Free Haunting Magic (Ink Book 6) by Holly Hood

held out hope as long as Karsen. I wonder a lot of things. Like if I will ever see Slade again. I want to talk to him. I want him to talk to me and look at me the way I remember he always did. Before I woke up and realized all of that wasn’t real.
    How can that love be fake?
    Nona goes on and on to Karsen about how she knew that I was an incredible kid since birth. Which I know isn’t true. I’ve never been more than the boring granddaughter with the hobbies.
    “What’s that expression?” Nona cocks an eyebrow at me.
    “I have twin brothers don’t I?” Nona chuckles. “Of course. And they promised as soon as school let out they would come see you.” She tells me how she talked Dad into sending them to private school. That after the first year I was in the hospital they became a little wild with everything on dad’s plate.
    I drop my head back against my pillows and breathe a secret sigh of relief. There are parts of my life I wish were the same. Things I can’t see going a day without—my brother’s being two of them.
    Nona starts up about her gardener and how Claude wants a dog. There still is a Claude.
    “What about my dog?” Nona and Karsen both shake their head. Sadly, it’s another thing that isn’t true.
    I let them fill me in on the years I missed but as soon as I see him all I can think about is him. The guy I thought I knew.
    He goes into the room across the hall and vanishes for a minute at the most returning with a bag of trash. He sees me staring at him and he hardly offers even a raise of an eyebrow. But he looks at me. And that fills me with hope. He drops the garbage into the bigger trash can and comes to my door. He knocks before entering and I get a glimpse of his arm, a little of the tattoos I thought he had peek out of his sleeve.
    “Hey Slade,” Karsen says, she stands up making room for him to get to my trash can. I want to burst at the seams. He says nothing to Karsen. He slips between my bed and the chair and I catch a whiff of his smell. He smells like dirty heaven if a place like that exist.
    My heart is pumping in my chest and I know I will explode if I say nothing. “Hey.”
    At first I don’t think he thinks I am talking to him. He ties the trash and makes it past my bed and the chair. Please just look at me, talk to me.
    “Hey.” He puts me out of my misery.
    “You’ve been here all this time?” I study his eyes, the same blue eyes I seen I guess in my dreams. He looks exactly how I saw him that can’t be a coincidence that my mind saw him even when I was in a coma.
    “This is where I work.” He gives a short nod and heads for the door.
    “I saw you. I knew what you looked like before I even opened my eyes. Every tattoo, every detail of you is etched in my memory. That has to mean something right?” I bite my lip, and smile at his lip ring.
    “That’s pretty fucked,” he says. Does that mean he understands? Does he get me? Is he flattered? Or does he think I am a nutcase?
    That’s all he has to say? He leaves.
    “He is a man of few words.” Karsen takes her seat.
    “I need to talk to him.”
    “Hope, you were in a coma. He is just an employee at the hospital. This guy will think you are crazy,” Nona says. “Besides, the guy looks like trouble.”
    “Like a career criminal,” my dad says coming into the room. “Let's work on getting you out of here before we dive into a relationship, kiddo.” He makes it to my bed and wraps his arms around me. “God, I have missed this.” He means the hugging. And I can’t tell him how amazing feeling him squeeze me feels. I thought I had killed him.
    “You look good, dad.” I touch his face, he’s clean shaven and his shirt isn’t wrinkled.
    “So do you,” he smirks. “It’s amazing what a phone call about your daughter coming out of a coma can do for you.” I can only imagine.
    “We will let you two get caught up,” Karsen says standing.
    I pull away from my dad. “Karsen, please if you are the best