Page 87 of Nightmare

“Trav!” She greets me as the door slams behind us, “Decided to actually work today?”

I snort, rolling my eyes at her, “What do we have booked today?”

The faint booming of the stereo is filling the room – some 90’s rap song which tells me that Rome is here.

“Rome and Vic are fully booked, so it looks like you’re taking the walk-ins.” She answers, flipping through the notebook on her desk.

“Gotcha, send ‘em back.” I respond, making my way through the shop. I poke my head into Rome’s room to find him tattooing some chick’s ass, he tips his head at me in greeting so I wave a hand to him. I stop by Vic’s space after, finding him bent over his workbench scratching a pencil along his sketchbook.

“Yo.” I greet him, and he looks up at me.

I found Vic at a shop in SoHo about five years ago, he was the first person to ever tattoo me. I knew I needed him on my team, his linework is clean and he’s always doing some crazy shit on his clients.

“Travis, man, where’ve you been?” He stands, slapping a hand in mine, “It’s like fucking Sam is the boss around here lately.”

I laugh, “We all know she really is the boss, man.”

He slaps a hand into Jax’s, pulling him into conversation about the piece they’ve been working on over the last couple months on his back. I leave them to it, Mac and I making our way into my office.

It’s dark when I enter, smelling like fresh cleaning supplies. I guess Sam has been keeping up in here. I flip the lights on and make myself busy at my desk, flipping through old sketches and papers.

Mac makes himself comfortable on the sofa I have in the corner, his attention falling to his phone, so I work in silence for a while.

After about an hour, Jax comes stomping into the room, “Dude, Trav, can you fucking do this on me?”

He’s holding up an old as fuck illustration in a frame of a skull, surrounded by flames. His face is cut into a huge grin, he wags his eyebrows at me when I meet his gaze.

“Dude I drew that when I was sixteen.” I say to him and he snorts. “Why are you ripping shit off my walls?”

He laughs, “C’mon man, let’s do this!”

He rips his shirt over his head, reaching an arm around his side, pointing at an empty spot on his ribs, “Right here?” He asks, and I stand, looking at the space. It would look really sick with the work he already has done.

I clap my hands together once, “Alright, bitch. Get on the table.”

I make myself busy getting my station ready, filling little tubs with the black and red ink that I’ll need, then slip some gloves on my hands before wiping Jax’s side down with some alcohol.

I get the stencil ready before pressing it to his skin to get a good base outline, then lay out some paper towels to use. I turn on my gun, dip it into the black ink, testing the speed and pressure on the paper towel first – then Sam is walking into the room with a light knock on the door.

“Trav, you got a walk in.” She says. Jax groans, I put the gun down, ask her to bring them in here and peel off my gloves.

The last thing I expect is for that motherfucker Brody to walk in the door, but that is exactly who shows their face in my office.

“The fuck?” Mac grunts, standing up to take a step towards him.

My vision goes red, and I’m stepping towards Brody before I even know what I’m doing, “What thefuckdo you want?”

Jax swings into a sitting position on the bench to watch the situation play out, Brody smiling like the dick shit that he is.

“I wanted to officially meet the dude who has been fucking my girlfriend.” Brody chuckles under his breath a little, taking a step closer to me.

My voice gets caught in my throat. I ball my hands into fists at my side, “Get the fuck out.”

He laughs again, “You’d be smart not to fuck with what’s mine, you little bitch.” He steps into my face and I can’t fucking hold back anymore. All I can see is my girl sobbing, broken, curled into a ball on my sofa after this piece of shit slapped her and held her in a fucking alley yesterday.

I swing, my fist meeting his pretty boy jaw, and Jax yells from where he’s sitting. I don’t hear the words, I just keep swinging on this bitch boy. Punch after punch, his face my new punching bag, then he’s falling onto the ground.

I dive onto him, straddling his chest to continue hitting him – blood coating my knuckles. He doesn’t make any effort to swing on me in return, just lays there and takes it –accepting that he’s outmatched.

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