Casted (Casted series)

by Sonya Loveday

  “What’s creepy?” Julie said as she knocked Jude out of the way to grab a bottle of water.

  “They think the book is keeping them from decoding Jade,” he snorted.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Very funny.” Jude pulled out stuff to make sandwiches, stuffing a hunk of meat in his mouth. His thank you was garbled.

  “What’s funny?” Jessa said as her and Rainy came in and took a seat at the table.

  “Oh goody, the gang’s all here,” Edge muttered.

  Julie motioned to Jude. “He said that they think the book is keeping them from figuring Jades new ink out.”

  “Spell blocked by the ancients.” Jude made it sound like he was cheering on his favorite team for scoring a goal.

  “Could you do something to distract her?” Julie asked Edge.

  My thoughts tumbled to what the book really wanted and I sucked in a sharp breath and choked. All eyes turned on me. Edge pounded on my back until I waved him off. “I’m okay. You don’t have to beat on me.” My cheeks burned.

  “If the spell book is of the Original Coven, and it’s playing by their ancient rules, then we just have to think back to what they used as counters to those spells,” Rainy chimed in.

  Jude barked out a laugh as he continued making his sandwich. Julie elbowed him. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “Blood, sex and magic,” he said, slapping the bread together and taking a huge bite.

  “Excuse me?” she said, crossing her arms. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Just like I said…blood, maybe a little bowchicawahwah, or maybe even some hocus pocus.” Jude grabbed his plate and sauntered over to the table.

  “I think my blood is what unbound the book and magic is what helped to put it inside of me.” My thoughts spilled out before I could stop them.

  “Maybe we should go for some sort of distraction?” Rainy suggested.

  “It might work,” Matheson said, tapping his chin in thought. “Anyone with an idea, come talk with me in the main room, except for you, Jade. This way you won’t know what we’re doing or when we plan on doing it.”

  I felt relieved that they would at least continue to try, even if it meant failing. It gave me time to come to terms with what the book really wanted from me before I was forced along this path I didn’t choose.

  There was so much more to read in my mother’s journal and I could only hope that somewhere in all of the entries she’d left me sort of clue. I left everyone in the kitchen and headed back to my room.

  I tossed the book aside as my eyes began to blur. Dates and names, secret meetings and cryptic spells were all that I’d come across. She talked of binding my powers and of my birth. She spoke of the Original Coven of which we were born unto and cursed the Elders for their barbaric decisions. But there was nothing solid to refer back to in regards to the book or the binding of it.

  Edge tapped on my door before he stuck his head in to check on me. “Everyone’s getting ready to turn in.” He sat down and grabbed the discarded book. “Did you come across anything else?”

  “No, but she did refer to the Coven as barbaric, so maybe I am of that cursed bloodline. I still have more to read so maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “It would be nice to have something to go off of, but I’m not holding my breath. If the book had as much control over your mother as it seems to have over you, we’re lucky she was able to give you what she could,” he said, sliding the book on the nightstand.

  “I’m really beginning to hate books,” I whined.

  “Such bold words coming from a librarian!” He gasped in feigned shock.

  I grabbed my pillow and whacked him with it. “Whatever…you know what I mean.”

  “The Dewey Decimal system is crying, what ever shall we do?” he said, lunging for the pillow. I pulled away and he tossed himself onto my bed.

  “Edge?” I poked him in the ribs as he put his hands behind his head and got comfortable.

  “Yes, Jade?”

  “Go to bed.”

  “Thank you. I think I will.”

  “In your own bed.” I pulled the door open and gestured to his room.

  Edge cracked his eyes open to peer at me. With a groan, he sat up and dragged his feet past me, and then turned around to pull me against him before I could close the door.

  “Dream of me,” he said before kissing my forehead. The pages fluttered in response as I pulled away and shut the door. I took a step away and then turned back and locked it. Maybe that would keep me in my own room tonight.

  Sleep eluded me for most of the night. Twice I’d caught myself unlocking my bedroom door while trying to pull off a piece of clothing. The book clearly did not like the fact that Edge was just across the hall and I wasn’t curled up next to him.

  Sometime in the early hours of the morning, I fell into a hard sleep, one that the book had no chance at touching. I heard the lock release on my door before Edge came in to check on me. I rolled away and pulled the covers up over my head.

  “Go away,” I growled.

  “It’s almost noon,” he chided.

  “What!” I said, tossing the covers off to grab the clock beside my bed. The red numbers flashed 11:46. I’d practically slept the day away.

  I threw the covers off and marched towards the bathroom. The chill in the air caressed my legs and I looked down. No pants. I turned back and there they were, pushed up against the backside of the open door. I snatched them up and returned to the bathroom, slamming the door closed behind me.

  I jerked the pants on and squeezed a huge dollop of toothpaste onto my toothbrush. I scowled at my reflection and scrubbed my teeth, cursing the book the whole time. When I opened the bathroom door, Edge was waiting for me.

  “Rough night last night?” he asked. Concern etched along his brow as he took in my scowl.

  “You could say that.” I grunted in annoyance.

  “I have an idea,” he said, pulling me along behind him.

  Edge guided me down a hallway, one that I’d never been down before. I had stuck to his rules about not venturing off, so there was no telling what was down this way.

  He stopped in front of a door and pulled it open.

  “You have a gym?” It would have been nice to know this before now. I could have spent time in here working off all the excess energy I’d been harboring.

  “The girls are usually here first thing in the morning,” he said as I climbed on an exercise bike and began pedaling. “I’ll leave you to it then,” he said with a quick wave.

  I pedaled my ass off as if I were punishing myself and the book for last night’s escapades. My muscles burned in protest, but I continued on. Jude came in and turned on the radio. Music blasted from the speakers and I pedaled even harder.

  I was so focused on exercising out the demons that I hadn’t noticed Jude when he stepped up beside me. He put a hand on my arm and I jumped.

  “You keep at that pace and you won’t be able to walk tomorrow,” he said as he pulled me off the bike.

  “Good,” I replied. It would serve the book right if I couldn’t walk! My knees wobbled. He held onto me until I was steady.

  Sweat ran down my face in streams. My face burned as I tried to catch my breath. My shirt was plastered to my body and my arms trembled. Jude went over to the radio and shut it off. He never asked me if I wanted any help back to my room, he just kept pace with me and tried to keep the conversation light.

  I made it back to my room under my own steam and turned the shower on as I peeled my sweat-soaked clothes from my body. I let the water pound away at my shaking legs. Jude was right. I was going to pay for this later. I couldn’t help but smirk.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I was beginning to get a little stir crazy. Even with the gym and endless books Edge had at his disposal, I was becoming restless. Every night I’d go to bed and every morning, I’d wake up to something strange. And by strange, I meant embarrassing.

  For three days, I’d locked my do
or and gone to bed…in my own bed. The book, however, had no intentions on letting me stay by myself. Three nights ago, Edge found me wandering down the hallway and caught me just before I got to the kitchen in my shirt and little else. He walked me back to my room, picking up pieces of my clothing like a trail of bread crumbs along the way.

  Two nights ago, I’d appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, where he was going over a stack of books with Matheson and Dagger. Lucky for me the others were so immersed in what they were going over, they didn’t bear witness to my almost bare-skinned entrance. To make matters worse, I don’t remember any of it. Edge always filled me in the next morning.

  Music blasted in my ears as I put my body through its paces on the treadmill. Ever since Edge showed me where the gym was, I made use of it every morning. Not that it helped keep my body tired enough to stay in my own bed. It was a useful distraction for me, since we were pretty much stuck down here. At least until we could figure out what the marks on my arms meant.

  The book had blocked us at every turn. I knew that Matheson and Dagger were researching things and I tried to stay away from them as much as possible. I didn’t need the book to know what they were up to. Everything they were doing was very hush-hush, and I couldn’t help but feel left out. Damn book. The fluttering of pages caressed my mind. Ugh! It was impossible not to feel like I was being stalked twenty-four seven. I closed my eyes and bumped up the speed.

  There was nothing I could do right now to be helpful, and I had to remind myself that no matter what, we’d figure it out eventually. Lorenzo wasn’t going to bide his time and neither was the book. What really worried me was how easy Lorenzo just let us get away from him. I couldn’t help but think we’d gotten way too lucky when he took Edge’s explanation of me being a librarian. He’d accepted that lie so easily. The thought made me shudder.

  There was only so much I could do in a day and most of it, I did alone. The feeling was growing in me that I had to get out of this damn cave before I went crazy.

  I slung a towel around my neck and wiped the sweat from my face. If only I could get away from it all and sort my feelings out. I needed some alone time to figure out what I really felt for Edge. It seemed like the book was enhancing everything I felt and I didn’t want my actions to be influenced. My mother had spoke of her love towards my father and how if felt like the book had amplified the feelings, but never once had she blamed the book for making her feel that way. Could it be that the book was only nudging me in the direction that I wanted to take?

  Jude popped up in my line of vision, making me jump.

  “Edge asked me to come get you,” he said as he held the door open, gesturing for me to go first.

  “Did they find something?” I couldn’t help but feel a burst of hope surge through me.

  “Not sure. He just asked me to come and get you while he rounded up everyone else,” Jude said, running his hands through his hair. He knew something. And by the vagueness of his answer, it had me curious as to what was going on. Maybe he was trying to protect me from myself – or the book.

  We walked into the kitchen, which had now become some kind of makeshift work area for everyone but me. I grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and leaned against the counter as I waited for Edge. He and Matheson were the last ones to come into the room and they were whispering between themselves. It sounded heated. Whatever Matheson said made Edge snap.

  “You don’t think I know that? Jesus man, I’m trying the best that I can here!” Edge bellowed.

  Matheson shook his head and pushed past him to take his place at the kitchen table.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Edge raked his hands through his hair and began pacing. My stomach plummeted and the pages in my head began ruffling feverously. Something big had happened and they didn’t know how to tell me.

  I looked around the room, waiting for someone to speak. All eyes were downcast, not one of them would look at me.

  Matheson’s grave voice filled the silence as he picked his gaze up from the floor to look at me. “Do you remember anything from last night?”

  My face flushed. What did I do last night? Had someone finally caught me stripping off my clothes as I wandered around in Edge-seeking mode? It was my turn to look at the ground. I didn’t want anyone to see my face. I just couldn’t face them knowing that the book had finally took the last of my self control away.

  “I’ve already told you that she never has any memories of what she does when she’s like that,” Edge growled as he stopped pacing and came to stand in front of me.

  He cupped my face in his hands and forced me to look up at him. A single tear tracked down my face as I waited for him to tell me just how far I’d gone last night.

  He spoke to the room but looked at me as he wiped the tear away. “Jade has no remembrance of what she’s done until the next day, when I tell her. Last night is the first time she’s done what she did and I think she deserves to know what happened.”

  “What did I do?” I whispered low enough for only him to hear me.

  He slid his hand down to clasp mine in a sign of unity. “Everyone here has been working non-stop to see if we can outsmart the book. Every opportunity that we have had at trying to translate the words has been exhausted,” he said, running his fingertips over my arms.

  “Okay, but what does that have to do with whatever it is I did last night?”

  “Last night was totally different. Last night…” He stopped and rubbed at his temples.

  “Last night the book called us out,” Matheson jumped in.

  “Called you out?” I didn’t understand.

  “That and then some,” Jessa said, rubbing her elbow. I hadn’t noticed how beaten everyone looked. Almost as if they’d been in some sort of barroom brawl. Jessa’s elbow was scraped up and Rainy had a bruise along her jaw. Dagger’s black eye was almost purple and Julie shot daggers at me as she cradled her ribs.

  “It wasn’t her, so stop looking at her like you guys are ready for round two. Because I’m sure the book would just love another shot at all of us,” Rainy huffed out, bringing attention to her split lip.

  “What the hell happened to all of you?” I asked.

  Jude jumped up from his chair. “Dude, you were like kicking everyone’s ass!” he said excitedly.

  “What?” I couldn’t be hearing this right.

  “You went all like, Jet Li, on ‘em,” Jude snorted.

  Dagger grabbed Jude by his arm and stuffed him back down in his seat. The look on Daggers face had the clear warning for him to shut the hell up. Jude threw his hands in the air. “Just sayin…” he said, shifting away from Dagger’s hands.

  “I did this to all of you? What? How?” I sputtered.

  “It wasn’t you. It was the book,” Edge explained.

  I hugged my arms against me. How could the book go from trying to get me into Edge’s bed, to beating the shit out of my friends? It just didn’t make sense.

  “It wasn’t me…it was the book? What did I-it do?”

  “We were really close to deciphering that,” Dagger said, pointing at the foreign words on my arm. “In fact, we were down to like the last three words before all hell broke loose.”

  “You were?”

  “Yes, we took turns, one word at a time, until we had them all. We decoded each of them one-by-one, trying to keep you unaware. We even kept our findings separate until last night,” Matheson chimed in.

  “So you were sitting down to piece it all together and then what?” I asked.

  “You appeared out of nowhere and-” Jessa finished with a gesture to her arm.

  I cringed. Now the book was taking it too far. They were just trying to help me. And knowing I had no control over myself when I went to sleep at night was creepy. What was I supposed to do? Chain myself down. The pages snapped in response. I huffed. I couldn’t even have a single thought without some sort of input from it.

  “You said something to us, but I can’t see
m to remember what now. It’s like you spelled us not to remember everything we came up with. Then you burnt all of our findings, including the book we were using to translate it,” Julie sneered.

  We had nothing. After all this time wasted down here, it was a dead end. I couldn’t help but feel like the book was winning, that it would always win.

  “It’s not her fault,” Rainy said as she leaned in closer to Julie. The pages in my mind fluttered faster, as if excited that they were seconds away from coming to blows.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if the book was trying to turn everyone away from me –well, everyone except Edge. The book responded by sifting through its pages. It was getting very aggravating to hear that sound. I couldn’t stand here and watch everyone turn against each other or turn against me. Maybe they were a little stir crazy, too. Whatever the reason, we needed to get out of here. Get some sunshine and re-energize ourselves if we wanted to get this mystery solved.

  The book was only part of the problem anyway. We still needed to figure out why Lorenzo was looking for it, too. What was so special about it anyway?

  The books hard leather cover slammed into the side of my brain. My eyes watered as I grabbed for my head.

  Edge grabbed me up in his arms and turned to everyone. “I think we’ll have to take this up with Jade again later.”

  I cracked my eyes open, forcing them to stay that way as I wiggled out of Edge’s arms. “I’m fine,” I said as reached out to steady myself against the counter.

  Everyone had stood up, waiting to see what I was going to do. Jude had grabbed his chair and was holding it out in front of him like a weapon.

  “I’m really sorry about last night. I honestly don’t remember anything. The book is…I don’t even know how to explain it, but I promise I’ll try harder to keep it in check.”

  “It’s not going to stop until it gets what it wants,” Edge said, sliding his arm around me.

  “I know,” I whispered.

  “Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m tired of being underground. I’m in desperate need of fresh air and a little sun would be nice too,” Rainy said.