Page 194 of Savior
I’m waiting on my bike for the newly named Cherry, to finish up in the bathroom outside of the gas station. We’re five miles from the state border now. When she walks back to me, I notice she’s looking rather intently across the street.
“Can you take me to do something… before we officially leave Arizona?” she asks.
“Cutting it close.” I look at her inquisitively, then glance over my shoulder to see what she’s staring at. The only shop across the street that’s open, is a twenty-four-hour tattoo parlor. “You want to get a tattoo?”
She nods, her eyes shifting back to meet mine. “I want to put everything about this place behind me, forever. Including this.” She lifts the bottom of the hoodie I gave her, and tugs down her jeans, showing me the black Scorpion tattoo branded low on her hip. I caught a glimpse of it earlier in the hotel room. “Do you think they’ll be able to cover it?” she asks, the tone of her voice a mixture of equal parts hope and doubt.
I don’t even have to touch it to see that it’s scarred. This was meant to be a brand. She’ll always feel the scars beneath whatever coverup she gets. And that’s if the damaged skin takes the ink over the blown outsolid black… I don’t have the heart to tell her so. But I’m not an expert, let alone a tattoo artist. Maybe there is something they could do to hide it the best they can.
I hand her back the spare helmet. “Hop on. We’ll see.”
The tattoo artist has her roll up her hoodie just below her chest, and pull down her jeans just enough for him to see the area in question. With gloved hands he gently prods her pale skin, a reluctant look on his face as he tells her exactly what I feared would be the case. And with her thin frame, her skin stretched over bone, it would probably hurt a lot. He also makes it a point to mention that cover-ups are not his specialty, and that she might want to wait until later this afternoon, when the other artist clocks in. If she decides she wants to go through with it, he’ll give it a try.
“It hurt a lot when they did it to me…” she says, as we sit side by side on the curb just outside the tattoo shop.
“I imagine it did.” I try not to growl the words, thinking about all the shit this little fuckin’ girl has endured in her short life. Having to live with a brand marked savagely into her body, a constant reminder of it all. I’m glad some of the pricks who did this to her, are probably charred bodies in that burned down biker bar. “Why don’t we look into that laser tattoo removal shit? Might be able to fade it down to something more workable? Or, I’ve got an MC brother that owns a tattoo parlor. His guys are better.”
She gives me a slight smile, though the sadness in her eyes remains. “I wanted to leave everything behind when we leave this state.” She says. “I can’t explain it… It just feels like something I need to do.” She lets out a sigh as she leans closer to me, resting her head against my arm. “He’s probably going to want to I.D. me before he works on me, too. I didn’t think of that.”
“You want it done, I’ll convince him to do it, doll.”
She chuckles quietly, her hand reaching up under my arm to wrap around my bicep, holding on to me. “I know you would.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes, watching the morning traffic whiz by as the sun rises above the buildings across the street. I’m real eager to get the hell out of Arizona.
“What if it doesn’t have to represent what it does right now?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“What if it can mean something else, before you leave this state?” I pull out my cellphone and look up the symbolism of a Scorpion, handing her my phone to read for herself.
“A scorpion can represent death… But is also ready for anything and he will help you, especially when you feel vulnerable and unprotected.” She reads aloud from the animal totem website. Another slight smile pulls at her lips before she continues. “Apparently, they’re also good mothers… and represent transformation and self-empowerment… they’re survivors… able to overcome the harshest of conditions… they’re fiercely protective, and as mates, passionate and charismatic.” She giggles, glancing up at me. “Why do I feel like this could be you? I mean, aside from the mother part.”
“Sounds a lot like you, too.”
She nods. “Not that I had a choice in the matter.” She hands me back my phone, resting her head against my arm once more. We sit in another bout of silence, before an idea springs to mind.
“Let’s go back inside.” I say, standing up.
“You think I should try?” she asks.
“No. I think you should leave it as is.” I offer her my hand to help her up, and we walk back inside the shop together.
The couple who walked in after us, are just about done getting their noses pierced, at seven o’clock in the morning. Cherry and I look at each other and chuckle to ourselves. Who are we to judge, being in the exact same shop at the exact same time. Bet our night was a hell of a lot more eventful than theirs was, too.
When the tattoo artist waves us back over to his chair, I slip off my leather jacket and hand it to Cherry, before removing my shirt and handing that to her as well. I notice the guy looking oddly at my baseball sized bruises dispersed across my abdomen, but he chooses not to comment.
Cherry looks up at me, perplexed. “What are you doing?” she asks, as I take a seat in the black vinyl chair.
“I’m changing what that tattoo represents to you.” I reply. “When we leave this state together, we leave as survivors, able to overcome the harshest of conditions… We leave, doll, with matching Scorpions.”
Her pretty green eyes well up instantly as my words register, but she’s smiling as she clutches my clothes to her chest and sinks down on a stool to sit beside me. She reaches out to place her little hand upon mine, which is resting on the armrest of the chair. I can tell she can’t speak just yet. But her eyes say everything she can’t as the tears roll down her cheeks. I twist my wrist to hold her hand, giving her a slight squeeze.
“You’ve done morefor me, in twenty-four hours, than anyone has ever done for me in my entire life.” She barely manages to whisper.
“I’m sorry for that… But nobody’s ever gonna hurt you again, Cherry.” I promise her.
She nods, sniffling as she wipes the tears from her cheeks with her other hand. “You have to let me repay you somehow.” She insists.
