Chelsea 0:12
Welcome back to Beyond the Sectors! My name is Chelsea.
Ana 0:16
And I’m Ana.
Chelsea 0:16
And thank you guys so much for joining us for our second episode. Thank you guys so much for all your great feedback on our first episode, we’ve had so many of you reaching out to us saying great things on Twitter and just really responding positively. And that feels great. And we love it. And you never quite know when you’re doing a new thing, how the new thing is going to go. So.
Ana 0:35
Absolutely! Keep letting us know if we’re hitting what you want us to talk about. If you want to hear different things, let us know too.
And we’ve already had a couple of requests for further books in the series for specific characters or some themes and kind of stuff that comes up. So if you have something specific you want us to look at or that really means a lot to you that you’d like us to touch on, definitely let us know you and I both have our DMS open or you can go to the show Twitter itself and us know there there’s lots of ways to get in touch with us.
Without further ado, we are here today to talk about the second Beyond book. If this is your first time joining us, Ana and I are here to talk about Kit Rocha’s Beyond books, the SF romance semi dystopian bisexual love army series that we all adore. And this is the second book, we’re talking about Beyond Control today. As we usually do, or did last time, do you want to do like the tiniest like plot summary for us Ana?
Yeah, so we picked up just a few weeks after Beyond Shame. And this book is really centered on Dallas and Lex, the king and queen of sector four. And a cataclysmic tattoo sort of triggers big change in Lex and Dallas’s relationship, where they’ve been circling around each other for years, they’ve built a gang together, but they’ve never committed the whole way. And now Lex throws down a challenge.
Yeah, Lex Perrino, she’s not fucking around friends, and neither is Dallas. And so that definitely leads to some big changes between them pretty fast.
Absolutely.
Chelsea 2:26
And then they kind of have to reckon with how fast they made those changes and all those things. This book is originally I will admit, was my least favorite of all of the books when I first read through the series, and I think it’s because like, like Dallas and I got we got some we got some growing pains there in the beginning, man.
Ana 2:48
He screws up pretty badly in this book.
Yeah, man. He’s like, like, everybody learns, everybody grows up. He’s kind of a jerk face in this book. I’m like, several different occasions,
You know, and going back and reading get again, I understand a little bit of why he screwed up the way he screwed up. Especially Kit Rocha come back and they do some short stories set before this at the beginning of their relationship, and you sort of get a sense of that. But you know, you’re very much – Lex is, my girl. And I was like, Oh, no, no, no, no. What?
Yeah, like, no, no, no. And again, we talked a little bit in the first episode, picking up these books, like the the context and like the framework of kind of the genres as a whole, like, as we were reading, and I think, because it was only the second book, and I read them so fast. I had a really hard time kind of teasing out some of those more subtle character aspects and changes in Dallas. And I think the first time I read them, I just read them as like, big alpha boss, man, asshole who keeps like, fucking this up, and the other people around him in his life, have the grace and forgiveness and I just didn’t have a lot of like, leeway for Dallas. And I think that, I mean, that definitely has changed since then both as the books have gone on, and also rereading this one. Because he’s got reasons, and they’re not great reasons.
But he has rules. And he has very specific parameters in which he has relationships, and specific roles he puts people in. And he knows there’s something broken about how Lex sees relationships. So he’s sort of very hesitant to go that one more step. But he still screws up dramatically in completely the way he doesn’t expect. He thinks, you know, he thinks he’s got this figured out. Finally, she has the collar. It’s gonna be good Oh, offer comes to the table. And then he’s like, you’re like no. And he consistently through the book where you’re like ahh!
Chelsea 4:51
It’s because it’s, it’s always when he thinks he can get one over on Lex specifically. And he, it’s not so much there are times when I think he does underestimate her. But it’s not so much that as he just literally doesn’t he really thinks he’s got it figured out.
It’s coming from like, he thinks he’s protecting her from something. Like, if he stands between her and some Sector Three dudes, he thinks he’s protecting her from the rudeness or whatnot. And in fact, she’s like, no, you’re undermining me. And when he takes an offer, and he thinks like, well, I can do this and still get away with it. And it will be okay. She’ll never have to know, again, he thinks he’s protecting her. It was where he thinks I’m going to take down Jared woods. And it’s going to be all me. He’s protecting her. And she’s like, No, none of this. None of this is protecting me.
Ana 5:51
And I think that’s and that’s the really interesting. And that’s what’s so great about I think reading this book, particularly like slowly and really kind of watching how all those was relationship dynamics between them really get pulled out because this looks really complicated. And that’s something that I realized every time I go back and reread it like, because there’s this one level of power dynamics that is this, like showboating, showing other people’s specifically like the other sector leaders this power dynamic, but then there’s this like, actual power dynamic between Lex and Dallas. And then there’s this third level of this, like, relationship stuff they haven’t quite figured out yet that is popping itself up. And so they have to tease their way through all of that and find a way that lets Lex keep her freedom and her autonomy and the power she’s rightfully brought to this group, just like the family as an organization, while also not undermining Dallas, and respecting that, like, he also has a role to fill. And so I think there’s a lot of really interesting stuff in here that echoes on to what we were talking about the last book was like performativity and the roles you perform and how you fit that and where it crosses with, like the way you really feel.
Chelsea 6:58
Yeah. And then there’s, there’s a lot of work in that for Lex, I mean, like, and I think like Kit Rocha, do a little bait and switch in this book, in terms of what you think is going to be the conflict in the relationship, which is like you think it’s going to be the sexual stuff. Where Lex has this very open sexuality where she wants to experience and feel and have all this stuff. And that was very possessive, he collars his women, he’s very possessive about his women. So you think, Oh, goodness, how is that ever going to mesh. And that’s not really the central conflict. Like, I mean, there is that thing where he has to push her to express her own desires, rather than always fulfilling other people’s dreams and desires. And I mean, I thought that was really beautiful. He gives her like the dream that she has, and he can show himself to be trustworthy in the sexual aspect. But that’s really not where their central conflict is. The central conflict, like she’s willing to trust them with sex, almost all right off the bat almost too much, which is the challenge that they have to figure out there. It’s really about trusting her as a full and equal partner, as somebody like you come talk to about crazy offers who you think of as will be affected by those things?
Ana 8:12
Yeah. And that’s because there’s a scene at the very, towards the very beginning, after the kind of inflammatory tattoo has been revealed, where basically Dallas asked Lex for her list – her list of like, hard knows her list of hard, yeses, the whole breakdown – and he’s gonna get his list together and when they come to exchange, the only thing on Lex’s list is that they do it together, all of it. And they say, and Dallas thinks that that, again, he thinks he’s got it figured out. He thinks from the beginning that he kind of knows what that means. But as and it’s almost a again, a theme to the story is that as that unravels, they both realize what a big ask that is, and what it actually means to do everything together. Not just the sexual stuff, not just the sharing of partners, but the sharing of power and sharing of risk and the sharing of trust in a situation that’s growing, like increasingly dangerous behind them in terms of like, the political stuff going on in the background of this book.
Yeah, I mean, it was so interesting that I mean, as I read Beyond Shame, I was like, oh, and jumped into Beyond Control. And this was the point in the books were realized, oh, we’re really doing the politics stuff. This is for real, you know, you have them leave Sector Four, go to sector to which is a coming home a very dangerous and difficult coming home for Lex, where she goes back to Orchid House, we get to figure out that Orchid House is something different that there’s different kinds of trainings you get to be an escort in this world, and how dangerous. And you really get the sense that Lex is this honed blade. And in that she cuts herself all the time, because of her own training. And so it was fascinating to meet Cerys, we also meet Jade, we meet a lot of other people who have very different relationships in terms to the performative sense of sexual freedom, right? You know that there, and it’s, it’s a consumer service, you know, it’s a resource that they train out, they, they gather young women from difficult situations, they’re sold into these houses. And you have Cerys, who sort of feels like she’s protective of her of her girls, right. And Lex having that very negative relationship, a feeling having been felt that she had to leave and that, that trauma, when she meets her sees her sister again, right? Who’s happy, quote, unquote.
Chelsea 10:43
Oh, and that scene is so hard to read, because it she is happy in the context that she has to be happy in. Her sister has found a way to find personal happiness in a situation that that would be very difficult to be in, but it’s just. You’re looking at it through Lex’s eyes. And Lex has found an actual sense of freedom and agency and actual potential happiness. And it’s so-
Ana 11:08
And she feels she doesn’t heave the language to explain it to her sister. Because her sister sees her tattoos, she sees bruising. And she sees all those things. And she goes, there’s no way my sister can read my happiness is happiness. So they have that huge disconnect of who’s actually happy? Are they either have them happy, you know? Yeah, yeah, that’s such a heartbreaking thing.
And that’s a really interesting question that I think we watch unfold, like throughout the series, of how happiness is identified within each sector and how those things can overlap. And what that says about the quote, like, morality or the ethical components of each different sector, because this book, really, like in the first book, we meet a lot of O’Kanes, we get a ton of world building within kind of the compound and Sector Four and how that goes. But this is the first step we really get to like, open the door into an actual like a world beyond that. It’s not just Eden and Sector Four. So we start to get those indications and vibes of what each sector does what each sector is, quote good for, and the kind of people that run it. There’s that scene that or that line that I think is really interesting, where Dallas is talking about, of course, Cherys came to ask Lex, because somebody who had stayed in Orchid House, or stayed in the sector, wouldn’t have that same kind of ruthlessness or anger to do the things that are required as the head of a house. So there’s a great irony in Lex escaping only to that make her the best candidate to go back and actually run this potential sector and make maybe change in the way that she’s always wanted to make change.
Chelsea 12:46
Right. It’s such a devil’s bargain that is offered her. You can see that yes, Lex cares about the girls, Lex cares, that she would do anything for them. That is actually attractive to Cherys. But at the same time, she cannot trust Cherys. And she does, she sees the overreach that it would be. I remember also being really sort of heartbroken in that conversation. Because it really made me realize that Dallas didn’t realize that she’s already on equal footing with him. Because he feels like well, then she would have her own sector, then we’re both sector leaders, instead of he had not yet realized No, you’re already both sector leaders, and should be. You know, there was that moment of like yeah buddy, you need to get your head figured out.
Ana 13:37
And I think that’s one of the not the first but I think one of the biggest kind of realizations for Dallas is that he is his awareness of the fact that he keeps trying to give Lex something that Lex already has, and it’s less about the giving of it than the recognition that it’s not his to give to begin with. Which is a is a is a thing that pops up like again and again throughout this book, because it goes back to like consent and control. But I just think that that’s it’s really interesting, because like you said, the whole book starts off with this tattoo. And that’s something that Lex just does. She doesn’t ask him about it, she doesn’t tell him it’s going to happen. He doesn’t get any say in it. And the first thing he does when he sees it, is he kind of freaks out and does his own little like power grab and like, she throws down her gauntlet, he has to throw down on his and all of a sudden she’s got his collar on. And they’ve entered into this whole new level of relationship between themselves but also with the gang.
Chelsea 14:38
That’s such a big thing, where he, you know, he’s constantly thinking that he can’t reach for something and this kind of thing that precariousness that he views in his own power. Like he feels insecure that if he reaches for something and fails, and that is collaring Lex, his sort of legitimacy is going to be completely destroyed. So there is that sort of like, that’s all born out of us a certain kind of insecurity for himself.
Oh, for sure.
Ana 14:56
And then you see, like, when everything implodes, how that works out in the gang, you know, Noelle’s ready to go cut him. And Jas is sort of training to take over Sector Four, it’s potentially possible. So there is that element of like, figure yourself out, buddy.
And you can kind of see in this book, a little bit of those cracks, because like you said, it comes back to this insecurity. Like, Dallas doesn’t trust the gang, basically. Like he’ll trust them to protect him physically and all this, but he doesn’t trust that if he makes a mistake, as a leader, they won’t all immediately abandon him. And as we learned him, there are reasons he’s, you know, we’ve all got baggage, and he’s got some baggage for stuff like that, but, and I think you see that when, you know, Mad and Bren and Jas, they all kind of have their times to talk with either Lex or Dallas, and you can kind of you can tell that they can tell, you know that the gang can tell that Dallas doesn’t really trust them that last like 1%, and it affects them and it affects them each in different ways. But it does affect them. And stopping that and getting over that is part of Dallas’s kind of journey over the arc of everything. And that comes in training Jas, it comes as more people come into the gang and things kind of he has to loosen his control a tiny bit.
Chelsea 16:32
And he has to trust them to tell him when he’s gone too far. Because he lashes out emotionally, and really occasionally in really cruel ways with fellow gang members. And Jas has to sort of tell them stop being this asshole You. You. We love you. And we’re backing you up. But come on now.
Ana 16:51
Yeah. And yeah, and there’s a difference between you being your prickly self and actually snapping at people and being a jerk and being an asshole.
Chelsea 16:59
Part of that conversation is that it unearths, the fact that Dallas really feels he’s lost Jas because Jas has entered this relationship, right? He belongs to Noelle, and so he’s not so much his brother. That’s how he sees it. And he sees it as a loss rather than something fabulous happening to his friend and Jas is sort of like, you haven’t lost me I am here for you, is sort of something he needs to start seeing. That having that exclusivity, having this relationship, is not going to close off relationships, it’s going to open them up. And so he has to sort of like stop seeing these things as a loss but more as a gain for the gang as a whole. Right? More people being stable and in relationships and and connections can make everybody happier. And yeah, better, stronger army.
Ana 17:53
And yeah, and I think a little and I think that comes from a little bit of it gets expressed with him as well, because that’s, that’s what he thinks will happen to him. If he fully commits to Lex, that he that then somehow the gang will be losing because he will have to put her first or that putting her first means also putting the gang second that they can’t both be on some kind of like equal footing and that he’s always got these puzzle pieces of hierarchy moving in his head, which I think is in part because he is the sector leader. And we see in this book that he’s got to play those politics and moving pieces with the other sectors on like the big scale, but I think he has a hard time shutting that off and not doing that within his own family unit. And that makes a lot of tension.
Chelsea 18:31
And I mean, there’s so much conversation about personas. We have the Declan vs. Dallas divide.
Ana 18:38
Right, you have your Lex and your Alexa, they both have their-
Chelsea 18:41
Yeah, they both have this performative persona that they put out. It’s the debauched rock star hero kind of person.
Yeah. Your gang leader of the notorious sector or whatever.
He says inflammatory things in meetings, to get other people to react and show their hand, right? And I really love the scene where Lex is sort of styling Dallas before the meeting, where you know, they’re choosing what belts he’s going to wear and what you know how just how open his shirt is going to be and how that very much is Lex’s contribution. Like, all along she’s managed that element to it. Like this is not something – he was he wasn’t born a smooth sector leader. Yeah. And so yeah, that’s always very neat to see I thought of like the behind the scenes element to that
Ana 19:37
And there’s always it’s just another really great use of Kit Rocha is so good as a pair of using that tactile resource description as like character indicators. Like we see you know, you see in the first book, Noelle picking out her first clothes in the sector that weren’t from Eden and how big a deal that is for her and her character. Same thing going on here is that your crafting, you know, Lex is intentional crafting that persona. And there’s talk of that they talked about how you know, if everybody is just busy thinking that Dallas is boozing and whoring that he can’t be also listening and crafting a plan. And so they work a lot with underestimation, and like you’re saying presumption and assumptions, and it’s just, and they do that to the other people too. And I think sometimes that we see a little bit of that, I think we saw it with Cherys, when Dallas realizes that there’s maybe a little bit more tiredness or sadness, or just being weary.
We really get of Cherys being weary of the role that she has to play, of having to cater to men’s desires, and makes her just a little bit sympathetic. Which is, again, one of the things that for me builds the storyline for the series, because you can see her as a worthy villain in a sense, because, you know, she, she’s often in opposition to what’s happening in Sector Four but you really understand that, messed up as her worldview is, there’s real humaneness hiding behind there, you know. So it’s not as easy to just sort of dismiss her as just a high class pimp. No, there’s, there’s more to it, to who she is.
Chelsea 21:17
And I think it’s, I think that’s something that we learn a lot as we go through the books is that this is a world that’s rarely full of black and white, good people and bad people. There are people who stand in opposition to our kind of heroes and heroines and the things that they’re trying to do. There are some people later on, especially like from Eden, who we meet who are mostly just bad people. But for the for the most part, anybody who we actually kind of get to know across the whole series is there’s some layers there.
Ana 21:44
There’s no reason to Jared woods, some other people will see later. Yeah, no, but I mean, when you get to meet Finn, in this book, first as sort of the second and command to – is it Five, the Medical District?
Chelsea 22:01
Yeah, yeah.
The factories and all that. Um, he’s a scary dude. Um, yeah, he’s not a good he’s not a good dude. And then he has sort of has an agenda that you don’t expect, because he is also not just like your typical henchmen that you expect to be. And of course, we’re going to see later that’s even more complicated. Yeah. But you know, so we get to meet him there another character that we get to spend some time with us Maddox. Yeah. And, and also introduced to Gideon, his cousin,
Ana 22:35
And Gideon, which that’s playing the long long game because we’ve got like eight more books in this series before we even get to where Gideon lives.
Chelsea 22:46
Because it’s such an interesting thing to also see like that’s the first thing that shows you Dallas is jealousy of not understanding the pieces of Lex that she does for herself. She’s also trying to protect him by excluding him from that part of her life, her little secret missions because it basically will complicate things for the gang, but he’s like, but it endangers you so it matters to me. But there’s an interchange where you we meet Gideon and he said a rubs Dallas’s nose in it like he sort of knows something about Lex.
Ana 23:26
Oh, yeah, he’s got secrets about Lex. And he’s not sharing, but he’s telling Dallas, he has secrets. And he does the thing where he’s like, well, you just need to talk to Lex. It’s not my secrets. You should talk to Lex. It’s not my story, which is just like ughh.
Then you shouldn’t have hinted at it, buddy. But it was fun!
Chelsea 23:45
And see, I love Gideon. Gideon is kind of an asshole. But like, in that way, the Ace is, too,where he’ll do stuff like that, he’ll like poke and he’ll needle.
Ana 23:52
It was a test. He was testing Dallas of like, how much has Lex trusted you?And that was our like, oh, there’s still some girl here.
Yeah, and I really and that’s I love the thing I love most about this book is that journey that they take to Sector Two. To Cherys’s. Where we get to see all the first starting of those other players, the leaders of the other sectors and how the bigger world as a whole kind of fits together. I would say in addition to meeting all those new people, we also get more glimpses of both Bren and Six, who will be the heroes of book three. I’m so excited. I love them so much. I just love them so much and in booked four we also see more of the – this is I think really where we start to see some of the kind of sweater start to unravel between Rachel and Ace and Cruz and like the very background. We start to see how those pieces of kind of all gone to shit, basically, so that when their book comes around, there’s some rebuilding to do.
So because yeah, Cruz has now come in and he’s in Sector Four.
Chelsea 24:57
We meet him at the end of book one, he helps out the gang with her big favor. And so they take him in when he gets burned from Eden basically.
Right, he’s sort of trying to figure out the lay of the land. What is it like here? What are the rules, and he falls fairly quickly for Rachel. Rachel still be like, Oh, I didn’t expect that. But her heart, as we know, is not so easily divided.
Ana 25:23
And we get to see that, like we hit the tiniest little bit of Ace pining in this one, although there’s more pining to come. It’s just so good. Alexander Santana is so wonderful. But, um, but yeah, it’s interesting because we finally it’s the littlest glimpses. But we also finally start to see the shell falling away from Six a little bit, specifically, and only where Bren is concerned, but also a little bit with Noelle. And when she’s hanging out with some of the girls,studied. She’s learning to maybe question some of the ways she’s been waiting and the small talk and doing the the family things and being touched and being in a group of people and not always having to sit with her back to the wall and some of those ingrained habits she made for herself to survive. We already see kind of starting to fall away.
And then there’s that great stuff where part of Lex taking on, like, the official sort of position is, you know, she’s right there for dealing with Six when Six is still trying to feel things out. Like is it in this book, where she comes back to Dallas room and she’s in the bed?
Six has gotten naked in Dallas as bad and is waiting for Dallas to come back. And Lex shows up instead. And literally just like flips on the lights and does like the sigh and, like, grabs herclothes and tosses her her clothes and was like. Listen, that’s not gonna work here. This is not gonna work. But and that’s the great thing about Lex is – she’s not mad. She understands. Like, this is not the kind of community where she’s going to fly off the handle and get mad. If Dallas had come home first. There is not a way in that that was going to be happening.
Chelsea 26:59
Oh, it’d probably have been more like Dallas frantically trying to take her out of the room because he doesn’t like screw up with LEx.
Ana 27:06
Yeah, like push up, push her out before anybody can come in and find out but but Six doesn’t know any of that. And so there’s this really great conversation where Lex just kind of levels with her and explains like, this is maybe what you have to do to survive there. But that’s not how the game works here and kind of give her the same rundown that she had to give Noelle, just in a different tone and in a different way because Six is coming from such a different place.
Right? Because, and I we all explore this in Six’s books because of so much. I think she recognizes who Six wanted to be and has the potential of being and sees just how, like. Girl, you’re not you’re not getting us yet. No. And I think that’s that’s such a wonderful moment. There’s no flying off the handle. There’s really like, there’s no real anger except at the fact that-
Chelsea 27:57
That she doesn’t get it yet. That Six hasn’t learned yet that that’s not – Lex is almost frustrated that the gang hasn’t shown Six enough that that’s not how that works here like that just the general atmosphere hasn’t been enough. So she’s not really angry at Six, so much as frustrated. Just like that’s not we keep trying to tell you or show you. That’s not how that’s going to work here.
Ana 28:17
Right, and there’s a there’s a thing where both blacks and Dallas field distracted from their positions by where their relationship is going wrong. And it’s interesting, because they really need to spend that time to figure themselves out. This is necessary. I mean, at the beginning, you know, Dallas is very upset that they didn’t get to negotiate, you know, all these rules before he collared her. And that’s where like they need to negotiate what they’re going to, their life is going to be like. And yeah, it’s taking them away from being able to figure out what is happening with a Rachel and Cruz and Ace, it’s taking them away – and it isn’t because like they’re having happy times in bed the whole time. No, it’s actually as they’re doing really emotional stuff.
Chelsea 29:05
Yeah. And it takes them until the end of the book to realize that taking that time to do that emotional work in the long run will be better because the stability of the two of them is so important to the dynamics in the setup within the family and within all of the like trickle down power structures like from that. So taking that time to figure that out, is going to do more in the long run for the gang than necessarily being in every day to day detail. All of the time.
Ana 29:33
I know, there’s that moment near the end of the book when they’ve broken up. Lex, is making noises about leaving, but really not leaving because she doesn’t want to leave. And she steps up and is Lex for, for him in a moment where he really needs her. And it sort of I think I shows Dallas, A) how much he needs her and B) that that everything is as broken as he thinks that it is. He thinks – he’s given up. You know, he’s sort of like I screwed up. I’m done, you know, and it’s like,
Yeah, she’s gone. It’s whatever we’re done.
And he realizes then she was willing to do that for me. Maybe there’s a place to grow from.
Yeah. Which is always a wonderful place to get to. Okay, moving towards wrapping it up. Did we have any extra favorite parts or favorite scenes, anything like that?
Chelsea 30:30
For me? It was funny. I was listening to this as an audiobook at regular speed. One person. And I was I spent four commutes listening to the big sex scene. Where they’re-
Ana 30:45
Oh, yeah, the huge, like, orgy. It’s her and then I mean, one on one.
Chelsea 30:50
Yeah. And it’s in our I mean, I remember it being really long reading in the book and not like in a bad way. Just in a like, Whoa, we’re into this. But having to listen to it for like four days in a row, coming and going from work
Still having sex. Still fucking!
Ana 31:08
So I discovered one and a quarter time is still sexy. But much faster
Chelsea 31:16
Yeah, I tend to go to one and a half with the sex scenes. Mostly because I’ve got the general biology of it all figured out. But uh, that I like that scenes are so long in this book, because there’s actually a lot of really great stuff.
A lot of great emotional work that happens. Yes, yeah.
But uh, I’m always going to be a fan of Lex smacking and Gareth Woods across the face with a motherfucking four foot bong, putting a piece of glass in his neck. That’s always going to be a favorite moment!
Ana 31:41
Oh, I mean, that that moment or, you know, when she’s watching Jade crawl ever saw slowly to that door in anguish, and she’s like, she’s not gonna die here. And she’s not going to, you know, let this man walk out of here like that there that sort of fear of no, yes. If I sort of want an action movie, slow mo scene for Jared Woods, you know. And because it is such a hero moment, right? That she gets to have there. And it’s so vulnerable too, because she’s put herself in that place. And because she’s saving Jade, she’s doing her thing. And she’s also there to save Dallas. And that’s where there’s that really flip in the story, where Jared Woods has become this talisman that Dallas is trying to get a hold of. And he was never his to kill. It was always something that Lex needed to do. BNot so much because he shot her but because he does this to women. You know, it’s like,
Chelsea 32:49
it’s interesting that you put it that way because that to me makes it even more clear, like the mirror between Gareth woods and Dallas and Lex and then what Bren did for Six, actually giving her the chance at the retribution that she had kind of rightfully earned, and deserved the chance, at least the option to take. I love that scene right after Lex does what she does, because it’s it’s like from an action movie, like you literally see like, Dallas bursting in, he’s got the whole gang behind him. But the dust is already settling and Lex is just like sitting there and the dude is dead. And she’s like, what are you doing here, I already fixed it all. And like, that’s not quite how it goes down. But it’s very much so this like, he rushes in ready to take her down and like she’s already done it and he’s just kind of left standing there being like okay!
Ana 33:37
And then they have to play this little thing with Finn. But it’s it’s really sort of, you can see the adrenaline and settling for all of them. They just want to go home and go to sleep. They just have to clean up you can see her like covered in blood, not even her own.
Everyone just wants a shower and a nap. And really, it’s that moment where like Dallas has already realized, but he’s able to fully see and point out to other people, that she can, she’s got it, she can take care of herself. Whether, you know – this wasn’t the smartest decision, but she came out on the other side. So there’s some trust on both sides that needs to be had.
Chelsea 34:17
Absolutely. So no, I mean, that final scene – I love their tattoos. I love that it’s the crowns and that their names are in the back. Such a private thing, like very much that duality of their relationship or they’re this to the gang, but they will always be Declan and Alexa to each other.
Ana 34:39
Yeah, and Kit Rocha always does so good with the tattoos. If you’re reading these book for the first time, watch those tattoos friends, because there’s always more stuff going on there. And they’re always really good.
Chelsea 35:00
That leaves us set up for moving on to our next book. So we’ll go ahead and wrap this up and let you guys know we will be back in another couple weeks to talk about Beyond Pain, which as we’ve already mentioned, that’s one of my favorites books – three and four are probably some of my favorites in the entire series.
Some great heroines who have some stuff to figure out, yeah.
Some stuff to figure out and the big dudes who just have to sort through their emotions. I love it so much. Beyond Pain is the Book about Six and Bren. And so we get to kind of watch this feral cat and protective stoic soldier learn to trust and be in love with each other. And I’m so excited because it’s so good. It’s my favorite. Yeah! But so come back in a couple of weeks. Pick it up in the meantime, if you have not gotten a chance to read it yet. Do you want to let people know where they can find us online Ana?
Go to beyondthesectors.com, that is our blog. We have links to our Podbean and finally iTunes feeds.
Yeah, they finally – iTunes. Come on, you guys. You do this all the time. It should not take that long. Come on now.
You can find us there! And you can also sign up for our newsletter will send out a little mailing anytime that we have a new show out.
Perfect! And of course, as you should be doing with all of your favorite podcast by now: review, rate, tweet out the link. Do all that stuff that people are always telling you to do anyway, I know you’ve heard that spiel before. But until next time, friends, that you can find me on Twitter @anoutlawlife.
Ana 36:29
You can find me @anacoqui!
Chelsea 36:30
And we will see you next time beyond the sectors, friends. Bye!
Ana 36:34
Bye!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai, edited by Chelsea
Beyond The Sectors Podcast 