Chapter 4
Chapter four
Kai
Ididn’t wake up from nightmares of the car crash, or Golden screaming, or fire.
But I also didn’t sleep. Something about being told by your soulmate they’d rather date the muck scraped off their shoe than you makes it hard to drift off. I’m pretty sure that’s what Vidar said, anyway.
So I got rejected by my soulmate, who cares, right? Who really dreams of unconditional love? Pathetic, boring people. That’s who. Sounds terrible if you ask me.
I don’t need a man. I can just perch my tablet on the stack of anatomy and pose reference books gathering dust on my windowsill (that I totally use instead of Pinterest).
Then fall asleep to cooking videos, so when the nightmares retract their claws, I’ve got soufflés videos to wake up to instead of a pair of strong tattooed arms.
Flinging the covers off, I hop out of bed and march into my bathroom with purpose, I cried all my tears last night, and I can’t let this little blip get me down.
The off-white tiles are cracked, the ancient toilet barely flushes, and the space is so small I can lay my hand flat against one wall and touch the opposite one.
I crank the shower on, snap a yellow ducky shower cap over my braids to keep them dry, and step inside the glass and limescale tomb without waiting for it to warm up. A bit of cold never hurt anyone.
Frigid water rains against my back. I squeal so high glass could crack, and jump out. Bloody hell, that was freezing.
‘Maybe waiting isn’t such a bad idea…’
I drape my rough towel over my shoulders.
I bought it with my first paycheque, so I can't just get rid of it and start pacing from the bathroom to the bedroom and back again, keeping my thoughts away from unpleasant intrusions.
My feet slap-slap-slapping against the black and white mosaic bathroom floor, then pft-pft-pfting against the coarse, speckled beige carpet.
On my fifth lap, I spot the corner of a large grey leather-bound book, its wrinkled edge peeking out from under the bed. I halt mid-stride like I’ve caught someone eavesdropping on a private conversation.
Exhaling a string of curses, I scurry over and kick the thing back into the darkness.
It shouldn’t be here. But with all the chaos lately, I haven’t had a second to figure out what to do with it. So for now, as steam begins to billow into the bedroom and I rush back to the bathroom to claim the hot water, I forget about the thing I definitely shouldn’t have.
Quickly, I wash my sleepless night down the drain and get out as the spray turns tepid. Once dried, I shove on a comfy pair of black sweats, a grey hoodie and my leather jacket.
“Today is going to be a good day,” I assure myself as I organise my tablet, to-do list with unicorn pencil and backup charger into their proper places in my messenger bag.
It’s before I leave, when I glance at my reflection in the fingerprint-smeared mirror, that I pause.
‘I refuse to have a mate who looks like you.’
How long have I been tugging at the braids covering the left side of my face, I wonder. Long enough to irritate the skin into a glowing red.
My shoulders drop.
‘Today will be a good day,’ I remind myself, gaze turning away from my reflection as if it betrayed me. Away from the nervous tic I wish I could stop, but can’t. ‘Today will be… a good day.’
And I keep repeating it even as my shoulders continue to lower.
***
It’s still dark when I arrive at the tattoo studio. The lights might be off, but even in the dim I can make out the grinning skeleton King of Hearts on the front window. King’s Tattoo Studio written in a red flourish at the top.
My little Mini Cooper’s headlights eye me sadly as I turn my back on it, and I resist the part of me that wants to cover it in a blanket against the bitter Winter winds, even as I shy away from looking it directly head-on; she might give me panic attacks, but I love my girl.
I bounce on the balls of my feet as I unlock the front door with a click.
The bell dings as I slip in from the cold, and I’m faster to turn the heating on and start boiling the kettle before I even consider the lights.
While I wait for my first cuppa of the day, I step into my little slice of heaven—my office.
A collage of band and art posters are jigsawed together on my walls.
A pinned twenty-pound note for the first-ever tattoo I got paid for.
My backless swivel stool covered in stickers from the many punk concerts Apollo’s dragged me to.
My obnoxiously purple hydraulic treatment chair was a gift from Luuk when I became a fully qualified artist.
It’s when I plant myself at my desk—curse words and dicks carved into the wood top, a cartoon dude flipping me off with both hands (my little brother Teagan’s masterpiece, front and centre)—that I finally feel like my truest self. It doesn’t matter what I don’t have; just look at what I do.
Quickly shooting a ‘good morning’ to my family group chat, I light a scentless candle. The smell of warmed wax is more comforting than any perfume. When the kettle pops, I get up with my head bent to read the texts beginning to roll in.
Thomas replying ‘Ohayō’, which is Japanese for good morning, apparently.
Teagan asking why the fuck I’m up so early.
Dad tells him not to swear.
I snicker when Mum agrees that the ass crack of dawn is ridiculous.
But as I head towards the kitchen, I run straight into something solid and my phone nearly slips from my fingers as a high-pitched cry—not mine this time—pierces the air.
“Jesus, Kai! You scared the shit out of me!”
“Summer?” I gasp, pressing my phone to my thumping heart. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Babe.” She cocks her overall-covered hip and rests her hand there, every finger decorated with black rings. “I told you yesterday, I’ll be down here every morning this week painting the basement. Ya know, the job Apollo is paying me for.”
After a beat, I let out the breath I’d swallowed. “Right. Sorry, mate. My head’s been all over the place. Want a cuppa?”
Summer’s quick to smile, hazel eyes sparkling as she nods in the direction of the kitchen. “Sounds good, lead the way.”
Summer’s 5’3 with a tight ponytail that sways as we make it into the kitchen, and from her unlined white skin, you’d sooner guess she was an art student than an eighty-year-old powerful shadow mage.
We round the corner into the rectangular space. The floor, cabinets, and ceiling are stained smoker-yellow; it’s been this way since Apollo bought the building, and he doesn’t seem to have any desire to change it.
I grab two tea bags. “You don’t need to get the painting done immediately. Especially after blood mages tried to kill us and everything.”
She shrugs as if that's a common occurrence for her. Well, maybe it is, because…“Kai, I might be the coolest shadow mage you know—”
“The only one I know.”
“ —but I still gotta get paid.” She grabs two mugs, and I smile when she gets my favourite black one that I can only drink from one side, or all the chips will cut my lips. Golden bought it for me when I became a tattoo apprentice.
I drop the teabags in.
“There's this brand of makeup I’ve been dying to try. Talking about makeup—are you wearing some today? Your skin looks nice.”
I flinch but play it off with a shrug, pouring hot water into the mugs, stream swirling up toward the single exposed bulb hanging from a black wire.
“I had a terrible night's sleep, no one needs to see how bad my dark circles are,” I joke instead of admitting my insecurities are too close to the surface and if I did that, then I’d think about Vidar.
And I refuse to think about him or how he took one look at me and stormed away, like I disgusted him.
I realise with a start I’m tugging at my hair again, so I slip my jacket off to keep my hands busy.
She laughs softly, grabbing milk from the fridge but not pouring yet. The tea needs more time to steep.
“Summer…?” I say, hanging my jacket on the door.
“Kai…?” she replies playfully.
“Can you tell me about magic?” I ask, taking the cold milk from her and splashing some into our mugs.
Once she’s added her three sugars and has it cradled in her hands, Summer leans against the counter.
“Of course, babe. Well, kind of. I can tell you about mages. What do you wanna know?”
I sip my tea, blowing on it to buy myself time.
“Whatever you can.” I finally land on. Not yet ready to share my own secret that’s too tangled up in shame and the idea of Summer seeing me differently makes me want to hide.
“Well, there are five different mages. Shadow,” she winks. “Light, mountain, storm and blood. Blood is the newest, and by newest I mean a few thousand years old, and we still don’t know where it bloody came from—pun very much intended.”
I chuckle. “And what can they, or I guess, you do?”
“Well, shadow mages manipulate shadows—we don’t create them, but twist whatever's already there and give it weight. We also have a talent for seeing the past, but it takes years to learn. Never tell my tutors this, but it's soooo boring, too. Lotta meditating, and who has time for that?
“Light mages do the same with light. But unlike us, they can see into the future. But while those snooty nerds think it’s better, it can also blind them. So fuck ‘em.”
“You really don’t like light mages, huh?” I tease.
“Oh, don’t worry. Mountain and storm mages are just as annoying.
Mountain mages play around with mud and rock.
They can also heal, but they’re right pricks about it and it costs a fortune, too.
Then the storm mages control air and lightning, and astral project.
But who cares? Sure, you can teleport a projection of yourself to the shops, but you can’t pick up anything. So what’s the point, ya know.
“Lastly, and grossly—blood mages. They control anything and everything about blood. Some of the powerful ones can control flesh puppets.” We both shiver in disgust.
“I hope I never see that.”