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Greer
Ifelt his presence before I heard him speak—before I even opened my eyes. Anger radiated off him in waves, reaching my subconscious before my other senses could catch up. Jace was here. And he was angry.
I remembered the séance, the noises, chasing after Anna. I remembered experiencing vertigo up on the scaffolding. Then everything went dark. I hadn’t fallen—that much was obvious. I’d be dead if I’d plummeted from the second floor of Richmond House—severely injured at the very least. But, no, somehow, I’d gotten back inside. And I had a good idea of who was responsible for that.
I cracked open my eyes and looked for him through the blurry haze that greeted me. Thankfully, the sun had set, the twilight taking the edge off my blindness. Several blinks later, I could make out the furniture of my bedroom. And him. There. A perfectly tailored white dress shirt covered the broad, tapered back that filled my doorway as he shouted at whomever was standing in the hall trying to get in.
I closed my eyes before he could notice I was awake, inhaling deeply and trying to take stock of my injuries. But I felt no pain. I could wiggle my fingers and toes. I was still a bit dizzy and more than a little thirsty. My sweat-dampened white dress clung to my skin in a way that made me want to crawl out of both.
He slammed the door shut. For a few seconds, I thought he’d left me. Panic-soaked bile rose in my throat. Now was as good a time as any to open my eyes again. It was easier this time.
When he saw I was awake, Jace hit the floor on his knees beside the bed, but he didn’t touch me. The room had grown dark—I couldn’t distinguish his features, but he’d drawn his body tight.
“Jace…” I croaked, badly needing a drink of water. I moved to sit up.
“Just—stay where you are. Eugenia has someone coming to look you over.”
“I’m so thirsty.”
“I know you are, but you’re not eating or drinking anything until the doctor gets here.”
I paused at his tone. I knew he was angry but hadn’t realized he was mad at me too.
“What happened?” I asked simply.
“You tell me.”
But I couldn’t. I practiced forming the words in my head, words that would make him understand, but there was nothing I could say. We sat for so long that I started feeling drowsy before his voice slashed through the silence and I was wide awake once more.
“What the fuck were you doing on that scaffolding, Greer? Do you know how fucking dangerous that was? You’re obviously high as a kite.”
“I’m not high! I…I haven’t been sleeping well, and I took one Valium to help me with…”
“With what?”
I held his burning gaze until—like the first time we locked eyes—I couldn’t take it anymore.
I turned my head away, staring at the wall. I didn’t want to talk about my anxiety. Not now. Not ever, really, but especially not now. Jace backed off, thankfully unwilling to put me through anything more today.
“I dropped by to share some good news—thank God I did,” he said, redirecting. “I heard screams from upstairs and caught you just in time. Caught your dress, your necklace…Jesus Christ.” He stood, only to turn and sit down on the side of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. My own moved to my neck. My necklace was gone, and the skin there felt tender.
“Jace?”
“Just tell me what happened,” he bit out. “Start from when I left you this morning.”
“Marina called me,” I said as he rested his fingers on his temples in frustration. “She wanted to do a séance. To connect to Linus’s and Danny’s spirits. To find out who the murderer is.”
“Of course she did,” he answered flatly.
“We were repeating some words—Marina, Eugenia, and I—and I started feeling…weird.”
“In what way?”
“Just…something was happening to me,” I replied weakly, wishing I could close my eyes again and sleep everything away rather than try to explain the unexplainable. “I thought the spirits were trying to connect with me. We were asking them to contact us when we heard the banging upstairs.”
“So, you weren’t feeling well, you thought ghosts were calling you upstairs, and you ran up to look?”
“Something like that. And then I saw Anna.”
