The Tattooed | Completed | ✔

Chapter 16 - Flames

Ester came home today around noon, it was a weekday so Eddy was at School and Dimitri was at work. I acted normal around him, being the loving fiancée who was excited about the wedding. The wedding itself was to be in a few months, we figured right after the baby is born. Now I see why he wanted to wait till after the baby was born, we weren't going to actually get married. My baby was going to be taken away from me the second it was born, I would more than likely be killed.

"Ester? Knock, knock." I pushed her front door open, it was nap time for the older of the two Locks children. Ester might even be asleep herself, three child at such a young age can really be hard on someone. It might even be harder on Ester, having to practically raise them all by herself.

"I'm over here." I turned once I reached the living room at her whisper. She was rocking a bundle of blankets against her chest. She smiled at me, not knowing the secret my own 'husband' was keeping from me. I don't know how much longer I was going to keep the cover, I needed to leave. I needed to get back to Fuga and tell the council what Dimitri really was, how he was betraying us all. What if he wasn't? What if the council knew all about this? Oh god! "Wyn? Are you feeling okay?" I snapped from my thoughts.

"I'm wonderful! Just, uh, my pregnancy and all." I sat down on the couch across from her, staring at my hands. My fingers tangled together in my lap nervously.

"Understandable honey, my grandmother had the same illness you have. And believe me, you're lucky, they didn't have any kind medicine to help it when she was pregnant." Ester let out a small laugh but quickly silenced herself when the baby started to fuss. "I swear Tucker's worse than the other two combined." She cooed at the baby in her arms and stared down at him. Would I be that calm when my baby arrived? Would I even be able to handle this pregnancy? Everyone thought I had already been through most of this and I wish I had been, I wish I knew what I was getting into.

Ester and I talked for hours about anything baby, well more of she talked and I listened because I was wanting to know more than what she had already told me. She went into diseases that killed children in our grandparents time, how when Others breed with us that the diseases that brought with them was terrible. Children could die in horrible ways because their parent was an Other and didn't know how to control themselves sometimes. She then went into a rampage of how Others were beasts for ever coming here and messing up the world we had. That making Tattooed children were basically sentencing all the death at some point, I believed her. Being Tattooed was a death sentence, no matter where you went, you were a target. A target that tried to stay hidden and never get caught for the sake of those around you. Being Tattooed living here was dangerous not to yourself but the others around you, you could kill so many by unleashing your Tattoo.

Ester was in a rage by the end of her rant about Others and Tattooed, she truly hated them. I hate to think why she would do if she ever found out that I was Tattooed, that my 'husband' was Tattooed. Would they hurt Eddy and blame her along with us? Or would they allow her to move in with someone here and continue her life? If the former happened, I hoped Ester would take her in.

"Sorry about that. My brother became a Tattooed." Ester moved the sleeping baby to the couch and walked from the room. "Do you want tea?"

"Y-Yes. Ester you have a brother?" Her file never said anything about her having siblings.

"Had. Edger was taken away for his Checking and never returned. No one has seen him since. Want sugar?" Ester set a tray down on the coffee table in front of me, smiling like saying her brother had been killed was no big deal. If anything were to have happened to Staci Lynn, I can't even think of what would have happened. I had been there for her Escape, I'm the one that pulled her from the Officers. My chest hurt, how could someone sound so non-chalant about their sibling?