Seven Sons

Chapter 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."

I nodded and lay back down. "Yeah."

He poised the needle above my skin. "Which one first?" he asked, and I immediately knew what he was asking. Which one was I going to kill first.

"Chad," I replied softly. "The oldest one." The worst one.

He nodded and I tensed as he gouged sharply into my flesh.