The Price ࿊f Peace

☮️: 012

Somewhere in Oakland

Elijah was sat as comfortably as he could be in the old, patchy chair, with his arm laid outstretched on his rickety desk.

He had blasted his music to the point that he couldn't hear anything else. Barely even the sound of the machine on his skin anymore.

He was zoned, completely in his own space as he inked his skin.

Abir kept thinking about Syara out there in that car to the point that he had to blast his music to drown out his guilt. 

Luckily, he didn't have any clients until Wednesday, so he could finish in one sitting if he wanted to.

Abir couldn't even see what he was doing anymore, his eyes focused on one spot of the tattoo at a time and he zoomed in on it with his eyes.

He didn't hear when the front door of his home opened, but he felt it.

He didn't care to look behind him to see who it was.

He didn't hear as the conversation between his brothers in the kitchen stopped.

He didn't see Syara step silently into the archway of his house, sticking out like a sore thumb, looking slightly uncomfortable before smokescreening a collected facade about herself.

He didn't turn as she walked into his line of sight, her petite frame pushing through the men in the kitchen, to reach in the bag for her food.

Instead, Abir continued tattooing as his music blasted through his speakers.

Syara was grateful for his not looking at her while she righted herself, sitting gingerly on a tattered couch behind him. Her limbs were tensed as she picked at her chicken sandwich.

It was still kind of warm, which she was slightly grateful for. Dave's was always so nasty when it was cold. For some reason, though, she felt less hungry than she did before she got her food.

She wanted to go home.

Syara stared at the plate in front of her in frustration as she swallowed another bite dry. She had taught herself a while ago not to cry in front of people.

A mistake she had made during her first stint in juvie. She was fighting everyday since to prove herself to those girls that she wasn't a punk.

She wasn't a punk.

She wouldn't cry.

She stared down at her take-out box with a bad taste in her mouth.

She couldn't hear anything over the music blasting through the speakers and her mind was in a state of indecision.

On one hand, she was exhausted and desperate to just go to sleep, or at least lay her head down.

And on the other hand, she felt like she was being watched and had to stay on her game, less they see through the faux indifference she was putting on her features. She didn't even have the energy to be petulant.

Syara could feel the eyes on her back, and usually, she genuinely didn't care. Not even a little bit. But she felt she had just been stripped of her pride and had it shoved so far down her throat that it was touching her heart.

Abir was right...unfortunately. She was being watched and she wasn't paying attention. That was her bad. She could admit that. Never to him. But still, she could.

She had seen plenty too many of her friends die from the same small error, been to too many funerals, seen too many mothers cry to be as stupid as she was in that moment.