Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
“I didn’t have his address.”
“Well, don’t worry. I’ve got it. Along with the name of his wife and kids at home.”
The way her lip curls when she says wife and kids reveals exactly what I wanted to know about her. We all have a trigger. Something that makes us tick, or makes us sick… whatever. This is where her rage stems from. It’s the cheating that does it for her.
She’s young, maybe twenty-four at most I’d guess, but hard. Hard as fuck. And I’d venture a guess that she’s been married before already.
It’s all very fascinating, really. But I’m no Freud, and I find myself caring a little too much, so I shake myself out of it and get down to business.
“I get that you’re new here,” I say. “But I think we need to come to some sort of understanding. You’re drawing too much heat. The guys I fuck up run back to their penthouses with their tails between their legs and live out their days with regret and paranoia. But yours are actually going to the police. And now the feds have been sniffing around here too.”
She pulls out a duffle not dissimilar to my own and retrieves a tattoo gun. She’s all business and in the zone and I’m not even sure she heard me when she snaps on some latex gloves and swipes his chest with an alcohol pad.
“Look, Scarlett…” This time, she glances up at me. “That’s what you tell people your name is, right?”
“That is my name.”
“Sure, it is.” She rolls her eyes. “Just like mine is Storm. Let’s be real with each other for a minute. I don’t like you, and you don’t like me. In fact, I think we are a lot alike in that we both hate every-fucking-one. But we have to share our toys. That’s the way it goes. So, you just worry about you, and I’ll worry about me. And in the meantime, you can watch me fuck him up real good if you want.”
I guess my curiosity wins out in the end. Because I take a seat on the bed, and I do exactly what she suggested.
I watch.
She’s right that we are both similar. Maybe that’s why my curiosity is getting the best of me. This isn’t like me. I don’t team up. I don’t have interest in other people’s stories. Their thoughts, their fears, whatever.
But it’s not often I stumble across someone as fucked up as I am. So, this girl, she fascinates me.
Her face is turned down as she begins. She’s in a trance, inflicting the very permanent damage she leaves on all her toys. And it’s only now that I’m in close proximity that I can see it.
The reason she hides in shadow.
Her arm is a mess of tangled flesh and scars, and so is the right side of her face. They are disguised well, beneath the makeup and the black wig. But under the soft glow of the lamp light, they are obvious in a way I never noticed in a dark bar.
Burns.
She was burned.
Badly, from the looks of it.
She glances up and catches me staring.
“Are you about done? I don’t have to let you watch, you know.”
My answer is a nod and a new laser focus on her chosen canvas. But inside my head, the wheels are still turning.
I can only imagine what it would be like to wear your scars so visibly. People staring all the time. Silently hypothesizing. Coming to their own conclusions. Silently judging you and pitying you at the same time.
My respect for her only grows in this moment of vulnerability she shared with me. Allowing me to see her this closely. It wasn’t an accident, or a spontaneous decision.
This girl’s mind is a chess board, and every move she makes is carefully planned out.
She works quickly and efficiently. The tattoo is messy and deep. Too deep. This guy won’t ever be able to get her brand lasered off his skin. For the rest of his life, when he looks in the mirror, he will see the word staring back at him.
Duplicity.
I know from the news articles starting to make the rounds that she uses different words. Infidelity. Greed. Lust. Envy. Deceit.
They are all sins in their own right, but they have new meaning to me now. It’s funny how a canvas changes once you meet the artist. It all starts to make sense. Or doesn’t. In this case, her words have come full circle. The puzzle is not in the different sins, but only one.
Infidelity.
Every other sin is just a shallow imitation. Another path to the same destination.
These men are all cheaters. And when they come home from this, there is no hiding what they’ve done. They will confess on their knees and beg their wives forgiveness while Storm carries on as though it never happened.