Pulling my hair into a high ponytail, I scrub cold water over my face. The hot has been shut off, they only turn it on after I leave. It's not like I would use much of it anyway. Its their sick form of amusement and they seem to get pleasure from knowing that I shower in the icy cold water while they get to bask in the heat.
Heading downstairs, I grab the dirty laundry as I head to the kitchen to start on their breakfast; bacon, eggs, beans and toast with tea, coffee and juice that will keep them going till lunch which is in the fridge for them to grab. God I really am a modern-day Cinderella I’m not allowed to eat their food. I have bread and milk daily a biscuit and gravy with water and the odd granola bar. I also work at a diner and Red the owner is a beautiful woman who allows me to have coffee and a full meal daily. My life is a mess.
Heading out the door, down the filth stained corridor, down the six flights of stairs, I'm finally out in the fresh air. Untying my scarf from around my face, I walk down through the slums, to Flushing Meadows Park, and into the library. A familiar sound approaches. My stomach leaps as the butterflies build rolling on the waves of excitement. I see the same guy every day I just wish that he sees me. He rides a motorcycle, it hums its way through the streets that hold so much pain. I wish I could jump on the back of his bike and just ride away from here. He wears black jeans and this pair of amazing cherry red Docs. I wonder where he goes? Why would he be down here?
Chapter Two
Ghost
Pulling my achy body from the bed I so seldom sleep in, I seem to just lay there scratching for a new hit. A new high, I need more to take me further to the edge of the abyss the sweet taste brings me.
For me the shaking is the worst symptom of withdrawal. ‘Dope sickness’ is what it's called, symptoms include shaking, sweating, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain, and the itchy need to get high. I have to work today, I have to ink. I'm booked in for a six-hour straight slot, so I’ll need to take a sweet hit before I start. Tomorrow I’ll try again to get clean, try to say no to the craving that haunts me. I’ll try once more to ignore that taste that sits at the back of my throat, taunting me day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute.
Why is it so hard to resist? Why can’t I just say no? Pulling myself together, I splash ice-cold water over my face, zapping me back to the now, to the task at hand. I'll stop by my dealer’s place on the way to my shop to score a little powder. Looking forward to a nice hit of coke to get the day started places a smile on my face.
Pulling my jeans on, I head for the door locking it as I go. Kicking my bike to life, I feel her hum underneath me, god she feels good between my legs. The soul-soothing purr of her against my thighs is better than a good hit of cocaine. If only I could ride her on the wave of this downward spiral of drugs and anger.
I use drugs to mask the dark thoughts and the fucked-up memories floating around in my demented brain. The life I live as the club’s in-house tormenter, it's eating me alive. I'm constantly fighting with these dark demons that are coursing through my soul. I’m always looking to spill more blood, cause others pain, and on the hunt for more drugs to chase away the nightmares that live inside my head. The devil that claws its way through my soul to exit my body and rain torment and torture onto the bastards who choose not to follow the laws of my club. They will endure my wrath. My own soul be damned as I'm guilty of it all. I'm the punisher and executioner to the stupid souls who do not play by the rules.
How much more of this I can take is yet to be decided.
I’m crumbling at the hands of the dark though, as the days go by. I need a new distraction; one that doesn’t involve a needle filled with liquid gold or a line of coke.
Pulling out onto the road from the compound, I travel the road that will take me through Queens, my old stomping ground. I like to remind myself just where I came from, oh and to also catch a glimpse of the young lady that walks so hunched over, nervous, and jittery. Normally I'm such a strong-willed and confident man, the VP to the Reapers Reign, my badass reputation precedes me, yet I have been watching this girl for a year now and still have not grown a pair and stopped to speak to her. I, by no means, do love. I don’t do the feelings. I'm not cut out for it. It’s not in my DNA to feel; I bring nothing but blood and pain. How could someone want to be with an executioner like me? A demon so dark that I would give your nightmares, nightmares. I'm a lunatic unhinged with a taste for death that I can no longer hold.
How could I explain what I do to her? She looks like she is carrying the world on her shoulders, like she could crumble at any minute. There is no way I could add my own shit to her troubles. I would like to find out who the girl in the hooded jersey and ballet flats is. She has the clearest, lightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen, pools of crystal water you could drown in, but I can see the edges laced with sadness and pain.
I always leave early enough to grab a coffee and have it in the park across from the library where she spends a lot of her mornings before scurrying off to work in the diner across from my shop. I speed past her on my bike every single morning so I can beat her to the park. The girl with the glass blue eyes, hooded from this world in her own darkness... I’d like to save her. If only I knew how to break through not only my own fears, but hers also.
I didn’t see her this morning. The need to pick up a fix made me late. I sit, and I wait and wait, no sign of her, I keep looking at my watch. I'm so mad at myself for letting this goddamn thirst take a hold of me each time. I watched as it took not only my mother but my brother from me, from this world. It's so fucked up. I was dead against it, I watched it destroy them, our family, our lives, and our home. This poison sent me, homeless and alone, to the streets where the Reapers found me and took me in. I knew better, so why the fuck have I let it in? Let it control me? The fucking pressure to stay sane, that’s why.
Reaching into my jeans pocket, I roll the bag around my fingertips licking my lips as the need for it washes over me, knowing the feeling of pure bliss that is about to surge through me when I inject it into my veins send excitement rushing through me. Pulling my helmet on I roar off to my tattoo shop that sits across from the corner of 6th and 10th. I’ll get high, ink up my client, and then stare at the girl with the glass blue eyes.
Pulling up to my shop, I steal a glimpse at the diner. I see her sitting outside with a cup of coffee steaming as the hot vapor hits the cool air of our New York fall setting in. Each day, it's getting colder, more leaves are falling. It will start to get white soon. The time of year I love the most as it numbs me, kills the fire that runs through my blood for death, pain and suffering. Freezes the outside from sinking in. The summer and I are not friends the heat reminds me of hell the place my soul has residents. So winter and I well we are friends the cold keeps me company at night.
Fuck it, I'm going over. I need coffee anyway and she does make a killer brew. Walking over, I see her pull in further to her hoodie. Once I’m standing in front of her, she looks up at me through thick black lashes, instantaneously setting my dick to hyperalert, “Hey doll, how are you doing?” I say.
Looking around nervously, she finally speaks, stammering she says “Who me? Are you talking to me”?
Well it's not like there is anyone else out here, so I answer with my cocky self, “I sure am, babe” Like hell girl I just step from the safe zone over the street to talk to you and I legit fell like I could pass out. I am a man who doesn’t do idle chit chat. I think as I stare down onto her shaking frame. Shit it feels good though her voice is so soft and delicate you like have to really listen or you will miss the sweet and sensual undertones under her studder which I may add is sexy as all hell.
She starts to jitter looking at her feet, “No one ever speaks to me,” she blurts out.
My blood cools a little, clenching my fists, I ask her, “Why...”
“No reason, I'm just not worth the time, that’s all.” What the hell is that about? My mind travels to reasons why someone so intriguing as her would say that like shit I wanna tal
k to her so why wouldn’t anyone else. It has me mad, like who’s silencing her I see it in her eyes the pain floating over her glass blue orbs and it angers me that a soul as beautiful as hers feels pain.
She goes to pull herself up to leave. Proffering my hand out to help her up, I say to her, “Well they should. You have the sweetest voice and most intense eyes I have ever heard and seen.” It's the truth. “Girl you are stunning”. She freezes on the spot, holding her breath. I place my hand on the small of her back, leaning in real close. “Breathe, doll, I won't bite.”
Pushing open the door, I flick her a wink as she looks up at me, scared and shaking. I may look like a walking devil but surely its not me and my appearance that has her so scared it has to be what I see swimming in her eyes. Fear and pain placed inside her from another. As we walk in, we are greeted by the cook screaming at her to move her ass and stop fucking around. “You have people to serve, stupid girl,” he barks. She goes fifty shades of red and my blood boils. I'll smack the prick square in the jaw for that.
Pulling at her sleeve, she walks behind the counter, tugging her hoodie off over her head. My eyes fall on her body and I must say I would love to run my hands over her curves. I shake the thought from my mind; I would be no-good for a timid little thing like her. I would break her beyond repair. I shall just get my coffee and go.
“What can I get you, sir?” her sweet voice cuts through my thoughts.
“Oh, just a cup of coffee thanks, doll, extra shot with a dollop of cream to take away, hold the sugar.”
“C-coming right up,” she stutters. God, she’s hot the way her mouths moves when she stutters, the winters chill that pinkens her cheeks her skin is a shade of white that is near transparent and her eyes a glass blue that could slice you in two with just a stare, long black thick lashes to meet her midnight black hair. Shes breath taking. If only she knew what my cock and my mind wanted to do to her.
Watching her as she walks and moves around making my coffee, the way her ponytail swings is the best, it has taken my mind of the hit I need. The way she smells of coffee and jasmine is intoxicating. She has me on hyper drive and my dick dancing in my jeans. Watching her is a drug I could never grow tired of.
Cutting through my thoughts is the electric feeling of her hand as it places the cup in mine.
“There you go, sir, I ho-ope you enjoy your day,” she stumbles out.
A smile pulls at the corner of my lips, flicking her a wink I say, “I sure will now, doll, see you around.”
I'm consumed by her all day, even after I have pumped the shit into my veins. She haunts my mind, those eyes, her smell, and touch.
The six hours of ink dragged on. All I wanted to do was stare out the window of my tattoo parlor at the mysterious waitress who has fed my addiction, not with drugs, but with senses and feelings. It’s definitely a weird and unexpected combination for my hate filled soul to feel anything but anger and blind rage for a life consumed by death, hate and a unhealthy thirst for drugs.
Chapter Three
Timberly
I’ve been watching the man with the dragon tattoo for so long now, watching him work away in his tattoo shop. Devil’s Ink, it's called. He has the most chilling eyes I have ever seen. Sea green eyes with deep blue flecks and death dancing in them, soul reaching. They draw you in and I’m not one for holding eye contact, let alone allowing someone to see the truths that live behind my lashes but this one man his soul so similar yet so different from mine sends a chill through the air that quills the dark that lives inside my eyes. His stare that one glance, that small smile and glint in his dark eyes sends a sense of ease over me. He comes in here a lot, I feel him stare at me all the time, for what reason I am unsure of.
He’s not a guy my gut says is safe, but he’s a guy my heart says to admire, even if it's from afar. I could never do anything with a man like him. I'm used, abused, battered, and dirty. I need to get out of this place. He has been a nice distraction over the last year though. Today, of all days when I felt at my lowest, after what the she devil did to me this morning and well each morning since I can remember it hurts knowing she hates me so much and then the blow that come with not finding an address for my grandparents all I want is to find them and escape to their arms their safe haven of love. he spoke to me, he saw me, and he seemed interested, but that could just be my mind playing tricks on me. Why would the man with the dragon tattoo want to know a hood rat like me?
I could have stood there all day holding his hand, but Bob had to go and be a jackass as usual why! The voice inside my head screams as the little bad devil and good angel both stomp their feet crossing their arms over their chests. Bob is a total jerk, he’s a fat angry man with oily hair and yellow teeth. He makes my stomach flip in a I’m gonna be sick on your shoes kinda way I try to fan down my flaming red cheeks while I make tattoo guy’s coffee. Bob screaming at me from the kitchen was totally humiliating. I was not doing anything but coming in from my morning coffee. My shift wasn’t even due to start for another fifteen minutes. Jerk! How freaking embarrassing was that to pull me up to the center of attention on purpose. He’s only doing it ‘cause Red’s not in yet, no way would she allow it to happen while she’s here.
I picture stabbing him in the eye with a fork, daily, as I pour scolding hot coffee over his dirty private area. He thinks it is ok to jab his nasty boner into my bottom as I clean and load up my trays in the kitchen, making my skin crawl each and every time. But that’s Bob though, he does this mean, petty undermining shit to all of us when Red’s away. Jerk! Red is one amazing woman, she owns this diner and has been the mother I wish I had to me over the year that I have worked for her. She found me one day outside in the back alley cold and alone and digging in the dumpster for food scraps. She has seen more than I wish and knows more than I wanted to tell but she definitely finds a way to get it out of me. She always help stop the pain that well that I can’t seem to escape from as much as I try.
The need for dirty men to release their filth into and on me is never ending and soul consuming. Will it ever end? Maybe, if only I could suck up enough balls to jump in front of the trains in the subway that I watch on my way home. Maybe then it would stop the pain and torture, the grime and filth, the hurt and the poison. Maybe then I could fly with the angels, pure and free, clean and weightless. I have worn a smile on my face all day today. It started with him speaking to me and giving me compliments, And then, the current – that tingling surge – that ran through my body when I touched his hand. I wonder if he felt it too. I have never felt something so consuming before. I want more of it.
Red cuts through my thoughts when she speaks. “Hum mm, missy, what are you daydreaming about?”
Flushing beet-red I stutter out, “M-me?” looking away.
“Yes you, silly girl. Do you see anyone else here that I'm talking to,” she says waving her hands around in the air.
“I guess not,” I say, giggling, looking at the ground embarrassed. I want to tell her, I want to tell someone about the dreams I have, about how he makes me feel, but I feel like if I do it will be lost forever. Could they? Would they try to take it from me, take him the boy with the dragon tattoo and the school girl dream made upon a star and a wish laced in a whisper sent to the moon. They could and that’s a risk I don’t want to take, so I’ll lock him in my pocket and still wish upon the stars. My mother and her men they shatter dreams and diminish hopes of ever escaping and living a normal life.
“Oh, nothing, Red.” I push off the counter where I was standing daydreaming of him. I can see into his shop perfectly from here. I have watched him all day, hunched over his client, tattooing away on their back. Laughing and talking like it's as easy as breathing for him. I wish I had his freedom and spirit, it would make it so much easier to survive, that’s for sure, but no, I revert into myself, pull myself down deep to the mistress of the dark. She keeps me sane in this world of hurt.
Wiping the counters as I go, I feel Red walk up behind me. She’s
all I ever have wanted in a mother figure. She is so kind and caring. Smokes like a chimney, but is warm and inviting, always trying to get under my shields and break through. I tell her little bits here and there. She keeps me late or longer on weekends and gives me extra days, not only to keep me away from home but to help fund my eventual escape. She gets it and has always offered her place but that’s the first place they would look. And I would never want to put her in danger, as I know what my mother is capable of.
“Don’t lie to me, girly, you’re like an open book,” she says, winking at me.
I blush. “Oh, it's probably nothing,” I say to her.
“Tell girly,” She demanded, giving me her sternest look with her hands on her hips. Her trademark red nail polish is painted on her long sleek nails and her red lipstick is plastered on her full lips, hence the name Big Red. The red, for her nails and lips, the big, because, well let’s be honest, she’s a round woman with a set of the biggest boobs I’ve ever seen.
I smile at her, “Well, you know the guy from across the street at the tattoo parlor?” I say, nerves rising in my stomach.
Recognition fills her eyes. “Oh, Mr. Sex on legs? Lord, yes, what I wouldn’t give to be twenty years younger and under him!” She holds her boobs as she gives out a loud Big Red laugh that shakes the backs of my knees.
I smile again, I love this woman. “Yes, him. He...well, he kinda spoke to me today.”
She stared at me and slapped her hand down on the counter making me jump. “‘Bout damn time you two started having a yarn. I’ve only watched you both google-eye each other every damn day for the last year now!” She coughs out. “Man, Red you really need to stop smoking so much you can barely laugh without coughing up your lungs.” My tone laced with slight humor well the best I can do as I try to hide my thoughts and throw her off best I can. She has a way of knwing things before I know them and well I should coz well its always to do with me.
Heal Me (Reapers Reign, #3) Page 2
