I take my shirt off and hang it over the seat beside the table, my breasts covered by a plain black bra that is struggling to contain their ample size. Elliot seems a little flustered, and I grin wickedly. “You like them?” I ask him, waiting for him to bite. “I got them for a good price.”

“Shut up and get on the table, whatever your name is,” he says, and I can’t tell if he is amused or annoyed.

I hoist myself onto the table and lay down, wincing as I rip my bandage off in one go. “They’re just boobs, El,” I say, settling against the squeaky plastic.

He takes a moment to look at them dubiously before shifting his attention to my face. “They’re hot. I don’t want to talk about your boobs, though.” He snaps a plastic bag open and withdraws a single-use needle chock full of ink that will stain my skin permanently.

“I want to talk about where the fuck you’ve been for three days not answering my calls.” His words are bitter and I can tell he has thought of nothing else except me and my safety since I left here three days ago.

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “They took my phone and smashed it.”

“Well, are you okay?” he asks me, his voice straining to sound normal under the weight of his despair. His blue eyes are oceans of worry and hurt, and I have to look away before I really do cry.

“I’m fine,” I say. “I got in there. They bought my story. That’s it.”

“That’s it?” Elliot stops fumbling with needles and packages and stares at me questioningly. “What do you mean, that’s it?”

I grit my teeth and take a deep breath, the events of the past three days a broken record of pain, blood, and lust playing on repeat in my addled mind. I can’t tell him about Michael. He would never speak to me again if he knew the depths of my treachery.

“Dornan liked me straightaway,” I say in a monotone voice. “He liked me a little too much.”

Elliot’s hands are empty and I can hear his nails digging into the hard plastic that covers the table I lay upon. “Julz…” he growls.

Hot tears fill my eyes and I look up at him angrily. “Don’t call me that,” I say viciously. “Don’t you ever call me that, do you understand? Do you want us to both get killed?”

He lets go of the table and shakes his head. “Did he hurt you?” he asks, his fists in tight balls.

“Yes,” I say honestly, blinking the tears away. “But I let him. It’s all part of the act.”

He goes to grab my shoulders and I look at the front door in alarm. “Jason is watching,” I say in a high-pitched voice, and I see Elliot use every single reserve of strength he has to back away from me and collect his tattoo gun from the counter. He preps the needles, each one holding dye that will soon be on my skin.

“How’d you convince him to stay out there, anyway?” Elliot is crazy angry, but attempting normal conversation at the same time. Super.

I stretch out on the soft plastic bed. “I told him I cried last time I got inked, and it would be way too embarrassing for me if he watched.”

Elliot smirks despite his earlier tirade, his needle poised at my hipbone.

“So,” he asks stonily, “you gonna cry?”

I clench my fists as he begins to drag sharp needles through the sensitive, scarred flesh that covers my hipbone. “Hell, no. It takes more than a little tattoo gun to make this girl cry.”

Sixteen

Three hours later, my tattoo is completely shaded in, blacks and dark reds a swirl of patterns and seeping blood across my midsection. I am sweating, and my skin is simultaneously numb and screaming alight, each nerve crying its own confused protest.

“I thought this wasn’t supposed to hurt,” I asked Elliot as he applied a new dressing. “I thought I was meant to get a huge rush or something?”

Elliot paused, staring at the fresh blue and purple bruises around my wrists, where Dornan pinned me to the bed after he shot Michael.

“Your body only has so much adrenalin,” he says, taking my wrist and studying the flesh with an unreadable look on his face. He brushes his warm fingertips lightly across the bruises, a deep frown settling into his forehead. “You’ve probably used it all up.”

The front door jangles, scaring the hell out of me, and I look up to see Jase at the front counter of the shop. He eyes us cautiously, obviously noticing the  tenderness with which Elliot is touching my bruised wrists.

“You done?” he asks me. I nod eagerly, sliding off the bench and carefully pulling my t-shirt back over my head. I wince as the fabric touches my inked skin; even though the plastic forms a barrier, it doesn’t stop my skin from protesting at the merest touch.

“Don’t forget to bathe it every day and keep it clean and dry,” Elliot says, as he’s no doubt said a thousand times before. He hands me an after-care kit which includes gauze pads, saline solution, barrier cream, and a business card with the landline of the studio printed across the front in large numbers. Smart.

“Got it!” I say, making my way towards the door, where Jase waits. I don’t look back at Elliot. If I look back, I’m screwed.

Remember why you’re here.

My mantra, a chant that keeps me sane in times of trepidation.

Fuck Dornan over. Kill his sons. Send the rest to jail. Find that tape.

Live happily ever after. Pfft.

We step outside to a day that has almost entirely disappeared; wisps of aubergine cloud hang low in the sky, waiting for the night sky to swallow them completely.

“Where to?” Jase asks, lowering his sunglasses to look at me.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m kind of starving. Are you hungry?”

Jase smiles. “Yeah. I called the clubhouse, Pop’s still sleeping it off.”

He must notice my face fall as he says it, and back-pedals furiously. “I’m sorry,” he stutters, “I didn’t mean–”

“Beer,” I say to him in response. “I could really use a beer.”

He frowns and points to my midsection. “Are you sure you’re supposed to drink after getting a tattoo done? Doesn’t it bleed a lot or something?”

I shrug. “Let’s find out.”

He laughs, and the sound is sweet in a world full of hurt and lies. “Come on, then,” he says. “I know a place on the beach that you’ll probably like. You eat Mexican food?”

I think of how, as teenagers, we would visit Venice Beach to get away from our parents, where we would drink cheap beer and order nachos after swimming in the sea for hours upon hours. I swallow a lump in my throat and smile. “Sounds great,” I say.

 As we make our way towards the beach, only a couple hundred meters away, I can’t get the past three hours out of my head. The conversation with Elliot was a roller coaster, to say the least.

 “What’s your game plan, anyway?” Elliot spoke carefully as he pressed sharp needles into my flesh.

I was already bathed in sweat, my fingers curled around the sides of the bed. “I’m going to take them out, one by one. Dornan last.” I breathed heavily to the hum of the gun.

“Take them out?” Elliot had muttered. “What do you mean, exactly?” 

I locked eyes with him and he stepped away from me, his gun poised in his hand, silenced for the moment.

“You mean to tell me you’re going to kill all of them?”

I smiled darkly, and I could tell he was grasping for a way to talk me out of it.

“You should have stayed in Nebraska,” he said through gritted teeth. “This is insane.”

“Why?” I challenged him. “Because they don’t deserve to die?”

The tattoo gun dropped to his side and he looked frustrated. “Because it shouldn’t have to be you who does it,” he said with an air of finality.

“Elliot?” I asked. “Hey.” I sat up and reached across the void that separated us, touching the intricate ink sleeve that adorned his muscled arm. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do it for you,” he said, looking completely defeated. “I wanted to. I didn’t think about anything else. And then …”

“I understand,” I said, feeling robbed that I couldn’t pull him to my chest and give him the biggest, tightest hug. Instead, I focused on his arm, and the tattoos that adorned it. There were stars and skulls, a pretty pin-up girl with blonde hair, a babushka doll, a sickle, and a gun. Birds were scattered in the spaces not taken by other symbols, and I swallowed thickly as I realized I was staring at the story of his life without me. I brushed my fingertip lightly against the babushka doll, certain it was for his daughter.

“You have something to live for, El. Something far more important than revenge. You have a family.”

He smiled sadly and looked down at where my fingers lay on his skin.

“Kayla was an accident,” he said, rubbing his finger across the babushka doll. He raised his t-shirt sleeve and I saw the word Kayla captured in a swirling red ribbon across his shoulder. “Mandy wanted to have a termination, but–”

My breathing stilled for a moment at that word.

“I wouldn’t let her,” he murmured. “I told her what it was really like to watch that happen. God, I’m sorry, Julz,” he finished, and I didn’t bother correcting him. “I didn’t mean to mention that shit.”

I smiled through my sadness. “Don’t be sorry,” I replied, my heart swelling and twisting for Elliot with an emotion I hadn’t felt in years. “I’m happy something so nice came out of something so horrible.”

He relaxed and held up his tattoo gun again. “We should finish this.”