Chapter Sixteen - Teagan
My shoes scrape across the paved garden as I bolt, running as if my thoughts might catch me.
I need space.
I need to figure out the emotions raging through my body.
I need paint.
The pebbled courtyard crunches when I leave the garden walled in by looming evergreens, and somehow, through the screaming chaos, a small whisper of excitement seeps through all the noise as I approach the wrought-iron gates. At least I’ll get a chance to scale them.
“You can’t leave.”
My back goes ramrod straight at the voice that I can’t escape. His luscious, dangerous timbre even slid into my dreams, whispering seductive promises I’m still aching from when I wake up.
And here I thought getting hard was a requisite that came with sexy fantasies.
If only it were that simple.
Sen’s my soulmate.
I have a soul.
Which means, what exactly? Too many big questions for fucking starters, when I was firmly in the ‘if there’s a god, creator—kid with a magnifying glass—I doubt it cares about me’ camp.
Because if something considers my existence important enough to attach my soul to a handsome vampire, then that’s way too much responsibility.
So I’ve got myself a soul. Sen’s got himself a soul. Kai and Mum and Dad and Thomas.
Everyone.
“Teagan.”
Sen’s movements brush against the pebbles as he comes closer. I can’t look at him. Not when the sudden weight of a soul is trying to bring me to my knees, and if I turned to take in the full immensity of everything Sen stands for…I’d crumble.
I open my mouth, try to find a word to explain myself.
But what is the right word, or wrong word, or what-the-fuck-is-happening word? Does fate or the cosmos—or that fucking kid with a magnifying glass—allow for a safe word so I can scream ‘banana’ and tap out?
I can’t think straight. I need…
“Paint,” I choke out.
Sen doesn’t try to face me; maybe he knows looking at him will be too much, too fast, too soon. Does he understand me because we’re soulmates? Does he know what I need, because a thing decided what I really needed was a fucking boyfriend?
Sen doesn’t speak while I’m paralysed, my thoughts crashing into me like storming ocean waves.
Then I hear the click of a car door opening, the purr of his sexyass car.
It’s the low, constant sound of the engine that lifts some of the weight from my feet.
Slowly, step by step, not once allowing my gaze to find him, I edge toward his car and slide into the passenger seat.
The car jolts as he gets inside.
Shutting the door, I curl into the window, focusing on the purr that somehow quiets the storm inside my mind. Pulling my cracked phone from my pocket, I tap in directions, then throw it away like a hot potato, letting it clatter onto the dashboard in Sen’s direction.
“Seatbelt,” is all Sen says, low and soft.
Not wanting to think anymore, I strap on my seatbelt as instructed and close my eyes to be cocooned in Sen’s purring engine.
Sen doesn’t try to fill the silence like others would.
He doesn’t tell me how I should feel. Say what the bright side or dark side—or left and right side—to all this is.
For over an hour, we simply sit in the quiet together while he drives, and while I might be something important to him, and also some matchmaking higher power, inside of this hushed humming, I’m nothing bigger than a guy who needs to paint.
***
We roll to a stop in the dark, abandoned shopping centre I call my art studio.
For a long moment, neither of us moves, but from the tap of Sen’s fingers on the steering wheel, when he says, “Looks…nice.” I can easily reply, “Liar,” with the smallest hint of a smile, my breath fogging the window.
“On occasion,” Sen teases gently.
I get out of the car, Sen’s door slamming after mine as he follows. I head towards the piece of rotted wood hiding my entrance and move it aside, splinters digging into my fingertips. Then get on my knees to crawl through the hole choked with earthy-smelling weeds.
“This wasn’t the tight squeeze I had in mind with you,” Sen sighs, crawling in after me.
“At least you can enjoy the view,” I reply, shaking my ass.
“And what a nice view it is.”
We stand up in the docking bay, darker here than outside, with wild plants bursting from all the cracks. The scent of untamed green life and musky decay fills the air.
“This, less so,” he admits.
Carefully, I step over gnawed roots bursting through the concrete, like the knuckles on a witch’s hand clawing up from the ground. “Snob.”
“On occasion.”
With Sen at my back, he can’t see when I smile, but I get the sense he’s smiling in return as we push through squeaking doors and stroll past empty shops, heading towards my studio.
“Well…” Sen breathes, his footsteps slowing. “This is amazing. Who did all this?”
Disinterested, I don’t glance at the walls. I’m not feeling any of these emotions right now; I’m feeling something new that needs to come out in a mess of colour.
“Teagan, did you paint all this?”
Later, I’ll feel so much pride from the amazement in his voice.
It’ll glow warm in my chest, and I’ll replay each word with the stupidest smile spread across my face.
In this moment, all I do is jerk up my shoulders in a lazy response as I reach for my supplies.
Grabbing a can, I use a rusted screwdriver to pry off the lid with a satisfying pop, then tip the white contents out in a well-used tray.
“You could become rich.”
“From what?” I ask absentmindedly.
“From your art, of course. I might know little about such things, but I have a good enough eye to know your talent is something that doesn’t come around often.”
I grab a clean brush so I can screw it onto a long handle. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”
Without hesitation, I dip the brush in white paint, then proceed to cover the smooshed cartoon faces.
“Wait, Teagan.” Sen’s feet rush towards me. “This is incredible. Why would you cover it?”
I shrug again, enjoying the feel of my muscles working.
“This ain’t me anymore,” I say, focused on my task. “It used to be me. For a bit. But now I’m this me, and I gotta…show that.”
I wait for the disbelief, or the anger that—in his mind—I’m ruining something, even though it belongs to me.
I’ve heard it all before.
So when Sen says, “If that’s what you want,” I’m so shocked I nearly stop.
I don’t smile. But a few rays of light pierce a section of my raging storm, and isn’t that so much better?
Once my previous art is covered, I throw my hand in the vague direction of the industrial-sized fan I keep shoved in the corner next to a collection of mannequins. Without being asked, I hear Sen pull it over, then the snick as it’s plugged in.
I march to a different corner and throw off a tarp covering all the pink I’ve been hiding from. Not today.
I turn the fan on, and while the wall dries, I carry over can after can, the heat of Sen’s watchful gaze on my back, waiting to be asked for help. But this shit I gotta do alone.
It takes time to get all my supplies cleaned and ready, to clear the space of empty cans and mannequin body parts. Carefully, I collect Erica’s head and hold it up for Sen, not looking at him but the back of her matted hair.
“This is Erica, she helps me with ideas,” I mumble while kicking some plastic hands out of the way.
“Out of all the decapitated heads I’ve met, she has to be the loveliest.”
“And how many is that?” I ask, a little smile playing at the corner of my mouth.
“Far too many,” Sen replies, his own grin in his voice.
It takes time to get ready and for the paint to dry. At one point, Sen walks off to take a call, then comes back to find all my paint cans open and lids tossed into a pile. Then I snap on my black facemask and toss an identical one to Sen.
“Paint fumes will have little effect on me.”
“I put on the seatbelt,” I counter.
“That you did.”
I still haven’t looked at him, but a knot of unease loosens when I hear him pull on the straps.
Standing in front of the now dry wall—well, dryish—I hold a clean brush like it’s more a part of me than my hand. This will show me how I feel. Explain each emotion to me, to the world. To Sen.
I dip my brush into the can of pink paint. Just red, green, and blue all mixed. That’s all it is.
“I used to be scared of pink,” I tell Sen, watching hypnotised as paint strings drip from the brush, creating waves as I carefully scrape off the excess on the side of the silver rim. “It made me feel fucking small.”
I channel all of myself onto the white, giving the absence of colour—colour. Slashing, sweeping arcs. Smaller, deliberate movements.
“Summer took from me. That made me feel small, too. Made me scared. Powerless.” I’m talking fast as I go, dipping into a new pink. Something darker but still vibrant.
“I thought I was going to die, Sen.”
I don’t stop. I splash every shade of pink onto my canvas. Fluffy-soft and pearl-strong, neon-bright and suede-smooth.
“I thought I was scared of pink when people I used to call my friends went out of their way to hurt me.”
I push aside the pink—grab blacks and greys, reach for navies and silvers.
“Who gets fucking bullied at university? Haven’t we all grown outta that shit?”
Sweat wets my hair, drips into my eyes. My muscles ache, my throat is raw, and I love every second.
“Like Summer, I thought they were my friends.” I pull closer all the dark tones that make up Sen’s colours, and finally—finally—learn which shades make up all his decadence.
“I’ve never been scared to speak. But they forced me to be quiet.
Because if I dared open my damn mouth, they’d all laugh like a pack of hyenas. ”
I’m moving faster; splashing, dotting, waving. Finding a rhythm in my chaos to create something I can point to and say, ‘This! This is how I’m feeling!’.
“We were at art school, for fuck’s sake, and they laughed at me for being queer when everyone was bloody queer. Laughed at my art, for being short, and black, and quiet, and human.”
I seize more pink. Thrust my brush inside and slash the bristles across my canvas.
“They—my so-called friends—painted a whole fucking room pink. They shoved me in a corner, screaming and laughing. And when I begged them to stop, please. Just. Fucking. Stop. With tears in my eyes and piss running down my legs because all that noise hurt so badly, they got louder and louder and—”
My brush drops to the cold, concrete floor with a slap.
I let out a long breath, deflating as I rip off my facemask and take a few steps back, staring up at what I’ve made.
Then I smile. Really, really smile, even though it tastes like tears.
I tried to create Sen on my wall at home—a sea at midnight with the full moon slicing through the waves. But I had it so wrong.
This is Sen. Me. My feelings. Maybe some of his, too.
The painting is still an ocean at midnight, but now it’s become a storm. The full moon is halved, and bleeding silver across the waves, and within those storming waters are jellyfish—so many of them. Soft and quiet, but vast. Not drowned but waiting with stingers.
Still there. Still me under all that forced quiet.
“What do you think?” I whisper, cheeks wet and awed that I can now explain myself.
Slow, methodical steps—then Sen’s cool intensity radiates into my back, his breath brushes away my curls as his lips go to my ear. “You are sensational.”
My whole body thrums, my cock even twitches.
“Tell me their names, Teagan.” His voice is like the silver slicing through dark waves.
I glance over my shoulder to look at the vampire draped in shadows behind me, his gaze dangerous as a dagger’s edge. “You’d make my bullies bleed, slick?”
“For you…” Sen’s fingers run along the curve of my jaw, brushing away one of my teardrops. “I’d make the whole world bleed, sweetheart.”
I turn into him further, kiss the tip of that finger soaking up my tears and whisper, low and dusky like he really is my detective, and I really am his dame, “Well, ain’t that just the bee’s knees.”