Fractures in Ink

by Helena Hunting

  I sighed. “Christ, Candy. Why would you want me to use you like that?”

  Her shoulders caved, and she hid behind her hair. “I’m sorry. That was stupid. It’s just… You were always really good to me, even when I wasn’t good to you.”

  With that she turned and walked up the cracked sidewalk. I waited until she’d disappeared inside the building before I flipped down my visor and gunned the engine. I wanted to get as far away from that part of my past as I could.

  Maybe it was a good thing Sarah had walked away from me. Maybe I should leave her alone. But I wouldn’t, not if The Sanctuary was as bad as Candy had said and Sarah might be getting dragged into things she couldn’t get out of.

  It wasn’t that she couldn’t take care of herself. She’d been doing that for years, as far as I knew. It was that once a guy like Xander found a weakness, any weakness, he’d exploit it until he broke her. I’d seen it done to Candy. I’d seen people try to take Lisa down the same road. If Jamie and Hayden and I hadn’t been there, she might’ve ended up like Candy. I wouldn’t let that happen to Sarah.

  * * *

  I parked around the back of Inked Armor and poked my head in the shop to see if anyone wanted coffee. After I took orders, I ran across the street, glancing up briefly at Sarah’s apartment. I couldn’t see any movement in the windows, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t there.

  I passed through the bookstore connected to the café to say hi to Hayden’s Aunt Cassie, who owned the place. Her smile was warm as she looked up from the book she was cataloging.

  “Chris! How are you?” She came out from behind the cash register to hug me.

  “I’m all right. How ’bout you?”

  “Good, good. Busy.” She gestured to the pile of books. “But that’s never a bad thing, is it?”

  “Nope. You get someone to rent Tee’s old apartment yet?”

  Cassie rolled her eyes. “My highly motivated husband wants to redo the floors and put in air, but he’s going to have to hire someone, especially since he can’t ask Hayden for help.”

  “Yeah, we’re way too busy at the shop these days. Hayden’s already cranky about not getting enough time with Tee. I don’t think I can deal with him if he’s going through full-on Tenley withdrawal.”

  Cassie laughed. “He doesn’t do moderation well.”

  “Not even a little.”

  “How’re things with Sarah? I haven’t seen much of her lately.”

  I tapped the counter and gave her a half-smile. “Me either. We’re not hanging out anymore.”

  “Oh, no. I’m so sorry. What happened?”

  I looked at the floor. “She realized I wasn’t any good for her, I guess.”

  “Did she say that to you?”

  Cassie’s anger almost made me smile. “No, but it’s pretty accurate. I don’t really think I’m good for anyone, so it’s probably better this way.”

  “I can’t say I agree with that. You’ve been a good friend to Hayden for a lot of years, and Lisa and Jamie.”

  I traced the cover of one of her books. “I don’t know about that. Hayden’s pretty much carried me since he got his shit together.”

  “That’s what friends do, though, don’t they? You carry each other when it’s needed.” She put a hand over mine. “I know the trial was hard on you, Chris. You were all kids when his parents died, and you barely even knew each other. You never could’ve known.”

  Her small, sad smile made my heart ache. While Hayden had lost his parents, Cassie had lost her only sister. There had been a gap in their ages, like with me and my sister, but they’d been close. After his parents died, Hayden had gone to live with Cassie and her husband, Nate, for a few months. But he’d already been out of control by that point, blaming himself for their deaths and unable to deal with the horror he’d witnessed in finding them dead.

  “It’s hard, you know? To find out someone I trusted and shouldn’t have pretty much ruined my friend’s life.”

  “Hayden’s life isn’t ruined.”

  “Yeah, but he’ll never be the same, and neither will you.”

  Cassie nodded slowly. “No, we won’t, and neither will you. But if there’s anything we do know, it’s that people survive trauma and learn how to move on. Hayden and Tenley are the perfect example of that, aren’t they?”

  “I guess.”

  About a year and a half ago, Tenley had lost her entire family, including her fiancé, in a plane crash. They’d been on their way to a destination wedding when turbulence and human error took them down. Tee had been the one to insist on the island wedding. She’d been one of thirteen survivors, but she hadn’t escaped unscathed. Her back had been badly burned, and she’d suffered several broken bones. She still had a slight limp.

  “There’s no guessing, Chris. If Hayden and Tenley hadn’t suffered the way they did, they might never have found each other. And although their losses are tragic, I don’t think there are two people more suited to each other, and that’s because of how much they’ve struggled.”

  “It sucks that they had to lose so much to find each other, you know?”

  “I do. I also know that they both blamed themselves for a long time. You don’t need to take on Hayden’s guilt now that he’s not carrying it anymore.”

  “Are you sure Nate’s the therapist and not you?” I asked, trying to alleviate the heavy turn of our conversation. Cassie made good points, but it was hard not to take on the guilt when that’s what I was used to doing.

  Cassie flicked my arm. “Hayden said the same thing yesterday.”

  “Maybe you two need to stop reading all these deep philosophy books and get into something lighter.”

  My phone beeped, signaling that I had fifteen minutes before my first appointment. “I gotta go.”

  “Of course. I hope things work out with you and Sarah. I think you’re better for each other than you realize.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. See you later, Cass.”

  I left her to her books and crossed through to the café to place my coffee order. Cassie wasn’t much older than me, but she had a real motherly vibe about her, always taking care of people. Ever since we opened Inked Armor we’d celebrated all our major holidays with her and Nate. They were the kind of family I’d always wanted and never really had.

  On the way back to Inked Armor, coffees in hand, I looked up at Sarah’s apartment window again, out of compulsion. Now more than ever I wanted to talk to her. The flutter of curtain indicated I wasn’t the only one with a voyeurism problem.

  I sighed and went in to the shop. I had ten minutes before my first client would arrive. No time to drop by Sarah’s apartment for answers to the new, unpleasant questions I had.

  I’d set out my folder with the artwork last night, so all I needed was to hit the back room for a few supplies. I found Hayden in there gathering his own.

  “Hey, man. How’s it goin’?”

  I grabbed a few pairs of gloves. “S’all right.”

  He cocked a brow. “Yeah?”

  I nodded and scanned the shelves, mentally reviewing anything else I might need.

  “Lisa said you went out with Candy this morning.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. Of course Lisa would tell Hayden. Nothing was a secret in here. “It wasn’t anything.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I’m not getting back on that ride.”

  He gave me a look. “So what was the point of seeing her? To piss Sarah off?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Not really. Candy said she had some information.”

  Hayden’s eyebrow rose. “About Sarah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So did she?”

  “She did.”

  “And you believe her?”

  The door tinkled, likely with the arrival of a client.

  “Honestly, I have no fucking clue. I don’t know if Candy’s playing me or trying to make drama since she’s pretty fucking good at that, or if whatev
er rumors going around have some truth to them. But she says Sarah was serving left stage a couple of weeks ago, and that The Sanctuary is as bad as The Dollhouse was.”

  “Motherfuck. That’s not good news.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I said.”

  Hayden poked at the corner of his lip with his tongue, where his viper bites used to be. He’d gotten rid of them before the trial. With a suit on, he now looked like he should be part of the corporate world, not running a tattoo studio. Aside from the lick of vine running up the side of his neck, anyway. “I don’t know that I’d trust much of what comes out of Candy’s mouth.”

  “Pretty sure there’s a lot of jizz involved there.”

  Hayden rolled his eyes. “That girl always was a train wreck.”

  “We all were back then.”

  He nodded.

  Lisa poked her head in the door. “Hey, your ten-thirty’s here, Hayden.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be right out.” Hayden grabbed another roll of paper towels.

  “Everything go okay this morning?” Lisa asked me.

  “That’s questionable.”

  “Questionable how?”

  “I have more questions than answers at this point. I’ll fill you in after my first session.”

  She pointed at me. “I’m holding you to that.” The door chimed again. “That one’s probably yours.”

  “She’ll be devastated if Sarah’s on the pole,” Hayden murmured after she left us alone again.

  So would I. “It’s hard enough that Sarah’s working with all those girls she used to hang around with.”

  “Can you imagine what would’ve happened if Jamie hadn’t gotten her out of The Dollhouse?” Hayden asked.

  “I try not to think about that.” Without Jamie to save Lisa from herself, all three of us would probably have ended up face down in a ditch after an overdose.

  Lisa’s time at The Dollhouse hadn’t been good for her. She wasn’t made for that life, and it took a lot out of her emotionally. She’d coped with drugs, and Damen had been more than willing to provide them in exchange for special services. She’d been barely eighteen and vulnerable. She’d grown up in the system, and though I didn’t have details, I knew a lot of bad things had happened to her. Kids didn’t get taken away from their parents unless the adults were doing damage to them that couldn’t be repaired—what’s worse, sometimes they didn’t even get out then. I was pretty sure my teachers had known there was something going down in my house when I was a kid, but no one ever did anything to stop it. I’d figured it was better me getting the beats than my mom and sister.

  “Tenley’s got the girls coming over tomorrow night for some chick thing, and Sarah’s supposed to be there,” Hayden added on his way out. “Me and Jamie were going to go for beers if you want to come with. We can make an excuse to stop by my place, and maybe you can talk to her. Figure out if what Candy’s saying is bullshit or not.”

  “I don’t know if talking to her is going to change anything.”

  “You can’t know if you don’t try. Lisa said she talked to Sarah again last night, and she asked about you. If she didn’t give a shit, she wouldn’t ask. Sometimes people make decisions before they think them through.”

  Maybe that was the case with Sarah. Then again, maybe not.

  * * *

  I finished with my last client after ten. Long days with little down time had become the norm. Back when there used to be an hour between appointments, and light nights in the middle of the week, it was easy to get things done around the shop. But with our growing popularity, we were all tired by the end of the day, and none of us—not even Hayden the neat freak—was enthusiastic about cleaning up.

  Jamie was in the storage room checking supplies, and Lisa sat in the back, finishing up end-of-day paperwork. As promised, I’d filled her in on my breakfast with Candy, and she hadn’t been happy about the details, or lack of them.

  After I set up for my first session in the morning, I dropped into my chair and closed my eyes. Staying busy had kept me from thinking about my conversation with Candy this morning, but now I could fixate on it all I wanted.

  “You doing okay?” Hayden asked.

  “Bagged.” I answered without opening my eyes.

  “You’re worried, huh?”

  I nodded. “I don’t want to be right about this one. I don’t want what Candy said to be anywhere close to true.”

  “I know, man. Maybe it’s just Candy being Candy, making things sound a lot worse than they are.”

  Hayden’s phone went off, saving me from more depressing discussion. After he began to speak, I could tell it was Tenley, AKA kitten. I tuned out their domestic conversation and picked up my phone to check my messages. I sighed. Sarah might be creeping me from her window, but she still wasn’t answering my texts. My sister, on the other hand, had left a voicemail and two texts.

  Ivy was nineteen and a little better than eight years my junior. We shared the same mom, but had different dads. Mom’s choice number one had been a real loser. I didn’t have a single memory of him. Probably because he left when I was two, so there wasn’t much to remember. John, Ivy’s dad, was his replacement. He wasn’t much of a step up. Like me and my mom, he was uneducated. I’d lucked out with a skill set that had proved to be useful, but from what I could see, John was missing that, along with the motivation to do anything good for anyone but himself.

  I still wasn’t all that clear on John’s current job, and Ivy hadn’t been much help. From what I understood he was pulling long-haul deliveries for some private company, which meant he’d be gone for a good week or two at a time, sometimes longer. Then he’d be back for a while, and gone again. I couldn’t begin to count the different jobs he’d had over the years. But he’d never seemed to be able to manage bills or payments, or anything else important.

  I hadn’t had much of a relationship with Ivy until recently. She’d been eight when I was kicked out of the house at sixteen for flunking out of school, thanks to a lot of bad behavior and poor choices. For several years I didn’t see much of my family. I was too busy being an asshole and screwing up my life. That has changed since we opened Inked Armor five years ago. I’d gotten my shit mostly together, and I’d been helping my mom out with money.

  For a long time I still wasn’t allowed to see much of Ivy, but that changed in February when their furnace took a crap and my mom needed some help. Since then, I’d even been invited to Ivy’s birthday—but only because John had been on the road.

  For Ivy’s nineteenth, I’d bought her a cell phone. My only condition was that she keep it hidden from John. Otherwise I knew he’d take it because I gave it to her, and sell it because he was an asshole and wanted the money. Now that she had a way to, she’d been reaching out more, and it helped that John wasn’t around to monitor her all the time since work had him traveling. While I wasn’t the perfect role model, I wanted to be part of her life. I was still her brother, so I figured it was time to act like one.

  I listened to the voicemail first.

  “Uh... hi, Chris. It’s Ivy. Your sister…” She paused and mumbled something before she was clear again. “I guess you’re probably busy... um... uh... Can you call me when you have time?”

  The text messages were much the same. It was already after eleven, so I sent a text rather than return the call. I didn’t want to risk John catching her if they both happened to be at home.

  At this time of night, if he wasn’t on the road, he’d likely be either up to his armpits in empty beer bottles on the couch or out at a local bar doing the same. He really was a waste of oxygen.

  Lisa came out of the office, rubbing her eyes. “I think I’m going cross-eyed from staring at those spreadsheets.”

  “I’ll take them home and check them over,” Hayden said, pushing out of his chair.

  “I still have a couple things to add, so it’s pointless tonight.” Lisa grabbed her purse from behind the counter. “We need to think about hiring some extra help.
I can’t stay on top of things anymore.”

  “It’ll start to slow down soon,” Hayden said.

  “We’re booked through to the end of August, and then we’ll get the college kids. I don’t think it’s going to slow down at all,” Lisa replied.

  Hayden poked at his lip with his tongue. I could tell the idea of hiring someone new stressed him out, but Lisa had a point. We were all drowning in work.

  “Even if it was just someone part time to run the cash, that’d be okay, right? Or maybe we could train someone new for piercing to take the pressure off Lisa,” I suggested. It was too soon to say anything about a new tattoo artist, which we could also use. It was always one step at a time with Hayden, especially when talking about significant change.

  “Why don’t you make a list of the things you need help with, and we’ll see what’s possible,” he said after a long pause.

  Lisa threw her arms around him. “I can definitely do that. I promise it’ll be a good thing.”

  Jamie came out of the back room, wearing the same blanket of fatigue as the rest of us, as Lisa let Hayden go.

  “What’d I miss?”

  “Hayden’s going to let me have an assistant, or an apprentice, or something.” Lisa’s smile was its own reward, and Jamie returned it.

  He patted Hayden on the shoulder. “We’ll find a good fit. Don’t worry, brother.”

  Hayden brushed his hand off with a roll of his eyes, but we all knew how hard it would be for him to bring someone new into the fold. We’d been four for a lot of years.

  We were quiet as we filed out of the shop and headed to our vehicles.

  By the time I got home, I still hadn’t heard back from Ivy, so I made myself a sandwich and stretched out on the couch. I couldn’t settle though, worried now not just about Sarah, but my sister as well.

  If I didn’t hear from Ivy by morning, I’d stop by the house to check on her. I might be shut out of protecting Sarah at the moment, but my sister was willing to accept help where I could give it.

  CHAPTER THREE