Insidious: (The Marked Mage Chronicles, Book 1) Read online

  Damn, I really did need to change that.

  It came as no surprise that I had 52 text messages and 21 missed calls. I scrolled through the texts, seeing messages from pretty much everyone begging to know where I was. What was surprising was the fact that Vice Principal Wallace hadn’t raided my locker, given how often my phone must have been going off throughout the day. I could’ve sworn I’d set it to vibrate…

  The phone played its sinister ringtone once again, and I noted another incoming text message.

  That was odd. The name of the user was listed as Unknown. I tapped on the message.

  “Good to see you bounced back so quickly.”

  Another message immediately popped up, and I nearly dropped the phone as a picture came up on the screen.

  Broken glass lay spewed all over, the bits seeming to stick to the masses of blood splattered across me as my lifeless eyes bore into the void above. I was on the pavement, the damp asphalt gleaming under the flash of the camera. It was…from the accident. My trembling fingers zoomed in on the photo. It wasn’t the blood that was keeping the glass in place. It was burrowed in my skin, a particularly large shard protruding from the front of my temple. How could that be? I didn’t have any cuts on me when I woke up in the hospital, mere hours after the accident.

  Who the hell would send something like this? Or the better question, how did they even get a hold of it?

  The floor rumbled as a vicious bout of thunder resounded outside. I frantically tossed a mass of textbooks and notes into my satchel before slamming the locker shut. Lightning crackled again, and I froze, catching sight of the figure lurking at the end of the hallway out of my peripheral. Slowly turning, I faced the individual, unable to see anything down the long, shadowed corridor. My feet backpedaled toward the stairwell as lightning struck again. Between the distance and brief illumination, all I could make out was a tall frame hidden behind a massive black sweatshirt with the hood drawn over the person’s head and dark pants. No features were distinguishable, but the frame was relatively tall. Around six feet, give or take.

  Each step I backtracked, the figure advanced.

  “Hello?” I called out shakily, just like all the dumbasses chased down and brutally murdered in every horror movie…ever.

  It came as no surprise that I didn’t get a response. I whirled around and darted toward the stairs, practically falling down the dual flights as panic reduced my legs to shaky twigs. Footsteps echoed from the top of the stairwell just as I hit the bottom landing. The vast distance this person covered in such a short burst was ridiculous, and I outright screamed as I raced out into the ground floor hallway.

  The light from the open gymnasium doors came into sight. Only a little further.

  A large shadow suddenly loomed in the entrance just as I rounded the bend, and I smacked full force into a strong, bare chest. The individual didn’t budge, holding me in their grasp.

  “Kat, what’s wrong?”

  I instinctively shrieked back, still trying to wrestle away until I noticed the gel glove wraps protecting this person’s hands. My eyes snapped up as recognition landed with the voice.

  Adam.

  “What are you doing out here?” He looked over my shoulder, gazing up and down the hall.

  “There’s someone in here,” I spat.

  “Not surprising. The place is swarming with jocks,” my ex remarked.

  “No, I think they were following me.”

  “What are you talking about?” The look on my face must have said it all, because any hint of amusement fell from Adam’s face. He backed up and ushered me into the safety of the gym. “Where are they?”

  “In the stairwell,” I muttered.

  Before I had a chance to protest, he disappeared into the shadows of the hall.

  “Thought that was you,” panted Mark, startling me from behind as he trotted over from off the court. “Sorry about tattling on you to Adam, but the way you zoomed through here, I wasn’t sure what was up and Coach wouldn’t let me leave.”

  Adam reemerged from the hall not a moment later, shaking his head. “Nobody’s out there.” He slung the fresh towel hanging off his shoulder and unfolded it, ruffling it through his sweaty locks as he parked a seat on the bottom row of the bleachers still drawn out.

  Mark exchanged a puzzled look between the two of us. “Oookay, what did I miss?”

  “Nothing,” I quickly countered. “It’s nothing.”

  Even amid my mental bedlam, my eyes couldn’t resist traveling over Adam’s taut frame. His bare, broad chest glistened with sweat, and the lighting overhead lay emphasis on the dips and contours of his chiseled body. The only clothes he donned were knee-length mesh shorts and shoes, and the sight made a field’s worth of butterflies flutter in my stomach.

  The guy seriously looked like an MMA fighter, which wasn’t entirely off. Adam “dabbled,” as he put it, in mixed martial arts. I silently laughed at the thought. Not because he was bad at it. He was freakishly good, in fact. It was how he so offhandedly referred to “hobbies.” While others may dabble in, say, something like cooking or playing guitar, Adam oh so casually practiced the art of double-leg takedown body slams.

  Mark smirked as he caught me stealing the long glance at my ex. Thankfully, Adam didn’t seem to notice as he removed the gel wraps from his bound hands, flexing his fingers stiffly. My guilty thoughts were interrupted by Coach blowing his whistle.

  “Hey, McDowell! Get your ass back on the court. I didn’t recruit you so you could stand around lookin’ pretty.”

  “That’s my cue,” laughed Mark, giving me a soft elbow to the arm. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  In Mark’s book, that didn’t exactly narrow things down. At all.

  I shot my friend a testy glare as he trotted off humming, “Bow chicka wow wow,” with a rhythmic beat straight out of some generic 80’s porno.

  That didn’t escape Adam’s attention as he finally looked up at me with slightly reddening cheeks. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  As much as I appreciated the offer, I hastily said, “No. It’s okay. I’ll be fine.” I wanted to kick myself for not taking him up on the kind gesture, but stubbornness ruled against the logical half of my brain. Even now, amid my frantic thoughts, I still didn’t want to have to depend on him.

  My words came out a bit snippier than they should have, causing Adam’s soft smile to turn upside down. “I mean, you’re in the middle of practice. I don’t want to be a bother,” I clarified a bit more politely.

  “It’s really no problem. Practice ended about a half hour ago. I was just in the weightlifting room getting a little extra time.” He looked up at me with those deep, soulful blue eyes of his, and it was all I could do to nod.

  An appreciative smile tugged at his lips, and it still confused me. I had been the one to officially end the relationship, but Adam was the one who made it clear that he wasn’t invested for the long haul. Yet he seemed to have taken the breakup like a wounded puppy dog. Carly was right. He did regret what happened, and the thought hurt all the more. If he still cared, why did he do any of it in the first place? And why did he continually hurt me when we were together? The whole scenario made no sense.

  I was left to digest those questions as he said, “I’ll be right back,” before disappearing into the damp concrete stairwell leading up to the weightlifting room.

  “I’ll be right back,” I reiterated to myself, still finding no humor in the horror movie clichés that seemed to be playing out all too frequently. Thankfully, my life wasn’t entirely like Scream, because Adam did in fact return a moment later with no stab wounds in sight. He pulled a large hoodie on over his head, subsequently covering up the ab-tastic awesomeness that was his stomach.

  I followed him across the gym to the side exit, and thanked him as he held the heavy metal door open for me against the batting winds. We raced over to my car, and Adam cupped his hands over his eyes, stealing a look into the backseat through the rain sp
lattered windows.

  “You’re all good,” he confirmed as I hit the UNLOCK button on my key ring.

  “Thanks.” Still shaken, I returned his smile as best as I could, climbing into the driver’s seat.

  “If you have any problems, just give me a call.”

  “Will do.” Unlikely.

  He closed the door and saluted me before trudging his way back up to the building. I started the car and turned out onto the main drag. The windshield wipers swiped at the highest setting, but it didn’t do much good as the rain hammered down harder than ever. Maine’s swiftly changing weather constantly kept its inhabitants on their toes behind the wheel, and it was giving me a run for my money. A knot had formed in my stomach earlier when I’d woken up from…whatever that could be called, and it hadn’t gone away. The further I drove, the knot only grew.

  I was being paranoid. Simple as that. The weirdo in the hall was probably just some brain-dead jock who’d seen me in the gym. Hell, if I hadn’t known Mark was still on the court, I’d bet my life that it was him. He did stupid things like that all the time, no matter how insensitive they were. So it stood to reason that another one of his basketball buddies got the same idea.

  But what about the picture?

  And how I’d been feeling?

  Or me…levitating?

  I could chalk up everything to PTSD and some cruel, obnoxious prankster. But that last bit…it didn’t have a rational explanation. Either hysteria was causing my imagination to wreak havoc on my sanity, or something else was really, really wrong.

  Refusing to let my thoughts run away to a very dangerous place, to which there was no return, I pressed my foot down harder on the accelerator. The sooner I got home, the better. I’d take a shower, get something in my stomach, and lose my thoughts in homework until I fell asleep. Sounded like a solid plan.

  Warmth spread across my chest, yet I could feel the hairs on my arm stand on end beneath my sweater. If there was such a thing as spidey-senses, I was pretty sure this was it. That, or I was having a panic attack unlike any I’d ever heard of. An inexplicable dread washed over me, and I looked in my rearview mirror to see no headlights behind me. There weren’t any cars in front of me now either. Knowing that I wasn’t going to get creamed by some reckless SUV barreling down the street should have been comforting. Yet, my hands instinctively gripped the steering wheel till the whites of my knuckles looked like they were about to tear through my skin.

  The wipers continued racing across the windshield, but it was getting harder to see. I turned on the defrosters, hoping to clear away the steam on the windows. It was then I realized that the mist wasn’t on the inside. The fog seemed to cling to the glass as I raced down the stretch. I could barely make out the red light hanging above the upcoming intersection, relieved to see it switch to green just as I started to slow down. I let my foot off the brake, rolling right through the juncture to the town square.

  Lightning waged overhead, and sparks suddenly spewed from everywhere. All the bulbs from the shop windows to the streetlights exploded, sending the village center into total darkness. It wasn’t until I was right on top of them that I saw the silhouette standing right in the front of the car.

  “Holy shit!” I yanked the wheel to the right, sending the car into a tailspin as it hydroplaned on the flooded street. The backend bucked up from what I guessed was the Civic jumping the curb, but I didn’t hear any other impact as I jolted to a stop. Just as I blew out a sigh of relief, the front end buckled with a heavy wallop. I shrieked, seeing a pair of booted feet standing on top of the hood.

  What the hell?

  The figure knelt down, seeming to peer inside the car. I still couldn’t see their face, but by the all-black ensemble adorned by the large hood, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together. It was the creep from the hallway!

  I was pretty sure that I’d locked the car doors when I got in, but I wasn’t taking any chances. My shaking fingers fumbled with the side panel, reinforcing the locks. I still couldn’t peel my eyes away. Had I hit this person? They didn’t appear to be the least bit injured. A leather clad hand suddenly pounded down on the frontend, igniting a strange crackling sound from beneath the hood.

  All of the gauges above the steering wheel suddenly died, leaving the entire dash pitch-black. I frantically tried restarting the engine, but I was only met with a rattling click. What did they just do? Looking back up at the stranger, I choked on a scream, seeing two blazing red lights flash beneath the shrouded hood where the eyes should have been. My eyes crazily blinked, trying to rid themselves of the obvious mind trick, but it wouldn’t go away. This person’s eyes were…glowing.

  Through the rapid hustle of the windshield wipers, I could also see the other hand move behind the stranger’s back.

  No.

  No.

  No.

  An L-shaped rod came into view, and I quickly realized it was a tire iron.

  Crying out every curse word imaginable, I kept twisting the key in the ignition without any luck. The hood hoisted back up as the individual leapt off it to the ground in one fluid motion.

  “Come on, come on!” I slammed my palm against the steering wheel as my other hand tried one last time to turn over the engine. As if answering my prayers, the vehicle roared back to life. My foot slammed down on the accelerator, not particularly concerned with whether or not I plowed this psycho down. The car lurched forward, but jolted back to a stop just as quickly.

  “Shit!”

  The figure loomed toward the driver’s side of the car, and I throttled the gears into reverse. Punching down on the accelerator, the Civic floored back. An ugly crumpling sound scratched the undercarriage, but the car didn’t stop as I drove up onto the sidewalk. The shattered remains of one of the large potting plants lining the town square spat out of the frontend. Apparently, that was what I’d hit. Angling the car parallel to shop windows, I threw the gearshift into drive and sped off down the sidewalk. As the next intersection came, I jumped the curb and swerved back onto the street, stealing a look behind me in the rearview mirror. The rain made it impossible to see much of anything, but I could still make out the singular shadow looming across the road as lightning struck again.

  Chapter 6

  Emperor’s New Clothes

  Apparently, word about the police cruiser out front spread like wildfire among the Real Housewives of Mystic Harbor, because not five minutes after Officers Blake and Stevens arrived did Mom storm in the house. I told the police all about the attack—with the exception of the whole glowing red eyes bit—and even showed them the photo I received when I retrieved my cell phone. They exchanged nervous glances.

  “Could we have a word with you in private?” asked Stevens, motioning to my mother.

  “Whatever it is, you can say in front of her,” snapped Mom.

  Both officers grimaced.

  “Officer Stevens here also checked with local hospitals to see if anyone came in from a hit-and-run. Nobody matches the case,” said Blake. “And on our way up here, we passed over the bridge where your daughter claims this all happened. The only thing there was a dead coyote on the side of the road.”

  “Is it possible you may have been mistaken about what you saw?” Stevens directed to me.

  “Unless this coyote happened to be six feet tall and wearing a black sweater, I wouldn’t say it’s likely, no.” I tried answering as politely as possible, but from the moment they walked in the door, their stance was made pretty clear. Either they were a part of the massive conspiracy, or they just thought I was bat-shit. Safe to assume the latter.

  “Look, I went to Belleview High, too,” said Blake, who looked to be no older than twenty. “So I know how immature the guys there can be. The whole thing with the text and chasing you was probably just some moronic prank gone too far. When I was in school, my friend was forced to shave his head after another member on the basketball team put glue in his hair gel.”

  “It’s not unc
ommon for people to see things after going through the kind of trauma you did. PTSD isn’t something to be ashamed of,” added Stevens.

  The conversation didn’t get any better from there. If anything, everyone became more and more convinced that I was fit for a straitjacket. Blake urged me to come back with him and Stevens to the precinct, where a therapist would be more than happy to speak with me. Mom insisted that it wouldn’t be necessary, practically shoving them out the door.

  At first, I mistook her anger, thinking she was mad at the officers for not taking me seriously. She made herself pretty clear however the moment we found ourselves alone. The whole of Mystic Harbor would hear about 5-O paying us a visit by morning, and the town was fixed with eyes and ears. It was only a matter of time before everyone learned that I was Shutter Island-grade certifiable. Considering Dad had only been with Barker & MacLeane for less than two years, the last thing he needed was bad press to overshadow his work, especially with him in the midst of closing a merger. Then there was the matter concerning Mom’s upcoming run for Regency Board President of the Woodstone Country Club. Apparently, I was making a P.R. nightmare for the family.

  ***

  After spending a sleepless night flopping about my bed like a fish, I assumed I’d be in full-on zombie mode by second period. Instead, I was wired. Coupled with my hypersensitivity and growing paranoia, I was kookier than Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory. Or maybe just Mel Gibson in general. And this peculiarity didn’t go unnoticed by my friends. I didn’t help my case at lunch when I practically devoured everything I could get my hands on.

  “Seems someone’s been tokin’ some reefer,” laughed Mark disquietly. His usual amusement was absent as I torn into my second turkey sub.

  “She’s not using pot,” defended Vanessa. Sadly, I couldn’t dismiss the apprehension in her voice. I was scaring them, or at least making them uncomfortable. And I couldn’t blame them. Between the bloodshot eyes from running on no sleep and my recent, ravenous case of the munchies, I’d think I was high too if I didn’t know any better.