“I’m sorry,” he says nervously, accepting her offering. “I’m just a bit nervous.”
She let out a polite laugh. His emotions were genuine. There was nothing extraordinary about the man in front of her. He was average in height and features. Pockmarked in the face, the only trait of his that transcended the sublime was his smile, warm, almost incandescent smile.
No way could he be the man in the vision. That man she saw held on to the gun as though he had been using it all his life. He was a ruthless killer. The person in front of her right now had dropped his fork twice and spoon thrice throughout their date.
“What do you have to be nervous about?” she asked him, fishing out another tissue from her purse.
He accepted it graciously. She had a point. The guy in front of her was a total babe, very much unlike the losers she had dated. At least he did not constantly talk about himself.
“It is just…, I rarely go out on dates. And…, and you are…”
He did not finish his sentence. Instead, he looked down and blushed.
Yarra reached for a scoop of ice cream they were sharing. Her heart was hammering in her chest.
How would she let him know that he would kill her one day? In a year to be exact. She couldn’t. He would have looked at her as though she were a complete lunatic!
“What are you majoring in?” she asked to distract herself from the thoughts in her head.
“Economics. You?”
“English literature with a minor in contemporary art.”
He looked at her with a smile that warmed her entire body. For a moment, Yarra forgot her future vision and enjoyed the first date she had had in years.
The café across the street from their college was packed with people coming out from their mid-morning classes. It was one of the sort of dates arranged by her friends.
They complained that she did not go out much, but what was the point of going out when you knew what was going to happen? She could not enjoy football matches because she would know who would score the winning pass.
Her visions came at irregular intermittency, but she could predict which man would make a pass at any of her girlfriends. Whenever someone came up to her with a possible setup, Yarra’s precognitive abilities were able to tell her their future together – sometimes even as far as seventy years.
Though in her vision, it showed the possibility of happy marriages, Yarra was bored. She would have known what to expect with all these men. The lure of the mystery was already lost.
When one of her friends, Sharanya, had spoken to her about Avice, Yarra listened as politely as possible. As Sharanya continued her spiel about the cute boy in her economics class, Yarra nodded, already knowing that her mental precognizant nature would shoot into a flurry of future images about her life with Avice.
Only, it did not come. As Sharanya spoke, Yarra’s mind refused to form any vision pertaining to the subject. That was the first time such a thing happened. And it was the reason that she had chosen to meet him.
The date had gone off to a great start. She watched him fumble with his food but otherwise provide wholesome conversations. It was apparent that he found her extremely attractive.
Most men would have found her sharp, discerning nature off-putting. Not Avice. He appreciated it.
They were midway throughout the date when Yarra saw something like a tattoo half-hidden beneath his shirt. The visible part of the tattoo looked like the tip of the blade of a knife which settled just above his left collarbone.
Immediately, her mind went into a future-reading frenzy. But instead of multiple images forming in her head, all she saw was one. It was Avice standing with a gun to her back and a smile on his face. She saw him pull the trigger.
She could have run away from him, but it was too late.
At the end of the first date, she was already falling in love with Avice Selleck.
Chapter-2
One Year Ago
Aside from the vision of Avice killing her, there was nothing odd about him. He harbored no secrets from her. Or at least, she thought so.
The closer she was to a person, random visions often came to her like vivid dreams, enumerating the person’s many possibilities. It could be as mundane as their lunch for the next five days or as significant as the person they were about to marry.
But not Avice. Try as she might, nothing came to mind.
And she loved it. For the first time in her life, she was free of the ability of knowing things before they happened. But, it was the lack of information about Avice which made her unable to ascertain his future movements.
Two months into their courtship, she had met Avice’s parents. They were the run of the mill family living an hour away from their college in a quiet suburb.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, although she had seen the same tattoo imprint visible at the collar of his father’s shirt. Funnily enough, it occurred to Yarra then that she had never seen Avice naked. She had not seen him shirtless either.
Just as her hands grazed Avice’s father’s for a shake, the same vision of him killing her returned. This time, it was more vivid. He was still clothed in white with skin tight black jeans. She could see the make of the revolver this time. But, what was different was the smirk. He was not leering at her. His eyes were squinted because there were tears welling, but it was still an upward curve of his lips. It was as if he was trying hard to find a silver lining to killing her.
Still, the grip of his hands on the gun was steady, and he did not waver at pointing the barrel down at the small of the back. He fired the shot, and she was back in the present moment.
“You did not tell me that your girlfriend was a beautiful young lady, Avice!” his father boomed, clapping him on the shoulder.
Yarra stood in the middle of the room with all of them, hoping that her face did not belie her actual emotions. This was the first time that a vision had repeated itself. Was her precognition trying to warn her of Avice? She did not know.
His mother congratulated the both of them, though Yarra did not know what there was to be congratulated for.
They seemed happy, no…, they seemed relieved that Avice had found himself a lady friend in Yarra.
His mother went on to confirm Yarra’s thoughts, saying that Avice was too busy with his work and study to care about anything else.
“Work?” Yarra asked, between buttering her bread. “You didn’t tell me you worked.”
It was just a pleasantly curious exchange, but she saw his father’s face darkened. Avice looked at his meatloaf and shrugged. His mother looked as though she had said something she should not have said.
“No…, no dear. What I meant was work in general. Coursework, assignments and all that,” her mother tried to avert the situation.
Yarra nodded to make them feel relieved. But in her heart, she knew that something was increasingly bizarre about the Selleck family.
Her suspicions grew when she saw that Mrs. Selleck too had a similar tattoo to Avice and his father. A tip of the blade snaking from the fold of her shirt just below her left collarbone!
She resolved to ask Avice about the tattoo on their way back to the college.
In the car, Avice was unusually quiet. After the mention of his ‘work,’ he withdrew into a shell of silence.
“Is everything okay?” Yarra asked.
“Yeah,” Avice said glumly. “I hope my parents weren’t too over-bearing, baby. They’re just too happy to see me come home with a girl like you. Mom almost gave up on me finding a girlfriend altogether!”
“Nahhh, they were awesome. Your mother’s a lovely cook,” Yarra said, keeping the conversation light at first.
“It has been months since I have had an awesome home cooked meal. You saved my life!”
Avice laughed at this. He seemed more at ease. Yarra took this as an opportunity to pursue the topic of the tattoo. Then the oddest thing happened. In her mind, she had formed the question – “Why do you and your parents
have the same tattoos?” But try as she might, she could not verbalize the words.
There was an anchor underneath her tongue which prevented her from uttering those words, as though she had lost the capabilities to do so.
Her mind became frazzled. She tried another alternative; to ask him about tattoos in general.
“Do you like tattoos?” she asked, the words slipping out quicker than she had expected.
Avice looked at her in perplexity. “Well, I guess they are cool. Why? Do you plan on getting one?” he asked.
“No,” Yarra asked. She asked him whether he had any tattoos on his body. The question came out effortlessly, not blocked by any mysterious forces.
Avice’s answer surprised her. “Nope. No tattoos. My parents don’t like people having them.”
Yarra stared at him in disbelief. She could easily see the gray scale shaded tip of the blade snaking out of his shirt. She tried to ask him about the marking on his body, but again, she could not form the question.
Try as she might, she could neither speak of this mysterious marking on his body nor point it out with her fingers. There was a barrier between them that prevented this from happening. What the hell was happening?’
“Are you okay?” Avice asked with an amused look on his face. “You look constipated!”
Try as she might, she could not form verbalize, or act out that she could see the tattoo on his body. She tried to speak slowly. “I. Can. See. Your…” but the final word, ‘tattoo’ refused to leave her tongue. Her tongue was laden with the inability to speak of it, much like a mental taboo.
“See my what?” he frowned.
“Nothing,” Yarra said quietly.
That night, they had sex for the first time. She was still reeling over the repetition of the vision of her death. Compounded with this was the fact that there was a block from speaking of his tattoo.
A germ of an idea formed in her mind. She would pretend to caress his body, and carve out the shape of his tattoo with her finger. At least that would allow her vision be acknowledged by Avice.
If only it was that easy. When Avice undressed before her, he revealed a surprisingly supple, lean body. He often dressed in clothes bigger than his body size.
Never had she seen the way that he had developed a beautiful upper body, which snaked down to narrow hips. His chest and abdomen were toned, not ostentatiously like those beefcakes in the gym.
These were muscles he continuously used – the sculpted arms showed defined muscles often seen in fighters, those who practiced a particular martial art. His body was not for show. It was the body of a combatant.
But for what purpose?
The hypnotizing allure of his body was effaced at the presence of his tattoo. True to Yarra’s prediction, it was indeed a blade. The greyness of the blade seemed to shine from the moonlight that flooded through the windows of his room.
The blade ran down his left pectoral, ending with the hilt below the nipple. The handle of the blade was painted blood red, and a disembodied hand gripped at it.
On the blade were etched words – almost like the ancient hieroglyphs she had seen in her Egyptian studies. Or was it Mesopotamian? They were random – some symbols, and some words from languages she did not know.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” Avice whispered, coming closer to her.
He smiled his awkward smile and wrapped his hands around her waist.
Yarra could not bring herself to refer to her tattoo. Each time her hand snaked along the boundaries of his tattoo, it slipped and refused to follow her intended trajectory. The tattoo on Avice’s body refused to be acknowledged by any other, yet it existed.
“N…nothing,” Yarra lied.
“You have been distant since the lunch at my parents’. Are you having second thoughts about dating me after meeting them?” he asked with a laugh.
She shook her head and kissed him. Only then did nothing else matter. All thoughts about the tattoo, the worry of him killing her, was completely effaced. When they had sex, she felt like a completely different person. He took her patiently, and passionately. And she wanted nothing else.
Chapter-3
8 Months Ago
The visions of her death became too frequent to ignore. They came in her dreams, and even in states of wakefulness. With each repetition, the vision became acutely sharper.
The image had been vaguely obscure during its first occurrence. Now, she knew that exact date, the clothes that she would be wearing that night, and she even knew the type of silver choker he wore around his neck during the night of the murder.
Aside from sight and sound, she could also smell his cologne and the faintest hint of the sharp smell of gunpowder after the shot. All she could not see was the bullet hitting her, or anything after the initial explosion.
Avice was not smiling, nor was he crying in the vision. His face was devoid of any expression. All he had was apathy at the prospect of killing her. Personally, Yarra would have felt better if he had shown any emotions.
At least then, she would know why.
They were sitting in a restaurant when the latest vision happened. It was four months into their relationship. Not much had changed except for their love for each other growing.
Putting aside her vision, she was beginning to trust him more. She began to see a life together with him in that grey area of irony.
Celebrating his birthday, she pushed a small, emerald green box wrapped in gold ribbons towards him as he ate.
“Whatsiss?” his voice came out in a muffle, mouth still full with lasagna.
She laughed at his silliness. Avice had never been one to be taught proper etiquette. It was what made him dear to her.
“Just a simple birthday present,” she said. He had not requested for a gift, but Yarra knew what he needed.
Avice gulped and tore at the ribbons. A hushed silence between them, he opened the box slowly, for the benefit of surprise. Nestled in the middle of the black foam in the box was a silver chain with a simple blade hanging from its edge.
He pinched the looped chain and fished it out. The orange light from above made the silver glimmer. Yarra watched him with dogged determination to see the nuances in his eyes.
She had been finding a way, almost to the point of obsession to communicate to him her awareness of his tattoo. Try as she might, when she took a picture of him shirtless, her friends did not see what she saw, or they too, were also rendered unable to say anything about the tattoo.
The blade on the choker had a straight edge instead of a serrated one tattooed on Avice’s body. She saw him gulp a little, and then force a smile upon his face.
“It’s beautiful,” he complimented her. She noted the hardness of his voice. “But why does it have a blade at the end?”
She could not say that it was to mimic the tattoo on his body. To say that was to acknowledge the symbol, was impossible. Instead, she shrugged and said, “Just because.”
Awkwardly, Avice donned on the choker. It was beautiful how the tip of the blade on the choker touched the tip of his tattoo, like a form of communication transcending the need for words.
Yarra knew then, that she was not avoiding the road to her inevitable demise. She was leading Avice towards the reality of her vision.
Chapter-4
6 Months Ago
It was the half year point of their relationship. The visions of her demise were occurring every day now. As they had become more frequent, there were now no significant disparities between the latest visions.
More like a broken record, it replayed in her mind in short bursts of flashes, always occurring when Avice was in close proximity with her.
Their relationship was a beautiful one. Never had Yarra receive such attention from Avice. He was sensitive as he was caring; and she was his number one priority.
Aside from the fact that her lips went numb when she wanted to refer to his tattoo, nothing else seemed out of the ordinary.
All that wa
s about to change the day they walked home from the bar late one night.
Avice seemed to have drunk a little too much beer, and he was swaying a little. He had one over Yarra’s shoulder as they walked down a deserted pavement.
It was a twenty minute walk towards their campus grounds, often littered with late night joggers or people taking midnight strolls. But tonight it was quiet and damp, following an earlier heavy rain.
Sight of Love (A Rizer Pack Shifter Series Book 2) Page 35