Page 129 of Powerhouse: Boxed Set
I shrugged because I had no idea who the hell Enea Zappa or his company were.
She laughed again, thick brown hair shifting around her waist as she tossed her head back. “See? You don’t have a clue and that is amazing.”
“It is,” Elias agreed. “When I started at SHA, everyone tried to be my friend as soon as they found out my last name. It took a while for them to realize I have absolutely zero pull with Caroline.”
“Because you’re poor?” I asked, forgetting to be tactful because I was in too much pain.
He shrugged a shoulder, a thin veneer of boredom overlaying a deeper anger that made his jaw tense. “Among other things.”
“That sucks,” I said softly as the tattoo artist pulled away and gently dabbed the blood off my new ink. “I know what it’s like to feel shunned by your own family.”
Elias’s eyes, so much like Lane’s, that pure, unblemished blue of a midsummer sky, were filled with warmth for me and old, stale pain. “Thanks. Sometimes, I think I’d do anything to fit in, but I know nothing will change. Not really.”
“Especially not when your cousin is porking the enemy,” Gabriella teased to lighten the mood.
Elias shoved her off her stool, prompting us to burst into laughter.
“It’s done,” the tattoo artist, Harlan, grunted. “Take a look before I wrap it for you.”
My humor froze in my lungs, little particles of ice that shredded the soft tissue so I found it hard to breathe.
A small, perfectly formed dove in mid-flight spread its wings between my wrist bones. It was a resplendent replication of Picasso’s dove, the same dove my dad referenced in his nickname for me.
Tiernan might have stolen my locket. He might try to crush me under his heel.
But he couldn’t take my memories from me.
He couldn’t take the blood and love of Lane Constantine from my body unless he cut me up and bled me dry.
“Go fuck yourself,” I murmured as I stared at the dove.
I didn’t need a tattoo to ensure I’d never forget Dad or who I’d been when he’d been alive, when I’d been his daughter, even if it was only in the shadows.
But it helped.
It helped a lot.
Because what was the point of art if not to give eloquence to the myriad of emotions originating in the human heart that were too immense to be translated into simple words?
“It’s pretty,” Gabriella said, bending forward, her dark head against my light, to peer at the design. “It suits you.”
“Thanks,” I whispered, my heart floundering in my throat.
“Let me see,” Elias murmured, taking my hand gently to extend it for his viewing. His rough tipped thumb smoothed under the irritated skin, his breath hot against me as he bent close to look.
That was howhefound us.
A teenage boy bent over my hand like he intended to give it a kiss of admiration.
The bell over the door of the cramped shop tinkled as someone entered. I couldn’t see who it was from down the hall behind a half wall, but I could tell, somehow, by the way the air flattened like a can of old pop, like dead air space after cacophonous static.
Somehow, Tiernan had found me.
Every atom of my body stilled, held suspended in pure, fresh terror.
Click.
Click.
