Asleep *FINISHED!/COMPLETE*

*Chapter16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

An unwelcome yawn escaped me then, the tension in my neck and shoulders rising again with an aching vengeance. God, I’d been through SO MUCH the past, what? 24 hours? 48 hours? The days blurred together, and sadly, the most sleep I’d had, had been lying unconscious on Callen’s floor with my hands tied together.

Jase’s brows furrowed together as I did my best to stifle a second yawn only moments after the first. I both saw and felt the concern swirling in his eyes as he took notice of me rubbing my aching muscles for probably the 100th time tonight.

“You need sleep,” Jase said, as if it were a command and not an observation.

“I’m fine, really,” I tried to reassure him, but couldn’t hold in my yawn any longer as I silently cursed my dumb human need for sleep.

“No, you’re clearly not, El.” Jase’s jaw set into a hard line.

El? That was new… Where was he coming up with all these names to use for me anyways? The thought reminded me with newfound fervor just how badly I needed answers. And I refused to sleep until I got them.

“Listen, J,” I gave him a pointed look, fighting the urge to roll my eyes at the dumb name I’d tried to throw back at him to make a point. “I’m a big girl. I’ve basically been taking care of myself since I was 5, so I think I’ll be the one in charge of when I decide I’m ready to sleep.”

I glared daggers at him, begging him to argue. He had no idea just how stubborn I could be.

He worked the muscles in his jaw, a noticeable tick flaring in his hard features as he fought against what I’m assuming was his male ego at being told no.

“Please?” he ground out, but there was no niceness in his voice.

It was as if it pained him to try and beg me to submit to reason. However good intentioned he may have been when suggesting I sleep, I wasn’t going to budge on this one.

“What I need are answers, Jase.” I held his stare, my eyes hard and unrelenting.

I saw a war inside his eyes, as he weighed the importance of my need for information against my body’s physical need for sleep.

When his jaw finally loosened and the tightness around his eyes relaxed in subtle defeat, I knew there’d be no more arguments from him.

“You’re right,” he sighed. “I can only imagine the amount of questions you must have after everything that’s happened… What do you want to know first?”

“Everything,” I scoffed. “I don’t even know where to begin with the questions I have…”

I rubbed my hands together and looked around the room as if to try and pull the memories from air and space, reeling at all of the insanity that had occurred around me since meeting Jase.

“For starters, how do you know my brother? How do you know Claudia and Oren? Why would your family be ‘checking in’ on their business at the orphanage? How do you have so much money? Why does Karis seem to hate me? How the hell did you know where to find me? And why the hell did you leave me with Kai and Maven to run back into that chaos??”

I finally paused to take a breath for the first time since beginning my onslaught of questions. I took just a moment, then inhaled deeply so that I could fire the final question that had been burning in my brain despite my frequent attempts to ignore it. Because acknowledging that this memory was true, also meant that I was certifiably insane.

“And what in the actual living hell was my brother doing to you amd Kai in that lobby with… with what… his hands?? His MIND??”

I let out a half crazed laugh of sheer bewilderment. To even be asking such a thing was insane, and the question sounded ridiculous leaving my mouth. Yup, I was mental.

“I mean, I’m not crazy right? You saw that too, you were there… That actually happened, right?!”

Jase had a similar expression to the one that made me laugh earlier, with his eyes wide as saucers as he stared at me, and I could have sworn I’d seen him stifle a smirk. A smirk!

I gave him approximately .37 seconds to answer me before shouting,

“RIGHT?!” I mirrored his wide eyed stare and threw my hands out as if to say, come on man! Tell me I’m not crazy!

The jerk actually had the nerve to stifle a LAUGH then, before he finally said, “No Ellie. You’re not crazy. Yes, that did happen… and I can explain… but this might take a minute.”