Safety

Chapter 13

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Soundtrack

All We Do - Oh Wonder
I've been upside down
I don't wanna be the right way round
Can't find paradise on the ground

***

I sleep better than I have in a long while. The lack of any sort of dream leaves me with an almost serene frame of mind as I roll out of bed. I long, happy sigh sneaks out as I stretch, attempting to sooth the soreness in my limbs from my out-of-the-ordinary activities yesterday.

I strip out of my pajamas and pull on barn-appropriate clothes, luckily able to track down the paddock boots that I honestly thought my mother had thrown them out after I got back but Virginia. I find them wedged in between my purple travel bag and a gold taffeta gown I was forced to wear to a banquet my parents dragged me to a few years back.

I pull the boots on, shove my cell into my pocket, and head downstairs. As I walk past the living room, I spot Jace on the couch, a beige woven blanket draped over his sleeping figure. In sleep, his face his more serene than it ever is when he's awake.

I've put him through hell this past year.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Why is there so much beeping?

All around me, I can hear mechanical beeps. They're beginning to hurt my head. I want to ask to turn them off, but my throat is so dry.

My foggy brain can't determine the source of the sounds, not in this darkness.

Darkness?

I crack open an eyelid, and am greeted with an overwhelming whiteness.

"Am I dead?" I ask aloud, my voice cracking. The question falls from my mouth against my will, and I don't expect an answer.

"Grace."

My name is a whisper in the air, and I turn to find the source.

That's when I notice the machines- heart monitors and the like. I realize I'm in a hospital.

Hands are holding mine tightly, eyes boring into my being.

I open my mouth to say his name, but the dryness in my throat eliminates my voice. I place a hand over my throat.

"Your voice? Do you want water?"

I nod vigorously, taking the bottle when he hands it to me. The liquid wets my cracked lips, washing down my throat like rain in a desert. I down half the bottle before I look up with a crooked smile.

"You always could read my mind," I joke. "I never can keep anything from you."

He stares at me for a long time, memorizing my face as if I'll disappear any moment. I squeeze his hand firmly.

"Grace Adams," he says after a while. There's a sense of finality to his words, like there's nothing else to say.

"Jace Erickson," I murmur, pulling him towards me. He hugs me to his chest, gently, as if I might break into pieces.

"Where's Avery?" I ask tentatively, embarrassed by my overwhelming need to see him.

Jace tightens his hold on me, but doesn't respond.

"He's not here?"

He should be here.

Why am I here? I don't remember.