Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 40966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
[10:02 PM — AGENT: KAI has entered the meeting]
[10:02 PM — AGENT: KAI has enabled Profanity Filter: Auto-Emoji Mode]
David: Welcome back, everyone. Before we begin, I've appointed Kai as moderator and the new language filter has been enabled because last month's transcript was forwarded to the Deputy Director's office and I had to explain what "rearrange my guts" meant in a literary context. Also, just so everyone's aware, this call is [audio drops] ...internal affairs... [static] ...flagged for...
Castillo: Wait. Did he just say internal—
Kowalski: That is CENSORSHIP, David.
Castillo: —Kowalski, hold on, I think he said internal aff—
Kowalski: I will NOT survive this filter. I have not slept since I finished this book. I am unhinged. I am FERAL. I am in my villain era except the villain is a woman lying facedown on her bedroom floor thinking about a man whose mother named him after a BIBLICAL DEMON POSSESSION VERSE and I need everyone on this call to understand I am NOT ing OKAY—
David: See? The filter works fine.
Kai: It works great. Hey, Kowalski — you know what else is fine? The way you get when you're all worked up about a book. I want to stick my fingers in your pussy, pin you against a wall with my dick, and hear you moan my name the way Savannah says Leg—
Kowalski: …
David: …
Marsh: …
Castillo: …The filter doesn't catch that?
Kai: It was supposed to catch that.
David: It catches PROFANITY, Kai. Not— whatever THAT was.
Kai: I need a different filter.
[10:08 PM — AGENT: KAI has enabled REDACTION FILTER: BookTok Mode]
Kai: Testing. Kowalski, I want to you until you and then —
David: KAI.
Kai: What? It's all emojis now. Nobody knows what that means.
Kowalski: EVERYBODY knows what that means.
Kai: Then everybody has great taste. Can we talk about the book?
David: We are NEVER discussing this again. Let's talk about the book. I thought Dust and Flowers was a grounded, mature exploration of class dynamics in rural Montana—
Kowalski: CLASS DYNAMICS? He strung fairy lights in an abandoned grain silo and waited at midnight for her to gallop bareback through a creek bed on a half-million-dollar horse. He made DIRT sacred, David. I want to bite that man on his freshly branded chest and I am not being metaphorical.
David: …Let's start with the opening. Cash picks Legion up from Whitefall, delivers a warning, and leaves him stranded on the highway. I thought Cash raised some valid—
Marsh: Don't say valid.
David: He's protecting his sister from a convicted criminal.
Castillo: He transported Legion under false pretenses and abandoned him forty miles from the nearest settlement in extreme heat without means of communication. Montana Code 45-5-302. Reckless endangerment at minimum.
David: He gave him a ride.
Castillo: He gave him a psychological operation with leather seats. I've also been mapping the route. Based on described landmarks and driving time from Whitefall to Drybone—
Kowalski: Castillo, are you on Google Earth right now?
Castillo: I am conducting geographic verification relevant to the incident file.
Kowalski: We don't HAVE an incident file.
Castillo: The Badlands MC compound sits approximately six miles southeast of Terry, Montana. Property off Highway 253. Correct acreage, sight lines to the Yellowstone River valley, access to the Terry Badlands formation. I have coordinates. 46.7918° N, 105.2847° W.
Kowalski: You GPS'd the fictional clubhouse.
Castillo: The author provides extremely detailed geographic data. I would be negligent not to cross-reference.
Kowalski: Negligent to WHOM?
Castillo: To the process, Kowalski.
David: MOVING ON. Cash shows Legion a staged engagement photo and tells him Savannah called their relationship "a phase." I think that's a fair characterization—
Kowalski: A PHASE? They've been meeting at that silo for SIX YEARS. Childhood sweethearts. Secret relationship. Forbidden love across a class divide that makes the Montagues and Capulets look like a HOA dispute. That is not a phase. That is an ing INEVITABILITY and I want to climb Legion Kane like the grain silo he decorated for her.
Marsh: Kowalski, from a clinical perspective, you are describing a trauma bond with a fictional character.
Kowalski: I am describing LOVE, Marsh. Raw. Feral. Down-bad-since-fourteen love. He carved their initials in a tree at fifteen and she VIOLENTLY crossed them out while he was in prison because "he makes her sad" and STILL brought groceries to his nine-year-old sister twice a month. That's not a trauma bond. That's a ing VOCATION.
David: Can we talk about Marcus?
Castillo: Can we not.
David: Georgetown-educated. Politically connected. Offering Savannah stability and—
Kowalski: He calls her follower count "rural demographic reach." That's not a fiancé. That's a campaign manager with a ring budget.
David: He's under stress. The bikers crashed his—
Castillo: An entire MC executed a coordinated tactical formation up a private driveway during a political event with a sitting senator present. Zero weapons discharged. Textbook disruption op.
Kowalski: Most romantic thing I've ever read.
Castillo: Those aren't mutually exclusive and that concerns me.
David: Then Marcus pushes Savannah and she falls, and honestly that's nothing compared to what he does in Book—