by L J C Fynn
The one constant in my world was that confidence could kill me.
I prayed my wrists weren’t broken as I untwined my hand from his whip. I threw my sweaters back on and looked around for Faith. She wasn’t hard to find in the five-hundred-square-foot space, but the fighting cage took up a fair amount of it. Once I left the cage, all the vampires watching the fight moved away as I walked by them. This made for an easy straight line to her.
She was beautiful, in her own dark way. Every time I saw her, she had on a tight knee-length skirt with black, see-through tights—the kind with seams along the back. She dressed too pretty to be setting up fights like this. She didn’t match the atmosphere of this storage unit.
“Teeka.” She shook her head in disappointment. “That fight was too quick. You only get half the payment.” Faith pushed a clear bag into my hands.
I looked down at the bag. There were only six pills. “Not going to work. You never said anything about the length. Win the fight, you pay me. This isn’t enough payment.”
Her face hardened for a spilt second and then she became beautiful and soft again. She tried to walk away from me, but I grabbed her wrist. She looked down at my hand, then back up at me. “I will allow this indiscretion once. I am setting up a new fight for you in two days. This one will be different. Win, and I will give you a year’s supply of pills.”
I removed my hand from her wrist. “Different how?”
“Like I owe you any sort of explanation.” Faith turned and walked out.
I dropped the six pills in one of the side pockets of my pants and searched for Damien. I had to figure out a way to make these pills last two days.
Chapter Two
Four Pills
My wrist was all but healed the next morning. My cramps, however, were a different story. I’d taken two pills last night as soon as Damien walked me home. My intention had been not to take any more until tonight. I wasn’t sure how that was going to happen, since I was already having problems standing up straight.
Even though we had only been here a year, Damien was a very popular tattoo artist for vampires. Every night, he always had appointments. After the awkward walk back in silence, he’d left for one of his many appointments. I heard him come back in a few hours ago, but he usually stayed on the other side of the house.
The house was always clean, so there was no housework to keep my mind off of my cramps. I made myself some tea and looked out the window. The snow had come down hard last night and had to have added a few more inches to the foot already on the ground. The tea wasn’t helping my body at all. Now, along with cramps, beads of sweat were rolling down my body. It was hot as hell in here.
I had to make these pills last.
I turned around when I heard a door creak behind me. “Did you figure out a way to turn up the heat in here?”
He smiled and shook his head no.
“Then why is it so hot right now?”
Damien sat down on the couch and spread his arms and legs out. He looked relaxed in the way he sat. He had that ability. No matter how much got to him, he never let it show on the outside. I was the complete opposite, an open book.
I was still standing by the window and remained in an internal debate to just go back to my room. He very rarely talked, so every time he did it shocked me. “I could just go buy your pills, you know?”
“Nope. We have been through this before. I will not owe you any more than what I already do. You got me out of New Paris, you feed me, and you are providing shelter. I will not owe you this also.”
He didn’t say anything for a few minutes but just stared at me as I made my way to a seat. “Have your cramps hit?”
I shrugged my shoulders at his question, trying act like everything was all right.
“I have no appointments for a few days. Do you want a tattoo?”
I twisted my head up to him in confusion. “Now is not the time for a tattoo.”
“Think about it. It could take me a few hours, and it will get your mind off whatever you are thinking about.”
I leaned back in my chair as more cramps worked their way down my leg. At this point, my legs were throbbing with every pulse. Thanks to the pills, I recover faster than a human should. If I got a tattoo, then realistically it should be healed and possibly fading before the fight. According to Rafe, I had all of their strengths but none of their weaknesses. Damien stood up, but before he had a chance to walk away, I stood behind him. “Lead the way.”
Chapter Three
The Tattoo
This whole year, I thought he went somewhere else for his appointments. He had an entire studio in his garage.
The space was fucking huge.
He had to change the ink and prep his machine for a human. My body wouldn’t be able to handle the silver in the ink he laced for the vampires.
The space was relatively sparse in comparison to other tattoo studios. This studio was almost like a medical clinic, with beds as tables and all. Damien was probably one of the best artists around and did everything by hand, so there were no sketches or stencils hanging on the wall for him to go by. If a vampire wanted a tattoo created by him, Damien choose the size, the art, and the location on the body for it. Follow his rules or leave.
“You can lie down on this table now, Teeka.” He sounded confident in this building. Even though he can fight, and was probably better at it than me, he chose to use his hands for this. This was his domain; he was the artist.
I tried to make it look like it didn’t hurt when I walked, but I feared it was obvious by the way I was clinging to the wall for support when I made my way to the table. I took a deep breath, stood as straight as I could, and made my way to the table.
“You look like shit.” He didn’t even bother to look up from the tattoo machine as he carefully loaded a needle onto it and secured a couple rubber bands.
“Go fuck yourself,” I mumbled through jaws that were tight from trying to climb onto the table. I collapsed onto it the moment my ass made contact with the hard surface.
Winded, I closed my eyes and laid on my back, waiting for him to start. I didn’t hear him making any noise for a few minutes. I turned my head toward him and opened my eyes.
He was grinning at me.
I rolled my eyes and turned my gaze back to the ceiling. “What?”
“I can’t exactly ink you if you are covered up.”
He almost made me laugh. I stopped short when I felt the unfamiliar vibration leave my throat. “Where do you want to put the tattoo?”
“You choose.” He answered quick.
I moved my gaze back to him, and he was back to messing around with his machine.
“Seriously?” I asked, unsure why he would change the rules for me.
“You are my first human.” When he rambled a bit like he wanted to say more, made me think that just maybe this would be hard on him too. For a split second, I thought about walking out. If this can help forget the pain for just a few hours, the ink will be worth it.
I reached out and touched his forearm. His eyes jumped to mine. When I felt a smile stretch across my lips, his gazed moved to my mouth. “You are my first tattoo artist, so we are even.”
I never really thought I wanted a tattoo in the past, and this was definitely a spur of the moment decision. I had no clue where I wanted to get inked. With a groan, I sat up on the table and pulled off my shirt. I threw it on the floor and pushed down my pants. I finally felt a smile form on my lips. I lay back down on the table but didn’t tell him exactly where I wanted it. I looked over at him. I tried to sneak a peek at what color he was going to use, instead the machine was on the table, and Damien was just looking at my body.
I really would have enjoyed teasing him, but my body choose to pulsate pain through my legs again. It took every ounce of strength in me not to cry out in pain. Instead of deciding what to do next to tease Damien, I closed my eyes and struggled to breathe through my pain.
My skin was on fire, and even
though I had on no clothes, I could feel sweat drip down my skin. I opened my eyes when I felt the back on Damien’s knuckles rubbing my cheek. His touch was so cold in comparison to my feverish skin.
“I need you to trust me.”
He could ask me to run into the streets right now, and I would do it if he continued stroking my cheek with his cold hands. I let the first thought in my mind slip out of my mouth and probably shocked him as much as myself. “I trust you as much as myself.”
He ran his hands down my cheek, down my arms, and stopped right above my hipline. “I need you to do two things for me.” He moved his fingertips to right where my panties rested on my hipbone. “I need you to take these off and roll onto your left side.”
I opened my mouth to say something, anything to keep me from taking my panties off, but Damien put his fingers over my mouth.
“Trust me,” he said before I could speak around his fingers.
I closed my eyes again, took my panties off, and rolled to my side. Damien slid a pillow under my head and in between my legs.
“One more thing, Teeka. Don’t look at my work until I am finished.”
I nodded and kept my eyes closed as I heard the buzz from the tattoo machine turn on.
Chapter Four
Two Pills
Damien kept one hand on my hip and started on the side of my upper thigh. The tattoo didn’t hurt as much as I thought, but he was right—the cramps weren’t as intense. The longer my skin burned from the ink, the less I felt the cramps altogether.
Probably an hour or so into the tattoo, I heard the machine turn off. Slowly, I opened my eyes but didn’t look down my side. Instead, I kept my gaze on Damien. He was just staring at the tattoo. His face was hard, and his metal fangs were protruding more than normal through his lips. “Why’d you stop?”
His eyes flipped up to me. “Blood… Yours…” He touched my hip, then showed me his fingertips—covered with my blood. He stuck his finger in his mouth, and his eyes closed as he moaned. When he opened his eyes, his face wasn’t quite as stiff. “The smell of your blood is different. The taste is different, richer somehow.”
That was eerily similar to what Rafe said on the night I’d first met him—the night that shattered my belief in human decency. “Tell me about you.” I desperately needed him to change the subject and get his mind off my blood.
Damien picked up the machine and proceeded where he left off on my skin. I didn’t think he was going to tell me his past, but as he worked his way around my hip, he started talking.
“You know when the virus first started to spread? When the infected began to take over the cities? Humans had no clue exactly what they were dealing with. How devastating the virus truly was.” His voice was soft as he took his machine off my skin.
I thought for a few moments before answering, mainly because I wasn’t really sure where he was going with this. “I guess I never really thought about. When the humans in New Paris helped my disease, I did not question them about the vampires. I believed they were evil, and I was a tool to destroy them.”
The room was quiet for a few minutes. There was no sound of the machine buzzing, no sound of us talking, and I swear, it was so quiet in his studio that if I listened hard enough I could hear the snow falling outside. I could only imagine him gathering his words, because when the buzzing sound broke the silence his lips curled into a small smile. “Back when the virus first showed, it was normal for people to donate blood for healthcare. My birth mother was in an accident and was dying when she was eight months pregnant with me. She lost a lot of blood, and the doctors gave her a blood transfusion before they had knowledge of the virus. She died. I, obviously, did not.”
He walked around the table, and as the machine moved closer to my hipbone the burn of the needles was almost too much. I closed my eyes as the room started to sway. The room was spinning, but the reprieve from the cramps was wonderful. I could deal with dizziness if it meant that my whole body didn’t hurt. I didn’t notice that the machine wasn’t buzzing until the smell of orange juice overpowered the sterile studio.
“You need to drink this.” I opened my eyes to find Damien holding a cup of juice right in front of my face. “I am sorry Teeka, I should have known your body couldn’t take so much at once.”
I took the cup from him and gulped down the juice. It took a few minutes for the swaying to stop. Once the room stabilized, my body was cramping again. Even though the skin on my hip felt stiff from the tattoo, I would rather deal with lightheadedness than the cramps. “Please continue.”
He turned on his machine, and started talking again, much quieter this time. I had to concentrate on what he was saying, because the buzz from the machine was louder than his voice. “I was told that I was born healthy but colicky. My birth mother was my only known kin, so I was placed in an orphanage. I screamed constantly. A female vampire stopped by the orphanage, looking for young blood. She heard my cry, and found me as one of the caretakers was trying to feed me. She said I smelt like a vampire, but my heart was pumping blood. I was an abomination. She intended on killing me then and there, but when she tried to snatch me from the caretaker’s arms, she accidently cut the caretakers neck. I latched onto their neck, and for the first time I finally stopped crying. The vampire stole me from the orphanage. She raised me as her own, and figured out why I was different. You see, the blood they gave my birth mother… Yeah, that blood had the vampire virus. Being in my mother’s womb was enough to keep me human, but not enough to keep the virus out of my system. I am the only true half-human, half-vampire you will ever meet.”
I watched him as he looked over my hip. He was silent as he grabbed a marker and drew on top of my burning skin. I wanted to look down so badly, but I promised him I would not look at the tattoo until he was finished. He dropped life shattering news to me, and he was frustratingly silent as he put the cap back on the marker. He grabbed the machine again, and started working again on my hip. I couldn’t help myself when I demanded, “Continue with your story.”
I watched him smile again when he finally started to speak. “The woman who raised me figured out I needed to blood to survive—not food. I was different though; I didn’t have fangs. She figured out a way to keep a steady supply of blood bags for me. I figured out I was hard to kill when I stopped aging in my twenties. I will never forget the day it happened. It was the year the virus spread like wildfire through the cities. We spent most of our time in London, and since I could walk out during the day, I was making an honest living for the both of us. We had nosey, superstitious neighbors. While she was sleeping, they set our house on fire. The woman who raised me died in her sleep while I was miles away. When I came home later that day, the timber from the house was still smoking and lying in her bed were her ashes.”
He stopped with my tattoo, grabbed some ointment, and applied it on my new ink. “I made a living as a welder. In my anger, I welded permanent metal tips to act as fangs. That was the day I fully embraced my vampire side. The day I killed my neighbors was the first time I killed straight from the neck. I got every single human that had anything to do with killing my mother. That was also the day Rafe and Blythe found me. They took me in, helped me figure things out, and here we are. You can stand up and look now.”
He had me so engrossed in his story, for a split second, I almost forgot that he was giving me a tattoo. He handed me a towel, and I wrapped myself up as best as I could, while leaving the side of it open so I could see his work. I gasped when I saw myself in the mirror.
“I can’t believe you did this.” I was afraid to touch it, because I didn’t want to ruin his art. He tattooed a sword on my hip. The blade ended on the tops of my thighs, with the hilt touching the top of my hip. He weaved a vine around the sword, with drops of blood where the vine touched the blade. I was in awe of his talent. The most amazing part of this tattoo was that the colors looked vivid. I felt as if I could pull the sword off my skin and use it.
He went back into
his quiet mode and cleaned up his mess.
Just as quick as I turned back around from the mirror, the cramps returned. They hit me so hard and so suddenly that the pain knocked me to my knees. Damien was right by my side, rubbing my back. “Please let me just buy you some pills.”
I couldn’t talk around the pain. Instead of answering him, I shook my head ‘no’.
I curled into a ball and rode out the cramps. After a few minutes, my skin was drenched and my whole body was shaking. “In the pants I fought in last night is the bag with pills. I need one red and one yellow.” I don’t know how I managed to get out the words or how he understood them.
He left and returned faster than I thought possible. I shoved the pills down my throat and prayed the two pills I had left were enough to get me through one more day.
Chapter Five
Lost Pills
He didn’t give me a choice. Damien carried me to my room. As I was shivering from the pain, he tucked me under my covers. I don’t remember him leaving, but one second he was there by my side, and the next my door was softly shutting closed.
I feel asleep in pain and woke hurting even more. Damien left out my last two pills next to a glass of water on the nightstand beside my bed. My whole body was shaking. So much so, I was having a hard time just pushing hair out of my face. I reached out to take the last two pills and didn’t have it in me to reach the table. After a few attempts, I finally got my hands close. In reality, all I managed to do was knock the table over. I tried to sit up and look for the pills on the floor, but instead I landed on the floor with a loud thud as I hit the hard surface. I curled in a ball when I saw the water finish dissolving the pills into the wood.