I push the door open and am immediately hit by a breeze of cold air. The air-conditioning is bliss against my reddened skin, which has started to prickle after only a few moments outside. It is so much cooler inside, I think I might never leave.

I am expecting the humming of tattoo guns, but everything is silent. I look around the room, seeing nobody.

“Hello?” I call, waiting for an answer.

“Hi,” a voice behind me says, startling me. I spin around to see Elliot, still looking as gorgeous as he did the last time I saw him, only now more grown-up, and with tattoos covering every visible inch of his skin. He wears a white t-shirt and dark grey dickie shorts, a pair of bright blue sneakers on his feet. His face is the only thing that assures me of who he is.

I study his face and wonder if he knows who I am, then decide he probably doesn’t. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

He immediately looks suspicious. “No. Should I?”

I shake my head, my fake Southern drawl thick on my words. “It doesn’t matter. I came here because I need a tattoo. Everyone says you’re the best.”

He smiles, licking his lips, and I see a flash that I think is a tongue stud. “Come on through,” he says, leading me to one of the hard leather beds. “What kind of tattoo are you after?”

“One to cover a scar,” I say, biting my lip.

He nods, patting the bed. I hoist myself up, studying his face intently. He is the kindest person I have ever met, I think to myself. He truly did risk his life to save mine.

“Okay,” he says, smiling. “Where’s your scar?”

I swallow thickly, gather my dress in my fist, and raise it so that he can see.

His face contorts into something tortured. He looks at me, then the scars, then back at me.

“Julz?” he whispers. He takes in my hair, my skin, my blue eyes, my new nose. He steps back as if horrified.

“It’s Samantha, now,” I say, the accent gone, my breath hitching in my throat. “And I need your help.”

Six

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. I suddenly feel ill, as though I have done the wrong thing by seeking him out.

“I’m sorry,” I say, pulling my dress back down and sliding off the bed. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

I try to leave but he catches my elbow, turning me to face him. “Wait,” he says. “Please. I don’t want you to go. I’m just a little … shocked. I haven’t seen you in three years.”

I just stand there, feeling pathetic.

“Juliette,” he says darkly. “What are you doing here?”

“Sightseeing,” I reply with a deadpan face.

He lets go of my elbow and walks to the front of the store. He flips the sign hanging in the door to closed and locks the door, pulling the shade down so nobody can see in.

“My apartment is upstairs,” he says, looking at me like my appearance is causing him physical pain. “I think we need to talk.”

“And then you’ll tattoo me?” I ask hopefully.

He appears to be fighting an inner battle. “If you tell me why you need those scars covered up, then sure, I’ll make you the best fucking tattoo you’ve ever seen.”

“I’ll tell you why if you promise you won’t try and talk me out of it.”

He suddenly looks weary. “Let’s just go upstairs,” he says, “before anyone else finds you here.”

I look around the deserted shop, confused as to who exactly is going to find me in a store that is now locked, but I follow him upstairs anyway.

 I am pleasantly surprised when I enter the apartment. It is a far cry from the stark white of the store, and feels surprisingly spacious. It has been decorated in a retro style, all black and reds, with hits of canary yellow here and there. There are band posters covering the walls – from a cursory glance, I can see bills for The Ramones, The Rolling Stones and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Knotted beams of polished oak run beneath my feet. There are two low-back, black leather sofas facing each other with a glass coffee table between them and a gloss-black kitchen tucked off to the side.

 Elliot walks behind the bench and reappears several moments later with two open bottles of Budweiser.

“Good idea,” I say, accepting the one he offers me.

He sits across from me, and I can’t help but remember the very first time I saw him after my father died, when he came back to Nebraska.

 I’d been puking. At first, Grandma wrote it off as a stomach virus and kept me in bed for the week. But one week slowly crept into two, then three, and I was still sick, still lying in bed all day, and the doctor eventually confirmed what she had secretly feared and what I had never considered.

I heard her on the phone to her grandson, late one night when I couldn’t sleep.

“You have to come back here,” she pleaded. “It’s bad, honey. It’s real bad.”

She knew everything. She knew what they had done to me. And now, she knew that I carried a lasting reminder of their treachery. 

Elliot was there the next day, sitting beside me as I puked into an old tin bowl. He held my blonde hair back as I vomited, pressed a cold flannel to my neck. He cared for me the way I desperately needed someone to care for me.

“What do you want to do?” he asked me. Even then, when I was only fifteen and he was just shy of twenty-three, he treated me like I was the most important person in the world.

“I just want it to go away,” I said. “Can you make it go away?”

He clutched my hand, both of us trapped in a nightmare that never seemed to end.

“Yeah,” he said, the rage in his clenched jaw meant for them, not me. “I can make it go away.”

 We drove to the clinic in silence. He filled out the paperwork for me, used a fake ID so nobody would know my real name. 

He held my hand the whole time, as I was counselled, as I was prepped for theater, as the remnants of Dornan’s duplicity were painfully sucked from my cramping womb.

He crouched at the foot of my bed as I bled and cried. He stroked my hair and promised me he would kill Dornan Ross and his sons for what they had done to me. That he would make them pay.

For everything.

 I shake that horrid memory from my mind and focus on the here and now.

“Are you going to stare at me all day?” I ask him gently, attempting to get a smile.

He slams his beer down on the glass coffee table and froth sloshes onto the wooden floor.

“A goddamned ghost just walked into my shop asking for a tattoo,” he says gravely. “Excuse me for needing a minute to deal.”

I look at the floor. “A ghost is someone who died. I didn’t die.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “But everyone in this city thinks you did.”

I sip on my beer as I study the intricate network of Elliot’s tattoos that reach from each wrist to shoulder before disappearing under his shirt.

“Why are you back, Julz?” he asks, studying me intently. My heart drops when I realize his hands are shaking.

“Hey,” I say, setting my beer down and putting my hands over his so we are both cupping his beer. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Fuck,” he says bitterly. “The last time I saw you …”

“Calm down,” I interrupt him. “Nobody knows I’m here, I swear.”

I take the bottle from his hands and set it down next to mine, and shift seats so that I am sitting next to him.

“Remember the last thing we spoke about?” I whisper, taking his hands in mine. It’s been so many years, but it feels like it was five minutes ago that he was holding my hands like this and promising me vengeance.

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Yes, you do,” I prod firmly. “You promised me you would make them pay.”

His eyes go wide as he finally understands what I’m here for. “Julz, no …”

“Elliot, yes,” I murmur. “It’s time. It’s time to make them pay for their sins.”

 He pulls away from me and stands, walking over to the window. It is blessedly cool and dim in the apartment compared to the scorching heat outside. I look at my iPhone, aware that I am supposed to be at the clubhouse in four hours and require a tattoo that will take at least five. Still, I bear the moments as patiently as I can, worried that to push Elliot will make him refuse to help altogether. And, really, I can go to any tattoo artist and request a coverup for my scars.

But in a town run by Dornan Ross, I can’t risk showing his macabre handiwork to a single soul. Because if someone finds me out, I’m as good as dead.

And I still have so many things left to do.

 “It should have been me taking them down, Julz, not you.”

I speak gently. “Grandma told me about your daughter.”

He seems startled, fear registering in his eyes.

“What I mean," I say quickly, “is that I understand why you haven't been able to do anything about…” I'm suddenly at a loss for words. “Well, you know.”

Elliott rubs his eyes, and I wonder how many sleepless nights he has had since we met in an Emergency Room decorated in beige and bathed in my blood six years ago. Or how many sleepless nights since he drove away and left me all alone, three years ago?

 Elliot keeps shaking his head. “You shouldn’t have come back,” he says. “You should have stayed away.”

 I rise from the couch. “I have four hours to get a tattoo that covers these scars. I am doing this with or without you. Are you going to help me, or am I going to leave and find another tattoo artist to cover this shit up?”

 He turns, seemingly shocked by my determination. “Dornan knows artists all over this city. You can’t show your,” his voice cracks, “scars around.”