Chapter Fifty-Nine – Jace
JACE
“Jace please,” Bonnie’s voice finally penetrates, pulling me back to the surface. “Please say something,” she begs, her voice laced with so much fear and pain that I can feel it coursing through my own body.
So much so that when I pull a breath into my lungs, I wince as my ribs catch fire from the small movement.
Groaning, I turn my head, ignoring the wet substance I’m lying in. My head pulses with a throbbing pain and when I lift a hand up to touch my forehead, I hiss, my jaw dropping open around a soundless scream.
I immediately rip my hand away from the open wound, my hands shaking as the pain builds.
It feels like I got ran over by a truck. And then they backed up and did it again. Twice.
“Jace?”
“Bonnie?” I croak out, my mouth dry as a desert, feeling like someone shoved a bunch of cotton balls in it and I let out a cough that tastes like iron.
She lets out a relieved cry, and I roll over onto my stomach, biting down hard on my arm as another pain filled scream tries to escape. White hot fire sears through my body and I feel sleep threaten to pull me back under from its intensity.
I stay like that for a long moment, trying to catch my breath. For the first time since I woke up hanging from the ceiling, I’m grateful for the darkness we’ve been plunged into.
I don’t want her to see me like this, to see the level of agony the simple act of breathing is causing.
Pulling my arms underneath me, I’m grateful that most of the heaviness in my limbs has dissipated when I push myself up. As my body rises, my arms tremble. I barely manage to get my head and torso off the ground before they give way and I fall back down.
Determined, I try again only to scrape my chin when I fail to hold myself up a second time. After the third attempt, I give up on and drag myself in the direction Bonnie's sniffles are coming from.
Agony washes through my body with every millimetre I gain.
The cuts and scrapes on my elbows, forearms, stomah and thighs all pull and my hand slips when it lands in a pool of warm liquid.
Forcing myself up, I try to ignore the way my foot hit something solid when I lost purchase.
Not ready to face what I touched, I keep going.
My hands fan out, patting the ground as I make my way through the dark. It's slow going. Every few inches, I have to stop and catch my breath, the pounding in my head growing.
Finally, my pinkie connects with something warm, smooth and a little bony. I let out a relieved breath; one I hear Bonnie echo as my hand wraps gently around her ankle.
“Jace?”
“Yeah,” I answer her, a tired smile on my face as my hand travels up. A weight I didn’t realise was crushing me lifts when I feel the hem of her pant leg, thankful that unlike me, she’s still fully clothed.
Continuing my path up, my hands brush over her hips and I force myself up onto my knees, swallowing the grunt that wants to escape.
I keep going, blocking out the pain as my hands travel up her side, skimming over her waist until I reach her shoulders.
Taking an unsteady breath, my fingers brush her neck. In the back of my mind, I hear Charlie's warning about her neck being a trigger for her, but I can't bring myself to pull away. Now that I can feel her under my hands, I can't stand the thought of breaking that contact.
She leans into my touch, not telling me off or pulling away and I cup her jaw in my hands, leaning forward to press my forehead gently against hers.
I wince when it sends another throb through my body but I don't pull away.
"You're okay," I breathe out, closing my eyes and just breathing her in. She's okay.
"I'm okay," she reassures me, her voice catching in her throat. "Are you?"
"Yeah, I'm okay," I lie, wrapping my arms around her shoulders, needing to feel her in my arms. I frown when she doesn't hug me back, doesn't move at all. Confused, I pull back and feel down her arms, a sinking feeling settling in my stomach when they go behind her back.
Swallowing around the lump in my throat, I gently pull her body forward enoguh that I can follow her arms down to her wrists.
Wrists that are wrapped in metal shackles exactly like the ones I was restrained with. Letting out a stuttered breath, I keep going, feeling the metal chain that is keeping her tightly bound to a metal pole.
Sitting back on my heels, I curse under my breath and look in the direction I came from. To the body I left lying unmoving on the ground, surrounded by a pool of blood.
“His keys,” I mutter, my body moving before I’ve finished the thought. I move as fast as I can manage with my injuries in what I hope is the right direction.
My determination to free her fuels me, making it easier to block out the pain that's threatening to cripple me and I cross the concrete floor faster than I did before.
When my fingers dip into the now cool sticky liquid, I know I've found him.
Swallowing the bile that threatens to rise, I reach out, swinging my hands around until my fingers tangle in the wet strand of his hair.
Immediately, I pull back when I feel something that is definitely not hair and my stomach cramps and heaves. Don't think about it Jace. Just keep going.
“Jace.” I ignore the defeated tone of my name on Bonnie’s lips, refusing to stop. He unlocked the cuffs that he used to restrain me. That means he has the keys.
Drawing a deep breath, I reach for his shoulders. My hands frantically patting down his body, searching for pockets and crevices, anywhere he could have put his keys.
I recoil when my hands brush against his open trousers, feeling his flaccid dick, my mind trying to flashback to what nearly happened. To what he tried to do. What he did do.
He turned my mind against me. He made me believe he was Charlie. If it wasn’t for Bonnie…would I have let him continue? Enjoyed his touch? Welcomed it?
My stomach heaves again and my throat burns as I lose the fight to keep the bile in my stomach down.
“Jace.” My mind may turn on itself, but even in my most vulnerable, incoherent state, it recognises her voice. It pulls me back, anchoring me to the present and I take an unsteady breath, pushing the memories aside.
He failed. He didn’t break her. He didn't break me. This will not break me.
Bonnie continues whispering my name and I cling to the sound.
Redoubling my efforts, I pat down his side, avoiding his open pants and shove my hands into his pocket, feeling nothing, I pull it inside out just to be sure.
“Fuck.” I reach across his body, doing the same on the other side only to get the same result.
“Fuck!” I exclaim, pulling at my hair and looking desperately over my shoulder in her direction.
I have to free her.
He has to have the keys.
He wouldn’t have stuck us in here, chained us up, without a way to get himself out. Or to set us free, if only to do his bidding.
He has the keys.
I know he does.
Frantically, I pull his shoes off, shaking them upside down one at a time before I stick my hand inside and feel around the soles just to be sure. Letting out a growl of frustration, I throw them as hard as I can when they’re both empty.
Refusing to give up, I grip both of his pant legs, tugging and pulling until they’re off his body and I can shake them out, praying for the telltale sound of metal hitting concrete.
Nothing.
“FUCK.”
He has to have the keys. If he doesn't then…No. No.
“Jace!” Bonnie screams, her voice echoing over and over. It causes the throbbing in my head to kick up a notch. A debilitating pain spearing through my skull, and I clutch my head when everything starts spinning.
“What?”
“He threw the keys away when you started fighting.”
“No, he didn’t,” I quickly say, wincing when the act of shaking my head sends another piercing wave of pain through my body. “That was me. I threw his glasses, or goggles, or whatever the fuck they were. It wasn’t the keys.”
“It was both.”
“Fuck. Fuck! Fine. It’s fine. I’ll find them. I’ll find them. I’ll find them,” I repeat it over and over again, ignoring her when she brokenly whispers my name.
“No. I will find them,” I promise, abandoning his unmoving body and picking a direction to crawl in, my hands patting down every inch of the floor around me.
“Jace-”
“I’ll find them,” I repeat. “I have to. If I don’t, you’re stuck. I have to get you out of here. I have to-” My words cut off when my hands connect with metal.
Following it, my fingers wrap around another pole, exactly like the one Bonnie is chained to. I didn’t think it was possible, but my stomach sinks even lower.
Holding my breath, tears sting my eyes and my heart beats dangerously in my chest making it near impossible to breath. With a trembling hand, I reach out to my left, feeling another metal pole, then another and another. To the right, the same thing.
I shake my head, my jaw trembling as I slowly raise my eyes, looking up into the pitch black above me. Hesitantly, I reach up, extending my hand until I feel more metal, wrapping my fingers around yet another metal pole.
No.
Not a pole.
Bars. Metal bars.
No.
“Bonnie, are we in…?”
“Yes.”
Fuck. We're locked in here and thanks to me, we have no way out.
What have I done?