Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 40057 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 200(@200wpm)___ 160(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40057 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 200(@200wpm)___ 160(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
The symbol had felt heavy, though. Important in a way I couldn’t quite articulate. It carried more weight than decoration alone. I assumed that feeling came from the responsibility of tattooing a living person instead of drawing on a sheet of paper. I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be different when Onyx decided I was ready to put ink on someone at Hellbound Studio.
Since this was just an exercise, Jareth didn’t destroy the reference image and my sketch. Each time I’d tattooed someone, he’d drilled into my head that this was necessary to protect client privacy and his proprietary designs.
The next day, I found myself thinking about the difference between how Jareth treated completed drawings and finished tattoos, versus what happened to the art at Hellbound Studio. Onyx had just completed a full sleeve for a client and framed the sketch, adding it to the wall in the waiting area alongside some of their best work.
I’d settled into Hellbound’s rhythm enough to recognize the pockets of quiet between appointments, the natural pauses when artists cleaned their stations or waited for clients to arrive. During one of those lulls, I claimed a chair in the corner with my sketchbook and pencils.
Ink was nearby, talking with someone at the counter. Onyx stood farther back, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, his attention on me. As it often seemed to be.
I pulled out the photo Jareth had given me for another exercise sketch. It was a grainy photo of a metal fastener, the details partially obscured by shadow.
As I looked over the image, my fingers twitched with the urge to sketch it, to complete it. So that’s what I did, turning my focus to the fastener, letting the structure rise beneath the surface as I put pencil to paper. Lines arranged themselves instinctively, hierarchies forming where the eye couldn’t quite see.
My pencil moved faster once the shape revealed itself. I filled in what wasn’t visible, adjusting weight and spacing until the pattern settled. The pressure in my head eased, replaced by a quiet sense of relief that spread through me as the last line snapped into place.
When I finally set my pencil down, I realized how completely I’d disappeared into the work. The world filtered back in slowly, including the faint awareness of being observed.
I glanced up and found Onyx had moved closer at some point. He stared at my sketch pad over my shoulder, his attention fixed on me with an intensity that made my pulse race. He was quiet, and I had no idea what he was seeing when he looked at my work.
My grip tightened on the pencil, and my cheeks heated. His attention tended to unsettle me, probably because of how much I wanted his approval.
Glancing down at my sketch pad, I slowed my breath and tried to keep the fragile control I had over my emotions when he was near. I focused on the page in front of me, committing the final image to memory, grounding myself in the familiar certainty of clean lines and resolved form.
Still, I could feel him behind me. The most unsettling part wasn’t that he was watching… it was the thrill of knowing he was.
4
ONYX
I’d been standing in my booth for the past twenty minutes pretending to be focused on reorganizing supplies, but my eyes kept drifting to Elena. Couldn’t help it. Every time I glanced over at her, that slow burn in my gut flared hot again.
She was in the same damn spot she always claimed during her downtime, the corner chair by the wall, her sketchbook balanced on her lap, and her pencil moving in precise, measured strokes. Her focus didn’t waver. Not once. The rest of the studio might as well not have existed.
From my angle, I could just make out part of the page. It was the same sketch I’d seen her working on yesterday. Or at least it started that way. She’d already replicated it once, perfectly. Now she was taking it apart layer by layer, reshaping and adjusting. Her pencil moved with purpose, altering the line weight in one section, then flipping the page to work a variation with a slightly different hierarchy.
This wasn’t creative exploration. Or trial and error. This was a dissection.
I watched the way her brow furrowed slightly with each new variation. She wasn’t doodling. She was solving something.
And I felt that familiar itch at the base of my skull.
That symbol had been bothering me for days. Not because it was familiar in the artistic sense. I’d seen a thousand different tattoos and decorative insignia over the years. But this one kept tugging at something in the back of my mind. Something older. Darker.
When my next client came in, I forced myself to snap out of it and get my shit together. The guy wanted a patch-up and extension to a geometric piece on his back. It took a couple of hours to get him cleaned, prepped, and inked, but my body was running on muscle memory the whole time. I still nailed it, but my brain wasn’t there. Not fully.