burning acid pain through my extremities. A bolt of electricity, seeking the nearest exit point.

“A sister wasn’t even on my radar until you came in and fucked with my head,” I say, unloading the building pressure.

He wants truth, there it is. He ruined me. Before the great Special Agent Max Baker came into my life, I hadn’t even known I had a sister. With every new off the record reveal, new memories were forced to surface. I’ve been haunted by flashbacks and remembering being used for human testing wasn’t even the worst part. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t alone, or at least I hadn’t always been. I remembered a vague image of a father, but also someone else. Someone who wasn’t just a sibling, but a sister whose body and mind I still feel connected to. When I focus on the reflection in my memories, I can vividly see us together. Two identical little girls—twins.

“Don’t get it twisted, Max,” I say. “I was waking up in cold sweats and vomiting because every night when I’d close my eyes, I was forced to flip through the family photo album I never knew I had. You used my past against me.”

“I wasn’t the one who did this to you,” he says.

All I can see is the face of the man who betrayed me. It’s funny, all that time in the foster care system, even the time since Sean and I aged out, I always felt sorry for myself. But this bastard has rewritten the story. It no longer feels like abandonment when staying would have meant I’d still be used as the lab rat for Lander Medical.

I drop my head to the table and look up at Max through my brow. “Do I even have a fucking sister?”

He reaches out and takes my hand in his with an expression that says my pain is his pain, but he doesn’t answer. For all the rules Max claims to follow, I still question why he only breaks the ones that hurt me. Anything he knows that may set me free seems to remain locked behind a rule he’s suddenly unwilling to compromise. But what the FBI was really investigating in Lander’s testing, my blood, the origin of the scars running down my arms? That information seemed to slip from his tongue. I didn’t fucking snap, he bent me until I broke. That’s on him.

I tried to do this his way. I confided in both Max and Sean about these flashbacks. The sister, the past I’d never known coming into light. I’d begged Max to help move things along, help figure out what’s happening to me. While Sean only grew angrier with Lander Medical, Max always insisted I hold back. But sitting here in this room, gathering information, is exactly why I couldn’t stand around and wait for the FBI. My life is the product of what waiting on government organizations looks like. Red tape. Paperwork. Warrants. It all takes too long.

This is taking too long. Two days ago, I was convinced my sister was still alive. It was an instinct only twins can know. I felt it in my bones that an extension of me was alive beyond the Lander facility gate. So yeah, I decided to break into the compound on my own. Because of this slow fucking process. And with every minute that is passing, that instinct is becoming less and less, and now, I think Russell Drake was right when he said she had never been there.

I wrench my hand free from Max’s touch. “What do you know?” I can’t tell if I’m begging or accusing. Whether I’m asking if he’s known about her all along, or if he knows I’ll never find her.

He gives me another non-answer. “This is a line of work that can blur the border between right and wrong. I won’t try to justify every decision only that you trust me that I’ve done everything I can to ensure those decisions have a mean that leans toward justice.”

“Is that what happened back there? Justice?”

“What are you implying?” he asks with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. He knows exactly what I’m implying. The unasked question of Did you push him off the bridge? lingers. And just when his facade of calm seems to falter, he shakes his head with that same vicious smile. “I guess I can’t blame you.”

I let out a breath. I don’t even know why I care what he did at the end. What’s done is done. I set all of this in motion. The guilt crawls back to the surface.

“What now, Max?” I say, hearing the fear in my voice, hoping he doesn’t notice.

He slides a device between us and leans in. “We tell them everything.” He pushes the record button.

“Start at the gate. What do you remember?”

MARKERS UNKNOWN by O.E. Soderberg
Speculative Fiction Thriller
 
Assignment 1:
THE ACT OF THE STORY STATEMENT
 
A defiant orphan must bring down the corrupt pharmaceutical company that created her unique genetics to rescue her lost sister from the horrors of human testing.
 
Assignment 2:
THE ANTAGONIST
 
The antagonist is a compound of systemic and individual malice—embodied by Lander Medical, a pharmaceutical company fueled by unrestrained greed and ambition. Isolated on protected land purchased from the native tribe that fears the Ghost Flowers the mountain produces, Theodore Drake, lead scientist of Lander Medical, holds a person captive as his test subject. After two decades of human testing, Theodore will do anything to protect his obsession, even kill. However, Theodore emerges not just as a perpetrator but as a pawn in a more insidious game. Clayton Copeland, Lander’s Chief Security Officer turned President of the Board, has twisted the ethos of Drake’s research to secure his own power. Through underhanded deals with government officials, Clayton’s villainous mission centers on a disturbing side effect that even Theodore fears: a form of mind control. The parabiosis process they employ for cell regeneration causes donor cells to entangle in a way that permits psychological manipulation, turning their unethical scientific endeavor into a moral nightmare Clayton is willing to sell to the highest bidder.
 
Assignment 3:
BREAKOUT TITLE
 
MARKERS UNKNOWN
Ghost Flower
Blood Markers
 
Assignment 4:
COMPARABLE TITLES
 
Girl One by Sara Flannery Murphy
 
A story about a young woman whose search for her missing mother reveals the secrets of her past — including her time spent on the Homestead as one of nine babies born via parthenogenesis.
 
Upgrade by Blake Crouch.
 
A fast-moving imagining of a future altered by one significant technology of genetic engineering and a character significantly impacted by said technology, setup against the backdrop of a ticking clock and a game of cat and mouse.
 
Assignment 5:
CORE WOUND AND THE PRIMARY CONFLICT
 
LOGLINE: A defiant orphan wounded by abandonment breaks into a high-security lab to dismantle the corrupt pharmaceutical company that engineered her unique genetics to rescue the sister she remembers only in her haunting nightmares.
 
Assignment 6:
OTHER MATTERS OF CONFLICT
 
INNER CONFLICT OF THE PROTAGONIST—QUINN RIDER:
Conditions for Inner Conflict:

• Core Issue: Deep-seated abandonment issues that have manifested into a mistrust of others.
• Internal Struggle: Quinn struggles with her need for family acceptance and her innate desire for justice. She believes that if she can just save her sister, she will somehow prove herself worthy of love and family.
• Conflict Amplifiers: Quinn's engagement with the FBI, which operates by the book and could delay rescuing her sister, amplifies her turmoil. Her need for quick action clashes with her fear of trusting a system that has failed her before.

Trigger Scenario:

• Scenario: Quinn decides to break into Lander Medical's compounding lab to save her sister. However, she doesn't find her sister there; instead, she finds a man named Russell Drake, who shares her unique blood.
• Immediate Reaction: When her plans backfire, she doubles down instead of reassessing—driven by a fear that her one true asset, her intuition, might be fallible.
• Secondary Reaction: Realizing that Russell has never lived a day outside the lab and needs her help as much as her sister would have, she's thrust into a cat-and-mouse chase with both Lander Medical and the FBI.

Emotional States:

• Turmoil: She's forced to reconcile her personal mission of find her sister with the ethical responsibility of helping Russell.
• Conflicted: Quinn is conflicted about whether she made the right choice breaking in. Should she have trusted the system? Did she endanger more lives by acting impulsively?
• Anxious: As she races against time, her anxieties spiral. Each decision, initially fueled by good intentions, compounds into increasingly unethical and illegal actions of her own, while powerful adversaries close in on her.

Summary:
In this emotionally charged moment, Quinn's anxieties, abandonment issues, and mistrust collide. She's left questioning her vigilante methods while still feeling the desperation to act quickly. Her core wound of abandonment is tested; she took matters into her own hands only to find someone who wasn't her sister, thereby not immediately healing her family wound as she'd hoped. It's a pivotal moment that exposes her inner conflicts in sharp relief: her need for familial acceptance against her deep-rooted issues with trust, her desire to be the lone vigilante against the ethical responsibility to involve others, and her quest for quick justice against the potential cost it may have on the lives involved.
 
 
SECONDARY CONFLICTS OF THE PROTAGONIST—QUINN RIDER:
Conditions for Secondary Conflict:

 

• Core Issue: Quinn's deep-seated issues with trust extend to her social environment, including her best friend, Sean, and her fiancé, Special Agent Max Baker.
• Internal Struggle: Her relentless drive to prove her own worth puts a strain on these relationships. Her struggle to believe she is deserving of the love and trust she already has makes it difficult to reciprocate.
• Conflict Amplifiers: The deep concern Sean and Max feel for Quinn as she risks her life against formidable entities like Lander Medical, is tested by her seemingly ruthless decisions. Quinn’s willingness to risks their lives and careers for what she calls survival, amplifies the growing tension at the line between love and betrayal.

Trigger Scenario:

• Scenario: Special Agent Max Baker, her fiancé, finds out that Quinn has decided to go rogue and infiltrate Lander Medical without telling him or utilizing his FBI resources. He is forced to choose between Quinn and his career when he intercepts her escape with Russell Drake, the captive from the compound.
• Immediate Reaction: Quinn feels cornered and accused, triggering her issues with trust and abandonment. She justifies her actions by focusing on the urgency, the system's inefficiencies, and the proof of foul play that Russell embodies.
• Secondary Reaction: Max, worried for Quinn yet stung by her betrayal, questions her actions. He confronts her, suggesting that her proclaimed moral superiority might actually be a mask for trust issues that endanger everyone—including their relationship.

Emotional States:

• Turmoil: As Lander Medical closes in, Quinn is torn between admitting Max Baker might be right and her natural instinct to push him away to protect herself from potential abandonment.
• Conflicted: She starts questioning if her distrust and go-it-alone approach could cost her relationships with the very people she wants to prove herself to.
• Anxious: Quinn realizes that she's at risk of losing her support system (Max and Sean), making her already perilous mission even more isolating and dangerous.

Summary:
The secondary conflict in Quinn's life stems from her social relationships, particularly with Special Agent Max Baker and her best friend, Sean. In this scenario, the conflict centers around her fiancé, Max, who challenges Quinn's unilateral decision to infiltrate Lander Medical without consulting him or considering how it could affect his career. This confrontation brings to the surface Quinn's emotional issues—her mistrust, her fear of abandonment, and her belief that she is not worthy of love unless she proves herself through deeds like saving her sister.
This social conflict serves as a mirror to her primary internal conflict. While she battles her own inner demons around worthiness and trust, she simultaneously risks fracturing the relationships that could offer her love and support. It's another layer of complexity in her journey, revealing that her struggle is not just against external entities but also involves the people closest to her.
 
Assignment 7:
IMPORTANCE OF SETTING
 
The settings in "MARKERS UNKNOWN" are diverse yet interconnected, weaving together natural landscapes, historical sites, and modern facilities to create a rich tapestry. Each setting contributes to the complexity of the plot, offering both physical and emotional obstacles and sanctuaries for the characters. The unique qualities of each location allow for dynamic, visually arresting scenes that deepen the themes and emotional impact of the story. From the impenetrable high-tech lab to the rugged beauty of the Rocky Mountains, the settings are more than mere backdrops; they are integral elements that shape the narrative and its characters.
 
Lander Medical Compounding Lab:
This high-tech lab brings a sense of sterile dread. It sits on isolated reservation land, surrounded by the rare Ghost Flowers. Its impenetrable location makes it an intriguing mix of natural beauty and concealed danger. The lab itself is a maze of modern technology and older, worn sections—reflecting both its long-standing operations and recent advancements. Think of high-tech monitors and equipment juxtaposed with old files and even older secrets.

• Cinematic Moments: The dynamic encounter along the winding road to the compound between Quinn and Clayton Copeland where the fresh mountain snow plays an integral role in Quinn’s plan to break into the lab. The peering eyes of the lab’s security cameras as Quinn holds Russell at gunpoint, forcing him to leave. The greenhouse of crimson-red Ghost Flowers that thicken the air with a sweet smell, and their climatic end as their pedals are bleached white.

 
Standard Service:
An abandoned train outpost turned into a makeshift home full of memories and aspirations. The setting includes rusted train tracks, dilapidated buildings, and simple, hastily built living spaces that reflect Quinn and Sean’s past struggles to survive.

• Cinematic Moments: In an abandoned train outpost, Quinn, Russell, and the FBI reach a tense standoff. This outpost is loaded with history and unfulfilled dreams: it's where miners once replenished their hopes before delving into gold mines, and where Quinn and Sean scrimped and saved as orphans, dreaming of a brighter future. Now, Quinn stands at a pivotal fork in the road, mirroring the miners' grim reckoning when the gold veins ran dry. She must choose—either confront the harsh reality that her hopes are spent, just like the miners, or push deeper into the figurative mine of her future, refusing to abandon her dreams.

 
The Tennessee Mine:
A dark, maze-like underground with echoes of history and danger, sprinkled with remnants of its gold-rush past. The tension builds naturally as Quinn navigates Russell through the labyrinth of tunnels.

• Cinematic Moments: As Quinn and Russell race to the abandoned mine entrance within the dark tunnel of the Tennessee pass, a voice echoes off the jagged rock walls belonging to the corrupt FBI agent, James Archer. Quinn’s familiarity with the mine is no match for the city transplant special agent as Quinn leads Russell down the entrance, firing her gun at the rotted overhead cap, causing the loose rock roof to fall in succession while Quinn and Russell attempt to outrun the collapsing mine.

 
Timberline Taproom and Heli-Trax Airport Hanger: These are the public faces of Quinn and Sean, contrasting sharply with their more covert activities. They appear ordinary, but in context, serve as what they have to lose.

• Cinematic Moments: 
  At the empty Timberline Taproom, Russell glimpses the life he's been robbed and deceived of. Vacant stools, etched names, and framed photos serve as silent witnesses, filling the room with ghosts of the community he's been denied. The irony isn't lost on him: even Nature conspires to isolate him, offering a bitter taste of normalcy yet the bar remains empty.
  
  The Heli-Trax Airport where Sean pilots skiers too adventurous to leave the backcountry unconquered, finds Quinn, Russell, and Sean staying overnight to await the passing storm. The manual labor required at a hanger unprotected from nature’s fury, provides a rich backdrop to a reflective moment between Quinn and Russell where clearing what the storm left behind may uncover answers neither of them are ready for.

 
The Royal Gorge Bridge:
This location’s history of man’s ability to overcome nature’s constraints, serves as a spectacular backdrop to the climactic showdown between Quinn, Russell, Theodore Drake, and Max Baker. Amid one of the tallest suspension bridges in the world, the vast canyon it spans mirrors the perilous divide that has formed between these characters. 

• Cinematic Moments: A tense standoff leads to a horrific scene as Quinn and Russell are unable to reach Theodore before watching his body fall 955 feet to the Arkansas River below.

 
Colorado Springs Police Precinct:
An institutional setting that lends a stark contrast to the wild, uncontrolled landscapes and rogue operations Quinn is used to.

• Cinematic Moments: Throughout the book, the stark interrogation room under Intense fluorescent lights, serves as the setting where Max gets Quinn to retell everything that transpired. Quinn is literally and figuratively pulled from her element, left to face the consequences of her actions on the record with Max, the government, and most importantly, herself.

 
The Rocky Mountains:
Serving as a consistent background character throughout the story, they symbolize the raw, uncontrollable force of nature against which all human endeavors seem minuscule.

• Cinematic Moments: Panoramic views of the mountains punctuate and preface key moments in the story. In Colorado skies, storms don’t simply appear, they make their inevitable presence known, rolling from beyond the furthest peaks until enveloping the vast skies to form claustrophobic domes. As the weather changes in the story, it mirrors the shifting dynamic in Quinn's emotional state and the forces closing in on her.

OPENING SCENE: 

Introduces Ezra Porter (the protagonist) just after his senator father (the antagonist) made his first move against his son. A disturbance comes in the form of discovering his father’s motives from a reporter who wants Ezra’s help in taking down the senator. When Ezra realizes he can secure the proof for the accusations against his father himself, he decides to beat the New Yorker to print and use this story to cut the strings of his father’s control. Setting, tone, obstacles, and stakes for all parties involved are revealed in this scene taken from the first chapter.

 

 

I’m distracted again. Not by thoughts of my father, but the movement of some guy down the block. This city always smells of sour milk and decomposing flesh, but suddenly I’m hyper aware of it. The fight or flight instinct has turned on like a light switch. And my senses are firing at peak levels when I realize this creep down the street sneaking glances at me isn’t a crackhead seeing things, it’s that leach of a reporter, Trey Edwards.

“Fucking hell, not today,” I say under my breath as I shove my hands in my pockets and try to make fleeing the scene look casual. I round the corner and look to see if he’s following. He is. Ten years ago, this walking byline was entering his early thirties, desperate to break a story. And boy did he fucking do it. An exposé crediting my high school girlfriend and me getting caught fucking outside her mom’s megachurch as the event that ultimately caused the small town of Oak Haven, Texas to lose 500 jobs. I’ve been trying to distance myself from that story—and this fuckhead—ever since.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch him step on and off the curb. Trey is someone with all the ingredients of a great person—investigative journalist, rural small-town family, charitable—but trust me, he’s a certified scumbag. Out for number one. He needs something, and he’ll use me to get it.

This isn’t the first time he’s conveniently run into me, usually banking on small talk to somehow confirm his suspicion that my father and I work together. We don’t. But following me like a rat toward the scent of New York sidewalk trash feels downright invasive. I decide to get this over with and say as little as possible.

“Why are you here, Trey?” I ask, not bothering to turn to face him.

The scumbag answers, talking to my back and matching each of my foot falls along the pavement. “Because I know daddy needs you home. Maybe now you’ll be willing to talk.”

Confirmed. He knows I’m a fucking puppet, and Jack Porter is pulling the strings. We’re both aware my father didn’t build his wealth on intellect or ingenuity. No, he’s climbed to the top by being a ruthlessly selfish master of manipulation. I’m not even the slightest bit surprised I’m his latest victim. I find it hard to believe that would surprise Trey either. But the intrigue as to how he already knows is too much to fight off. I stop, whirling around to see him. “How do you know?”

Trey’s standing near the curb with an old school briefcase in one hand, a shit eating grin on his face, and taking in the scowl marking my features like the cat that got the fucking milk. He’s noted there will be no pleasantries. He’s right. There won’t be.

“Because the only logical choice he has left is to fall back on nepotism,” he says.

Not an answer dumb fuck. We’ve debated this already. It seems to be the topic du jour every time we run into each other like this. We both agree nepotism is problematic in the best of situations. It’s terrible for company morale and a breeding ground for corruption. Sure, I’d claim the act of hiring or transitioning power to kin is in and of itself corrupt, but he’d argue I’m too focused on the act and not the motives. It’s almost always an indication that there’s a need to maintain secrecy. But unfortunately for Trey, I know nothing. I haven’t gotten my hands dirty, and I plan on keeping it that way.

I wait Trey out, wondering if he knows how fucked I am too. Does he know about the debt?

“Why now?” he asks.

Come on, man. I’m not that easy. “You’re the reporter. Tell me.”

He squints and peers into me like he thinks I’ll cave. Or more likely, calculating whether whatever he’s about to say is worth conceding. If my father taught me anything it’s that everyone is negotiating. Always. And now, I’m interested in what he knows.

“It’s an election year,” he spits out. And sure enough, the first bargaining chip hits the table. “Ever stop to wonder why his opponent pushed so hard for that new prop that just passed? Up until this point holding office in Jersey while running the business in Texas was no problem. But now, it will be all but illegal for him to do both. I find it ironic that your father didn’t see that coming.”

Anger trips the live wire within my chest with electricity flowing through my extremities, seeking the nearest exit point. My heart is pounding, but I’m playing along. Feigning apathy to keep him talking. “Or he did and just happens to be ready to hand over the company.”

“A man like your father doesn’t hand over things that belong to him. I’m starting to wonder if you even know the truth, Ezra?”

I can’t stand the fact that I’m dumb enough to be hearing my father’s motives from Trey fucking Edwards. And the worst part is, I need it. But there will likely be blood when I release the tight grip of my nails into my palm because there’s no way I’ll let Trey see a hint of surprise on my face. It’s not a bargaining chip if he thinks I know what he knows.

“What do you want?” I say, calm indifference scraping my vocal cords.

“We can help each other, Ezra.”

I smile. “What, you want to run the Porter House blog?”

“No,” he says, matching my cocky attitude. “That would imply that I actually think you’ll accept your father’s offer.”

Well, unless Trey’s offering me eight hundred thousand dollars to pay off my newfound debt, there’s no use in continuing this conversation.

“We’ll see,” I say, then turn to keep walking. But it’s only a few steps before he doubles down on this negotiation. Hurls a verbal dagger that strikes a nerve I didn’t think existed anymore.

“I spoke to Henley the other day.”

Below the belt and he knows it. I should fucking leave, but that girl I’d deported from my mind for the last ten years has apparently never left home soil. Just hearing her name, a flicker of a thought snakes its way through me. I’m still in love with her. I’ve done blow and prescription shit I shouldn’t have. But I have self control—not an addictive personality. Yet somehow, that name makes me feel like a junkie waiting the twenty seconds it takes their meth to cook on a spoon over the flame.

The air rushes from my lungs in some big release. In perfect detail. In 4 fucking K. I can see her under the bleachers outside her mother’s megachurch. My dick is eighteen all over again. My mouth salivates recalling the way the mixture of foil and latex tasted as it lingered the last time I saw her. I’d brought the square packet to my lips, ripped the condom free with my teeth. Her panties dangled from her left ankle, hips circling against me as I crept her Sunday’s best up to her waist. In my head, I’m already hiding the tip. I want more of her.

But I shut that shit down. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Long story short, I’ll also never forget the light that hit her bottom lip. Not because it illuminated the way she was literally chomping at the bit for me to slide myself inside, but because of the source. A perfect angle from the Texas sun off the silver badge proudly strapped to the Oak Haven police chief’s utility belt. And because she wore her preacher’s kid persona like a second skin, the first question asked was “Is this young man forcing himself on you?”

And fuck that, like I said, I was in love with her. I didn’t force myself on her. I’m not that guy. But her route to damage control was to fall fucking silent in the face of a national scandal—yes national. The mega in megachurch can mean many things, in this case we’re talking live-national-broadcast mega. But I guess Henley chalked one up for the side of the superficial bullshit personas. Because like my father, it was all about reputation for her, and she used hers as the get out of jail free card. It worked perfectly.

I’m past the lustful memories and now fully engulfed in the betrayal. The anger pulls me back to the present. I’m not sure if I’m hardened or dead but whatever it is, I’m nothing but cold now. Trey’s loving whatever he sees on my face.

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe Jack didn’t want you close to the Jones family?”

He’s rattling me, and now my words come out with a sharpened edge. “Yeah. Because they claimed I forced myself on her. And no contact meant no police report.” I’m reminded of his article. His questions of what constitutes a conflict of interest when church and state mix, but he used our scandal to prove how the lines can become blurred. Never once mentioning the police report. I looked like the guy that used the girl and moved on. “Your lazy reporting failed to mention that part.”

“Or that part wasn’t true,” he says.

“Believe what you want, Trey.”

“Oh no, it’s believable. And Henley seemed believable as well when I saw her last week. And she claimed to have not a clue as to what I was talking about when I asked about the threat of a police report.”

“She’s lying to you.”

“Oh, someone’s lying but it’s not her. I don’t think you’re lying either. I might look a little closer to home.”

Neither of us speak. We’re staring at each other like this can only be settled with fists. But I’m reminded of what this asshole and I have in common. I hate my father as much as he does. But where Trey and I differ? Well, he wants to know what the good senator and Porter House Whiskey are hiding. He wants to reveal it. I’m well aware that the mask my father wears to the public is anything but the shadows that lurk beneath. But I want nothing to do with it. I want out. Which gets me thinking. 

What’s he onto? How much does Trey Edwards know about the man controlling the line I’m dangling on? Is it sharp enough to cut the strings?

This is the pitfall of investigative journalism. You poke your head in too many doors and someone might get smart. I just got smart. Fine, Trey. I’ll play along until I get what I need.

I slide my entitled, elitist, rich kid, son of a senator cosplay mask on without a hitch. I’m ready to participate in Trey’s game hoping his excited desperation is enough to let the act slip past him.

It works like a charm.

“Ezra,” he says, then lowers his voice. “Massive, unaccounted campaign funds have been rolling in from Houston, Texas.”

I have no idea how to process the bomb Trey just set in front of me. I’m staring at the red numbers counting down, and wondering which wire do I cut to save myself? Red? Blue? Black?

“I’m publishing an exposé. Work with me. What do you know about your father’s ties to the Calvary Megachurch, beyond your little, insignificant scandal?”

And with that one question, I pick a wire and cut. The bomb dismantles and clarity floods in to replace the panic. This isn’t about my father. Or Trey’s tireless smears of my dad’s campaigns. It’s not even about the lack of the senator’s ethics. Trey’s trying to connect Calvary Megachurch—Henley’s mother’s church—to my father’s bank accounts. And that’s why he spoke with Henley, too.

Everything stops.

I dig deeper because memories are just electrical and chemical signals in the brain that connect together in certain patterns called synapses. Simply triggering these synapses should bring about the act of remembering and they do.

She knows more.

  

ASSIGNMENT 1: 
Write Your Story Statement
Uncover the crimes of his senator father to break the story himself before an ambitious journalist can finish his investigation.

 

ASSIGNMENT 2: 
Antagonist Plots the Point
SENATOR JACK PORTER:
Senator Jack Porter’s wealth and success weren’t built from intellect or ingenuity. Because beneath the persona of Texas charm and cowboy cosplay is a man whose life of privilege bred a winner-take-all mentality marked by ruthless selfishness and a mastery of manipulation. After inheriting the family’s billion-dollar whiskey business, he’d spent the early eighties single-handedly fighting against a new law aimed at raising the drinking-age. Leading him to discover that politics bring a whole new level of control and power where he can rewrite the very laws he navigates.
 
It’s how today, Jack’s platform of conservative politics has positioned him as the hand of holy justice. Using the mask of God and country to control the masses.
 
But with his senate seat in jeopardy, Jack’s facing conflict-of-interest charges for maintaining his operation of the family whiskey empire. Always calculated, the senator begins pulling on the marionette he’s used to control his son—the only person who could take over without forfeiting Jack’s majority stake in the business. But his son has never believed the façade Jack wears to the masses and fights against his father’s manipulation, attempting to uncover the double life the senator’s been living. As Jack’s Christian values are turned against him, he’ll sacrifice anything to save his reputation—even his own son.

 

ASSIGNMENT 3: 
Conjuring Your Breakout Title

1. NEXT OF KIN
2. NEAT LIKE WHISKEY
3. THE INEVITABLE INHERITANCE 

 

ASSIGNMENT 4: 
Deciding Your Genre and Approaching Comparables
Genre:
THRILLER/SUSPENSE with a Romantic Subplot

Comps:
THE LIES I TELL meets KNIVES OUT

WE ARE ALL THE SAME IN THE DARK meets THE DROPOUT

THE HOUSE ACROSS THE LAKE meet SUCCESSION

 

ASSIGNMENT 5: 
Core Wound and Primary Conflict Logline
Discovering a journalist is poised to break a story connecting a political campaign to the tithes of the largest mega church in Texas, the son of the senator in question and the daughter of the accused reverend attempt to beat the New Yorker to print by revealing the sex-fueled crimes of their parents in an effort to sever the strings their famous families use to control them.

 

ASSIGNMENT 6: 
Two More Levels
Inner Conflict:
Trying to prove his worth to himself and others by outperforming in his career, Ezra Porter believes his own financial success apart from his famous last name will give him the solid footing he’ll need to resist his legacy. As a fourth generation Porter, he’s next in line to take over the family whiskey empire. But he promised his mother before she died that he would build his own career before that time would come. His mother had her own personal success and accomplishments. She gave it all up to be the Senator’s wife, but knowing she’d achieved so much on her own—that was her worth. Ezra assumed her intention in making him promise to climb his own ladder was her way to ensure that stepping into his future would feel like the choice she had and not the chain his father holds.
 
But now Ezra’s senator father is pressuring him to take over the business early. Conflicted of his own worth and unwilling to break the promise he made to his mother, Ezra becomes desperate. And when a journalist seeking information for an exposé on Ezra’s father confronts him, he believes he may have the ticket to fast-tracking his success. Because while Ezra doesn’t have the missing proof of his father’s corruption, he knows who does. He justifies the ethical concerns of stealing the journalist’s facts to beat him to publication with the promise of building a solid platform to turn down his legacy and choose his own future like he’d promised his mother.
 
Secondary Conflict with HENLEY JONES:
Ezra knows that the source holding the missing proof to his father’s corruption is the preacher’s daughter from Calvary Megachurch, Henley Jones. Forcing him to reunite with the very girl who broke up with him via police report rather than admit that the sex they’d been caught having as teens was consensual. Facing the church’s judgement, Henley used her preacher’s kid persona as a get out of jail free card. Ezra was pushed out of his hometown, agreeing that to ever contact her again would risk him being charged for the crime he didn’t commit. But he’ll take that gamble if it means gaining his freedom.
 
This secondary conflict with Henley places both characters in a battle of uncovering what really happened in the past, forcing them to address their parent’s manipulations head on. When face-to-face with the emotions that still linger between them, convincing Henley to take down her family proves to be the least of Ezra’s problems.

Secondary Conflict with OAK HAVEN, TEXAS AND CALVARY MEGACHURCH:
Once united in their goal to take down their parents, Ezra and Henley are thrust into the consequences of their past. The investigation centers around the small town of Oak Haven, Texas, where the citizens loyalties are tied to the church. A girl’s faith is measured by her virginity. And, of course, that’s how this conservative town and the church felt. Because, why not? Christians spare the men from blame. Even the fall of man was the result of Eve. Poor, poor, Adam didn’t stand a chance against her feminine wiles. “Ezra couldn’t help himself.” Their teenage scandal was an easy target that the same journalist they’re up against now had used in an article he’d published ten years earlier that connected their public sin to Ezra’s father pulling out of a deal to move the billion-dollar whiskey business to Oak Haven. Henley was left as the martyr and purity culture as the weapon of choice. And if Ezra and Henley have any hope at securing more information about the church, they’ll have to navigate the judgement that’s alive and well and standing in their way.
 
Secondary Conflict with THE REPORTER (TREY EDWARDS):
Ezra flirts with the idea of using the journalist’s platform to destroy his father and Porter House Whiskey, but he knows it wouldn’t be enough to sever the strings of his father’s control. Because the bottom line is that this ambitious journalist is just as self-serving as Ezra’s father. Trey Edwards will make damn sure he gets the credit and the success from breaking the story. This leads Ezra to justify his decision to break the story himself with a tell-all. Not only will it pay off the loans his father has saddled him with and expose his father’s duplicity, but Ezra could also get the personal success of pulling this off. But the paper trails of illegal funds point directly to a sex addiction Sunday school class at the megachurch and reek of the exploitations of the community their parents vow to serve. With each new reveal of corruption, Ezra cares less about his own agenda and more about one thing—taking down Jack Porter. But calling the senator and the reverend’s bluff at the big table proves to cost more than the center pot. As Ezra finds himself playing the role of Jack’s sacrificial lamb, teaming up with Trey becomes the only way to finish the job.
 
Secondary Conflict with SENATOR JACK PORTER’S SECURITY DETAIL:
Ezra quickly learns the pitfall of investigative journalism. You poke your head in too many doors and someone might get smart. Discovering Ezra’s intentions, his father’s intimidation tactics reach epic proportions. His every move is not only being trailed by the reporter, now his father’s security has joined in on the chase. But in this case, family manipulation doesn’t hold a prayer candle to the family hypocrisy. Henley and Ezra discover new information, uncovering the hidden identities of their parents and highlighting the conflict of interest that takes place when the lines between church and state blur.

 

ASSIGNMENT 7: 
The Incredible Importance of Setting
The novel begins in New York City, representing Ezra’s ambition and drive for independence. We follow him to his office, showcasing how his intense efforts to further his own career haven't resulted in a prestige even close to rivaling his father. His time spent at The Bookstore is a setting that highlights his found family where the owner, Gretchen, loves him like a son. This setting holds the truth that the worth and success he’s chasing are things he already has. He'll only see them once he's learned the story point that self worth is realized, not earned.

At the catalyst, Ezra and Henley meet at The Bowery Hotel. It’s meant to represent the lifestyle they’ve grown accustomed to, highlighting the personas of old wealth and the famous last names they can't help but wear to the outside world.

Immediately after, a road trip back to Texas lands them in a one-night stay at The Arcadia Motel. This setting highlights what they can provide for themselves when privilege and their parents’ funds are stripped away.

Arriving in Oak Haven, Texas, Henley’s Childhood Home is a return to baseline. This setting provides a vulnerability that strips Ezra and Henley from who they’ve convinced themselves they’ve become to reveal who they truly are, the family control they'd never escaped, and the sexual tension that cannot be ignored.

The Little Dove Bar showcases the judgment of this small Texas town with the fallout of purity culture and holy judgment of the church. Following a lead, Ezra and Henley meet the church accountant at Luanne’s Diner. Its location on the outskirts of town symbolizes how Ezra remains just far enough from the truth to not be within earshot. As secrets are revealed here, we also see that honesty and common ground are only found outside of Jack’s orbit.

They're led to the senator’s and the reverend’s joint business, The Preserve. What appears to be a dementia care facility is actually a front for an illegal operation. This setting reveals how facades often hide dark secrets. Though the most tangible proof of corruption is hidden in a Storage Unit in town. This closed room symbolizes how the truth never disappears, it can only be locked away.

When drugged and kidnapped, Ezra and Henley find themselves at The Porter Family Hunting Cabin. This is the ultimate power move from the parents. Senator Jack Porter has taken them to the place he visits for the kill, foreshadowing the hunt and a willingness to sacrifice his own son.

After the climax, Ezra returns to New York. The tragedy of the loss of Gretchen leads Henley to follow him and the journalist to offer his services. They secretly meet in a Brooklyn Apartment to plan the takedown. New York was never the safe haven he thought it was. His father’s influence will follow until he severs the strings.

The return to The Bookstore at the end of the novel, reveals how much Ezra Porter has changed. In the beginning he'd worn the cosplay of an ambitious man. The return represents his character growth. Having served justice, he earned a solid platform to turn down his legacy and choose his own future. Not with personal success, but by knowing his worth—what his mother had actually wanted.