A Piece of The Sun

6. You're Not Dead Yet

TW: Mentions of past Domestic Abuse

10 Minutes after waking

Jean POV

What are you going to do, it's only a matter of time. You can't-- I can't stay here forever. Staying the night won't be a good idea, I've had enough. Enough of the drugs, the gaslighting, the nearly being stabbed and lied to about all of these strange goings on with her long nights out. Meetings to do with this house.

And getting it in three days? That was insane, I mean-- How? Yes, rich people's logic defies all natural laws of how things go, you could get a car with the tap of a finger over the phone, but buying a house with four acres of land? It's gone too far.

I had to save myself, even if I thought Noah would come for me. I couldn't play princess forever and wait to be rescued.

If what Dallas said was correct, all of my things were on the next floor beneath me. Clothes and all. I need to pack a bag.

Without a second thought, I pull on the IV inside of my arm. Blood gushes out, and I swap a small throw blanket for an IV, applying pressure to the wound before I can get on my feet. Instantly feeling a coldness rish down from head to toe, a vertical wave of nausea runs along with it. It was enough to pull me back down to the bed or worse, the floor. I held onto the side table to gather myself.

The red always does this to me, each time getting up from it takes a little longer. Fucking hell.

I shake it off, continuing to the bathroom to patch myself up. Inside it is nothing short of the luxuries I'm used to, but I didn't have time to admire the perfect craftsmanship of the tile walls that laborers put work for hours on end. I open the medicine cabinet, finding a stocked cabinet of bandages and pills, in the mirror I notice what the hell I am wearing. A green silk nightgown that stops short at my upper thigh. Most of it is lace on the top, a peak show for my nipples.

I groan in disgust and keep it moving, taking the supplies a flight of stairs with me as I leave the top floor of the house. I look below me at them, the challenge they serve me as I come off the drugs, there isn't a rail to hold onto, just two opposing walls and me: About to fall at a moment's notice.

Carefully I sit down on the first step, my feet on the third one, and begin to scoot downward each stair one step at a time until I reach the floor beneath me. It is confusing to be here, in a house so big. There are three doors, each of which is closed and I don't know which one is the storage room.

I try for the yellow door in front of me, turning the knob and looking inside a dark room. I flick the switch to find it empty. The next door is purple, I flick the switch again to find a few large boxes, labeled with our names on them.

Thank you, God. I thought to myself.

I toss aside Jean's boxes to get to mine, opening the boxes with the tip of my nails to cut through the tape. I take only what is needed. A backpack, a light pair of clothes to change into, and something to change into now. I pull on a pair of tights and a sweater with sneakers. It's efficient enough, suffice it to say I will miss the dresses she managed to pack up. I could get a million of them later once I was back on US soil and safe, hopefully, able to reach my father and mother, Valentina.

In a smaller box, there were all sorts of letters. . . Momentos that Dallas had kept in an unmarked box. The letters had been from my father and mother. Some from Felecia, telling me about her trips growing up with her new family, but none of it mentioned her old parents. We all seem to be the ones that remember what her parents did except for her, but she wasn't there that night when Noah sliced her mother's leg open and her father pointed a gun at my aunts, upending the fashion show. Felecia had somehow managed to block out her time with the Cross-Maxims.