AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She nodded, and when he looked back at her, his eyes were filled with a steadiness that told her all she wanted to know.
“I got the vine when I was thirteen. I snuck money out of my mom’s purse to do it because fuck her. She hated me for as long as I could remember, and coming home with a tattoo was the perfect way to get back at her,” she explained.
Ryder lifted his chin, the hint of a smile on his mouth.
“I can guess how that went,” he said.
“She raged. When it got close to her kicking me out, I lied and said it represented their marriage or our family or some shit. The truth was, the vine was the cheapest piece in the art book,” she said. “I didn’t get kicked out, but three years later they split up. My mom wanted me to come live with her, but there was no way I was going to do that.”
“Why?”
“She was a bitch. She had a book of rules thick enough to stand on to change a light bulb.”
Ryder laughed like she knew he would.
“Plus, dad was cool,” she finished, momentarily flashing back to that day.
She remembered her mom grabbing her clothes out of her broken-down dresser, jamming them into an enormous canvas bag. “Get your posters and whatever else you want,” she told her, when her dad slammed into their apartment. He grabbed the canvas bag, dumping all the clothes out. Nita had felt good about that. That he was choosing her over her bitchy mom.
“I’m guessing he didn’t give you grief about your tattoo?” Ryder asked.
“Not even close,” she replied, feeling her throat close up. “Anyway, she moved out. I helped by throwing her shit into the hallway.”
Ryder nodded, but said nothing. She could tell he knew there was more to the story. And there was.
“So you stayed with your dad,” he stated, and felt his finger follow the bottom half of the vine, the twisting branches having been turned into snakes. “And at some point, you got this.”
“Turns out my mom left him for a good reason. I didn’t know she filed for custody, or tried to get the police to come and get me right after she left. My dad had friends on the force, so that got squashed.”
“Why would your mom want to do that if you two didn’t get along?” he asked, his hand cupping her arm before tugging her close against his chest. As if he knew what she was going to say.
“Because my dad was a monster,” she admitted. The words in her head sounded strong and disgusted, but the voice that murmured them sounded like the scared girl she’d been after just a few nights alone with him.
Ryder’s hand tightened, then he rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him. He wrapped his legs around her, his muscled arms covering most of her back.
“You were pretty brave to escape a monster,” he said, the words rumbling under the cheek on his chest. “Strong, too. That’s why you turned that half of the tattoo into a Medusa?”
She nodded until she could speak words in a voice closer to her own.
“I’m a survivor. After he tried to rape me, I left home. I felt I’d blown it with my mom, so I asked my friend at school if I could move in. Her parents let me, and I stayed there until I was sixteen and met a guy who had his own place,” she explained. Vince had been a solid guy and a two-year port in a storm when she’d needed one.
“Good for you,” Ryder murmured and rolled her back to her side to look at her. “All that shit… it’s hard, but it’s turned you into this tough fucking vixen. Sexy as hell, and takes no shit from no one.”
He tapped her thigh where the vixen licked the knife blade.
They lay in silence for several moments, and when the dust in her mind settled, she spoke.
“What about you and your art?” she asked, underlining the letters that spelled Blaze on his chest. “Is this your old motorcycle club?”
He hesitated, lifting his chin as he looked at her.
“This one is,” he said, and shifted to point at his left shoulder. A skeleton with glowing red eyes hovered between a set of wings. “The Watchmen.”
“The Watchmen,” she murmured, copying him and tracing a finger around the wings and skull. “Check this out.”
She slid away to bend her knee, then ended up pushing the covers off so he could properly see the top of her foot.
“The Cavendish wings,” she said, angling her foot so he could see the bluish tattoo of diamonds in the outline of angel wings, the letters CC between them. “The original owners started this trend and once they quit, I kept it going.”
