536Sins in the Grey, Author's Note:
(Edit: title changed from Out the Window. Sorry for any confusion this caused!)
With all the hubbub on social media when I reposted Hide and Drink, I realized how much I've been missing fanfic and the community. I became a fulltime author in 2013, if you can believe that, and I've had a wonderful time of it! Lately though, I haven't been able to write much at all. I didn't publish much last year, and I've been fighting that big ole writers' blockade for more months than I can count. Every sentence has been a struggle. Yesterday, I started thinking about how I went about writing fanfic and opened up a blank Word doc. The next thing I knew, I had most of the first chapter written. It's the most I've written in a single day for a long, long time.
So, why not? I have no idea where this story will take us. I make exactly zero promises. I'll post when I have more to post. That might be daily, weekly…I don't know. I'm hoping that wonderful, quick and frequent feedback from reviewers will jog my senses and bring me back to that happy writing place. I don't know how this story will end, so don't ask if it's HEA. I wouldn't tell ya if I knew. I have no idea what's in store for Edward and Bella. None. Well, they'll eventually do it, ya know – because we like that stuff. :) I guess I can make that promise. I'll update the summary when I have more to add.
I will say this though – my sole income is the books I've published. I made a career out of my stories largely due to my fantabulous Twifans, and I love each and every one of you for supporting my work. If you like this one, please check out my books on Kindle (lots are available on KU!), iBooks, Audible – anywhere you like to get them - and consider buying one. Or two. Or twenty. There are a lot to choose from! You can even get your favorite paperbacks signed on my website. They make a great gift to yourself or someone else! :D Ok, that's the end of my shamelessness.
Summary: Edward wakes up on a beach, his memories foggy. Was there a plane crash? He can't quite remember. E/B. EPOV. A/H as far as I know.
Disclaimer: This story is rated M because I figure it will eventually qualify. All the Twilight stuff belongs to Stephanie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended. I'm just stoking her fires.
Out the Window
Chapter 1
Whop, thud! Whop, thud!
My head was pounding along with the beat of my heart. I could feel my pulse in my tightly closed eyes and taste grit in my mouth. I rolled to one side, feeling the grit coat my face as well as my tongue. I spit twice as I pushed myself to a seated position and blinked rapidly.
Where am I?
I looked left and right, trying to make sense of my surroundings. Everything around me was brown, grey, bland, and out of focus. My ears were ringing. I shook my head violently, trying to recover my senses, but it made my head throb more. I reached my hand up and winced as I discovered a knot at the base of my skull.
What happened?
Sounds finally pushed their way out of the dim light and into my ears. Rushing, whooshing sounds. I turned, my back twinging like I was some old man with arthritis, and looked towards the noise. I blinked a few more times as my vision focused and my brain began to make some connections.
Water. Waves. The ocean.
How did I get here?
My head began to swim, and my vision went dark for a moment as the thump in my head got a little more intense. I braced myself and let the feeling pass over me before opening my eyes again.
I was on a sandy beach just a few feet away from the black, swirling trails of the tide line. There were two nearly parallel gashes in the sand leading from the edge of the waves up to my position.
"Drag marks?" I coughed, splaying sand from my mouth. I spit a couple more times to rid myself of the remaining sand and then moved to my hands and knees. I pushed my palms against the sand and stood up, wobbling slightly ass dizziness overcame me.
I vomited almost immediately, tasting—or rather, re-tasting—orange juice and vodka.
How much did I drink on the plane?
"The plane." I spit again, wiped sand from my lips and cheek with an equally sandy hand, and swallowed hard. After taking a few deep breaths, I managed to rise to my wobbling feet.
I had been on a plane. I remembered that much, at least. A plane from Washington, DC to Puerto Rico to check out some new process for distilling rum that was bound to be exactly the same as the old process with some shiny glitter tossed on the machinery. Emmett had joked about me flying through the Bermuda Triangle.
"Don't get lost at sea, bro!" he'd said with a laugh. "They'll never find ya!"
"You know all of that stuff was debunked before you were even born." My stepmother Esme said as she playfully shoved my brother's arm. "You know how much Edward hates to fly, and you're not helping!"
I found a clean corner of my shirt, and began to wipe sand off of me, starting with my face and then moving down my arms. Once most of it was off of me, I looked up and down the beach again. My eyes were working a little better, and more of my surroundings were coming into focus despite the thrumming in the back of my head. The sky was such a hazy grey, covered in one giant, thick cloud, that I couldn't even pick out the direction of the sun. The water was equally grey, making the horizon indiscernible. Waves lapped at greyish-yellow sand, bringing tendrils on grey-brown kelp and dropping them on the shore.
Behind me, there were scrubby bushes and tall palm trees waving in the breeze. Some dry palm fronds waved their tendrils around, circling dusty brown coconut husks. Piles of driftwood and rocks were strewn around just above the tideline, which consisted mostly of seaweed and broken shells.
In my head, a parade of past-visited beaches dances around, showing me images of sun-blessed sands, kids playing with kites and frisbees, and adults with their equally adult beverages cleverly concealed in cozies as they recline on low-slung, striped beach chairs. Even rainy-day beach scenes from my memories are filled with the call of the gulls, sandpipers dancing along the shore, and pelicans bobbing on the waves and giving passersby a look that says "Whassup, bro?"
The only sounds here were the waves and the wind.
Where are the birds? Shouldn't there be birds?
I took a few tentative steps, looking back at the drag lines in the sand. Did I pull myself from the water, or did someone else do it? I ran a hand absently down my wrinkled, sandy button-down shirt. It wasn't even damp. Sandy, but not damp.
"How long was I out?" I rubbed at the back of my head again as I stared at the tracks in the sand.
No, not tracks—just drag marks. No footprints in the sand. I must have pulled myself up from the water's edge, and I was just too out of it to remember. But how did I end up in the water? Did the plane crash?
I racked my memory of recent events. I recalled going through the security check at Washington Dulles airport, annoyed with myself for wearing lace-up shoes instead of something I could easily slip on and off. I hadn't taken my laptop out of the bag—sometimes they said you had to, and sometimes they didn't—and the security woman had looked at me like I was an idiot. I had mumbled something about them making up their damn minds about what the rules were, and had ultimately ended up getting a pat-down before they let me through. On the plane, I'd ordered a screwdriver to go with the tiny packet of peanuts, and the flight attendant had smiled and asked me if I was capable of operating the emergency door, or did I want to be reseated from the exit row. I'd said it was fine. The plane took off. There was a storm and turbulence—I remembered that much—but the pilot said we were going to head up another five thousand feet to avoid the brunt of it. I remembered my stomach churning and my drink spilling as the plane began to rise. Did I call for the flight attendant to bring me more napkins to clean it up? I had meant to, but did I? After the feeling of sticky orange liquid seeping into my pants, everything goes blank.
What happened after that? Did I have to open that door? Did I jump out of the plane after a splashdown? If so, where were the other passengers? Why wasn't the beach littered with debris? Why didn't I remember a crash?
I touched the thigh of my jeans, and I could feel a slightly stiff spot that was definitely the remnants of the spilled drink. Pulling my hand back to my nose and sniffing at my fingers confirmed a lingering smell of orange and alcohol. I reached back and rubbed my head again, feeling the pump and realizing I may have had an answer to my memory problems.
People with head injuries sometimes had short term memory loss. I had read that somewhere, but couldn't remember where. Hell, my father had probably told me about it at some point—he was a doctor after all.
But where are the fucking birds?
I took a few more steps, glancing left as right as I went. No signs of water craft out over the waves, no signs of planes in the air—not even a vapor trail—and no marks in the sand other than my own. I was still dizzy, and I stumbled over a large strand of kelp, nearly losing my footing. As I tried to right myself, I glanced over my shoulder and managed to twist an ankle. I went down, crying out as I fell to my knees. My voice echoed off the mountainside behind the palm trees, turning it into a foreign and ominous shriek. I shuddered, then pushed myself up, brushing sand from my jeans.
I put a little weight on my ankle. It smarted, but didn't seem to be more than a twist. I swallowed hard, wondering what I would do if I broke a leg and couldn't walk. Wherever I was, it clearly wasn't a highly trafficked area. If I'd hurt myself more seriously, I could be sitting out here for a long time before anyone came by and found me.
I looked back the way I had come, no longer able to see the spot where I'd awakened.
How far have I walked?
Glancing forward again, I noticed an outcropping of rocks farther down the beach and started to make my way in that direction, carefully stepping over ocean spew as I went. My ankle ached a bit, but didn't seem to be causing me too many problems. I kept my eyes on the sand in front of me, the paranoia about hurting myself increasing with each step on my aching ankle. I almost didn't notice when I came up to the rocks.
The outcropping jutted out from the edge of the mountainside, almost touching the water, but not quite. The top of the rocks jutted up like scraggly teeth trying to gnaw at the surrounding mist. Waves crashed around the end of it and the sound hummed in my ears. My eyes scanned the outcropping from left to right, wondering if I should go around on the water side or try to climb over at some low spot, and that's when I saw her.
She way lying face down in the sand, arms and legs splayed out around seaweed and smaller rocks at the base of the larger projection from the mountain base. My throat closed up as I stopped in my tracks, mouth open and mind blank.
That's a body. That's a woman's body lying in the sand. Oh shit, oh shit, oh SHIT!
I stumbled back a step, feeling whatever was left in my stomach rising up to the back of my throat. I forced myself to swallow so it wouldn't come up the rest of the way. My hands felt numb. I wanted to look away—avert my eyes before I saw blood or brains smashed against the rocks. I didn't want to see that. I never wanted to see anything like that. I'd nearly fainted when Emmett broke his arm playing football, and part of his ulna had been sticking out of his skin, looking like the end of a branch after a storm had blown it from the tree. I couldn't even look at the cast without cringing, memories of that bone jutting out from pierced skin and the blood draining out and dripping onto the sidelines. Emmett figured it out, and teased me mercilessly for the next two months.
It looked just like those rocks jutting out of the sand.
I turned away and took a deep breath of the salty air. The wind flipped my hair back off my face as I stared into it, and the waves continued to crash against the rocks behind me.
She was below the tide line.
I looked over at the water and wondered if the tide was coming in or going out. If I left her where she was, would she eventually be washed out to sea? That wasn't right, was it? But if I was going to go over there and move her—move the body—then I'd have to see it. I'd have to touch it. No, no—I didn't think I could do that.
Whatever had happened to her, it wasn't my fault, and I wasn't responsible for taking care of the mess. I wouldn't even have known she was there if I had walked the opposite way down the beach. If I had gone the other way, she'd still be there, and the tide would still come in.
But you didn't go the other way, did you?
A low groan escaped from my throat. No matter how she'd gotten there, I had seen her, and now I couldn't just ignore that fact even if I wanted to. I couldn't leave her to be caught by the waves and pulled out to sea. She was one of the plane's passengers—wasn't she?—and at some point, someone would show up, find me, and ask if I'd seen anyone else from the plane. Even if that didn't happen, I had an obligation, didn't I? Just as one human being has for another, I should do right by her, and that means moving her body away from the tide line.
Then what? Bury her?
"No. No way." My stomach flipped over. I'd never been one for anything remotely gory. I didn't watch slasher films, and I had no interest in following my father's footsteps into the medical field like Emmett did. When we were kids and our cat was hit by a car, I wouldn't even walk up close to the hole where Dad had buried poor Mister Trips in the flower bed under the lilac bush.
This isn't a cat. This is a person.
I wasn't sure just how much that mattered, but the thought was enough to cause me to take one tentative step towards her. Then another. My toes dragged in the sand, leaving gashes across the beach instead of footprints. The wind picked up, throwing salty mist at the side of my face, but I barely felt it.
My feet stopped and I closed my eyes. My heart was pounding faster, and I wondered if I could give myself an anxiety-induced coronary right here on the beach, and wouldn't that be a thing to witness? Oh, but there aren't any witnesses—only a dead body by the rocks.
I shook my head, opened my eyes, and heard a low moan that wasn't coming from my own lips.
Not dead!
The figure in the sand rolled to one side, spit sand, and tried to sit up.
A wave of relief crashed over me just the like ocean surf over the rocks. I wasn't going to have to look at, touch, or bury a dead body. Whoever she was, she was alive! Alive and moving on her own, which means she's not so badly hurt, right?
She was sitting up now, her back to me, and looking back and forth at her surroundings. I felt a touch of déjà vu as I watched her raise an arm to wipe her mouth on her sleeve before she started spitting sand again.
I rushed forward a few steps, then stopped. I didn't want to surprise and frighten her. I opted for the time-honored tradition of clearing my throat, and her head spun around so fast, I was sure she had given herself whiplash.
She focused on me.
Our eyes met.
My heart stopped.
That's Bella Swan.
Whatever relief I might have felt was completely out the window.
Chapter end notes:
Does it have a bit of a "Lost" feel to it? I think so. Let me know what you think! I'm bad with PMs, but you can always find me on via facebook or twitter, but it's your reviews that are my crack! Please feed the addiction. :D
-Savage