Hump Day Hook is a weekly blog hop where writers are invited to hook readers with just a few paragraphs from a work in progress or published work. Visit their site by clicking on the button below for a list of other participating writers and share the love!

Welp, this is the last snippet-post of July and as we can all see by looking at my Work In Progress bar, I’m not ready to go live on the book yet. So it looks like the Gann Giveaway will continue into August! (pause for cheers) To further motivate me to finish the book before September, an additional winner will be drawn when the time to publish is nigh upon me! (pause for slightly louder cheers) To recap, all of my snippets for Hump Day Hook, Sneak Peek Sundays and WeWriWa will be taken from The Last Hour of Gann, beginning with the first word on the first page way back on July the 1st, and picking up right where the previous snippet leaves off. Each time I make a post, you may enter to win a free ecopy of The Last Hour of Gann when it is published. Just remember that all my books contain graphic violence and strong sexual content, so you must explicitly tell me so each and every time you enter.

Enough about that. On with the scene in the Bierce family kitchen…

“—if you can’t even admit you’ll be a whore?”

“I can do it,” whispered Nicci, but she wouldn’t look at Amber.

“Maybe you could, but you couldn’t do it here, and you had better be sure that’s the way you want to go because they don’t let you stop anymore once you start. You’ll have to get the barcode and you’ll be subject to scans at any time. They’ll cancel your insurance—look at me, Nicci—and garnish your wages to pay for the state insurance and all your monthly tests, plus the initial registration and the operation where they spay you, and you know it took Mama five years to pay all that off. And in the meantime, where will you be living? Because you still won’t be able to pay the new lease on a state-paid whore’s salary and this place will still be just as gone.”

“Stop it!” Nicci shouted. “Stop bullying me! I’m not leaving!”

Amber pressed her lips together and folded her hands. She told herself she wasn’t a bully. “What are you going to do, Nicci? Where are you going to go?”

“Shut up!” Nicci beat her palms on the table loud enough that old Mrs. Simon in the next apartment banged her cane on the wall. “I’m not leaving! You can’t make me leave, Amber! You can’t make me leave the planet!”

“I’m not making you do anything,” said Amber, knowing damned well it was a lie. “I’m just telling you that I’m going, with or without you.”

Nicci stared, her mouth working in silent horror.

“There is no other place for us to go,” said Amber.

And she waited, but Nicci still couldn’t find anything to say, so she picked up the brochure and started to flip through it.