Deal With The Devil

Chapter 35

Celeste's POV

There was something about poking someone with a needle repeatedly that was extremely satisfying to me. The man I was tattooing didn't make any indication that it hurt but I knew it had to sting a little. He was my last customer of the day and despite my excitement to finally finish I worked diligently on his tattoo.

"So how long you been doing this?" He asked me.

"I've been training for a little over a year but I've only actively been tattooing for a few months." I stretched the truth a little.

Truth was that he was one of my first real ink jobs not counting the woman before him and Cesar. But I wouldn't tell him that, it'd make him nervous I was going to mess up. It was a Tuesday night and it was just kinda chill at the shop, not too busy. Javier was out with his friends from the north side since I was going to be tattooing after school. Lately I was getting a weird vibe around Javier, like he was nervous about something but I couldn't figure out what. I'd already met his parents, he'd already met Cesar. I didn't know what else it could possibly be. I'd find out soon enough. I let my mind wander a little while I was tattooing. I still hadn't seen Trigger since my birthday. The gun he gave me sat in my drawer like a tiger in a locked cage waiting to be released on whoever crossed me.

What was weird was that Javier had talked to me about me joining in the gang. He'd mentioned that he knew they were trying to recruit me and asked what I thought about it, what I would do. When I told him the goal was to stay away all he said was that he would support me in whatever I wanted to do, whether I joined or not. It struck me as odd because he always seemed to be wary around people in the gang. Like he didn't trust or like them. It was weird to me that all of the sudden he was saying he wouldn't mind if I started banging. Fortunately, Cesar wasn't pressuring me about it anymore. I brushed the thoughts away and focused on finishing Jesus' Jesus tattoo. I was almost done, all I had to do was go back and shade the face so it looked realistic.

"Alright, Jesus, I'm done." I told him once I finished.

I grabbed a mirror so he could get a good look at it. He admired it in the mirror with a smile on his face.

"It looks great, guerita. Thank you." He smiled.

"No problem, thank you." I shrugged, "You mind if I take a picture? I need pictures of tattoos I've done for the website."

"Yeah, sure, go ahead." He nodded.

I grabbed my phone and took a close up picture of the tattoo. I made sure not to get his face in the picture, just the tattoo.

"Are you flexing?" I laughed.

"Hey, my friends might see this." He defended himself.

I just laughed and shook my head. After I took the picture he gave me the mirror back and I grabbed the stuff to bandage his tattoo up. I cleaned it up and then bandaged it. I gave him the speech about cleaning it the same way Junior had told me. He nodded, paid me, and then left the shop. I started cleaning up my area. Throwing out the needle I used, disinfecting the countertops and taking care of the ink I didn't use. After I was done with that I went back to Junior's office to sit on the couch and call Cesar to come pick me up since I didn't have anything else to do. I headed into Junior's office to find him sitting at his desk.

"Hey, Junior I'm about to leave. Anything you want me to do before I go?" I asked him.

"Yeah, Cesar's picking you up, right?" He asked me.

He was looking through something on his computer. His eyes looked tired and stressed, like he was worried about something.

"Yeah, I was gonna call him." I nodded.