1 Blotched Ink | 1

Pitch black ink settled into soft caramel skin, the damp puddle soon sinking in, the loose wetness being washed away before the pattern was continued, creating art on delicate skin as the machine growled away at work, trembling against my steady hand as I proceeded to do what I did best-tattoo.

My shop was the word of Blueriver. Even people from out of town spent precious gas to make a stop at my shop, even if it was for the most simple tattoos, I was the most trusted.

Though I was good at what I mainly did, tattooing wasn't the only skill I had on my belt, and people didn't only come to the shop to get tattoos.

Almost five times a week I was getting a distressed or angered whisper in my ear requesting the bloodshed of someone they hated, someone they despised, someone who did them wrong enough to deserve death. They knew how to be discreet with their requests—I would hope so, or else there would be twice the bloodshed.

I keep the two incomes separate so as not to raise too much suspicion, but it's not like anyone pays attention to more than themselves in this place.

I tear a knife through the skin of a traitor's neck or a bullet into the head of an ex all for hundreds of dollars, and the buyer just goes about their life like nothing had ever happened, and sometimes I do too. Sometimes, though, there are just things you can't move on from, not even life itself.

I vividly remember feeling the warm blood splatter even through the thick black material, stuffing the body into tough-felt plastic and tossing it into a lake, never to be seen again, but, I did see it again, I saw her again. She walked right into my shop week's time as if she had never been dead.

"Can you do a skeleton? Right here," She pointed to her chest, right where I had shot her, her fingertip directly over it, the bullethole had been drilled into my mind but had been wiped from her skin as if it had been a simple papercut, I couldn't wrap my mind around it.

The buyer never gave me an explanation as to why he wanted her dead, or what she had done. To me, she looked harmless, but I had to get my money somehow, right.

Wrong. Truth be told, I should have done my research.