Casted (Casted series) (22 page)

I waited for what seemed to be hours, but was probably more like minutes. Time seems to do that… drag on in your darkest hours. The heavy door opened again and a smaller man cloaked from head-to-toe in a bulky gray robe walked in. The door closed behind him on its own. He snapped his fingers and it locked us in. A chair appeared and he silently gestured for me to sit.

“We find ourselves in quite a quandary,” he said, slowly pacing the room. Not an inch of him was visible under the heavy material. His arms crossed his chest, his hands tucked up inside the sleeves. It was like looking at the grim reaper without his sickle. I shivered.

“You see, girl, we cannot allow you to keep the book. Its magic is not for someone of your, how should I say this? Not for your kind,” he said, stopping before me.

“My name is not girl,” I hissed. Would it be so difficult for them to find out exactly who I am before they start telling me how incapable I am? And what exactly was my kind anyway?

Anger clouded my thoughts as I watched the hooded man tower over me. Could I help the fact that the book chose to absorb itself into me? No. Did I like having my thoughts being monitored every second of every day? No. How dare this man sit here and judge me as if I was lacking the missing chromosome to being human.

“You will give up the book,” he sneered.

Did he even know what he was asking? I laughed. Not a funny laugh, not even a that’s-a-good-joke laugh. No, I gave him one of those kiss-my-ass kind of laughs. The kind your body releases about ten seconds before fight or flight mentally kicks in.

Flight had been taken away when the door locked. So fight it was. I jumped up from my seat, my body squaring off with his. His hands dropped from the sleeves and darted out, flexing finger by finger.

“You will give us the book,” he barked.

“I will give you nothing!” I shouted back in his face.

“A mere Mick such as yourself has no say in our world,” he snapped.

A Mick? He thought I was a Mick?

Little did he know just how much magic was inside of me, only locked somewhere in the recesses of my mind. Frustration danced along my nerves. He had no idea who I was. Thinking on it, maybe that was a good thing. If they didn’t know who I was, that would keep Lorenzo in the dark as well. Micah had said there was a traitor in his Coven. I kept my mouth shut. If I continued on, I would blow what little cover I had.

“It is of no importance to us how we get it from you. You see, the book belongs to us. We are the true Keepers of it and you will give it back to us, or you will die,” he said as he wove his hands in the air around me. Tiny wisps of energy wrapped around my body and pulled tight as if I were tied with rope. My feet lifted off the floor and he pulled me behind him. Before the door opened, he turned to me, “You may just die anyway,” he said, tossing his hood back and snapping his teeth at me.

My body seized at the sight of him. Cloudy eyes stared at me. There was no pupil, only endless swirls of gray and black. It was like watching a thunderstorm gather. A scar ran the length of his cheek, puckered and purple against the stark whiteness of his skin. Veins crisscrossed his face like a misprinted map of blurred lines. I closed my eyes against the sight in front of me and he barked a menacing laugh. “Not so tough, now are you?”

I struggled against the bonds that held me, but it was no use. I wasn’t going anywhere and what little fight I could give was tiring me out. It was as if the invisible ropes were sucking the energy from my body with every movement.

He pulled me down empty hallways like a Macy’s Day Parade balloon until we reached a vast room with a single stone slab. It looked like a place where the Nomads would come to worship; only there was no one there. He pulled hard on the line holding me. My head cracked hard against the stone alter. The invisible ropes loosened and my arms and legs spread. The lines of rope split and wrapped around each appendage, tying off somewhere below me.

My head pounded as bile crawled up my throat. Black dots danced along my vision, making it impossible to see what was going on around me. Robes swished as the Nomad Council leaders all placed a hand on my body. They began chanting, the words foreign and deep. I blinked furiously to clear my vision. I had to know what they were doing. White hot pain tried to take over my body when one of the men dug his fingers into my temples. My body arched off the stone and slammed back down.

“You will tell us where the spell book is, or I will rip your mind apart looking for it,” the man with the swirling eyes hissed at me.

My vision cleared with a snap. The book came to life as the pages rustled in my mind. Back and forth, back and forth, they continued on until the book slammed shut and a voice entered my mind.

“Stupid girl!
They will kill us both!”
Her voice reverberated in my head. Tears slid down my temples as she raged. Each whip of a page made the energy intensify as she gathered her power around her.

Her thoughts connected to mine and I could feel my body healing. I was getting stronger and the ropes holding me in place were beginning to loosen
.

“I will deal with your failure later,”
she said. The pages snapped in response.

My body shifted and my arms and legs began moving with her direction. Her anger pulsed inside of me. She was taking over. Through my eyes, I witnessed just how deadly the woman inside of me could be. Nomads were scattering to get away, but she sought them out and blasted them with magic. Bodies began to litter the floor as she took them down one by one. The rise and fall of their chest reassured me that they were alive. If she was capable of taking over my body through the book, why would she leave them alive to come after it again?

“Because if I kill them, I will be forever stuck inside this book,”
she growled.

Micah was the last one standing - just barely. He clung to the wall holding himself up as he held his hand out, pleading for her to stop.

My body marched up to his and my hand grabbed him by the throat.

“No…stop!”
I pushed the words past the power she held me under. They echoed in my head.

I could almost feel her tilting her head in question. I blew a breath of relief that she’d actually heard me over her rage.

“Please, he was trying to help me,”
I said. She paused long enough to listen.
“He was the Keeper of the book. He kept it safe all these years.”
I begged her to listen to me. I didn’t want him to be hurt. Not if he was on my side. Not if he knew things. Things I couldn’t think about–things she couldn’t know.

I covered my thoughts with the memories of him telling me that he would help me as much as he could.

She paused long enough to drop him to the floor where he fell to his knees.

“Make him take us back to Edge,”
she said, stepping back into my head and leaving me in control of my body.

“Are you alright?” I asked, helping Micah to his feet.

He looked at me, really looked at me. His gaze burned into mine.

“Quite impressive when she gets angry,” he said with a halfhearted smile.

I winced as I took in the destruction she’d left behind. Stone benches were shattered. Bodies were laid out in various parts of the room, all still breathing but rendered incapable of stopping us from leaving.

The book slammed in my head. I wasn’t moving fast enough for her.

“You’re not safe here anymore. Please, take me home,” I said, gripping his arm to keep him steady.

He looked back over his shoulder and sighed. “I suppose you’re right. Nothing left for me here now.”

Micah led me down the empty corridors again, explaining that we were taking the long way around so that we wouldn’t bump into anyone. I was glad for that. I didn’t need the woman in the book to make a second appearance anytime soon, even if it were to help us. I liked being in control of my own body, thank you very much.

“How did you know it was her and not me?” I asked. I couldn’t help but wonder why he trusted me after watching me toss his Coven members around the room.

“It was your eyes,” he replied, limping beside me. He kept his arm on my shoulder for added support. I hoped we were getting to the door that would lead us home soon. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to carry him if he finally faltered.

“My eyes?”

“Oh yes, it was like watching pages fan when she, I guess you could say, stepped in.” He stopped in front of a featureless brick wall and waved his hands. It gave way to a door. He let go of my arm, placed his palm against the wood and murmured under his breath. The door rippled and he stepped back to let me go through first.

The pages ruffled in my head as if acknowledging that I was one step away from being back in Edge’s arms. I turned the handle and grabbed Micah’s hand. I wasn’t letting go of him until we were both through to the other side with the door firmly shut behind us.

I wasn’t prepared for the homecoming welcome. In fact, I wasn’t prepared for the blow that Julie landed on my cheek when she met me at the door.

“How dare you leave like that!” she yelled in my face. I staggered back into Micah and nearly sent the both of us over. Stars bursted behind my eyes. The hot sting of her attack bloomed as blood rushed to my cheek.

What the hell?

“What did you expect? Tears of joy that you returned. That was a stupid stunt you pulled!” Julie said, getting in my face. Edge nudged her back a few steps.

“I saved Jude’s life! Doesn’t that count for anything?” I fired back.

I was on whirlwind of emotions. Happy to be back home, aggravated at all the shouting and hurt that I was attacked and not welcomed. Chaos erupted around us as everyone began shouting at each other. Edge’s arms wrapped around me and the book vibrated with a happy kind of purr. He was here and he was holding on tight. His embrace only lasted for a couple seconds before his arms grabbed my shoulders, demanding answers as to what the hell I’d been thinking and who the hell was the man with me?

I grabbed Edge’s fingers and pried them off of my arms. “Shut up…all of you!” I hollered.

Jude stepped up to Micah. “And you’re here, because why?” He eyed him menacingly.

Micah pulled his heavy robe off and draped it on his arm. Without the creepy robe he looked a lot less scary. In fact he could pass for a retired college professor. All he was missing was a tweed jacket and a pipe.

Jude took a step closer to him pushing for an answer. “Well?”

I wasn’t going to let Micah be bullied after he just risked it all to help me.

“Because my mother trusted him. I trust him,” I said, stepping in between Micah and Jude.

“Oh, well, that just explains everything,” Julie hissed.

Rainy placed a hand on Julie’s shoulder. Julie shrugged her off and glared at me. Why was I being met with such hostility? Even Dagger looked like he was ready to knock me out.

“Look, I did what I thought was the right thing. None of you can say that you wouldn’t have done it either. I knew that if Jude went back there, they would have killed him. They want the book and now they know they can’t have it,” I said, pushing my way past them.

“And I guess you didn’t stop to think about the consequences of taking one of their Council members?” Jessa asked.

I must have really put her through hell for her to talk to me like that. How was I supposed to tell them that they just needed to trust me? The book wasn’t going to let anything happen so long as the woman trapped in it was inside me.

Jude wove his way around everyone to step up in front of me. He spoke low enough so only I could hear him. “If you ever put yourself in harms way for me again, I will kick your ass. Got it?” he threatened.

What was there to say? Even the one I put myself in danger’s way for was mad at me.

I tossed my hands in the air. “Like it or not, I did what I felt I had to do. Be mad at me all you want, it’s not going to change the fact that I did it. And I didn’t take Micah, he came with me.”

I walked away from further humiliation and made my way to my room. I needed some downtime and a hot shower. They acted like I was some sort of fragile piece of glass that had to be guarded, so that it wouldn’t accidentally break. I had news for them. This piece of glass had just gone a couple rounds with the Nomad Council without even cracking, so they better get used to me being a part of whatever all of this was. In fact, they better be ready for a whole new me.

I knew what the book was capable of, not them. When they finally figured it out, it will be a whole other ball game in this little war Lorenzo had planned out. Until then, they needed to start trusting me and my judgment.

The pages of the book began to flutter as I dried my hair. The pages were restless - determined to make me listen to what the woman was gearing up to say.
She
was even angry with me. I was an island unto myself until the dust settled.

My body once again moved without my guidance as I sat on the bed. My mind opened up and there she was, billowing out of the book. Anger pinched across her brow as she fought to control her words.

“
I left you alone, per your request, to fulfill the spell and what did you do? You got yourself snapped up by the Nomads–by the same people who have kept me imprisoned in this BOOK!” she bellowed, loud enough that my ears started to ring.

“I was trying to save an innocent life. A life they would have ended because he brought me to you!” I shouted back. I was tired of being treated like a child. I was a grown woman. I could make my own choices, even if they were reckless ones.

“You think you have it all figured out, don’t you?” she sneered.

“No, I don’t! I don’t have anything figured out. I don’t understand anything that is going on and I don’t appreciate the fact that my body is being used for some sadistic plot being played out by two separate people for one purpose!” I raised my voice to match hers.

“You accepted me. There is little to nothing you can do about it now. In fact, I’m tired of waiting for you to fulfill your duty to me and from here on out, until the spell is complete, you can just sit back and wait while I do what needs to be done.”