BABY DON'T CUT - jason grace

Chapter One

Jason was having a horrible day, even before he was electrocuted at the Grand Canyon.

The boy had woken up on the backseat of a school bus, groggy and unsure where he even was. He blinked, realizing that he was holding hands with a girl he didn't know. Jason supposed that wasn't the rotten part. The girl was pretty. Even so, Jason was more concerned with the fact that he had no memories. He sat up slowly, trying to think.

Dozens of kids were sprawled out in the seats in front of Jason, listening to music on their iPods or phones, talking with their friends, or sleeping on the uncomfortable seats. They all seemed to have been around Jason's age. Fifteen, sixteen? Okay. Jason had to admit, him not even knowing his own age was terrifying.

The bus that Jason was in rumbled along a bumpy road. Out of the windows, desert rolled by under a bright blue sky. Jason was certain that he didn't live anywhere close to a desert. He tried to think back to the last thing that he remembered.

The girl squeezed Jason's hand, giving him a concerned look. "Jason, are you okay?" she asked. "Are you feeling sick? I-is something on your mind?" She sounded scared with that last question.

She wore grey jeans, leather boots and a black, soft looking jacket, unbuttoned so Jason could see her pink shirt. Her hair was a dark shade of brown, curling the more it reached the ends. Her eyes were a warm brown, anxiety written all over them.

Jason let go of her hand, causing the girl's face to twist into a frown, looking ready to receive terrible news. "Um, I don't--" Jason started to say, only to be interupted.

"All right, cupcakes, listen up!" a voice from the front of the bus yelled out.

The guy was clearly a coach. His baseball cap was pulled low over his hair, so his beady eyes were visible. He had a wispy goatee and a sour face. His buff arms and chest pushed against a bright orange polo shirt. His nylon workout pants and Nikes were spotless white. A whistle hung around his neck, and a megaphone was clipped to his belt. He would have looked pretty scare if he was taller than five foot.

When he had stood up, one of the students yelled, "Stand up, Coach Hedge!"

"I heard that!" the coach practically growled, scanning the bus for the one that had insulted him. Then his eyes fixed on Jason, and he scowled.

A jolt went down Jason's spine. The coach must've knew that Jason didn't belong on the bus. Jason was afraid that the coach would call him out and demand to know what he was doing on the bus. And if that were to have happened, Jason wouldn't have a single clue on what to say.

"Did you do something?" the girl said, whispering softly in Jason's ear.

Jason didn't answer.

Coach Hedge's eyes left Jason, and he cleared his throat. "We'll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don't lose your worksheet. And if any of you precious little cupcakes causes any trouble on this trip, I will personally send you back to campus the hard way."

He picked up the baseball ball bat and made like he was hitting a Homer.

Jason looked at the girl next to him, to find her already staring at him with a perplexed look on her face. "Can he talk to us that way?" he asked.

She shrugged, an awkward smile making its way onto her face. "He always does, silly. This is the Wilderness School, where kids are the animals."

She chuckled at the end of her statement as if it was an inside joke shared between the two of them.

"This is some kind of mistake," Jason said. "I'm not supposed to be here."

Again, the girl's face turned into a frown.