His Tattoo, Her Tattoo- Chapter 3

His Tattoo, Her Tattoo
….Chapter 3


The sun shone on my face through the window, waking me up. I glanced at the clock, finding it was only six thirty in the morning!
I got up, and into my school uniform, hoping that I could get out of the house without bumping into anyone. If only things worked out that way!
I tip-toed out the door, and bumped straight into Seraphim. She looked me over and hugged me hard, “I was so worried yesterday. I’m so sorry about mum and dad, too,” she said to me.
I stood their dumbfounded, until I realised I was hugging her back. I let go, and Seraphim wiped a few tears from her eyes.
“Well,” I said, trying to lighten the mood, “I’m going to school early, so…” I trailed off. Seraphim nodded, and brushed past me into her room. I watched her go for a few more seconds, before running down the stairs, no longer worrying if I’m quiet or not.
I made it to school in record time, not that I had anything to do their. So instead I went to my locker and looked at old markings that people had left behind, well before me. There were things such as I love George and Popular for life, including things like, Walker was here and OMG! plus a small artistic drawing of a male part that I don’t wish to think about.
I closed my door, and their, leaning next to me, was Hunter.
“Oh! Why do you always scare me like that?” I gasped.
“Do I?” He asked, quietly inspecting his nails.
“Yes! I’m going to go grey before my years.”
“Ah! But then you might have a heart attack if I keep doing this, and it won’t be as much fun!”
“Ha Ha!” I said sarcastically, throwing a pen at his head. I had already taken my books out for a class that would start in two hours. Maybe I could get some extra study in, and cover the pieces I had missed!
“Want to help?” I asked, raising my school books, “I have heaps to get through to catch up to the class.”
He nodded, “It would be my pleasure.” We sat down in an open classroom and I took out my books. I opened to the first page and saw that it focused on mitosis in Biology. I almost closed it, but instead considered something else.
“Hey,” I said, “I answered your question when you wanted to know about my car crash, now you have to answer one of my questions.”
Hunter looked up from the book and met my eyes, for a fleeting moment there was a look of fear in his eyes. He nodded tensely.
“Ok,” I said, “Where did you get that tattoo from?” I tapped my pen on his wrist, pointing out the snake.
“This,” he replied, “is the most important question you needed to ask? Lame. I got my tattoo as part of an initiation. And no, I won’t tell you into what, because you’ve already used up your question.”
I rolled my eyes, and for the next hour, buried my head in my books. When we got too bored to continue, Hunter slammed my books closed.
“Hey!” I exclaimed, “I was reading that.”
“No,” he said, “You weren’t. You were as bored shitless as I was. Let’s go somewhere.” He took my books and started running. I sighed angrily. There was no winning with him sometimes.
I ran after him, and I caught up with him easily, snatching my books from his hands, and running in another direction. He came after me, trying to take the books back, but I was too fast. I ran up a small hill around the back of the school, and I tripped, falling at the top of the hill. Hunter cracked up laughing.
I smirked and felt a throb in my leg. My scar was playing up. I rolled my knee high sock down, and looked at the bottom half of the scar. It had gone red and was tense. After running, I couldn’t hold it straight out.
Hunter frowned and looked at my scar, “How’d that happen?” I looked up at his edgy face and said, “Car crash,” simply.
He nodded, but still looked nervous. I tilted my head to the side, wondering what he was thinking. He was still staring at my face.
“Are you sure?” He whispered the question at me.
I shook my head, “I didn’t have it before my accident, so it must have happened then.” I was getting a little stressed at Hunter’s worried face.
He looked away, “It was too much.”
“What was?”
“The truth serum! She gave you too much.” He answered quietly.
“What are you talking about?”
“What do you remember of your past life?” He got right up in my face.
“What?” My eyes searched his angrily, “I told you I have no memories of that!”
“Don’t force it,” he said, stroking my hair, “Just relax, and let your mind go blank.”
I stared at him in horror, and kicked him straight between the legs.
“Asshole!” I yelled at him, before charging away, with my books. I looked back once, and he was gone.
I met Sasha in the locker bay, and she was on her phone. She told whoever it was on the phone to hang on a moment.
“My dad’s just called me. Apparently the police station has a new report,” she looked at my surprised face, “My dad’s in the law force. He gets a pretty cool Taser.”
I nodded, and she got back on the phone. There was heaps of talking on the other side, and Sasha’s face turned white.
“What?” Her eyes suddenly looked onto mine. “Ok dad, I’ll tell her. But if I come home with a black eye, I blame you.” She snapped her phone shut and stared at me for a long time.
“What is it?” I was getting chills up my spine.
“It’s your sister,” Sasha looked down at her shoes, unwilling to continue. I grabbed her arm, forcing her to look at me again, “They,” she stopped again, “In her room,” again; it was obvious she wasn’t going to continue.
I cocked my head, wondering if it was worth giving her a black eye if it meant getting some form of answer from her. Luckily, before I had made my decision, she started talking.
“Your sister’s room,” Her face was pale white, “She’s missing, and in her room, everything was a mess, and there was so much blood. Too much. She was kidnapped. Stolen, whatever word you want to use. And your father, neck broken…” She slumped inwardly, refusing to continue the bad news.
I could feel the blood rush away from my face. The prickly, uncomfortable feeling that came before feinting threw itself on me.
I ran past Sasha and out into the cold morning air. Class would be starting in half an hour, and Seraphim would not be a part of them. Abducted, was the word that kept spinning around in my head. And my father, my poor father. I put my head in my hands, as if to cry, but no tears found their way onto my hands.
I raised my head, and went to find Hunter instead. I found him sitting at a table, playing with a pen. When he saw me approaching, his face looked strained, but at least he didn’t run away.
I sat across from him, hands clasped tightly. “I’m sorry.” I said.
He shrugged, eyes on his pen.
“I need your help,” I murmured, “It’s urgent.”
Hunter raised his eyes to look at me finally. I looked over at him.
“Yes,” he said, finally talking, “Sasha told me about your small dilemma.”
I stood up angrily, and grabbed the front of his shirt that was, of course, black. He smirked slightly, “And what do you think you could do to help your sister?” He asked, “A young girl, too afraid to know her past.”
My eyes widened, and Hunter seemed to realise he had taken it too far. “What do you want to know?”
I let go of his shirt, “I need to know where Tabitha is.”
“It’ll cost you.”
“How much?” I asked, ready to pay.
“That scar.” He pointed to a thick scar on my hand, “And the memories that coincide with it.”
I frowned, wondering if I had kicked his head, instead of another area, “Um… Okay.”
“I’ll collect when I’m ready.”
I nodded, anything to get him to shut up.
He grabbed my hand, the one without the scar, and wrote an address on my palm with his pen.
“There. Now shoo.”
I nodded again, still worried about his sanity.
I looked at the address and caught a near-by bus. It took me across town, into a quieter place, filled with farming areas. I was let off a pretty close to the address, and walked the extra distance. The air smelt sweet, like corn, and I watched as someone rode his pretty white horse on an area of land, practicing jumps.
He nodded to me as I passed, and I greeted him.
He got off his horse and took off his helmet, his sandy blonde hair shining, and I realised in shock that he was the same age as me. I hadn’t considered teenagers in this area. I thought they would be at school.
“Hi. Do you know the way to this address?” I showed him my palm and he narrowed his eyes, reading it.
“Yeah, but it’s quite a while from here though.” He looked down the road behind me, and then looked down at me. “Ever rode a horse?”
…
Getting onto the horse was a struggle; my leg issuing me with a series of complaints, but once up, I was a natural.
We rode together, me on a beautiful black stallion named Stubborn Beauty, and him on his white mare named Da Vinci’s Art. We spoke while we rode. I found out his name was Cole, and he was adopted. He shrugged it off, but when I told him about my memory disappearance, he seemed to hate it.
We got all the way to the mental hospital and he told me that he would come in with me. I wondered about his horses, but he told me that this was a respectable place, and no one would steal them. He tied them to a small pole meant for horses, and he followed me in.
I went up to the receptionist, “Hi. I’m here to see Tabitha Dengy.” The woman looked me over and asked if I was family. I lied and said yes.
She called a Nurse to take me to her.
We followed a young woman down into a TV area, where about fifteen people were. There was someone drawing on a teddy bear, and another with an ear to the wall, as if it were talking to her.
The Nurse took me over to a young girl sitting at a table, staring blankly at her hands. The Nurse then left to clean up somebody’s bodily fluids.
I sat down next to Tabitha and marvelled at her innocent beauty. She stared back at me, and opened her mouth as if to say something, but nothing came out.
“Hi,” I said gingerly, hoping she could understand. Thankfully she could, as she nodded to me and Cole. He smiled back at her, and Tabitha started shuddering.
“Whoa!” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. With that, Tabitha grabbed the hand touching her, biting into it with extreme force, bringing blood up to the surface. She stared at the blood on my hand before releasing it. Cole’s eyes flickered from mine to hers, but said nothing.
I took a piece of paper from the next table and a blue pen. I put it in front of Tabitha. She looked at it, but said nothing. Then, she picked up the pen and started drawing. In about ten minutes she had a coloured in page. She took my hand, and rubbed some blood onto her hand, then smeared it in certain areas around her image. Wordlessly, she handed it to me.
Cole looked over my shoulder and both of our eyes grew wide. In the image was a young girl, which looked like Tabitha. She was hiding behind a bush, watching a boy holding another boy up by the neck. The strangled one seemed to me like Brad, but the strangler was something else all together. He had dark hair, and an extremely dark expression.
There was something on this murderer’s wrist that struck me as familiar, but it was too small to decipher. I turned to Tabitha and tapped the mark on the boys’ wrist, and she nodded, turned the paper over, and resumed drawing.
Again, Cole and I waited, and again Tabitha handed us a picture. I jumped in shock. It was a snake, in the exact same form that had been on Hunters wrist. I would know that tattoo anywhere. My eyes rose from the picture, and they locked onto Tabitha’s. She nodded at me once, knowing I understood.
The nurse came over to us to tell us the time was up, but the blood was roaring in my ears, making me deaf to my surroundings. Cole told her if we could have just one more minute, and the nurse allowed it.
I grabbed another piece of paper from the table and slammed it in front of Tabitha.
“Where did he take them?” I asked.
Tabitha shook her head in desperation, obviously not knowing. I sighed and almost went to crumple the paper in my hand, but I stopped, one question raised in my head.
“What is he?” I nearly whispered.
Tabitha took the pen and wrote a clear word in the middle of the paper, Faerie.
I got up from my seat and motioned to the nurse to take us away. At the door, I paused and looked back at her. She threw a crumpled piece of paper at me. I picked it up and walked out of the room. I still had the picture in my hand, but I wanted to destroy it. I didn’t want anything to be true anymore.
We got to the horses and Cole stopped me, “What’s on the paper she threw you?” He asked me.
I opened it carefully, not wanting to break it, and written in what looked like blood were the words: Be careful. I’ll pray for your survival.