Page 27 of Fractured Ice

The ceiling is wrong.

That's the first thing I register when I open my eyes. The ceiling is wrong, and then the walls are wrong, and the light coming through the curtains is wrong, and the pillow under my head smells like someone else, and all of that lands in my brain in about two seconds before the panic sets in.

I sit up.

The room is unfamiliar. The bed is not mine. My boots are on the floor beside me and my coat is draped over the desk chair across the room and I'm in my clothes from last night, and I know it was last night because my mouth tastes like stale alcohol and my head has a dull, insistent throb, and none of this makes sense because I don't know where I am.

Then I turn my head.

Ethan is asleep beside me.

I'm out of the bed so fast I catch my foot on the frame and have to grab the desk to keep from going down. The movement wakes him, his eyes opening slowly before they find me and then sharpening fast.

"Hey—"

"What happened." It comes out flat. Not a question. A demand.

He sits up, dragging a hand through his hair, and he looks disoriented too, like he's running through the same disbelief I am, but from the other side of it. "You're okay," he says. "Nothing happened. I need you to hear that first."

"Where am I?"

"My room. Hockey house."

"Why am I in your room?"

"Sienna—"

"Ethan." My voice cracks on it and I hate that, hate the way the edges of the word sound like they're fraying. "Why am I in your bed? What happened last night?"

He gets up carefully, like he's moving slowly on purpose, and he holds both hands out in a way that is probably meant to be reassuring, but I don’t feel reassured. I feel confused and worried.

"You were at the party," he says. "The one at the lacrosse house."

I remember that. Barely. Emma beside me, something with cinnamon in my drink, the noise of it.

"I know I was at the party," I say. "What happened after?"

"What do you remember?"

"That's not an answer."

"I'm trying to figure out where to start." He looks at me steadily. "You had some drinks. And then you weren't okay. I noticed you across the party and something felt off."

“No, I couldn’t have had that much. I only planned on two drinks.”

He frowns. “I don’t know how much you had. You were fine one second, then drunk the next.”

“What happened next?”

I wait. My head is pounding. I press two fingers to my temple and try to hold the pieces together.

"There was a guy," Ethan says. "He'd been near you most of the night. And he was trying to walk you out."

"What guy?"

"I don't know his name. Big guy, dark jacket. He was trying to get you into his car."

Something cold moves through me that has nothing to do with the February morning. "I don't remember that."