Existing (under editing)

Chapter 19*

I opened my eyes. No birds were tweeting. Just Lucas's snoring besides me. I sighed. Remembering I was not at home anymore. I missed Pepper, scared something might have happen to him. Or Hunter. Or Morin. Or everyone back home. I missed everything dearly. I got up. Feeling my agitation getting more dallied up by the second. Trying to distract myself from my own thoughts I went into the bathroom. Scared I would wake Lucas if I stayed in the bedroom any longer. I started a shower. Making sure to shut the pullies on the siding door and turn the handles to the pipes like Lucas had taught me. I had just ended up wiping myself down with a cloth earlier, but now I needed the full feel of the water on my skin. Letting the water start to heat as I waited for the hot water to flow from a place Lucas called a thermos I began to get unchanged, I slipped out of my night dress and let my undies fall before I tossed them on a shelf and stepped into the warm water. The rush of it ran down my body and in my hair. Its warmth calming my mind and the hot steam opening my airways. Bringing me back to the memories of when Pepper and I found a secret waterfall, one we could and never find again no matter what we tried.

I turned the tap off after a minute or two, keeping in mind not to be too selfish with the heated water. I stood there as the water dripped from my body and I took a moment just breathing. Then as the droplets stopped I got redressed. My muscles still stiff from the long track here as I pulled one leg and then the other into some clean nickers. I paused after lipping my nighty back on, taking in the strange machines that lined some of the shelves. Lucas said the ones I didn't know were called guns, like power sling shots that could kill. I didn't dare touch them. I just stared. No wonder the world wasn't happy to have people on it with things like these, mistake or not could kill someone or something in an instant. It was like some of Embers designs on the walls. Explosives. Mrs Brighton didn't seem to like them either. I pulled opened the bathroom door. Lucas still lay asleep in the light from behind me. On his stomach now taking up half the bed, not an inch passing the half way mark invisibly dividing us as we had slept. His shirt lifting up at the back showing the tone of his muscles as they twitched in his sleep. I let out a long lingering breath before climbing back in with him. Falling asleep to the sound of his light snoring and the subtitle beat of his heart.