Casted (Casted series) (2 page)

It had felt like hours stuffed inside the confines of the cramped trunk. Every bounce sent me flying up into the trunk lid and then back down with jarring force on top of the clutter lining the bottom. The driver never slowed. I bit my lip clear through at one point. Each bounce earned me a new bruise as the car bottomed out on the rough road. Fumes from the tail pipe had seeped in and depleted my supply of oxygen. I remember shaking uncontrollably as the noxious poison overtook my body.

I began dry heaving as the car continued to rattle on down the rutted road. Somewhere between trying to vomit the lining of my stomach up and the exhaust fumes, I passed out.

I woke to find myself stuffed in a small closet with a single bulb glaring down at me. It was too bright and my eyes watered furiously. Blood, dried and new, tattooed my entire body making me look like I’d dragged myself through a patch of briars on purpose. Midnight purplish bruises had begun to form in various spots all over my body and I couldn’t take a deep breath without wanting to scream in agony.

Heavy footsteps walked around outside my small prison, stopping every so often outside the door. Each time, my heart fell to my feet in fear. It happened so often, I began to think it was some sort of game to whomever it was pacing outside the door.

It was the footsteps that I couldn’t hear that brought me true terror.

One minute, I was sitting facing the door, and the next, I was yanked out by the roots of my hair and flung across what once was a living room in some old abandoned home. I landed hard against the wall and finally let out the pent up scream I’d kept burning in my throat.

My pain was so great. It almost became numbing until I was yanked up again and slammed to the floor. Stars burst behind my eyelids as I struggled for consciousness. My attacker never let up. I was punched, kicked, and tossed so many times that I felt like a Raggedy Ann doll, without her stuffing and half her threads. The brutal attack went on and on.

It was then that I felt the icy cold touch of death. I was ready for it, more than ready for it. I welcomed it, called it by name and let it touch me and wrap me in its wizened hands. I slipped to the floor for the last time, out of the clutches of the cruel man trying to destroy me.

As he sent a final kick to my broken body, he leaned down mere inches from my face. “Say hello to your Mom and Dad for me.” With a snort, he walked away, slamming the door and leaving me to cross over.

I didn’t die, obviously.

No, I lay on the floor of that abandoned house and cried my pain out onto the dirty carpet that was coated in my blood and began to heal. Every second more agonizing than the last, as the feeling returned to my body bit by brutal bit. Why I didn’t die is well beyond my knowledge. No child, hell, no adult could have put up with the amount of brutality my small body had withstood.

The clock on the mantle chimed midnight bringing me back to the present, away from those horrible memories. I’d sat here for hours rehashing the past. I’m not sure why I let myself fall back in time like that. My arm hurt as if it was still healing from one of the many tosses across that old house. I find myself rubbing at it all the time when I feel I’m in danger. It’s like a constant aching reminder to never forget those who could be lurking around the corner.

“Don’t forget to pick up sugar,” Rainy shouted just before I closed the door.
I disliked shopping days. They’d become easier when Jessa and Rainy figured out how to help me. Before, I had to carry home a bunch of bags and my shoulders ached before I’d even made it half way home. Rainy and Jessa could charm their own bags to make them light as a feather and skip all the way home if they wanted to.

Magic doesn’t work for me–at all. Rainy and Jessa tried lots of different spells to make tasks such as carrying bags easier for me. And they did really well until my hands came into contact with them and then poof…the magic dissolved.

Once they figured it out, shopping became a little easier. I still had to carry the bags, but not too far. Once I left the store, I would carry everything to a spelled tree and drop the bags inside the rotted opening. So long as I didn’t touch the tree, the bags would appear in the kitchen long before I got home.

The trees, bright green in their wet state, waved their leaves in the brisk air. Rain droplets fell on me as I dodged murky puddles left over from last night’s storm. It’s a good thing I decided to wear my old rubber boots or my feet would have been soaked clean through by now.

Rainy and Jessa always kept track of the time, I’d have a little over an hour to walk to the store and back before they’d come looking for me.

The bell over the door jingled as I pushed my way into the small store located on the outskirts of town. The owner, Mr. Walsh, a short, fat balding man always behind the counter, greeted me as I grabbed a basket. Shopping took me no time at all. I grabbed what was on the list and headed for the counter.

“Find everything you need?” Mr. Walsh asked.

“Yes, thanks.” I reached into my pocket and dug out some crumpled bills. When I was out in public, I tried very hard to keep a low profile. It wasn’t easy considering I stand out just a little too much for my liking. My hair was an odd shade of red. Depending on the light, it can look dark red or highlighted with blondish orange streaks. My eyes were an odd shade of bright green. Thankfully, I was average in height. I couldn’t imagine being model tall with all the other things that stand out about me. Rainy always picked on me, saying I’m a little too thin. I guess that’s what happened when you’ve done nothing but run all of your life. It was hard to pack on the weight when you’re scrounging for food and always moving.

I handed over the money for my purchases to Mr. Walsh, when a lank of my curly mess of hair fell out from under my woolen cap.

With a shaky hand, I shoved it back up under my hat. Mr. Walsh looked me once over before placing the money in the drawer and giving me my change and receipt.

With that small look, it was as if he’d figured me all out. My hands fumbled with the bags as I thanked him and quickly left the store.

I didn’t take the extra time to avoid the deep puddles. I just plunged through them, soaking my boots all the way through to my socks. The bags were heavy and swinging, hitting me in the legs as if prodding me to go faster. I kept constant vigil as I made my way to the spelled tree and dropped the grocery bags

A dark puddle bloomed up in my path, stretching all the way across the road. I didn’t give myself a chance to think about why that happened. Instead I pushed off just before the puddle, shoving my right foot against the ground as hard as I could so I’d clear the miniature lake in front of me. I should have known better. Puddles didn’t just pop up out of nowhere.

Halfway over the puddle, lighting split the sky and I suddenly found myself immobile above the brackish water. Magic doesn’t work on me, or at least, it never had before. So how and why, was I suspended mid-air with no-one around?

Tree limbs groaned under the current of air pushing from behind me. My hat was ripped off my head. My hair wrapped around my face, blinding me.

Dead limbs snapped off the trees and began streaking by me. I could only watch in horror as whatever was holding me in the air kept me frozen in place. I swallowed the bile crawling up my throat.

A man’s voice boomed out over the wind. Words ripped from his mouth and battered against the wind as if to silence it. My hair, trying it’s hardest to blind me against what was coming, snapped and twirled at my eyes, causing me to tear up and blink furiously.

The wind started to die down. My hair parted slightly giving me a brief glimpse of a man standing just inside the tree line.

I mentally braced myself, expecting to be tossed into the trees or slammed to the ground, but he made no move against me. With a blur too fast for me to track, the man disappeared back into the trees.

My heart thundered in my chest as I searched the trees for him. The wind began to pick back up, my hair partially blinding me again. A large tree limb, hanging off the bough of another tree, started lifting and twisting, escaping its hold. All I could do was watch as it ripped free and headed straight at me. I shrieked and struggled helplessly as the torn branch speared towards my face. I was doomed – and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.

But the wind died completely, leaving the jagged end of the limb pressed against my cheek. The warm sticky flow of blood welled up and trickled down my face like a tear. The same man stepped out of the trees again and started my way.

Behind me, a roar of disapproval boomed across the open space. The man standing before me curled his lip and swept his arm in an arc at me, releasing me from my frozen state. I landed in the water with a muddy splash. Pain exploded up my leg as my ankle twisted beneath me.

I began to stand up, wincing in pain. It took everything I had to apply a small amount of pressure on it. I’d never be able to get away like this.

I struggled to take a labored step. I had to push through the pain and move, or I would die. I had to get to the cover of the trees and find one of my many hidden trails home. I’d known that one day they would come in handy. If I hadn’t been in such a quandary right now, I might have patted myself on the back for thinking ahead.

I sucked in a sharp breath at my first tentative step. Fire shot up my leg, making me gasp for breath.

“Don’t move,” someone yelled.

I looked up to see the man who had released me. He wasn’t watching me, but keeping an eye on the other side of the road. Maybe his partner was caught in a tree.

Served him right
, I thought as I took another step.

“I said don’t move!” He turned so fast his face distorted. I gasped and stumbled backwards out of his reach.

Something slammed into the back of my head. I blinked trying to get my vision straight, but it was no use. My body crumpled in on itself and I hit the ground. Everything went numb. My eyes closed before I could crawl out of the brackish mud.

Floating. I was floating.

Do dead people float?

“Jade?” Jessa gasped my name. I forced my eyes to follow the sound of her voice. She was just a few feet away. Her mouth was hanging open, something I’ve never seen her do.

“Rainy! Quick, get your ass out here. We have a problem!” Jessa shouted over her shoulder without taking her eyes off of me.

Rainy burst out of the cottage, stopping so fast that she almost tripped over her own feet to stay upright.

“What have you done to Jade?” Rainy demanded.

“I’m perfectly fine, well err, not dead anyways.” And then it hit me. How had I gotten here and why did I feel arms holding me? The arms in question tightened me against a solid body. So, I hadn’t been floating all along, I’d been carried. I blinked to bring the man into focus but he was too close to get a good look.

“You just put her down and step away real slow, or else,” Rainy’s hardened voice snapped at my human stretcher.

“I will put her down inside and nowhere else.” The man’s voice held warning that he would be the one making the decisions here.

“Step aside please,” he warned before he pushed past Rainy and Jessa. With a quick look over his shoulder, he carried me inside and set me down on the worn couch.

Behind him, the door slammed shut, the snick of the lock the only sound in the eerie silence.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” I told him. “They will not let you kill me.”

“Kill you? Why would I kill you? I just saved you!” He looked wearily at the door as a blast of blue light appeared through the old style key hole. With a weary sigh, he waved his hand at the door, blowing the spell backwards.

“Where have you been these last few years? Here?” He asked the question as if he was scolding an errant child.

He looked to be in his mid forties, with a touch of grey peeking through the temples of his espresso colored hair. He fixed me with a stern look – the sort of look that a dad would give.

“Who are you?” I asked.

His brow lifted as his hazel eyes searched my face. “That is not of importance. What I’d like to know is how you’ve remained hidden all this time.”

I wasn’t going to tell him anything if he wasn’t going to tell me who he was and why he was here. “I’ve been very careful.”

“Look, we don’t have a lot of time here. My son will be here soon and you need to be packed and ready to go.”

The door blew in revealing Rainy and Jessa, ready to do harm to the man who dared keep them from me.

“You think you’re funny?” Jessa asked him as she pulled energy around her, ready to let it fly from her fingertips.

“Why did you come here?” Rainy demanded.

“I will explain that as soon as Jade gets packed.”

I trembled.

Jessa was not going to sit idle anymore. “Leave.”

“Gladly. Jade, and I will leave as soon as my son gets here,” he said with a smirk.

There was no warning of Rainy’s attack. The spell shot out of her and came to a halt mere inches from his face. The light flickered and smoked as the spell curled in on itself.

“Who are you?” Jessa asked in a whisper. The fact that Jessa looked afraid scared me. Jessa is not afraid of anything or anyone, but her fear spiked for this man.

“Showing some sense now, the both of ya.” He reached out and pinched the flickering light, putting it out with a puff of smoke.

“Bu-but, you’re all dead…” Rainey sputtered.

“That’s what I heard, too. My Dad told me years ago, before he died, that you were all dead. That
they
never left any of the Original Coven bloodline alive,” Jessa said as she lowered herself to sit beside me on the couch. Mud slid off my sleeve and plopped onto her hand. She looked down at it, confusion still written all over her face.

“Some tales, while based in fact, are not all true,” he said, taking out a pocket watch to check the time. “My son will be here soon Jade, please go pack.” He walked to the living room window and pulled the corner of the sheer curtain aside for a clearer view.

“I’m not leaving with you,” I told him as I stood up to face him.