Tattoo

by Cambria Hebert

  And I got dirty… the kind of dirt that soap wouldn’t wash away.

  I knew exactly what Taylor was thinking right now. I knew her mind was trying to process this shitty, unexpected thing that happened. I knew she was likely trying to come up with a reason for it, trying to understand how something like this could just blow into an ordinary day and completely change everything.

  People live inside their own little worlds, in the bubbles they create around themselves. Sure, they know bad things happen. They watch it on TV and see it on the news. But a lot of people, people like Taylor, never imagine it will come into their own backyard. They never think their entire life could flip so unexpectedly.

  I knew it could.

  I didn’t want this for her.

  I didn’t want her to look in the mirror tomorrow and wonder what that bullet changed that she couldn’t see. I didn’t want her to remember the panic and fear of being held up in a place where she was supposed to be safe. I didn’t want her to walk into every bank, every store and building, only to sweep her eyes around the room, looking for anything suspicious, looking for someone who might be concealing a gun.

  It didn’t matter what I wanted, because that’s exactly what was going to happen.

  Against me, she drew in a deep breath and slowly expelled it.

  “You know I’m a really good palm reader.” I lied.

  I practically felt the darkest of her thoughts skitter away. “You read palms?” she asked, doubt heavy in her tone.

  “Let me see your hand.”

  Taylor lifted her hand; it was completely concealed by the overly long sleeve of her hoodie. I chuckled and pulled it down, revealing slender, graceful fingers.

  I cupped my hand around hers, pleased that it no longer felt icy cold, and turned it over so I could look into her palm.

  I traced my fingers over the lines and curves in her skin. “Hmmm,” I said. “This is very interesting.”

  She giggled.

  I liked the way her skin felt in contrast to mine. Hers felt smooth and yielding, while mine seemed coarse and unforgiving. For a moment, I forgot I was supposed to be reading her palm and when I remembered, I tried to think of something that wouldn’t sound completely idiotic.

  What did the lines in the palm mean again?

  She glanced up at me, curiosity in her eyes.

  “This line here,” I said, pointing to one of the deepest, longest lines, “is your life line.”

  “Well, my life line has blood on it,” she said, amused.

  I glanced down again and sure enough, toward the end was a splatter of blood. “That’s not supposed to be there,” I muttered and licked my thumb so I could wipe away the blood.

  She giggled again and this time her laugh was strong enough that she wiggled against me. Desire spiked in my blood stream and something in the bottom of my stomach tightened a little bit.

  I scrubbed away the blood and then held her hand out flat so I could study it anew. “It’s a very long line,” I murmured, starting at the base of her finger and lightly following the line down through the center of her palm and to the fleshy part near the base of her thumb.

  “I guess that means I’m not going to die today,” she said softly.

  My arms locked up around her and I scooted her in toward my body just a little bit closer. I couldn’t help but notice the way the roundness of her hip brushed right up against my cock. The pressure of her fitted against me was delicious.

  “You are not dying here.” I promised and rested the side of my cheek against her head. “This here”—I pointed, moving to another deep line in her palm—“is the…” I stuttered a little, grasping for something else to say.

  “That’s the love line,” she filled in, her voice slightly wistful.

  “Are you a palm reader too?” I asked, ducking my head to look at her in mock surprise.

  She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You are not a palm reader.”

  “Maybe not.” I allowed. “Maybe, I just wanted to hold your hand.”

  She stilled, like she was replaying my words to make sure she heard them right. I enjoyed seeing the little bit of color seep into her cheeks before she ducked her head shyly. “You can,” she said, holding out her hand once more.

  All her fingers were pressed together, her palm facing me. It was more like she wanted to shake my hand. I brought my arm up and slid my palm against the back of her hand, wiggling my fingers between hers and curling them around, the tips caressing her palm.

  She sighed, a contented little sound that made me feel like I just completed a marathon with the best time of all the runners, and her head fell against my chest.

  Damn.

  I wasn’t used to this kind of physical contact. I was used to making out with girls I barely knew in darkened corners of bars or basements. I was used to copping feels and groping wherever my hands would reach. Oftentimes, me and the flavor of the night would drink enough to not care (but never enough to make me drop my guard) I didn’t know her name. And then we would stumble somewhere more private and I would screw her without even thinking about it.

  It was part of my cover. I was the guy who was too busy dicking around to pay too much attention to the business. I was the guy who would rather follow orders so I had more time with the ladies.

  I didn’t say I didn’t like it. In my eyes, there was no such thing as bad sex. Sex felt good, it relieved stress, and yeah, the ladies were always willing.

  And because they were always willing, I never had to put much effort into scoring. I never had to think about holding hands or making her smile. I never worried about if she was bored or worried about something.

  But with Taylor, I did.

  Having her in my lap, having her skin against my skin, feeling her steady, even breathing as she relaxed into my body… I wanted to hold her hand. I wanted to know what she was thinking, and I secretly hoped she enjoyed where she was sitting as much as I.

  Is this what it was like to think about someone else ahead of yourself?

  “Thank you,” she whispered, drawing me out of my internal musings.

  “For what?”

  She lifted her head and looked up at me. God, I loved the way she looked at me. Like I fucking hung the moon or something. “For being here,” she whispered. The side of her lip curved upward. “And for being so amazingly warm.”

  I tucked a strand of scarlet hair behind her ear and kissed her temple. “Drink your girly ass drink,” I replied, gruff, handing her the bottle of purple Gatorade.

  I leaned my head against the wall, thinking about how ape-shit crazy I was. This was a shitty, dangerous situation. I was supposed be on vacation right now, not patching up bullet wounds with stolen medical supplies.

  Even so, there wasn’t anywhere else I would rather be.

  I heard a noise out by the couch but couldn’t see around the corner. I heard a bit more scuffling and a couple low swears.

  Every muscle in my body tensed.

  Something was up.

  And that something probably wasn’t good. I needed to be out there solidifying my “relationship” with them. Selling them on the fact I was loyal to their cause. Hopefully, Mac and the rest of the people on the raid would be here soon, but until then, I needed to make sure this shit went smoothly.

  The last thing we needed was something to go wrong.

  “Why don’t you lie down and rest,” I murmured, lifting her against me and sitting up. Then I laid her gently on the cot.

  “I was resting,” she complained, that pouty lower lip poking out just a little bit more.

  Shit, she was cute.

  I used the flannel to cover her legs and then turned away to go see what the guys were up to. Snake was there, standing beside the hastily framed-out wall. The look on his face had everything inside me screaming red alert.

  I stepped away from Taylor, keeping my body positioned between the cot and Snake. “What’s up, man?”

  He held up the smart phone
in his hand. “You a fucking cop?” he said, his voice low and even. Violence radiated off his every pore.

  Across the room, his three boys stood up in silent threat.

  So much for shit going smoothly.

  10

  Taylor

  I kept my body still, despite the barely contained turmoil sweeping through the room. I wanted to jump up and deny, deny, deny.

  Cop? What cop? I wanted to ask, but I knew speaking would only make it worse. Surely Brody knew how to handle this kind of situation. Surely he could explain away whatever made them suspicious.

  “You think I’m a cop?” Brody scoffed, his voice sounding slightly bemused. “That’s actually pretty flattering. You think I could pull something like that off?”

  My coiled insides relaxed slightly because he sounded so genuine there was no way they wouldn’t believe him.

  Snake laughed. “It’s pretty out there.”

  I didn’t like the way his laugh sounded. Slowly, I turned my head so I could look across the room. Brody’s back was to me, and it blocked almost the entire view of Snake.

  “Explain this,” Snake snarled, and I saw his arm fling out as he thrust the phone at Brody.

  Brody took the phone and held it in front of him. Several seconds later, I heard the audio begin to play. I recognized the music as the intro for a local news station here in Raleigh.

  …The robbery of Shaw Trust earlier today has rocked the city of Raleigh. Despite the refusal of the local law enforcement to comment, Eye on Five managed to uncover some information on what turns out to be a very involved theft…

  “What the hell is this?” Brody asked, cutting off the babbling of the news anchor.

  “Watch it,” Snake threatened, a gun appearing in his hand, pointed directly at Brody.

  My breath caught and renewed fear took over my body. Once again, I found myself looking around the room for something I could use as a weapon. The audio filled the room once more and I listened as horror dawned.

  …The only daughter of the prestigious Shaw family of Raleigh is said to have been in the bank at the time of the robbery and is now missing. We have learned from an unnamed source that surveillance footage shows Taylor Shaw being carried out of the bank, presumably against her will. Her father, Edward Preston Shaw, has put up a two million-dollar award for the safe return of his daughter…

  Oh, this was bad.

  …We have also learned that the man carrying her out of the building is police officer Brody West. Eye on Five learned his identity when his truck was left abandoned outside the bank and was eventually impounded by the very department he is said to work for.

  Is this a case of good cop gone bad, or is there more to this case than meets the eye? We will keep you updated on this breaking case as details come in…

  “I told you my name was Slater Bass. I don’t know no Brody West,” Brody said, handing the phone casually back to Snake.

  How the hell could be be so calm?

  They found him out! They found us out! I was literally trying not to scream like a hyena being chased by a lion (Do lions and hyenas even live in the same place?).

  “You’re telling me the news is wrong?” Snake asked.

  “Well, they ain’t right.”

  Snake looked down at the screen on his phone and, with a few swipes and taps of his fingers, brought up an image. He turned the screen around so it faced Brody. From my place on the cot, I could see it clearly.

  It was a picture of Brody… in his police uniform.

  My stomach heaved and the impulse to throw up all over everything was so strong I actually started to gag. Another tap on the screen brought up a picture of me from several years ago, with my father, standing in front of the bank.

  I sat up, leaning against the wall. My arm protested when I moved, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as before. The numbing injections were still dulling the pain and the pain medicine was doing its job throughout my bloodstream.

  Brody could have kept quiet back there at the bank. He could have let me lie there and bleed (like Brandy). If he had, then none of this would be happening right now. His cover would still be intact and I wouldn’t be here.

  I might be dead.

  But maybe not. Maybe I would be at the hospital.

  Either way, I couldn’t just sit here and let them kill Brody for slipping under cover to help protect me. Yeah, I knew this was about more than me. It was about bringing these guys down. It was about returning the money that was stolen from my father’s bank. I wasn’t going to be a hindrance to Brody. I wasn’t going to be some dead weight appendage that he had to drag around on his fight out the door. Injured or not, I was going to help him.

  “You gonna deny it now?” Snake said, the other guys in the room taking a step closer to him.

  I pushed up to my feet, swaying a little, like I just climbed off a boat and had a bad case of sea legs. I steadied myself and took a few steps toward Brody.

  He tensed, the muscles in his back bunching. At his side and slightly behind him, he held up his palm, telling me to stop.

  “It doesn’t matter what I say,” Brody replied. “Y’all have already decided what you believe.”

  “Before I kill you, I’m going to carve that tattoo out of your back and hang it in a frame for everyone to see what happens to those who disgrace this crew,” Snake said, his voice oddly flat as he withdrew a knife out of the back of his pants.

  A small sound of protest ripped from the back of my throat, and I couldn’t stop myself from going to Brody’s side. He held out his arm, tucking me behind him and using it as some sort of shield.

  The tension in the room was so thick it was like smoke. It made it hard to breath and my eyes began to burn. Snake laughed, the sound doing nothing to dispel the heavy fog over us. His dark, callous eyes turned to me.

  “Don’t worry. We won’t be killing you. We’re going to need you for ransom.”

  “Ransom?” I asked, the fingers of my left hand coiling themselves into the belt loop of Brody’s jeans.

  “You’re worth more to us alive than dead. How much do you think that rich Daddy of yours would be willing to pay to get you back?”

  Revulsion hit me hard, like I was being hit head on by a car traveling at the highest speed. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. For a moment, my brain literally blanked out as I tried to process the hell my father would be put through.

  And what was worse? He’d pay it. My father would pay whatever amount these immoral, disgusting pigs asked for. And he would get me back…

  In a body bag.

  I wasn’t sure what to do. This kind of situation was beyond me; this was not something I ever in my life thought would happen. I was willing to fight like hell to get out of here, but I needed Brody to make the first move.

  He was like a piece of carved granite in front of me. His entire body was solid and unmoving, so still that I might have been worried had I not been able to feel the heat coming off of his skin.

  The room was incredibly silent while we all studied each other, waiting for someone to make the first move. I noticed the fingers on Brody’s outstretched arm twitching ever so lightly. Snake put both the knife and his cell phone into one hand and then raised his gun with the other, pointing it directly at Brody’s chest.

  Brody’s fingers twitched again. This time more insistent.

  My fingers flexed around his belt buckle, agitated because I knew he was trying to tell me something. I just wasn’t sure what it was.

  And then my fingers brushed something hard.

  I glanced down.

  The gun.

  Brody still had a gun and it was tucked in the waistband of his jeans. Just above my hand.

  Moving fast, I yanked the gun free and pressed it into his waiting hand. He moved like a racehorse being let out of its starting gate, swinging the gun up and around in one second flat.

  Snake gave a yell as Brody fired a single shot, but it hadn’t been aimed at Snake.

&nb
sp; The sound of glass shattering pierced the air and the room went black.

  He shot out the lamp, the only source of light in this basement.

  Snake fired a shot of his own, but Brody was already moving, diving to the side and yanking me with him. He tossed me against the nearby wall and my cheek bounced off the hard brick, but I didn’t cry out. In order for us to get out of here, we had to be silent.

  The only advantage we had was that it was dark and they couldn’t see to shoot us.

  Brody pressed his body along mine, sandwiching me between him and the wall. I felt his every contour; I even felt the rapid pounding of his heart.

  He leaned down into my ear, speaking so low I barely heard his instructions. “Stay with me.”

  We inched along the wall while the sounds of scuffling and scurrying filled the room. Someone came close and Brody must have hit them because I felt him pull away, I heard a thud, and someone groaned.

  I panicked, wanting to call out for him, terrified he might have been the one hit, but then his body found mine once more, shielding me and pulling me rapidly down the wall and toward the stairs.

  I heard a little click and then a light pierced the deep blackness of the room. Someone turned on a flashlight app.

  Fan-freaking-tastic.

  “Move,” Brody ordered as the bright beam found us. He shoved me toward the stairs and I stumbled.

  “Fuck,” he swore, scooping me back onto my feet and pushing me toward the bottom step. “Run, Taylor. Get the hell out of here and don’t look back!”

  I scrambled up the steps, only making it about halfway when I realized he wasn’t right behind me.

  “Brody!” I cried, turning back, looking for him.

  He was planted at the bottom of the steps like some kind of badass bodyguard, brandishing a gun and holding them off.

  As I stared, he raised the gun and fired off several shots in rapid succession.

  “Run!” he yelled, not even looking up, but knowing I was there.

  I started up the stairs again, but another shot had me turning back. I saw Brody jerk and stumble, reaching out to catch himself against the wall. Even as he fell, he fired his gun.