For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Greetings everyone! It is a somewhat sunny day today with a temperature of 10F (-12C) with just a light wind. It is supposed to get cloudy, though, with an inch or two (2-5cm) of snow overnight. Nothing serious, just enough that you have to do something with it or it packs down and builds up over the winter. Oh well.
I don’t have to deal with it anymore, so that part is nice. Although I should probably show winter pictures this time of the year, I just usually prefer summer pictures and besides, I’m sorting through my photos and I come across something that I just have to show on Thursday’s Pic Pick, so that’s what I do.

One of our harder to find wildflowers, the Indian Pipe, in the pink variety. This was found during August in a forested area.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this one of the Indian Pipe. Normally these are found in the white variety, which I find a lot, and only in two places have I found the pink variety, shown today. Have a great day everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin. ©2025 Steve McLeod.
The fight was over and it took a few minutes to discover that one of the girls was missing. It was Dawn. It also didn’t take long for Scott to send me a text with a link one of his sex videos. This one showed Dawn and it was hard for me to look at. Apparently this was already being distributed through his network of paying customers. Ivy could see that I was disturbed by what I was watching, so she turned my hand to see what it was.
“They must have drugged her Steve,” she said quietly, “there’s no way she would do that otherwise, not with those two little boys.” Sky and Kat came over next and they were furious! “We’ll tear that Shining Moon apart until we find her,” they said to me. Vincent asked if he could see what was happening and I showed it to him. “I doubt he’s doing that at the Shining Moon,” said Vincent, “too obvious, he likely has another place hidden somewhere.” “I agree,” I said, then I contacted Aari, “Aari, are you guys up yet?”
“Yep, just finishing breakfast,” he said, “what’s up?” So I told him what had happened and said I wanted him to track down the leader of that street gang. Although he had been here, Kitty was careful not to kill him in case I wanted to talk with him. But when I let Winters go, I also let that guy leave as well. A bad mistake on my part. Aari said he knew where their clubhouse was located, so they would head over there right away. I told the girls to get the cats and we would check the Shining Moon anyway, just in case.
Meanwhile, the Aari told his Wolves to get ready to ride. “What?” asked Rock, Bear and Oskar, “we’re not finished breakfast yet.” “You guys are on your 4th helping of pancakes,” he said, “this is more important.” “More important than food?” asked Oskar. Aari then told them what was going on. They each grabbed their pancakes and were out the door amazingly fast. It didn’t take them long to arrive at the clubhouse of this street gang, who like to call themselves the Flying Vultures.
I doubt they can fly fast enough to get away from the Black Wolves though. The Wolves arrived and everything seemed to be nice and quiet, that is, until Rock smashed the front door of their clubhouse and the Wolves began to overrun the place. Rock quickly found the leader, since he had his own room. Rock pulled him out of bed and dragged him outside to Aari, who then explained some things to the young man. Rock just stood over the man, smiling, while now and then cracking his knuckles.
Aari explained that Rock enjoys breaking bones and he was very capable of breaking every bone in that young man’s body. Then Aari asked him where Scott makes his videos. “Which ones?” he asked, “He has 2 places, one for adults above the Shining Moon, and one with kids at an old warehouse at the edge of town. Carine communicated this information with me and we were soon heading for the warehouse, quickly. The Black Wolves took the phones away from the Flying Vultures and told them they could pick them up at the Shining Moon later.
Then they rode off to that same warehouse to meet us. We actually arrived at about the same time and the Wolves wanted to go in first, however, that might not be good for Dawn. So I sent the ghosts inside first, along with some cats to sniff around for a hidden door or room. Kat has invented a way to keep the cats invisible, even when away from the ghosts. She had something for them before, but the effect didn’t last very long. This new idea can be adjusted to last whatever length of time we need, which will be very helpful.
Fortunately Vincent and his two men stayed behind at the Shining Moon to wait for the other men sent by The City Club. So at least I didn’t have to explain our disappearing girls and cats. There were guards posted inside the building at various places, but the ghosts did nothing to them right now. They wanted to find Dawn first, then they could take care of any guards. On the third level there was a locked steel door and two guards standing beside it.
Sky went in the room and found Dawn sitting in a big chair crying, with 10 young children also in the room, a mix of boys and girls. We were to find out that the ages of these kids ranged from 6 to 10 years old. Dawn couldn’t talk, she just sat there crying and didn’t even want to move. Kat communicated with me that they had Dawn and the children, so it was okay to come in now. She also told me where each of the guards were located and in we went.
There wasn’t really much fighting, we used guns this time, since the guards also had guns. I said there was no point in taking chances. When I got to the third level room Dawn saw me and came running over to me, hugging me. “I didn’t have any choice Steve,” she said, “they punched those little boys in the stomach when I refused and said they would keep doing it until I obeyed. I had no choice Steve, I didn’t!” “She needs her older brother right now,” Kat said to me.
I guess she’s right, so I took Dawn out to the limousine and sat with her while the others made sure there was no one else in the building. Then they took the children out to one of the vans and soon the warehouse was in flames. Scott, however, was not found in the warehouse or at the Shining Moon. The others were not hard to find though, they were having a meeting at the mayor’s office…
To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.