Sins & Needles (The Artists Trilogy #1)

by Halle, Karina

  I went up to the cashier, a petite woman with a bright smile and skin that matched the smooth surface of the cappuccinos she was doling out with supernatural swiftness.

  “Welcome to Currently Caffeinated,” she said, and as if her smile couldn’t get any bigger, it did. My lie detecting skills told me she was one hundred percent genuine. “What can I get for you?”

  I tried to match her, teeth for teeth. “A medium soy latte, please. And a job application.”

  The girl’s smile faltered slightly as she punched in the code on the register. “I’m sorry, Ma’am. We aren’t hiring at the moment. But the Christmas season will be here soon and we’ll be taking on more people then. Would you like to fill out an application?”

  How desperate did I want to look? Was I even going to be in Palm Valley next month? Was I even going to be in Palm Valley by the end of the week?

  Still, I found myself nodding, with the smile frozen on my face. She passed me the paper and I gave her money, making sure to tip her extra.

  “Your name?” she asked, her pen poised and ready on the cup.

  “Ellie,” I answered. To my own ears it sounded fake, but she just nodded and scribbled it down.

  I walked down the bar and loitered inconspicuously near the counter while I waited, looking over the form. I could easily forge my past references if I needed to. I had some friends spread out all over the country for just that kind of thing, and then when they called me in for an interview, I could show them how skilled I was.

  Not that it was a crazy complicated skill, but operating an espresso machine during high traffic could be added to my repertoire along with card tricks and how to fire a Colt .45. But what was the point in getting a job here when I might as well get a job anywhere else in the country? Seattle was the birthplace of coffee in North America and I’d never lived there yet.

  I folded the application haphazardly and tried to stick it in the back pocket of my jeans but I felt it fall out and flutter to the floor behind me. I turned around to see a man bent over, picking it up.

  I saw the top of his head first, saw shaggy dark brown hair that curled down the nape of his neck. Then, as he rose, application in hand, I saw dark, arched brows over crystal clear blue eyes. A septum ring that acted like an exclamation point at the end of his slim nose. A striking pair of lips: thin and curved on top, full and wide on the bottom. A few day’s worth of stubble all over his chin and jaw. He looked like a male model and I found my breath hitching as I took him in, from his nice height and all-too-firm build, to the way he wore his cargo shorts and his aged Iggy Pop tee like a second skin. His arms were covered in tattoos, an intensely colorful mixture of skulls, animals, and campiness.

  I finally breathed out when he tucked a strand of hair behind his ears. His ears kind of stuck out like Dumbo. This was good. This stranger had flaws. I couldn’t stand perfect people.

  Then he was handing me the application and smiling at me. And in that smile, the way it took a few seconds to reach his eyes, an expression that darkened momentarily before brightening, I felt a rush of déjà vu that nearly knocked me over.

  I knew him. How did I know him? And how long had I been standing there staring at him like an idiot? I was usually a lot smoother than that.

  “You dropped this,” he said. He had an interesting voice, low but precise, like he could narrate Rosetta Stone DVDs. It pushed pleasure buttons along my spine.

  I took the application from him, our fingers brushing against each other. I felt a spark, electricity.

  No, literally.

  “Ow,” I said, as I snatched my hand and the application away from him.

  He grinned sheepishly and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Sorry. I’m a good conductor.”

  I stared at him while blindly refolding the application. He continued, “Of electricity. You know, the sparks. I just shocked you. I’m not a train conductor or anything. Or like a music conductor. Although I do play guitar.”

  He was babbling, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was nervous. But that would beget the question of why the hell this hunk of man was nervous around me. I wasn’t ugly by any means. I had my mother’s Estonian features, which meant high cheekbones, heart-shaped lips, and dark, hooded eyes. But my beauty was always more of a “hey, I never actually realized how pretty you were.” If I was just standing in the corner of a room, your eyes would pass over me. I’d go unnoticed. And I liked that.

  If I was walking, well that was another story.

  “Ellie!” the barista announced in a surprisingly strong voice. Must have been all the coffee she drank.

  I shot the man a quick smile, painfully aware that in the last minute, all I’d said to him was “ow,” and plucked the steaming drink off the counter.

  “I knew it,” he said with a snap of his fingers, and I slowly turned around, bringing the cup to my lips and gauging how scalding it was.

  “Knew what?” I asked. Hot. Coffee was way too hot.

  He grinned at me as if he’d just solved a Rubik’s cube, and I felt myself get a weird flutter in my stomach. I knew I should have eaten more than beef jerky.

  “You’re Ellie Watt.”

  Oh fudgeknuckles.

  I turned back around and slapped a lid on my cup with shaking hands.

  He knew me. Hot tattoo dude knew me and I didn’t know him. This wasn’t good.

  I turned back to face him and shot him my biggest smile.

  “I have to go,” I said. When in doubt, just go. My parents had taught me that, along with “never underestimate your mark” and “emotions don’t win the game.” It’s too bad they were as hypocritical as I was.

  I took a step to leave, my eyes newly focused on the door, but he reached out, grabbing my free arm. I flinched, expecting another spark to flow through me, but it was just his warm, strong hand.

  “Wait,” he said, lowering his voice and coming a step closer. He smelled peculiar. It wasn’t bad—actually it was quite a sensual smell, but it was something I couldn’t put my finger on. Earthy and industrial. Cinnamon and…ink?

  I dared to meet his eyes. He was so close I could see the contact ring around his baby blues.

  “Don’t you remember me?” he asked. His eyes flashed between expectation and edginess. Like if I didn’t remember who he was, he wouldn’t be smiling for long.

  Unfortunately, I had no idea who this guy was. And I felt like kicking myself for it. My luck usually had me running into assholes, not hot guys I wanted to lick from head to toe (though they often were one and the same).

  He took his hand off of me and I relaxed. I tried to look as apologetic as possible. “I’m sorry, you’d think I’d remember someone like you but I don’t. I have a bad memory, don’t take it personally.”

  “Somehow I doubt that,” he said under his breath. I eyed him quizzically. Was that to the bad memory remark (which wasn’t true) or to the—

  “Camden McQueen,” he said quickly. The name ran along the length of my brain like rain on hardened soil before really sinking in.

  I felt guilt before anything else.

  His gaze narrowed on my face, still beautiful but dark. “Oh, so you do remember me.”

  The Camden McQueen I pulled up from my memory banks did not look like the tattooed and pierced sex on a stick I had standing before me. The Camden McQueen I remembered was tall, yes, but gawky. Awkward. Back when he was a teenager, his broad-shouldered build had gone to waste. That Camden had gross, long black hair down to his mid-back. He was a fan of dog collars and black lipstick and lace gloves with the fingers cut out. He wore black all the time. He always had mysterious bandages on his arms, something you’d see if he wasn’t wearing his trademark long black trench coat. He wore that thing in the middle of the summer when seniors were dying from the heat. He loved music and art and spent long hours in the darkroom. Everyone called him The Dark Queen, and there were a few vicious rumors running around that he was gay, or into bestiality, and that he carried a gun
to class. He was the most bullied, most tortured kid in the whole of Palm Valley High School.

  “Hi,” I said softly, trying to match up the Camden I had known to the Camden I saw now. “You look different.”

  His face relaxed and went back to looking all model-like. “So do you. Your hair…”

  He reached forward and brushed a piece of hair away from my face. My body froze at his touch and my eyes widened.

  “It’s nice,” he said, taking his hand away. “I always thought the long blonde hair was a bit too Barbie on someone as…tough…as you.”

  “Is tough supposed to be a synonym for bitch?” I asked.

  He laughed and that hadn’t changed at all. It was one of those laughs that made you believe the joke was always on him. “Well, I was going to say angry but I suppose that’s kind of redundant, isn’t it? So what are you doing here? I haven’t seen you since high school.”

  “Oh, just paying a visit to my uncle. Just passing through.”

  He raised his brow. “Just passing through and you’re applying for jobs at a coffee shop?”

  Right. That whole thing.

  I shrugged and looked around the store with a stupid smile stretched on my lips. “It’s nice here. I was surprised how much it’s changed.”

  “Maybe you’re the one who’s changed?” he questioned. His eyes were still clear and bright, jovial enough, but I detected something off-putting in his tone. He was testing me. And he was right to do it. We hadn’t exactly ended on good terms.

  I punched his arm lightly with my free hand. So, so awkward. “You’re the one who’s changed, Camden. Wow.” I almost said “What happened to you?” but thought that was a bit patronizing. “What, uh, what’s new?”

  He looked behind him at an empty table near the giggling tube-top girls who were now tight-lipped tube-top girls. They had been watching him with googly eyes and quickly averted them as soon as he looked their way.

  Now, with his face coming back to mine, he looked hopeful. That was the look I recognized.

  “Do you have to be somewhere? Do you want to catch up over some coffee?” he asked.

  I almost said no. I almost told him I actually did have somewhere to be, even though I had nowhere to go and would just end up driving aimlessly for hours. But he smiled and the combination of those white teeth, the septum ring, and that messy hair made my heart beat against my chest, shrugging off the pills like a heavy coat.

  So I said yes.

  Then

  The girl had somehow survived her first week of high school, though as she walked down the dust-heavy road that led to her uncle’s house, she felt that was as triumphant as surviving military boot camp. Already she’d earned the nicknames “Sir-Limps-A-Lot” (which didn’t make much sense considering her gender), “The Gimp,” and “Crippled Cow.” The cow part, of course, was for the fact that she’d gained a bit of weight since the accident. Something that was somewhat inevitable when you combined the burgeoning hormones of a thirteen-year-old and her limited ability.

  To add insult to her injury, her uncle hadn’t been able to pick her up from school that Friday. To her, there was nothing as humiliating as walking along the side of a road. People had no choice but to stare at her as she went past, and she could almost hear what they were all thinking. “I wonder what happened to her. Why does she walk so funny? Why is she wearing jeans when it’s one hundred degrees outside?” She could see their curious stares as they drove past, see them forming the judgements in their heads.

  She kept her head down as she walked, her eyes on the hot, rough pavement of the shoulder. Her pack began to pull on her back, weighed down with new books, and she wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans. A red car roared past, honking as it went, but she didn’t give them the satisfaction of her looking up.

  “Hey, Ellie!” a voice called out from behind her. She stopped and turned, her blonde hair swirling around her face.

  It was Camden McQueen, her only friend in this godforsaken town. She smiled as he trotted up to her, his figure tall and dark against the stark desert landscape.

  “Can I walk you home?” he asked, his voice quietly hopeful against the sound of the cars. Even though he looked deeply disturbed with his long black hair, ghost-white face, thick glasses, and lips painted the color of tar, he was grinning at her, causing dimples to pop out on his gaunt cheeks. Looking contradictory was his game.

  “If you want,” she said, sounding as blasé as possible. The truth was, she was thrilled. Not that she liked Camden in that way, after all he was her only friend and she wanted to keep it like that, but when he wasn’t in the deep boughs of manic depression, she enjoyed his company. She also felt like people never stared as much at her when she was with someone else, especially someone like Camden. He was the only person who had a worse week than she did.

  “So how was your day?” he asked as they walked side by side.

  “Oh you know, Vicky Besset told everyone in history class that I walk funny because I used to weigh three hundred pounds and broke my ankles. Now I hear ‘Crippled Cow’ everywhere I go.” The girl said all this as breezily as possible, trying hard to hide the shame and embarrassment that was ripping her apart. It was better to laugh than cry, even though only the latter would be honest.

  “Ah, Vicky. The other day she told the teacher that I had a gun in my backpack. She’s a special little bitch.” And like the girl, he had that same tone in his voice, the one that refused to let the other know how badly these things were tearing them apart.

  “She’s probably afraid of you,” the girl told him.

  He looked straight ahead at the distant mountain, his expression darkening like a shadow. “She has a right to be afraid of me. Girls like that never get the karma they deserve. If she’s not careful, I’ll deliver my own karma.”

  The girl fell silent, her mouth closing into a hard line. She’d only know Camden for a month but during that time, she was surprised at the things he’d thought and said. She had always assumed she was the only one with such righteous anger, but she was very, very wrong.

  She made a mental note to never cross Camden McQueen.

  Now

  Talking to Camden felt surprisingly easy. I never had a problem getting along with people when I needed to, but I was sure I’d feel vibes of resentment coming off of Camden as he sipped his matcha tea and I gulped down my coffee. But I couldn’t detect anything. He was open and relaxed, his hands coming dangerously close to mine each time he lowered the cup of tea on the table. I felt hyper aware of him and his body, brought on by my own guilt and memories, I’m sure.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. He placed his hand on mine—no sparks—and my eyes flew up from the empty coffee cup where I’d apparently been hypnotized by the sediment at the bottom.

  “Sorry,” I said sweetly. “I’m just…”

  “Overwhelmed?”

  “That must be it.”

  “The memories…” He trailed off. His hand was still on mine. I was conscious—too conscious—of the weight of it. What it meant. Whose hand it was. My hand was going to start twitching at any moment.

  “So,” he said, removing it and wiping at his chin. He leaned back in his chair. “So then I became a tattoo artist.”

  I realized I had been totally spacing out for most of our conversation. That wasn’t like me at all. Then again, he was a guy from high school, not a mark.

  “Really?” I asked, and my eyes immediately went to his tattoos. Upon closer inspection I found a method in the madness of shapes and colors. Scorpions, skulls, snakes, wings, and pin-up girls all met each other on blue ocean waves. Tiny inscriptions ran throughout.

  “I take it you never heard of my tat business?”

  “Should I?”

  He nodded at my arm where I had a band of music notes inked all around. “Where did you get that?”

  “Some parlor in Mississippi,” I said, then quickly clamped my mouth shut.

  But he didn’t ask me why I went back
to the state I lived in before I moved here. Instead he said, “It sounds familiar. The tune.”

  “Did you just hum it in your head?”

  He beamed at me, looking proud over impressing me and lazy at the same time. If he could have leaned any further back in his chair, he’d be on the ground. “I told you, I play guitar. What song is it?”

  “It’s nothing,” I told him. “Anyway, so you’re a tattoo artist. I’m guessing you got pretty big.”

  “Big enough,” he shrugged with false modesty. “I was one of the top artists in LA. I was even on LA Ink. Ever watch that show?”

  “I only watch Netflix.”

  He nodded, as if he could deduce something about me from that. “Well, you weren’t missing anything. You know I’m going to keep humming that tune and eventually I’ll figure out the song. Maybe then you’ll tell me the meaning.”

  I frowned at him. “I think you overestimate your skills of persuasion.”

  “I got you to sit down and have coffee with me when you were ready to bolt out the door.”

  Yes, well it helps that you’re hot, I thought. “So what are you doing here if your business is in LA? Visiting the ‘rents?”

  From the way his eyes shifted—changed—I could have sworn a cloud passed over the sun, putting the whole shop in shadow. But it was only in his eyes and it disappeared as soon as he smiled.

  “No. Not my parents. Though they still live here. Dad’s still the sheriff, you know.”

  How could I forget? He ran my parents out of town.

  “I actually have my business here. I own a tattoo shop. Sins and Needles,” he said. “It’s just coming into town from the east. Maybe you saw it? It’s in an old house with replicas of Bela Lugosi and Swamp Thing on the porch.”

  Charming.