A/N: Thanks to everyone who held back their desire to choke the life out of me after last chapter's cliffie. Of course, by now you should know that I'm not going to make it easy on Leah, or any of you, so this week's update is Jake POV. Lots of you wanted to know what happened to Jake and Renesmee, so here we are!

MunkeeRajah and Evelyn-Shaye worked their magic on this chapter again, and caught a couple of significant plot holes that I missed plugging the first time through. Doh! They are the ooey, gooey icing on the top of my Bavarian cream doughnut!

Last time I checked, Twilight still belongs to Stephenie Meyer. I, however, own a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree that's going back in the box this weekend.

Chapter 27 – Over the Wall We Go

Jacob POV

I woke up screaming.

Instinct was in control, and my body automatically began to pour out the energy that would warp it from man into wolf. Heat and force radiated from my center, rippling down my limbs, preparing to lengthen, expand and strengthen. I was barely conscious, but my brain welcomed the rush of power and sense of invincibility that came with phasing. In seconds, the change would be complete, and I would be powerful, strong and safe.

But in the heartbeat between the initial burst of energy and the beginning of my transformation, a small, warm form slammed down on my chest.

Renesmee?

"Jake, stop!" she shrieked in my ear. "Don't phase!"

Only the overpowering instinct to protect my imprint kept me from ripping out of my skin.

The first thing you learn about being a werewolf is that you never phase when you're touching someone—or even just near them. If the outpouring of energy doesn't toast them, your wolf form will crush or rend them before you can even think twice about it. The scars on Emily's face are a constant reminder to every member of both packs of what can happen when someone is too close to a wolf while he's phasing.

Ness knew this too, so I couldn't imagine why she would jump me now.

I didn't have time to think about it, either. I had less than a second to react, to drag the power out of my limbs and back to my core. A younger, less seasoned wolf wouldn't have been able to stop. The backlash hurt like hell, and for a few seconds, I felt as breathless as I had when Leah sucker-punched me in the 'nads. When the power had finally retreated back to the reservoir deep inside, the worst of the pain receded, leaving behind a dull ache in the muscles of my arms, legs and back.

Breathing like a two-pack-a-day smoker who'd just run a marathon, I opened my eyes to find my imprint's frightened face hovering above me. I was on my back, lying on the hardest mattress known to man, and Ness was on top of me, her tiny body covering as much of my larger form as she could manage.

"What the fuck, Ness?" I croaked. My mouth and throat felt desiccated.

When she saw that I was really awake, and that I wasn't going to wolf out beneath her, she wilted in relief. Her beautiful face crumpled like she was about to cry, and she dropped her forehead onto my bare chest.

"I'm sorry, baby," she mumbled against my skin. "Just give me a moment, please. You scared the crap out of me."

I'd scared her? I was pretty sure the only reason my shorts weren't loaded right now was because my stomach felt like it'd been empty since Christ was young.

I didn't know what was going on or where we were, but putting my arms around her was always the natural thing to do. While I waited for her to calm down, I rubbed her back with my right hand. My left came up to finger her curls. Something heavy, cold and gleaming caught my eye.

What the hell?

Metal manacles—Steel? Iron? —loosely encircled both my wrists. Now that I was aware of the ones on my arms, my brain also registered the same heavy, cold weight on both ankles. None of the metal bands were connected to anything—no chains or ropes held me in place. But then, they didn't really need to be attached to anything to effectively cripple me.

My gut clenched and I swallowed hard. Renesmee's seemingly hare-brained move had just saved me from a fate worse than death.

A phasing body could easily rip through fabric, rope and even wood. Metal was another matter, and it was why no one in our pack—not even Sam—wore a wedding band. Metal resisted the change in a way no other material did. Phasing while wearing a piece of metal was a good way to lose a digit or a limb.

Or, in my case, four.

I'd planned to do the same thing Paul had done for Rachel, and have Renesmee's name tattooed on my ring finger after we were married. Thanks to her, I'd still have my left hand to do that. I wrapped my arms tighter around her shaking form and buried my nose in her hair. My mind was racing.

Where the hell were we? Whoever had put those manacles on me—and it could only be Joham or one of his lackeys—had to've known it was an effective way to keep me from phasing. But how had they known? It wasn't exactly something we werewolves talked about freely.

Renesmee didn't permit me to hold her for long, and pushed herself off me after a few moments. I got my first good look at her face and my heart somersaulted painfully. Her huge chocolate eyes were red-rimmed and exhausted, and her normally flawless skin was splotchy and hot, like a human girl who'd spent an entire night and half of the next day crying.

I didn't know it was possible for an immortal to look so strung out. My mouth moved independently of my brain.

"Jeez, Ness! Are you okay? You look like hell!"

She snorted and scrubbed the back of her hand over her mouth. "Thanks, Jake. You really know how to flatter a girl. We've been kidnapped and dumped in some hole in the ground. So, no, thanks for asking, but I'm not okay. And for the record, you don't look so hot yourself."

"Shit, I'm sorry," I mumbled, glancing at my surroundings for the first time.

We were in a small, cramped room that was three times as long as it was wide—I could cross the width in a single stride. The ceiling was so low that I wouldn't be able to stand up straight. At one end of the room was a tiny stainless steel sink and toilet, and the odor coming out of both of them was pretty rank. Above the sink were a few shelves with some dusty junk on them. An intimidating, heavy metal door dominated the other end of the room. Halfway down one long wall was the bed I'd awoke on; it was really nothing more than a high-legged cot with a beaten, stained pad of batting thrown on top of it.

The walls, floor and ceiling all seemed to be made of a rough stone, like something hewn out of rock. The space resembled a tunnel that had been sealed off to create a sorry excuse for a prison cell.

"Where are we?" I asked, slowly sitting up on the bed. The floor actually felt cold under my bare feet, reinforcing the impression that we were somewhere deep underground. My head swam like I'd been on a two-day bender. "How did we get here?"

Renesmee moved to the sink, retrieved a cup from the shelves, filled it from the tap and brought it back to me. The water had a sulphurous smell and tasted worse, but I gulped it down gratefully. When I'd finished, she took the cup from me and smoothed my hair off my forehead. I hissed in pain as her small fingers brushed over a tender spot.

"They beat you to within an inch of your life—or tried to," she whispered. Her dark eyes filled with tears and her delicate chin quivered.

"Ah, crap, don't cry, baby," I begged, grabbing her hand. "It kills me. I need you to vamp up here and tell me what's going on so I can figure out how to get us out of here."

She sucked in a shaky breath and nodded, keeping her eyes on mine. "Okay, what do you remember?" she asked.

Still holding her hand in my right, I rubbed at my sore jaw with my left. My brain felt sluggish and weighty, as if I was swimming underwater wearing heavy boots. And a parka.

"I remember Leah going off on her own," I began, then glared at her, recalling something else. "I also remember you going after her alone, which was unbelievably stupid."

She rolled her eyes like a teenager with an attitude problem, which, I guessed, she essentially was.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she snorted. "I was mad at you, I was mad at Leah and I went off and did something dumb. You can be pissed at me later. What's the last thing you remember?"

I closed my eyes, letting the memories and images play out on the blank screen behind my eyelids. Anger and pain washed through me as I recalled Leah defying my Alpha command and breaking the pack link. She'd abandoned me—and Renesmee—in the middle of nowhere. Even though I hadn't really seen her go at the time, an image of Leah's bushy-tailed ass disappearing into the trees stabbed at me. Her betrayal hurt as much as my aching body.

I wanted to wallow in my pique for a while, but more memories flooded in.

With my connection to Leah broken, I'd focused every ounce of my awareness of my bond with my imprint and used that to pull me through the forest. I'd been close to reaching her—very close—when the attack came.

I opened my eyes. Ness was watching me closely, as if she knew I'd have trouble making sense of what I remembered.

"There were five … maybe six? … full vampires, not hybrids. They hit me hard, all at once," I said, shaking my head at the memory. "How did I not know they were coming?"

"I think they have a shield, kinda like Mom, but that can block physical perceptions, not just powers," Ness replied, dropping down beside me on the squeaky cot. "I didn't hear them coming either. They must have grabbed me first, then doubled back to get you."

Between their sheer number and the element of surprise, they'd had all the advantage. I hadn't stood a chance, even though I'd fought like I had. I didn't even remember the blow that put me under. I wondered why they hadn't just killed me. Why stick me in here with Renesmee and give us the chance to escape? I mean, I could understand why they'd keep her alive … I ruthlessly cut off that line of thought. I couldn't allow myself to think about that or I was going to lose my shit.

To distract myself, I poked at a frayed hole in the leg of my cutoffs. At least they'd put my pants back on me. Or maybe Ness had. Either way, I was glad I wasn't buck naked and in danger. That would have been really humiliating, I thought wryly.

"How long have I been out of it?" I asked, hoping she'd say a few hours.

She didn't immediately answer. Her eyes slid warily to the door, as if she expected it to open at any minute. "A while," she muttered, never peeling her eyes off the massive slab of locked metal at the end of the room.

"Ness, how long?" I knew damn well she wasn't hedging because she was unsure of the answer; like all vampires, she had a flawless sense of time. Her internal clock was better than any geo-synchronized satellite gadget.

She finally looked back at me. "About seventy-two hours," she said, grudgingly.

"Shit!" My jaw dropped open and I just gaped at her. Finally, I found my voice. "What the hell did they do to me?"

Tears filled her eyes again, and a sick feeling settled into the pit of my stomach. What had they done to her while I was out of it? I didn't want to know. I had to know.

"Ness …"

"They haven't hurt me Jake," she cut me off, anticipating my next question. "Yet."

"Show me," I demanded. The fist in my gut was gripping tighter. She wasn't telling me everything and it scared the hell out of me. I needed to know that they hadn't … done … anything to her while I was out of it. She wouldn't be able to hide that from me if she showed me her memories instead of simply speaking them.

"No!" She jumped up off the cot, as if she couldn't stand to sit still a moment longer, and began pacing the length of the room.

From the time she was a little girl, she'd only refused to share her gift with me when she was trying to hide something. Bile rose in the back of my throat at the thought of what she might be trying to hide now. I opened my mouth to tell her not to be stupid, but she cut me off.

"I promise you they didn't hurt me. Look, it will be easier if you just let me tell you everything without interrupting, okay?" She paced past where I sat and reached the back wall in six long strides. She braced her hands on the sink, her back to me, and paused as if she was collecting her thoughts. After a few moments, she straightened, pivoted on her heel and resumed her pacing, heading toward the door.

"You were unconscious when they brought us here," she said, her rapid strides taking her past me again. "They hooded me and tossed us both in some kind of box. There were a lot of them. Full vampires and hybrids. I had no idea Joham's coven was so large."

She reached the door and paused again. "Anjali's been holding out on us," she growled, giving the door a savage kick. I jumped, startled by her anger.

"Maybe she didn't know," I ventured. I didn't want to believe Seth's imprint had been less than honest with us.

"Unless she was living under a rock apart from the rest of the coven, she had to know the numbers we'd be facing," Renesmee said, turning to lean her back against the metal door. "When we get out of here, I'm going to kick her ass, just as soon as I'm done kicking Leah's first."

I chuckled. Her rage was about as impressive as that of a wet kitten, and I really wanted to kiss her whole face. I stifled the urge. Not only was it a totally pussy thing to want to do, it probably wouldn't be really appropriate given the current circumstances.

She sighed, shook her head and resumed pacing. "Whatever. They dumped us in here and pumped you full of animal tranquilizer. I recognized the scent."

I wasn't surprised she knew what they'd shot me up with; Carlisle had been very thorough in her education. She probably could have passed a medical licensing exam in any state and several foreign countries.

"You had enough tranq in your system to keep you out for eight hours," she said. "They've been coming back about every six to give you another injection, feed and water me, and ensure we're still here."

"How many?" I asked.

"One hybrid every time," she replied. "Sometimes she's got a full vamp with her, too, although not for the past two times."

"How come I'm awake now?" I wondered, confused. "Did they screw up the last dosage?"

Shame, profound and pitiful, swept over her lovely face.

"No, they got it right," she said, dropping her eyes to the floor. She wouldn't look at me, and my heart rolled painfully in my chest. "I waited until they were gone and then I sucked out the tranq."

She swallowed hard. "I had to suck a lot of blood out, too. I spit most of it out—the part that had the drug in it. But when I could taste that your blood was clean … then it tasted even better."

She finally looked up at me, her eyes swimming with tears and guilt. "I'm so sorry I bit you, Jake." Her lips started to tremble and two fat tears spilled over, streaking down her porcelain cheeks. "I tried not to swallow, I really did. But I was so f-f-fucking … th-thirsty …"

I was off the bed and had her in my arms before the sobs really started. "I sh-should have sp-spit it all out," she cried. "I should have stopped sooner."

I felt like shit that she was crying, but I couldn't help marveling at the way her convoluted little brain worked sometimes. Instead of being relieved, or even proud, that she'd figured out a way to beat their efforts to keep me subdued, she was hung up on the fact that she'd drank from me. Didn't she realize I'd open a vein myself if it meant I could keep her safe and protected?

"Holy hell, Ness, we're locked up at the mercy of a bunch of evil, psycho vamps and you're upset that you drank a little blood?" I snorted into her hair. "That is so not even close to the top of our list of worries."

"I wanted to have a perfect record like Mom and Aunt Rose and Grandfather," she sobbed, rubbing her pert, runny nose against my bare chest. Yuck. "I n-never wanted to drink from any h-human, let alone from you!"

There was no arguing with her when she was like this.

"Well, I think the fact that you saved me from maiming myself when I first woke up lets you off the hook for taking a sip while I was out of it," I said, lifting her in my arms and carrying her back to the bed. I sat down with her on my lap and rubbed her back while she calmed down.

"I didn't know what else to do," she finally said. "I just wanted you awake so you could figure out how we'd get out of here." She looked at me expectantly.

"Well, getting out of this room might not be too difficult, if there's only one or two opponents to deal with, and they don't know that I'm awake. We'd have the advantage of surprise," I said, thoughtfully. "Of course, we don't know what's beyond that door."

Or even why we're both still alive. Start with what you do know, I told myself.

One: Joham has us. But where is he?

"Have you seen Nahuel's father?" I asked her. "Was he one of the vampires that captured us?"

"No," she said, confidently. "They were really clear about that. From what I could gather from their conversation, he's nearby awaiting the … birth … of another hybrid. He's focused on that, right now, but once the mother … uh, delivers, he'll be back. I got the impression their orders were to hold onto us until he's ready to deal with us."

She fell silent. We both could guess just what Joham would do when he showed up.

"Okay, so Joham's not a factor at the moment, but likely to become one real soon," I said. "All the more reason to get out of here as soon as possible. We want to be long gone before he shows up."

"Agreed," she said, a shudder wracking her small body. She pressed closer to my side.

Two: Every Cullen and wolf on the Olympic Peninsula is probably already looking for us.

"Our family will come for us," I said.

"Agreed," she repeated. I could feel the tension easing from her body at the reminder that her parents and our whole extended family would stop at nothing to rescue us.

"We need to do everything we can to make their job easier," I said. She nodded again and watched me patiently, waiting for my brain to formulate a plan. The thing was, I was pretty sure she wouldn't like what I was coming up with.

I held up my left hand and studied the shackle around my wrist. It looked like it might be iron. It kind of smelled like iron, too, which meant it was a bit softer than a steel band would have been. We might have gotten lucky.

Three: I have to get out of these shackles.

"If we're going to have any chance once we get past that door, I need to be able to phase," I said.

I held both hands up in front of me and stuck my legs out so she could see the shackles around my ankles. The bands weren't tight enough to cut off my circulation or even to rub uncomfortably, but they weren't going to slip off on their own, either. They were just tight enough that I couldn't slide my hands or feet through them—easily.

"These fucking bands have got to come off."

She chewed on her bottom lip and studied my feet pensively. "I don't know what to do about that," she said. "I tried breaking them when we first got here. I figured if Nahuel could crush Grampa Charlie's gun, I should be able to snap some metal bands. But I couldn't budge them."

Four: I have one major wolf-given advantage while in human form—an accelerated healing ability.

"Ness, they have to come off," I repeated. "Something's got to give."

She looked up at me confused. I waited for her to get it.

"Jake, I just told you I can't break them, they're too strong, and—"

Realization dawned and her eyes filled with alarm. She jumped off my lap and skipped back a few feet.

"No, no, no! Jacob Black, I am not breaking your bones to get you out of those things!"

Hearing her say it aloud settled a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Thanks to Victoria's newborns, I knew really well what crushed and broken bones felt like. I sure as hell wasn't looking forward to experiencing that again, even if it was on a much smaller scale. But I didn't see any other solution, either.

With the bones in my hands and feet broken, I'd be able to work them out of the metal cuffs. Then, Renesmee would need to set them quickly, by hand, as best she could so they'd heal as close to right as possible. It wouldn't be perfect and would hurt like hell, even after the bones knit, but I should still be able to function. Anything that didn't heal right … well, I could have Carlisle fix it later, I reasoned.

I struggled to keep my voice calm and even. If she thought I was freaking out, there was no way I'd convince her to do it.

And it had to be done. We needed to get out of here before Joham showed up.

"Ness, listen to me," I said, reaching across the short space between us to grab her hand and pull her back into my arms. She came, but held her body stiff and unyielding as I settled her between my thighs. I knew that every fiber of her being rebelled at the thought of intentionally hurting me. I totally understood that feeling.

"Bones break much more easily than metal," I said, trying to sound confident and reasonable. She wouldn't meet my eyes, and stared down at our joined hands. "Fortunately, mine heal quickly and easily, too."

"If we time this right, I'll have plenty of time to recover before they check on us again," I said. "When they open the door, they'll find a big, bad wolf waiting for them on the other side."

She was shaking her head, still resisting.

"C'mon, Ness, you know this is the only way," I insisted, rubbing both hands up and down her arms. "It won't even take that much. Maybe you can stretch the metal first so that you won't even have to break my hands—"

Vampire-fast, she grabbed my face in her small hands and crashed her mouth down on mine. At the same time, she opened her mind to me and poured her fear and love—for me, for our family, for us—through the connection.

Desire ripped through my gut and clenched into a tight fist in my groin. I was instantly hard and trembling. It took every ounce of self-control I had to break the kiss. As I pulled away, I gentled the movement by kissing and licking away the tears on her cheeks.

"Baby, we're going to be okay," I whispered. "But you have to do this. I'm sorry."

She shook her head again, stroking my face, her little fingers tracing over the stubble on my jaw. "The timing is off, Jake. They'll be here in less than two hours. That's not enough time for you to heal."

"Shit," I muttered, my fingers twisting and bunching the cotton of her T-shirt where it fell above her hips. I wasn't happy about the delay, but I wasn't going to let her abandon my plan over it, either.

"So we wait," I said, holding her eyes. With her standing and me sitting, our faces were at the same height. "I'll pretend to be out of it. Let them shoot me up. Once they're gone, you suck the drug out again and we get me out of these shackles. By the time they come back a second time, I'll be ready."

Her lower lip began to quiver again. I groaned.

"Ness, please don't cry. I can't take it."

"Oh, shut the fuck up," she snapped, releasing my face to wipe the moisture from her eyes. "I'll do it, but I reserve the right to cry about it. I h-hate that I'm going to have to hurt you so badly."

I had to smile at that. "I know you do, baby, and I love you for it."

She smiled shyly in return. "I love you, too."

My stomach rumbled loudly in reply, startling us both, and then sending us into fits of giggles. Her laughter was, hands down, the best sound in the world at that moment.

"I don't suppose our captors left a Big Mac lying around here anywhere," I joked. "Actually, I'm so hungry I'd even settle for a salad or a piece of fruit."

She stepped back from me and dove under the cot. Her muffled voice carried over the sound of something being dragged over the stone floor. "You, my hungry man, are in luck."

When she stood, she held the handle of a large plastic cooler. She hefted the box onto the cot beside me and popped open the lid. I looked inside. The cooler was full of fruit—apples, oranges, even a few pairs—and what looked like plastic-wrapped sandwiches.

My jaw dropped open and I did a triple take, looking quickly between her and the cooler and then back again. "What the fuck?" I gasped. "They left us food? What, are these the world's most courteous killer vampires?"

She sobered immediately. "I don't think courtesy has anything to do with it Jake."

She reached into the cooler, removed and unwrapped a sandwich, and handed it to me. I took an experimental bite. It was surprisingly good ham and cheese on rye. Could have used some spicy mustard, but what the hell. I was hungry enough not to complain. I began wolfing down the sandwich.

"I think they need us—or rather, me—in good health for what Joham has planned."

My appetite died instantly. The food in my mouth became as appealing as a heap of maggots. I wanted to vomit, but forced myself to chew and swallow.

"Shit, Ness," I muttered, throwing the half-eaten sandwich on top of the discarded plastic wrap that she'd left on the bed. "Don't even think about that. I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

She took a deep breath, rewrapped my half sandwich and placed it in the box. She covered the cooler, placed it on the floor and then sat down beside me on the bed. She took my shaking hand in both of hers.

"Jake, we need to think about it," she said. "We need to talk about it, too."

I didn't want to do either, even though I knew I was missing something, some reason why Nahuel's father left me alive, too, instead of just keeping her. I knew what Joham wanted from my imprint, and thinking about it was going to bring that half a sandwich right back out the way it had gone in. But Renesmee wasn't going to let this go so easily. Obviously, she'd had seventy-two hours to think over what she was about to say. I waited.

"I know my family is coming for us and that your plan has a good chance of working," she began. "I know we have every reason to hope that we'll get out of this and be fine. But things can always go wrong. Joham's had me in his power for three days now. It's nothing but luck that he's been too distracted to act on what we both know he really wants from me."

I swallowed hard and gripped her hand tightly. I was probably hurting her, but I couldn't force my fingers to let go. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you," I repeated, but my voice sounded feeble and my promise fragile, even to my own ears. I couldn't look at her.

A fragment of my mind was snagging on something she'd just said, about it being only luck that Joham had left us alone so far. Everything I knew of this vamp made me think he wouldn't let luck play a role in his plans. What was I missing? I needed to think about this some more, but Renesmee was relentless.

"Shit happens Jake," she pressed. "Sometimes you can't prevent it; you can only prepare for it. People who hope for the best and plan for the worst are the ones best equipped to survive when the worst happens."

My eyes shot to hers. I'd never heard her talk this way. Like a world-weary immortal who'd already seen too much. Like she was a century older than me. I didn't like it.

"Ness …"

She ruthlessly cut me off. "I do not want to lose my virginity to Nahuel's psychotic father," she said harshly. "And if you want to make sure that doesn't happen to me, then you need to help me, Jacob Black."

My brain split in two.

The eighty percent portion of the split was horrified at what she was hinting at, and was in total revolt at the suggestion that I make love to her for the first time in this shithole of a prison with an axe hanging over our heads. The twenty percent portion—the part that was all possessive Alpha wolf, the part that was howling "mine, mine, mine"—immediately put my damned double-crossing dick on high alert.

That animal twenty percent of my brain was quickly gnawing away at the noble, human eighty percent. When had this conversation spiraled out of control and how had it taken my brain and body with it so quickly?

"Ness, this isn't right," I said weakly, trying to reclaim my equilibrium. The pressure in my crotch protested painfully, disagreeing with my mouth. "This isn't how we want our first time together to be. You shouldn't be jumping into this out of fear."

"This isn't about fear," she countered immediately. "I'm not asking for this because I'm afraid and I want you to fix it. I'm asking for this because I want to control this decision. I choose you. Not only for my first time, but for all of eternity."

She climbed into my lap and shoved me backward on the bed. I was a weak asshole; part of me wanted to give in, so I let her topple me onto my back. She straddled me and braced her hands on my chest. Sliding her hips down my body, she rubbed her crotch over the fly of my cutoffs. I moaned at the sensation of her damp heat pressing down on my raging hard-on.

"Don't let Joham take this choice away from me," she whispered, her voice low, begging and urgent.

She grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and in one smooth motion pulled it over her head. At the sight of her perfect tits encased in nothing but a few scraps of blue lace, every molecule of air in my lungs rushed out of my body in a single concentrated gasp. My last functioning brain cells went on a lunch break. Apparently recognizing that the hall monitor had left the building, my hands seized the opportunity to reach up and settle on Renesmee's skin, just below the miniscule strands of string and lace that she was passing off as a bra.

Hot. Soft. Feels so fucking good.

"There's just enough time, baby," she murmured, leaning forward so that her breasts pressed together and her cleavage dipped low over my face.

"Please, Jake," she begged. "Please make love to me."

E/N:Yeah, I guess this is where I should say I'm sorry for torturing you all with the second consecutive cliffie in a row. What can I say? I'm evil. Will it make you all feel better if tell you that the next chapter will NOT end in a cliffie?

SSW passed it's 500th review last chapter. I'm amazed at the response and deeply grateful for every kind word you've all shared. Kycee was the 500th reviewer and as a thank you I asked her to tell me what outtake she'd like to see next. Her idea was marvelous and challenging. I'm working on it and I think you'll all enjoy it once it's done.

See you all next week!