Logan hooked me up today—finally got my little hiss.
I touch my finger to his name, switching over to his profile.
Logan Mickelson, Paint It Black tattoo parlor.
Found you, motherfucker.
The parlor is only twelve blocks from the park. I walk over, instinctively avoiding any record of where I’m going. Leaving my options open to deal with Logan as I see fit.
This is the wrong time of day for an acquisition. I’d be better off coming in the evening, when he’s likely to be working alone, finishing up his last client of the day. I could pose as a walk-in. After checking the building for cameras, of course.
But I’m impatient.
I don’t want to wait until tonight.
I want to know the precise nature of this bastard’s relationship with Mara. Right now.
I wait around the back of the building. He’ll come out for a smoke. These fuckers always smoke.
Sure enough, after nearly an hour of patient watching, he shoves his way through the back door, already sparking up, hand cupped around his mouth to protect against the wind blowing gusts of dry leaves down the alleyway.
I have him up against the wall, forearm against his throat before he’s drawn a single breath of smoke into his lungs.
He goes still, not fighting, not struggling. Looking at my face with as much curiosity as fear.
“Oh, shit,” he says. “I know you.”
I’m becoming entirely too recognizable in this town.
“Then I’m sure you can guess why I’m here.”
It still takes him a second to put it together.
“Mara,” he says.
“That’s right,” I hiss. “Mara.”
“Sorry dude, I didn’t know she had a boyfriend . . .”
I could cheerfully decapitate him just for that comment.
“I’m no one’s fucking boyfriend,” I snarl. “She belongs to me, she’s my property. And you put your disgusting inky hands all over something I own. What do you think I should do about that, Logan?”
The sound of his own name is the alarm that alerts Logan to the fact that I’m not here to have a pleasant conversation. The continued existence of that name is a fine thread upon which my arm against his throat operates like a sharp set of shears.
He cuts the bullshit immediately.
“I barely know her. I don’t even have her phone number.”
“You tattooed her, though.”
“Yeah—that’s how we met. I did a grim reaper for her roommate. She asked if I’d do the snake. It was her own design—she drew it.”
“What other tattoos have you done for her?”
“None. It was just the one.”
I ease the pressure off his throat. Slightly.
He isn’t stupid enough to think that’s the end of it. He looks into my eyes, into those black pits that could never be filled by apologies alone.
“Is there . . . anything else?”
“Yeah. Where’s your tattoo gun?”
22
Mara
I considered giving Cole a couple of days to cool off.
I could avoid him reasonably well—sleeping over at a friend’s house. Not coming into the studio to work.
But the effort would be pointless.
Cole ain’t ever cooling off. I’m not stupid enough to think that a couple of days apart is going to ease his fury at what I did. Not after I literally hung a reminder on his wall.
Besides, I want to work. I don’t want to take a week off from painting, or even a single day.
Which is why I find myself back at the studio a little before midnight, praying that Cole might possibly be asleep and not angry enough to haul himself out of bed to mete out what’s coming to me.
Janice isn’t at her desk. The building has a roaming security guard at night, but I suspect he spends most of his time walking as slowly as possible so he only has to make a few rounds before his shift ends.
The odd silence of the usually bustling space puts me on edge as I climb the stairs to the fourth floor.
I didn’t used to be a jumpy person.
Getting snatched by a monster straight out of a nightmare changed that forever.
I’ll never forget that dark figure hurtling toward me. Somehow that was the worst part: realizing that the things you fear are very much real. And they’re coming for you.
Cole asked me why I kept the piercings. I told myself that I was doing it for me—an act of defiance.
But Cole is right.
I like the reminder. I need it.
So I never get too comfortable again.
Sometimes I think it was Cole who kidnapped me. Sometimes I feel sure it wasn’t.