Stephen awoke with a sudden groan, finding himself still face down on the floor in his bedroom. His head was throbbing, and the pain in the side of his chest was enough to make him wince with just about any movement.Blinking several times in order to steady his vision, Stephen was finally able to fix his sight on the leg of the bed, which was directly in front of him. He remembered landing in this position, after being tossed over the bed and then punched directly in the jaw. He reached up to rub at the area where Hanif"s fist made contact, finding it tender and sore. That one would take a long time to heal.
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Stephen placed both hands flat on the floor, and used his strength to push himself up off the ground. It was slow going, even just to get into an upright position, thanks to the pain in his ribs. He pulled up his s.h.i.+rt, seeing a horrific looking bruise mark from where he had been kicked. He was sure a few ribs had broken in the scuffle over Grace.
Grace. Where was she?
He got to his feet as quickly as he could, and managed to hobble over to the hallway that connected his room with the rest of his house. It was still light out, and the time on the clock in the hall told him it was still early afternoon. Stephen guessed no one was home yet, as he surely would not have woken up on his own had his mother discovered him like that. He hobbled throughout the kitchen and looked outside. The moving truck was still where he had left it, with the bed fully accessible, yet there was no sign of Grace.
Stephen checked the entire house, from one end to the other. There wasn"t a hint of the genie in any part. He tried to call out for her, hoping beyond hope that somehow the warden hadn"t carried her off. He was greeted by nothing but an eerie silence that carried throughout the entire house. What could he have done with her?
Making his way over to the kitchen, Stephen once more looked outside the window, his eyes carrying across the street to the house that Hanif had purchased, while posing as his alias Henry Lopez. The windows were drawn and the blinds shut tight. The car was still in the driveway, but otherwise, it looked to be unusually ominous. He wondered if Grace was inside, or if he had taken her somewhere else. He wondered what Hanif had done with her. Was she still alive? Was she being tortured? How could a genie be destroyed anyway?