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Conor
The broken neon sign cast my shadow on the wall behind me. If I would have turned around, I would have seen the shape of a monster. Wide, stooped shoulders. A head bent at the neck. Large. Imposing. Ominous in the night. I did not turn around. I would not turn around.
I was at my drawing desk and the wastebasket was filling up once more. Discarded sketches. Failures. One after the next. Things were getting back to normal. Mason had started bringing women back over. Slowly, but surely. Rian forgot he wasn’t talking to me every once in a while when he got distracted by a new idea and started babbling.
Then there was me.Back to a hole I could not fill. There, trying to fill it.
Aurnia already felt like a brief fever. The kind that wakes you up in the middle of the night. Twisted in your sheets. Breathing hard. Soaked from head to toe. Gone in the morning.
We’d exhausted places to look. Exhausted people to ask. I’d drunk enough whiskey to fuck up my liver three lifetimes over. I’d blown what little cash I had left on gas. There was nothing more to do. I’d tell Diarmuid in the morning. Maybe he’d be able to find her. I guessed not.
Aurnia didn’t want to be found. And she didn’t want to be found by me.
The tip of the pencil snapped suddenly. I hadn’t realised I was pushing so hard against the page. I looked down to find the start of a face: a supple cheek, a curtain of hair tucked behind an ear, the outer edges of soft lips taking form. I tore the page from the pad with a weary sigh. The paper disintegrated like ashes in my fist. I sprinkled them over the wastebasket like it was an open grave.
I was staring at another blank page when the little bell at the front door announced a visitor.
“We’re closed,” I grumbled, not bothering to look up.
The roughness of my voice, hoarse from hours of screaming, should have been more than enough to scare even the bravest soul away. It was with surprise that I heard a small, sweet little voice say, “Sign says ‘Open’.”
I looked up to find her there. Right fucking there. Standing in the doorway of Dublin Ink. Closing the door timidly behind her back as she stared warily in my direction. Was I seeing a ghost? Her skin did look paler. The purple beneath her lower lash line a little deeper. The hollows of her cheekbones a little blacker.
I’d spent so much time over the last two weeks trying to find Aurnia that I never paused to consider what exactly I would do when I did, if I did. I was unprepared. Her presence was an uppercut to the jaw out of nowhere. I was reeling. I had no clue what the fuck I was going to do.
A car passed on the street outside and its headlights briefly illuminated the interior of the tattoo parlour. I raised a hand against the glare of the light. I blinked and half expected Aurnia to be gone. My eyes adjusted once more to the dim light.
She was still there. Little fingers fidgeting with the loose hems of her too thin jacket. Teeth sinking into her lower lip. Eyes hesitant beneath dark eyelashes.
My heart beat faster as I stood. Slowly. Uncertainly. Was I going to yell at her? Was I going to scream at her and shake her and slap her sweet little face for doing something so stupid? For making me medicate with liquor to keep my sanity? For driving me to the brink? For nearly killing me?
I swallowed and my throat felt tight, painfully tight. Was I going to advance upon her? The shadow on the wall behind me growing larger and larger? Was I going to pick her up by those hips she hid under those baggy jackets and position her against the wall by the stairs? Rip her pants? Claw at her hair? Fuck her till she did the same? Fuck her till she dug her nails into my cheek? Fuck her till cursed my name?
As she looked at me and as I looked at her, I didn’t know what I was going to do. The next five minutes of my life were as black to me as the slick asphalt outside. I was an animal. All instinct. All fight or flight. Whatever I did I would have no control over, I was sure of that. Whatever I did it would not be my decision to do. Whatever I did, I would not be able to stop.
“Conor,” Aurnia whispered.
My name on her lips. Was I going to put my finger to them? Silence them forever so they couldn’t hurt me anymore. So they couldn’t hurt her. Was I going to bloody them? With my knuckles? With my teeth? With my cock?
“Conor,” Aurnia whispered once more and I was not in control.
I was not in control.
I was not in control.
“Conor,” Aurnia whispered a final time and I was moving toward her.
My feet were fast. Her words faster, “Conor, listen, I’m sorry that I—”
I was upon her. My hands were on her neck. Her eyes were on mine, big and wide. I was moving. She was being dragged along with me.
“Conor,” she said. She begged.
There was no one to come for her. No one to stop me. Whatever I was going to do was going to happen. The sidewalks empty. The street barren. The phone silent. The night cold. I was moving. She was coming with me. There was nothing she could do to stop me. And there was nothing I could do to stop me either.
It took no time at all for me to drag her across the room. It was now two shadows on the wall behind me. One big. One small. One predator. One prey. One attacker. One victim.
Aurnia cowered, but that did not stop me. Nothing could stop me. Not me. Not the police. Not God himself. Aurnia yelped and turned her face away and flinched at the cold, but I did not stop.
