The Rules of Survival (Mercer #1)

RoS Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

A gentle shove was enough to wake me from a dead sleep.

"Een."

"What?! Where?!"

I sat bolt upright. My eyes watered at the light streaming in through the living room window and I groaned, shielding them with my arm. Mycha reared back in alarm, saving us both from butting heads.

"What's going on?" I mumbled, rubbing my eyes and shuffling off the mattress. A little disoriented, I didn't make it to my feet on the first try. I ended up shifting my ass right off the mattress and onto the hard living room floor.

"Nothing," Mycha said, smiling at the state I was in. He helped me to my feet and I clung to him while my legs tried to remember that their main job was to keep me vertical.

Everything hurt. My hip and my fingers were the worst, but there was also a tightness in my legs and along my shoulders I didn't even know I had, and my head pounded something fierce, making me squint. Or maybe that was due to the relentlessly blinding light.

"Oh, my God! What time is it?" I asked, shoving him away from me and staggering to the window.

Like an idiot I peered at the sun until I realized I had no abilities whatsoever when it came to gauging the time that way. No, that was what the clock hanging over the back door was for. And really, what did any of it matter when I had specifically told Mycha to wake me up two hours after I laid down? "Mycha, the sun's out."

Behind me, Mycha snorted. "Yep, that's what happens when we experience a little something called day time. Are you sure you're okay? Maybe you should lie back down," he suggested, not quite managing to hold back a laugh.

I turned on him with a look of disbelief, sweeping back my mess of hair so it wasn't obstructing my vision. "Curb the sense of humor, smartass, before I cuff you over the head. And while you're doing that, explain to me why I'm only waking up now when you should have been shaking me awake at, oh, say around seven last night."

Unperturbed, he gave me a droll stare. "I did wake you, at about half past seven. And you stayed with me in the land of the living long enough to tell me to leave you alone or you'd put some serious hurt on my ass."

I blinked, trying to jog my memory. Nope, nothing; I had no recollection of threatening my brother with bodily harm. The last thing in my memory log was passing out after getting Teresa ho –

"Teresa!" I exclaimed, looking around wildly like she might be lurking about the tiny space. "Where is she?"

Mycha merely shrugged. "In her room, I guess. I haven't seen or heard her, and her car's still parked in the drive."

Relief swept over me, making my knees weak. I almost couldn't believe Teresa was adhering to the conditions I'd set in the car last night. I flopped down onto the sofa, extremely conscious of the throbbing pain in my head.

"What time is it?" I asked again.

"Just after eleven."

Eighteen hours. I'd slept for eighteen hours straight. So why did it feel like I'd merely blinked and was awake again? Another thing occurred to me much later than it should have.

"Well, we're all still alive and the door's intact. I guess that means nobody tried to force entry to massacre us in our sleep. Did they even stop by?"

I could hear Mycha shuffling and moved my arm to squint at him. He was filling a glass with water and on his way back to me he snagged a Twinkie from the countertop.