“Marcus, wait!” I cried out. My wheelchair couldn’t go as fast as he could run, and I was losing him in the palace halls.
I’ll go after him, Oberi said, sailing forward.
I was too tired to push myself, so I used the remote on the chair to hurry after them. I followed my bond to locate Oberi. She was perched in a tree in the palace gardens a few branches below Marcus. He’d climbed into the limbs of the tree and was crying. Rishi had found him, and the cat was lonesomely mewling in his lap.
I stopped my wheelchair below the tree and looked up. “You’ve gotta come down.”
“Go away, Ava. Go back to your bastard husband.”
I felt Charlie’s hurt twinge across our bond. He’d heard that.
I blocked Charlie out, because Marcus needed me right now. If he had to vent some frustration, he needed to be allowed to do that without my husband getting hurt.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I replied. “You need to talk about this.”
“Talking isn’t going to do any good. Sheleftme. There’s no way to fix it now.”
He sobbed harder. I was pretty lost on how to help him, because there was no way to express how absolutely devastating this was for him.
Then I realized… hehadto express it. He was in so much pain all that anguish needed to go somewhere. He needed to do art.
“Hey, Marcus?”
“Yeah?” He sniffed.
“I’ve been wanting to get another tattoo,” I tried. “Can you give me one?”
“Right now?”
“Yes. Please?”
He gave another loud sniff, then wiped his face and muttered, “Okay. I’m coming down.”
Marcus let out anouchas he cracked branches on the way down the tree. He almost tumbled out of it. I had to hold my breath, because I worried he was going to fall. When he got down to the ground, his face was so blotchy he didn’t look like himself.
“Let’s do it here.” He sat down on a chair beside a fancy outdoor table, then conjured the tattoo quill I’d seen him use so many times.
“You have it in your stash?” I asked as I rolled up to the table.
“I always carry it with me, in case I get any urges.” He gave a miserable shrug. “It’s a replacement for… other things.”
My mind didn’t have to wander far to imagine what he meant. I’d seen tiny slit marks hiding underneath the colors of his tattoos once or twice, when we sat close together or when he pointed something out.
I’d noticed for years, but never said anything about them, because they didn’t make Marcus any different to me. I destroyed others; Marcus destroyed himself. It’s just what we did.
But that’s exactly what I needed to talk to him about, because this conversation didn’t really have anything to do with Kallie.
“It’s good you’re investing in your art,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“I’m running out of places to put them. I wanted to draw one on my elbow, but I can’t reach around that way without making the drawing look like shit.”
“You should open up a part-time tattoo shop,” I suggested. “You’re so talented that you should share those gifts with others.”
“Maybe. I’m gonna have to start moving on to my legs next. There’s a lot of empty skin there.”
Marcus conjured a drawing pad. “What did you want to get?”
“A unicorn, on my right wrist.”
