*Xander*
I reached back and felt along the back of my head, looking for a bump or some sort of wound large enough to knock me out.
That was the only explanation for this. I was not on the beach anymore; that was certain. Thick trees dotted with waxy white blooms rustled over my head, and the ground beneath was soft, grassy, not the powdered sugar sand of the stormy beach I’d been standing on only a moment before.
Maybe it had been more than a moment. It had to be. Someone had knocked me out and shipped me off, dumping me here, wherever this was. Likely Lena’s father, I thought with a bitter taste in my mouth.
I reached down and felt along my body, finding everything intact, including the velvet bag in the front pocket of my trousers.