Haunting Magic (Ink Book 6) (12 page)

The demons in my head have faded away. I haven’t said anything to Slade about it. He doesn’t know I am being haunted by Hutch. Or that Hutch is hell bent on making me lose my mind.

He has no idea I have been using Dax to keep Hutch at bay these last few weeks.

“God, my brother would kill me,” Dax says just like every time he touches me. When we connect both of us feel better. We chase away these demons. It’s nothing sexual. It’s just a secret fix.

“That’s why your brother can never find out,” I tell him.

He’s been the only person I can talk to about the hauntings. Karsen is busy being a mother and the guys are playing show after show, nobody has noticed the bond Dax and I have formed in the meantime.

Slade is just happy that I don’t want to kill his brother anymore. I have learned a lot about Dax. He is struggling to fight his own demons. He got into a lot of troubles. He went down a very dark path after what happened and has never  forgiven himself for his part. He doesn’t have music. He’s going through life making one bad choice after another because he isn’t happy.

And his latest bad choice is ruining his life.

“Why did you kill that man?” The shaman.

Dax let’s go of my hand and takes the spot next to me on the couch. We both stare at the television. Some stupid lifetime movie is on and I’m not sure why because I hate lifetime.

“I didn’t plan on killing anyone. I met this girl, went to a party. Ran into these really fucked up people and when I tried to get out of there…”

“What?” He doesn’t finish. “Dax. What happened?”

“I hit the guy with my car. I got out, drug him out of the middle of the street and he grabbed me. I thought he was dead, but he grabbed me and that was it.”

I touch his arm. “You don’t have to talk about it.”

“Good, because I don’t want to.” He grabs my feet and pulls them into his lap and takes the remote. “What do you feel like watching?”

I shrug. My mind is still on this shaman. “You don’t have to talk about it. But I am here if you ever need to talk.” He squeezes my foot and turns the channel on the television.

“You know, I can see why my brother married you.”

I look at Dax. I don’t know if I should take it as a compliment. “Why is that?”

“You’re an awesome girl. You’re good for him.”

His words if he isn’t careful could be taken as flirtation. And I am sure he doesn’t mean for them to sound that way. He cares about his brother. After spending weeks with him I know this.

“Where did you get that scar?” I focus on the scar above his eyebrow. His eyes are the same shape as Slade but that’s where the similarity ends, his are green. They are different men. Slade is serious most times and Dax is laid back.

“I don’t know, I was like five or six. I fell at the kitchen table trying to help Slade do some stupid school project,” he blows me off.

“Are you sure your brother didn’t punch you?” I smile, trying to lighten the mood.

But he doesn’t smile. He checks his watch and taps my leg getting up. “Practice is over. I’m sure they will be home soon. Try to keep Hutch at bay until we can touch each other without Slade catching us and thinking we are messing around behind his back.”

“What?”

We both turn. I wasn’t expecting to see Slade and Kidd standing in the doorway.

I jump up. “I didn’t even hear you come in.”

Slade doesn’t tell me how long he has been there. He looks at his brother waiting for him to say something. I don’t even know what he heard.

“It’s not what you think.” Dax tells him. “How was practice?”

Slade doesn’t tell him how practice was. He grabs him by the shirt and backs him up into the wall. I can’t let him hurt his brother over something harmless.

“Stop.” I grab Slade’s arm and get in his face. “Dax has been helping me. Nothing bad is happening. He’s stopping Hutch from stalking me."

Slade let’s Dax go. And Dax smooths his shirt out shaking his head at me.

“What do you mean he is helping you?” His jaw tenses. “And what do you mean Hutch is stalking you?”

Kidd grows uncomfortable. He throws up his hands and gives me a sympathetic look and heads for the door. “I have to go check on Karsen. I’ll just talk to you tomorrow, Slade.”

“I mean he is helping me,” I snap. “It was magic or go nuts.”

“And neither one of you thought to tell me before you went this route?”

When I look at Slade I feel sick to my stomach.

“I was trying to do you a favor,” Dax says, trying to make the situation better.

“If you ever go behind my back again you will be out on your ass,” Slade warns him. “I promise you that. I don’t care if you are my brother.”

“She’s struggling—“

“She’s my wife, not your fucking wife! This isn’t your problem. You hear me, Dax!” He points his finger in Dax’s face. I grab his arm and stop him before he does even worse.

“Just leave him alone,” I tell him. “He’s your brother, you will not talk to him like that.”

Slade pulls away from my grip. “Then let me the fuck out of here before I do something I can’t take back.” And he leaves the room.

“You mope just like your brother when you're upset,” I tell him. He’s upset and I find myself standing in the doorway of the tour bus trying to make him feel better.

But he doesn’t laugh.

“No matter what, I appreciate everything.” I want him to know that.

He’s angry with me for telling Slade we’ve been practicing rituals together for weeks now because it’s the only thing that drowns out Hutch.

I am putting him in danger just for a few hours of peace from Hutch.

“Maybe he is right,” Dax says. “Maybe I shouldn’t have gone behind his back.”

“He’s not right. This is what I need.”

I sit down next to Dax and drop my head on his shoulder. And I cry. “Why can’t your brother be as understanding as you are?” Why can’t Slade be the thing I need to fix me. So we can have a happy life?

I pull it together before Dax can comfort me. I wipe my eyes and laugh. “When you touch me, you take away those demons. And it’s the only way to cope anymore. I don’t see why that is wrong.”

“Because he loves you and doesn’t want something to happen to you.” I know every time he practices magic with me the closer I am to pushing things too far. I could become the thing that I hate. That’s why Slade doesn’t practice magic.

This magic makes you dark. It makes you evil.

“I will make sure your brother understands. It’s not your fault. It’s mine,” I reassure him.

He only shakes his head. So I leave him alone.

***

I tap on the door before I come into our bedroom. I don’t know why. It’s my bedroom too. Slade is in the bathroom. A towel wrapped around his waist. He wipes the condensation from the mirror and grabs his toothbrush.

“How did practice go?” I know they have been working on a new song.

“You’re not in here to talk about practice, Hope.” He squeezes toothpaste on his toothbrush and starts scrubbing. He won’t even look at me.

“That night when I went back to the bus. I did that because I was wore out from dealing with Hutch. Not to mention that dream I had where I lost you.” I lean against the counter and I wait for him to say something. “The only thing I care about is not losing you. And I would do anything to keep that from happening.”

He keeps brushing. Nothing I am saying is getting through to him. He doesn’t understand. What I can say to make him understand?

He finishes and turns on the water cupping his hand. He takes a swig and then spits. “The only thing you are doing is driving a wedge between us.”

“Slade,” I say, that hurts to hear. “I am trying to fix things. Not ruin them.”

He ignores what I have to say and gives me more. “No. I don’t want to hear your reasoning behind any of it. I told you what magic does. We have been down this road. I want nothing to do with it.”

“He’s in my head,” I beg him to listen. “He’s there. He’s always there. It’s torture.”

He shakes his head and puts his toothbrush back. “He’s dead. This is your mind creating one fucked up scenario after another. That’s all. You need to pull it together.” He walks away leaving me a little more broken.

I know sometimes in life we have nobody to count on but ourselves. And as much as I was hoping my husband would help me ride out the worst storms—he isn’t. I guess he doesn’t want to deal with the worst in marriage.

He’s already in bed. I stare at the towel on the floor. I can’t even look at him.

“You are the one person I thought would be there for me. And it hurts to know you aren’t there.” I clutch my chest and try to control my breathing because I am about to lose it. “That’s all. I just want you to know how much it hurts.”

He turns over giving me the courtesy to look at me when he breaks my heart a little more or whatever he is about to do. “All I do is be there for you. And love you because that’s what I want to do. And because you deserve it. But right now you are being selfish. And weak.”

“Weak?” I can’t believe him. I hate him for saying such a thing. “Fuck you for saying that.”

“Do you want me to lie to you?” He sits up. “Do you want me to feed into what’s going on in your mind and tell you Hutch is haunting you?”

“I wouldn’t be this way if I hadn’t met you,” I know its harsh but fuck him. “So fuck you for saying that.”

When I look at him and he looks at me I can tell he is fed up with this entire argument. How dare he be fed up? The least he can do is let me vent.

“Your brother helped me. He can take away the visions. I don’t see him when he does whatever he is doing.” I don’t know what he is doing, I know its magic. But I never asked because I didn’t care, and I don’t care now.

“You know nothing about Dax. In fact, you hated him when he first showed up here.” He scoffs. “If you knew anything about my brother you would know he isn’t doing this to help you. He’s doing everything to help himself. And this isn’t the first time he’s done this.”

I don’t believe that. I believe Dax cares about Slade and me.

“He thinks a lot about you, Slade. He’s a good guy. When is the last time you sat down and saw that?”

“I don’t need to. Because I know how Dax works. You don’t. Stay away from my brother before he gets you killed.” He drops back down on the bed and gives me one final look. “And I mean it.”

“How does this thing even work anyways?” I ask, holding up the weird breast pump Karsen uses to bottle up what she calls her
liquid gold
for baby Xavier.

She finishes changing his diaper and neatly binds it together in a cute little package and walks it over to the diaper genie. “You ever see someone milk a cow?”

I smirk and she smirks back. She goes back to the baby and takes a spot on the bed next to him and plays with his little hands. “It’s rather boring. And I would much rather talk about non baby things.”

I know where she is going with this. She is about to tell me she knows that Slade and I are having problems. Why wouldn’t she? Slade and Kidd talk about every move we make bedroom and otherwise.

So I say nothing. I wait for her to say something.

“What exactly is going on between you and Dax?”

“What do you mean?” My eyes go wide at the thought anyone thinks I am sleeping with him. “God. What the hell do you guys talk about around here?”

“I know you wouldn’t sleep with him. I just mean I heard through the grapevine that Dax has been practicing magic with you and that Slade is pissed.”

I sit down on the bed and sigh. Even Xavier looks at me with disappointment and he is just a baby. “I see him. Everywhere.”

“See who?”

“Hutch. It’s like this sick hallucination. It started on our wedding night and there  hasn’t been a day since that he hasn’t crept into my life.” I hardly get to talk to Karsen anymore. And I feel relieved to have a level minded person to talk to about this stuff.

“Have you thought about seeing someone about it?” She bites down on her bottom lip and gives me a sympathetic look. “You have lost two important people in your life.”

“Karsen I am not crazy. Slade’s own brother sees him. He saw him the first night he was here. He saw all of them.” Why is it so hard to believe that the dead come back?

She makes a face. “Kidd told me Dax has had a very colourful life with very colourful people.”

“What does that even mean?”

Karsen gives up on trying to use kid gloves with me. “Drugs. He was big into drugs. And orgies I hear.” She paints a lude and crude picture of Dax. One I don’t want to know about.One that doesn’t even matter because I know Dax as the person he is now. Not the person he was years ago. Hell, I gave Slade a chance when everyone was busy judging him. I refuse to do the same to Dax.

“So you are trying to tell me that Dax and I are just a bunch of fruit loops.” I lay down on her bed and stare at the ceiling. “I am not a fruit loop. And I don’t get why my husband blows it all off.”

Karsen puts Xavier between us and lays down too. “Because Slade is scared he ruined you. And he’s too stubborn to deal with that.”