Boxed Set: The Ink Series Volume 1-5 Read online

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’d like to think it was that easy. But how long have we been doing this? Just light that shit,” Slade said.

  Odin’s feet were by me now, his black boots touching my exposed toes. He cleared his throat. “I need you to look up.”

  I nodded, bringing my gaze to him. I caught a peek of Slade out of the corner of my eye. There he stood, anxiously waiting. Arms crossed. Odin brought the blade to a spanking new finger, slicing through the skin with the jagged edge, his expression showing no indication of pain. He squeezed, letting a few drops fall before extending his arm toward me. I swallowed down the sick feeling and opened my mouth. My heart racing in my chest. It sickened me to think I had to agree to his blood. But I didn’t want to screw this up.

  Odin’s finger touched my lips. The blood hot, the pungent flavor of copper mixing with my saliva. My mouth immediately watered. I felt sick. I ran my tongue along my bottom lip, wishing the experience away. My blood pumping away in my ears. And then a sluggish, magnetic calm hurried through my skin. Through my mind. I felt prickly. I felt warmer than I already was.

  My body gave in and I found myself kneeling before Odin. Something I hadn’t even intentionally done. But now it was happening. There I was, kneeling. I had this odd feeling coursing my veins and something grating at my mind, making me believe I would do anything that Odin wanted.

  Intense light appeared all around me. They had lit the stones. I waited, closing my eyes. I concentrated on the ominous feeling washing over me. My skin heated even more, making me ever more uncomfortable. My knees ached from the pose I was fixed in. What was happening? What happened to the breeze? All was still and I felt like I was roasting.

  I opened my eyes to find myself enclosed by flames taller than the fence I had entered to get into this place. I screamed, falling backward. Both Odin and the bald guy held my hands behind my back not willing to let me go like all the other girls.

  “Please!” I screamed, struggling to get free. I looked at Slade. His face was pleased. Was he enjoying my misery?

  Odin put a hand on my shoulder. “Calm down. You’re the one.”

  “The one what?” I yelled. “I just want to go home. Let me go home like all the rest!” This was not the day I wanted to be the victor of anything.

  “The chosen one. She has picked you,” Odin explained, brandishing the silver blade.

  I screamed, jamming a knee into his hand, the blade falling to the earth. I yanked my hand away from the bald guy, falling forward right on my face. I rolled over, kicking my legs to keep them away from me. I couldn’t run anywhere. We were enclosed in a sweltering hellhole.

  “Slade, you do the honors,” Odin said, turning over the knife.

  Slade tucked it into the back of his pants. Both men cornering me again. I crawled away, staying near to the ground, the sand clinging to every part of my body as I scrambled away from them.

  “How long does this take?” Slade asked, following me around the circle. He was waiting for something. What, I wasn’t sure. I screamed, kicking at Odin as he tried to take hold of me all over again.

  He waved the bald man over. “Hold her down, its time,” he ordered. I screamed one last time as the bald man pinned me to ground, his knee pressing into my upper body.

  “My name is Hope!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. I pulled my arm free, yanking the wig off of my head.

  The bald man ignored my frantic rant and pinned my arms above my head. “Have at it, Slade.”

  My eyes went wild, searching for anything that could free me of this agony. Slade pulled the blade from his jeans, gripping it securely. I locked eyes with him.

  “Let her go,” Slade ordered finally. His face changing from liberation to upset once he knew that it was me. He kneeled down. “Hope.”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “Slade, this is it. What are you waiting for?” Odin asked, lifting Slade’s arm that held the blade in the direction of me. Coaxing him to do whatever he had intended.

  “No. I can’t do this.” Slade dropped the blade in the sand.

  I sat up, thankful he couldn’t, because I didn’t want to know how that would have turned out.

  “Let her go,” Slade said, standing back up. He kicked the blade clear out of the circle. The fire immediately died down to nothing but glowing ashes. At last some clean air surged around all of us. My head felt light and my brain barely had a handle on what just occurred.

  “Slade says you can go,” Odin said, shaking his head in disbelief.

  I pulled away from the bald man. It seemed I rained on everyone’s parade.

  “What is going on?” I asked Slade. I wasn’t leaving without an answer.

  He kept his back to me. Sweat gleaming off his skin.

  “What is going on, Slade?” I asked again, moving toward him. I rested a hand on his back, my fingers wet from the contact. “What just happened? And why did you stop it?”

  Slade exhaled, his body expanding and then falling quickly. “Something really horrific,” was all he said.

  “Can you please clarify a little? Were you and these weird people about to hurt me?” I waited for a response from him, but he seemed too mortified to say anything.

  Odin stepped forward. “A sacrifice.” As if I would accept that and everything would be okay.

  Slade whipped around, facing me, rage overflowing his features. “Get the hell out of here, Odin.”

  Odin swiftly scurried away.

  I swallowed, baffled. A sacrifice. I knew the connotation, but that didn’t mean I understood.

  “Ezra. She needed a means. Someone she would be eager to reside in. It’s an old sacrament. You locate a source and imprison the departed spirit. Once the spirit inhabits the body, the body is destroyed as a result, destroying the spirit along with it.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Was he saying he was about to end me for the sake of doing away with of his ex girlfriend? I was pretty confident that he was. And only because he realized it was me he had stopped. Refused to go forward with it. But if I hadn’t been me some poor girl would have lost her life, and that disturbed me.

  I took off running as fast as my feet could carry me through the gates. The only place I wanted to be was in my bedroom and away from such perverse, sick darkness.

  Goodbye

  I came to a stop outside of the gates of Henry Park vowing I would never step foot in there again. I took a quick glance back before I took off across the sand. I had to find Karsen.

  It was late. Really late. And I knew Dad would be close to calling the cops if I failed to show my mug soon. I didn’t know if Karsen would go back to my house after what she had just been through. I was certain of very little actually.

  I tore past a group of drunken men, jumped over a huge log and then shimmied in between the boulders. My lack of clothing making it effortless to slip right through. As soon as my feet hit the sand on the other side, I screamed. And so did Karsen. She was curled up by the boulders.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, helping her up.

  “I didn’t want to go back to your house without you. So I stayed here and waited. I thought you were dead,” she panted, looking me over. Her wig was at her feet, no longer of any kind of importance to her.

  “Well, I’m not dead,” I pointed out, waving a hand at her. Her expression was dark and bothered. It showed all over her face just how upset she was. Her eyebrows were drawn together and her eyes were full of tears.

  “You need to explain to me what you got yourself into,” she told me.

  I half expected something like this to be coming out of her mouth. I was just scared of how to handle it. If I knew how to handle such a thing I probably wouldn’t have any problem. But I didn’t.

  “I’m not into anything. That’s the very last time I will ever step foot over there again. Believe me.” I stared off, hoping that was enough to suit Karsen. Hoping she would just leave it alone. She took hold of my shoulder, tugging me back t
o her. Dragging my mind away from the ocean and back to her face.

  “What do you want me to say, Karsen?” I grumbled, letting out a loud sigh. Any way I saw it, I looked like the biggest idiot.

  “I want you to tell me what’s going on. What do you know?” She scaled one of the boulders, I followed after her. The breeze wafting off the ocean, making me chilly. I was sitting outside with hardly any clothes on. I brought my knees up, hugging them in place.

  “He’s a witch.”

  “I thought men were called warlocks? And holy shit!” she shrieked, gripping my arm as she panted like a pregnant woman in a Lamaze class.

  I pulled away. “So just like that, you believe me?”

  Karsen sighed. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself. And felt it. That man, the one chanting all the alien crap, I felt connected to him. I was under some spell. How could I not believe it?” she rattled with no sign of stopping.

  “But don’t worry anymore about it because we are putting this behind us. So starting now, let’s not speak about it,” I said, trying to steer clear of any further conversation. But Karsen wasn’t buying that.

  “We. As in Kidd, too?” She smacked her palm into her forehead hard. “He’s a wiccan?” All these expressions Karsen was using were nothing but confusing to me. I didn’t know anything about their world or what to call them. So I had settled on witch. Just like Slade. He didn’t argue the word, so it seemed fitting enough.

  “All of them. Slade, Kidd, Oz, Lucy and that boyfriend of hers. I didn’t know, honest. Slade told me later. Although, the first indication should have been this stupid tattoo.” I thrust my wrist out. Karsen rested her fingers on it.

  “What does a stupid black heart have to do with anything?”

  “This was the first warning something was not right with Slade. It never came off. And it wasn’t a heart at first. It was a phone number. And right before my eyes he changed it. And then he even used it to communicate with me after I was attacked. I’m an idiot,” I said, letting out a long, weary sigh.

  “We both are,” Karsen agreed.

  And that we probably were. We were two young girls. Young and stupid, if only we used are brains instead of other things.

  “Yeah, well, I still like him. I don’t know how you feel about Slade, but I still like him. And Kidd wasn’t mixed up in what Slade was doing, so don’t judge me,” Karsen warned.

  “I’m not judging you. But I am over Slade. I have to be,” I said. But I wasn’t sure I believed it. I swore to myself that I was going to do my best to keep my word. I was done with Slade.

  Finished.

  “How can you be so sure? If you like someone it’s not that easy to just be over it. Believe me,” Karsen said, all knowing.

  “Because there’s more to it,” I said, leaning into Karsen as I confessed the entire messed up story to her. How Slade had been blamed by Tucker for causing the death of Anaya. Plus the rape story running around. I couldn’t believe how much of an idiot I was for even taking a chance on someone with such a bad reputation. I also told her about Ezra, and as hard as it was to make her believe me, she did once I told her Ezra was the cause of my horrifying nightmare that ended with her bruised eye—the one hiding under a thick coating of foundation and powder.

  “I don’t know, Hope. Maybe you should just come home with me. Maybe California is not the right place for you to be. I’m sure your dad will understand,” Karsen finally said.

  “Everything is going to be fine. I will steer clear of him. I’m going to be okay, I swear it,” I said, extending my pinky for our famous pinky promise.

  Karsen sighed, accepting it. She knew there was no taking me away from my dad. She had tried in the past right before I left. Tried her best to persuade me that I was doing the wrong thing. But it never worked, of course. And it wouldn’t work now, either. No matter what I went through, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to ditch the one person that loved me my whole life. Good people didn’t do that. And I had barely a year before I finished school. Then I could leave under real terms. Dad would be fine with me at a college making something of my life. And besides, I planned on going to a community college nearby so I could always visit or maybe even live here.

  Karsen stood. She wiped at her skirt, sand drifting through the breeze. “Well, I really need to pack my things. I leave in a couple hours.”

  We headed back to my house. I was sad, but I had too much on my mind to stay that way for long. And I was sure she would find a way back as soon as possible.

  I boosted Karsen through my bedroom window. She dropped to the floor with a loud thud. “I’m in!”

  I laughed at her, waiting for her to move out of my way so I could slide in, get rid of my messy attire and make this whole day fade away. That was the plan anyway. I would start new in the morning. Right after Karsen went home. I was pretty sure we would make it as non-emotional as possible for the both of us.

  “Well, I think that’s the last of everything,” Karsen said at last, zipping up her duffel bag. She set my alarm for five. This gave us just three hours to sleep.

  “I am going to shower and then I’ll be back,” I said, grabbing some pajama bottoms and a t-shirt out of my drawer and running for the bathroom.

  The lights were out in the living room, which meant everyone in the house was asleep. But I wanted to be sure, so I ventured down the hall to the last door on the left. I took a giant breath, rotating the doorknob.

  The stench of Jack Daniels flooded my nose. The fan buzzed in the far corner of the room. I moved closer to the bed seeing Dad’s face was partway covered by his pillow. His bare upper body rising and falling as a soft snore escaped his lips. I smiled briefly before creeping little by little back toward the door.

  “That’s quite the getup,” Dad muttered.

  I flinched. “I thought you were asleep,” I said, spinning to face him. I hoped the night really hid what I looked like.

  Dad hoisted himself up in the bed, snapping on the lamp on the side of his bed.

  “Where have you and Karsen been, Hope?” His eyes ran from one scarcely clad body part to another. I held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t lose it.

  “We went to the concert at Henry Park. But we are fine. Karsen leaves in the morning so I want to spend a little time with her before she goes.” I tried to walk away.

  Dad unintentionally smashed his hand into the clock on his table. It crashed into his lamp and dropped to the ground, the bell softly chiming as it hit the floor. He cursed under his breath, whipping the covers from his legs and got out of bed.

  “It’s… three in the morning,” he said, stumbling to the wall. He put a hand out to brace his fall.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “And what’s with the getup, Hope?” he asked, keeping his hand on the wall. His eyes were barely open but I still could see how smashed he was. He hiccupped.

  “It’s the style,” I offered, covering my top with my hands. “Now, I’m going to shower. Go back to bed.” I opened the door, slipping out. I poked my head back in, watching for good measure to make sure he made it safely back to bed.

  “Hope, sometimes I worry I did the wrong thing taking you away from Georgia,” Dad said, snapping off his light.

  I searched for him in the darkness, pushing the door open wider. The bed groaned, letting me know he was back in it.

  “You didn’t do the wrong thing, Dad,” I assured him, pressing my cheek into the door.

  “I don’t want anything happening to you out here,” Dad said.

  “I don’t want anything happening to you either. That’s why I am here.”

  “I know, kid, I know.” He fell silent. And after a couple minutes I headed down the hallway to shower.

  Morning came fast.

  I rolled over in my bed, Karsen stared at me sleepily.

  “Today is the day. Even though I feel like a zombie and it still feels like night to me,” she groaned.

  �
�You look like a zombie,” I pointed out. Her eyes were creased with dark rings of black make-up smudged down to her cheeks.

  “Yeah. Maybe I should have showered, but I was pooped. Still am.”

  I nodded, studying the ceiling.

  “What are you going to do without me?” Karsen said finally. She bit at her lip.

  “I don’t know. Maybe you can visit again soon. Maybe now that your parents know you survived you could come back real soon,” I offered.

  “Yeah, maybe. But if they really knew what happened here that would never happen. Lucky for you I will keep my lips shut.” She stretched over me to my nightstand.

  “What is that?” I asked, referring to the envelope in her hand. She turned it to face me. The front of it read Kidd.

  “I want you to give this to him. It just says how much fun I had and that I will be thinking about him.” She sighed. “If you ever see him again that is. I know you said you were through with Slade.”

  I swallowed. “Yeah.”

  “But you never know. Maybe you will see him on the shore, or at the Taco Shack or something,” Karsen said. I knew she liked Kidd and so I would do my best to do what she wanted if I ever ran into him. But I didn’t know how likely that was going to be. I was going to stay far away from all things sinister and witchlike.

  “Maybe you should just hear him out,” Karsen said unexpectedly. She sat up, pushing a tuft of blonde hair behind her ear. Was she an idiot?

  “He tried to sacrifice me to get away from an old girlfriend. There is no hearing him out,” I said straight away.

  “Maybe Slade did it because he was desperate. She seems pretty terrifying. I mean, come on. We know nothing about being part of his everyday life. Maybe he deserves a chance to give explanation.” Karsen raised an eyebrow, waiting for a response.

  “Every time I think about it, I’m terrified. I can’t think about Slade and not be terrified. How does someone get around that?” I sincerely wanted to know because I had no idea how to not be afraid of Slade after what I witnessed. He was a completely different person last night. Something awful emanated from him and I couldn’t see past it.