Page 85 of Muse (Fighting Fate)

A sickeningly familiar lightness came over me. It confused my panicked brain. I gulped for air again, but it still didn’t ease the burn in my chest. My lips started to tingle. Then my face. It spread down my arms, reaching my fingers, freezing them until all feeling was gone.

The noise around me grew louder. More bodies pressed in around me. The room started to sway like the floor was in motion. My vision blurred and I realized I had tears in my eyes. A body went flying past me, connecting with another body, sending them both crashing to the ground where they continued to wrestle with each other. My stomach crawled.

I gasped, looking out through the bodies, trying to blink away the blurriness and the darkness that was quickly closing in around the edges of my vision, hoping, praying I would find a safe haven. Jace. Please let me find Jace.

I didn’t.

The room swayed again. Voices roared. Someone beside me was shoved, and I was jostled.

Then I was falling.

And the darkness took me.

Chapter 38

Jace

Being in the recording studio was the most surreal experience of my life. It was the first real taste of what was to come, and I fucking loved it.

We spent the first few hours being introduced to everything and everyone, and learning what was involved during the whole recording process. Then we set up our equipment and did all the necessary sound checks and testing.

That was when the real fun began, and before we knew it, we’d recorded our first two songs. It was fucking unreal.

I’d had my doubts whether we could get the whole album cut in one week. To me, that sounded impossible, but after recording the first two songs after only a few run throughs, all my doubts were gone. Thanks to our rigid playing routine over the last few months, we found we could play every song we were cutting as close to perfection first time around.

We were halfway through the second take of our third song when Aiden froze. His hand slipped on the strings of his guitar, making the chord blare out loud and highly off key.

We all stopped and stared, confused. Aiden rarely made mistakes. His hand went to his head and he squeezed his eyes shut tight like he was in excruciating pain.

“What the fuck, man?” Matt said, sounding a little pissed.

Aiden looked up, his eyes finding mine. The look of panic in them scared me. “Mia-” was all he said, and my world stopped spinning.

Two seconds passed as I processed his words then I bolted from the room like a man on fire. I grabbed my phone, seeing eight missed calls from Ryan. Fuck!

“What’s going on?”

I heard Mr. Thomas’ voice but I couldn’t focus.

“Jace?” he said again.

I was just about to hit call when it began to ring again. I answered immediately. “Ryan-”

He cut me off. “Mia’s been hurt man. You need to get here.”

His words had me walking for the exit before I knew what I was doing, Aiden fast at my heels. “What the fuck happened?” I yelled.

Looking back at Aiden, I saw him repeatedly dialing someone and holding the phone to his ear while he got no response. Mia. My stomach dipped. Nausea hit me hard. “What’s going on?” Aiden demanded, still panicking.

Ryan’s voice barked in my ear. “A huge fucking fight broke out in the gym. I don’t know how Mia ended up in there, but she was right in the fucking middle.”

I jumped in the car and cranked the engine, barely waiting for Matt and Dean to jump in the back with us before peeling out onto the road. Aiden snatched the phone off me and glared at my livid expression “You fucking drive. I’ll talk.”

“Ryan,” he said into the phone. “What the fuck happened to my sister?!”

I drove like a fucking maniac. I hoped the police weren’t around because I wasn’t stopping for anyone. I kept glancing over at Aiden, trying to gauge how bad things were. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were hard. My stomach roiled.

A phone rang fro

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