Burn (Brothers of Ink and Steel #2) (4 page)

It makes sense—the way she holds herself and speaks—she’s smart, educated, but you can see the stain of street living spreading over her. I want to ask her why they’re looking to put her in St. Anne’s, but before I can, Quinn reaches down, finishes her glass of water and declares with finality, “I should probably go now.” She’s looks over at the digital clock on my dresser. It’s close to eleven p.m.

“Go where?” I bark out incredulously. “Under the bridge?”

“That’s my new place.” She shrugs.

“Fuck that! Stay here.”

“No way. I can’t!”

“Of course you can. Then, in the morning, we can have more oatmeal and I’ll hock an item I’ve acquired in my travels at the pawn shop, and we’ll get some groceries and eat something good. What do you say?” Not the best sounding date, but it’s all I can offer.

“Where would I sleep?” she asks skeptically.

“You can take my bed; I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“I don’t know. It’s pretty cold in here and probably a hell of a lot colder on the floor,” she deduces.

“I can handle a little cold.” I scoff. “And it’s a hell of a lot warmer than outside on the ground.”

“Why is it so cold in here anyway?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Richardson—who I have affectionately given the official titles of  Dick and Bitch—like to keep the heat so low it might as well be off. But if I touch the thermostat and the bill goes up a cent, Dick’ll beat my ass.”

“He … beats you?” she asks timidly.

“Nothing I can’t handle … or haven’t handled before.”

She winces, and I regret telling her.

“I’ll sleep on the floor. You’re right, it’ll be warmer than the ground outside.” She stands.

“Wait a minute, that’s not what I meant …” I think, then speak slowly. “You could lay up here with me. I promise to be good, and we’d stay a hell of a lot warmer together … you know—body heat.”

“I’m not going to offer you any fringe benefits,” she says squarely.

I laugh. Not that I wouldn’t mind or accept if she offered, but I’m not looking for
that
at this moment. I’m not sure what I’m looking for.

“I don’t need anything like that from you, Quinn.”

“Oh, you don’t? I’m not as cute as Tina, I guess.”

I can’t tell if she’s got a great sarcastic sense of humor or if she’s actually insulted. Because of that, the next thing I think just rolls out of my mouth before I can filter it. “Oh no, Quinn, you’re a million times more beautiful than any girl I’ve ever known.”

I immediately wish I could take it back. What an asshole I am! But her response surprises me.

“Good.”

She wiggles up onto the bed and attempts to curl up to the size of a snail, by my feet.

“There’s more space if we both just lay together. Plus, we can share the pillow,” I say, wondering if it’s going to get me smacked.

“Fine.” Gingerly, she crawls up towards me, and as she does, my heartbeat gets erratic.

Her old gray sweatshirt is anything but sexy, so I’m not sure what my internal

organs or muscles or whatever are doing at the moment, but my dick is
certainly responding!

I think about math class, hoping to settle
it
down.

She lies next to me, her back to my side as she’s turned towards the wall. No part of her body is touching mine, except a lock of her hair that has fallen over my arm. I can’t
not
look at it, as if it’s an ember from a fallen star or a treasure of spun gold. I desperately want to touch it with my fingers.

I hear her yawn. It makes me wonder how long it’s been since she had a safe and warm full night’s sleep.

“What can we buy to eat tomorrow?” she asks softly.

“What do you want?”

“I’d love a cheeseburger, Snickers bar and Pepsi … or a chocolate milkshake.” She almost giggles. “Is that too much money?”

“Not at all.” I decide I just might rob a bank for her. “I just thought you’d choose something more … healthy.”

“You mean like Pop-Tarts?” I can hear the smile in her voice.

“Yup.”

In that moment, she shivers a little. I lean up and catch hold of the dark blue blanket at the foot of the bed and pull it up over the two of us. When I secure it over her shoulder, my arm reaches around her. I become very conscious that I’m touching her. I like it and don’t want to pull away, but I know I have to. As I start to move, Quinn moves her body into mine, so her back is fully pressed against my chest and front.

I can’t move, I can’t even breathe.

“Thanks for protecting me tonight against Dylan.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“Are you sure your foster parents aren’t going to come home early and freak out.

“Positive,” I manage.

“Thank you for letting me stay,” she whispers and, soon, her breathing changes.

I let my arm rest where it is, over her shoulder and around her chest. I’m fifteen years old, and I’ve never held someone or been held except during sex. This is the most comforting, most soothing and most perfect gift I could have ever asked for. I shift in closer as Quinn’s body radiates its peace and heat into me, into my brain, into my body.

No matter how close I get, I can’t get close enough, as she burns her presence into my soul.

Chapter Two

2015

Liam

Fucking alarm clock!
Right jab, left jab.

Fucking radio station!
Uppercut, uppercut.

Fucking Boston … “More than a Feeling!”
Elbow strike.

“Fucking Quinn!” I kick the bag hard with the bottom of my foot before I step back to catch my breath.

I can’t knock the sparring bag out, and that’s a real fucking problem, because the memories hit me like a fucking Mack truck this morning before I even had the chance to roll my ass out of bed.

It’s usually worse in autumn, when the cold weather creeps into the air as the memories creep into my mind. The sound of dry, brittle leaves under my feet. Hell, sometimes all it takes is the swoosh of a beer can tab—I’ve long since learned to drink from bottles. But now, today, I woke up to
“DJ Spinner, spinning those rock classics to bring you back!”
Insert deep voice and over-the-top radio personality.

In an instant, I felt her all around me, like a bitter cold but sweet smelling wind. I could see her beauty, catch the fragrance of her shampoo and feel the gentle touch of her soft skin like it was only yesterday and not just memories from over a decade ago.

I should have known when I ran after her in the graveyard that evening—that a girl like Quinn would burn into my soul and I’d never be rid of her.

I feel the beads of sweat drip over my forehead and watch the droplets as they journey from the tip of my nose to the floor. My knuckles hurt and my muscles are sore. But no amount of physical release—or blasting Tool and Chevelle through my earbuds—is going to help the emotional pressure that’s raging through me. I’m going to have to go to the needle and ink for that.

I’ll have Talon create a new mandala on my arm—something spiritual—something to focus my energy. Maybe a series of chakras down my spine. That’s sure to be pretty fucking painful too. I love the high from a tattoo needle, that sweet agony reverberating through my skull and bones. After a while everything numbs, and all that’s left is the hum of the needle. When the artist is finished, you’re wearing a piece of your soul on your skin.

The second best feeling is creating a tattoo on someone else. When I get the right client, it’s like I’m tattooing myself—I have all the same sensations—and I leave having created a masterpiece on another human being.

For me, that kind of meditation is better than any fight in the octagon.

A doleful expression comes over me. It’s fucked up and twisted, but I know the only reason I fight is because she hated it. It gives me a sick satisfaction.

I might as well just accept it; nothing I do today is going to stop the pain. All I can do is wait until the emotion recedes again into the back of my psyche, where it’ll lay there, ready to pounce over me again like a stalking mountain lion studying its prey for a flaw or weakness before it runs swiftly in for the kill. 

She’s a ghost that keeps me from moving on.

Would I have chased her down that night if I’d known what the future would hold for us? I think about that for only a moment before the corners of my mouth curl up into an undeniable smile. Yeah, I’d do it all over again—every minute of it—because she’d been the greatest love of my life.

“If you don’t give it a rest, your fingers are going to be so swollen Ryder and I will have to take over your tat clients for the next three days,” Talon says from behind me.

Talon is the most intuitive of all the brothers. The brothers of ink and steel—as named by our surrogate father Cade North—are bonded together by a deeply shared history … and we have an affinity for tats and piercings. We know each other all too well, and Talon doesn’t let anything get past him, so I better sound nonchalant when I answer back. “I have a fight in a month. How else do you expect me to train?”

“Yeah, but it’s against Milano, so you have it in the bag.” He goes about readying the gym equipment for the North House kids, who’ll be here soon with Cade. It’s our day of the week to work with them. “Unless, of course, it’s not about Milano.”

Good Christ! Leave it alone, Talon.

“And there’s only one person I know who can make you that crazy—”

“Say the name and I kill you,” I interrupt before he lets it fly off his tongue.

“I fucking knew it! It’s a sign,” he says decidedly.

“Fuck you, it’s no sign.”

“Yes it is,” he replies. “I had a dream last night.”

“Of course you did.” I roll my eyes. “And I don’t want to hear about it.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“The fuck I do.”

“Tell me, then, what made you think about … it.” He chooses the word carefully.

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“Not a fucking chance in hell.”

I check the wall clock. The kids will be walking in at any minute. The kids mean the world to me.

I spent several years at North House—a group home and halfway house for teens in Minneapolis—when I was younger. Quinn was there with me for several months. It’s probably the best place of its kind in the country. It’s owned by Cade North and his wife Debra, who are literally the greatest people I know. If it hadn’t been for their commitment, love and devotion, I don’t think I’d be alive.

And Quinn … the thought of the night Cade found her in the back of the convenience store parking lot reminds me of the smell of blood in my nostrils and the moment everything in our life changed. Quickly, I shake my head to eject the image.

The kids. North House is a lot of things—a safe haven for teenagers who’ve experienced abuse and neglect, who’ve lived on the streets or in deplorable conditions. It’s a place for kids who are intimate with pain. Most importantly, North House is a place to grow and become who you were meant to be before this life and circumstances stripped it away from you.

Cade is a martial arts expert and trainer. He designed The Core, the state-of-the-art gym I’m currently working out in, as a place where anyone can come to learn or train, but most importantly, it’s where the kids come to release their pain and aggression, to learn new techniques to master their emotions and to regain control of their destinies. It’s a goddamn amazing place, and I love living in this city that I can finally call home after so many fucked up years of nowhere to go. And I love paying it forward to the place and the man who changed my life.

“Liam …”

Talon won’t stop. “The radio … ‘More than a Feeling.’ It was my alarm this morning.”

“I fucking knew it was a sign. I had one too.”

“The DJ playing a popular classic rock song is a sign?” I won’t fall into his everything-happens-for-a-reason and the-universe-is-trying-to-tell-you-something bullshit. I don’t believe it.

“I dreamt she was talking to you,” he says, now in my face, making me look at him.

I want to punch him.

“She and I talked a lot.”

“No, it was you like you are now. Ten years older. So was she.”

“Are you done?” I don’t bother trying to hide my severe frustration. “’Cause if you’re not, I could take out the box of old photographs and we could reminisce.”

“Even if that’s all it was, a memory to help you heal, accept it.”

“Accept it. Let it be … got it.” Why try fighting all that? I’ll only lose to Talon’s quiet determination.

At that moment, the buzzer that lets us know the door’s opening goes off, and we watch as fourteen broken boys and girls come into The Core, with Cade walking behind them.

I’m not in the present, I’m in the past, by ten years.

“Talon?”

“Yeah, bro?”

“I’m going to need some new ink.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

Sometimes it’s too much—listening to these kids’ stories, watching the way they withdraw, as if trying to disappear from existence, or act so tough, like they don’t care about anything, hiding behind a protective shell of hate—it’s all the same survival mechanism.

Survival.

No kid—no adult for that matter—should have to go through life barely
surviving
. How has our society come so far and still, we don’t have enough love or regard for our fellow humans to ensure that each and every one of us gets to
live
?

The kids file in. Cade, Talon and I get to work. We divide the kids into two groups. We each take our turns instructing them how to hit the sparring bags, knee and kick the training dummies, lift progressively heavier weights; we push the limits of what they think they can accomplish.

They come in feeling like they’re trash, and we work to prove them wrong, changing their mindsets, reversing some of the psychological effects of the abuse they’ve suffered, helping them discover a dream and a goal.

Our most daunting task … to get them to believe they were meant for more than what they’ve been dealt.

One boy, who’s twelve, watched his own mother kill his four-year-old brother; she drowned him in a bathtub while his stepfather held him back, not allowing him to help. He was going to be next. By some miracle, he got away. He’ll be deeply scarred for the rest of his life. He also blames himself because he couldn’t stop it and save his brother.

It’s that kind of shit that makes me seriously lose my faith in humanity.

One of the girls, a fourteen-year-old, was beaten by her stepfather for years. Her mother knew all about it and helped hide it. It makes me want to kill them both. I hope someone knifes the piece of shit while he serves his time.

I try not to have favorites, but she reminds me of Quinn. Quiet until someone pisses her off, gapingly wounded herself but ready to save the world around her.

And I’m back to Quinn. Truth is, even though she left me, I’ve never left her.

Some of the brothers say I’m stuck because I’m not moving on, while others know better than to open their fucking mouths. And Cade? He watches me. I don’t know if he knows I realize it. The guy has new kids all the time—but there are seven of us who are like his flesh and blood. Quinn made us the brothers we are today. Even though she’s been gone for ten years, she’s still here, in me and around me in every possible way.

I’m a nearly satisfied man; I’ve overcome and conquered almost all of my demons—except for the one I keep caged and tied in ropes and chains, hidden in the deepest, darkest cage within me, the one no one—not even Cade or Quinn—knows about. I’ve tried to release it, but after she was gone, I didn’t have the heart. Since then, it’s become my biggest tormentor.

But I’m the head artist at my own tattoo shop. I have an incredible surrogate family of people I love and trust and an incredibly rewarding volunteer position with the kids. 

And it’s here, in this place, that I feel closest to Quinn—call it carrying a torch, call it feeling connected to my soul mate, call it weakness—I don’t give a flying fuck what anybody wants to call it. I tattoo ’cause I want to do it, because she encouraged me to follow my dreams and passions, because she believed in my dreams before I ever could. She loved my artwork, and unless she’s covered it, she still wears the first real tattoo I ever did—two small bluebirds flying free from a wire cage on the back of her shoulder. They represented the two of us.

So, I tattoo because she loved it, I fight because she hated it, and I work with the kids because, if she were here, she’d be doing it with me.

Okay, so I’m a fucked up mess. Aren’t we all?

“Come on, Jonah, you can do this!” I cheer him on.

Skinny kid, he gets bullied and picked on all the time. Doesn’t help he’s autistic and his mother tried to murder him by throwing him off a bridge. He doesn’t talk much. He’ll be moving on to what we all hope will be a good foster home next week. Cade has been working with social services to be part of the interviewing process for potential foster parents, since God knows how many people interview just to get some extra money each month and then inflict further trauma on the child.

Jonah shakes his head and backs away from the bench weight set. Maybe it’s too intimidating.

“I have an idea,” I say excitedly and lead him to the weight machines. “These are fun.” I set the weight to five pounds. “All you have to do is pull on the rope!”

I put the handle in his hand and position his fingers so he’s gripping it properly.

He still looks unsure. I smile, flex my muscle to make it bulge, point to my muscle and then point to his arm. His eyes and face light up with understanding. Jonah pulls on that cable for all he’s worth. I nod to him in encouragement. Jonah lifts the weight a few more times before he lets it go and wraps his bony arms around my waist in a bear hug.

I have to quickly swipe away the forming tears.

He’s such a fucking amazing kid.

“Thanks for that, Jonah. You give the best hugs.”

I’m in the locker room, finishing getting dressed after showering. Pulling on my 10 Years concert t-shirt, I start to get nostalgic. They’re still one of my favorite bands. They toured in the fall of 2005 with Breaking Benjamin and Smile Empty Soul. That concert was particularly cathartic. The summer of 2005 was when my enemies became my brothers and my best friend left me forever. “Through the Iris” became my theme song for her. I wish she could have held on when we went through the eye of the storm, like the song describes, but she couldn’t.