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I wake up feeling groggy and disoriented. Which is weird because I didn’t drink last night, despite my new flatmate’s best efforts to drag me out to some house party with them.
When I try to sit up, pain radiates through my left arm, all the way up to my shoulder and blooms across my chest. I swear softly and clamber out of bed, noticing how unsteady I am on my feet. What the fuck?
Once I’m standing, my whole body is in pain. I feel like I went ten rounds in the ring, which is even weirder because I definitely didn’t fight anyone last night. I would remember that. My head is fuzzy. Memories too. Something is going on.
I stumble into my new en suite bathroom, eternally grateful that I don’t have to share this room with the nine other people in my flat, and scrub my face, washing away the ick that I’m feeling. Classes don’t start until tomorrow so I’m not in any hurry to go anywhere. I wonder if I should take a shower too, but my stomach starts groaning loudly in protest. Done washing, I brush my teeth and set to sorting out the wild mess that is my hair. It must have been a rough night: my usually long, sleek, straight brown hair looks like a rats’ nest. Yuk.
Sometimes I wake up sore all over and it’s because I’ve been running for my life in my dreams. I’m just thinking that the aches and pains must be because of that when I spot something in the mirror. A black mark. Right below my left collarbone and dipping down onto my chest. My chin drops to look but I can’t see shit from that angle, so I stare back at the mirror and lean forward as close as I can to the glass to get a better look.
It looks like ink.
Please be sharpie, please be shar—
“Ow! Mother fucker!” I cry when I frantically try to rub the ink stain off my chest and it hurts like a fucking bitch. That’s when I notice the redness and raised edges. It’s a fucking tattoo. Holy shit. I got a tattoo last night.
My chest tightens and as I start to panic about why the hell I would get a frickin’ chest tattoo and why the fuck I don’t remember it, I realise I’m hyperventilating. Oh, that’s just great! I poke the tattoo again, my sharp hiss of pain doing its intended job of making me focus and breathe normally.
I take a deep breath, climb up onto the vanity unit and sit cross-legged in the sink. Leaning forward until my nose is practically touching the mirror, I study the new ink intimately. Without a shadow of a doubt, I did not consent to this ink. I would never, in a million years, get a doe tattoo.
A baby freaking deer, tattooed on my goddamn chest! I don’t even have time to admire how expertly it’s been done, or the lifelike innocence on the beautiful beast’s face. Or how the body of The Doe is made entirely of swirls and peony flowers. I don’t admire how pretty it is because...fuck. I know whose artwork it is. And that means that The Holy Trinity are here.
I climb out of the sink with infinitely less grace than I used to get in there, and race back to my bedroom. I pull on clean underwear, black skinny jeans, my grey Jurassic World tank top and my favourite dark purple sparkly combat boots. My keycard, my favourite blade, and my phone all go into my back pockets, and I run my fingers through my long locks. Then, I make my way over to the canteen building from my halls of residence block that I just moved into. I’m not even completely unpacked yet.
Food first.
Fight after.
If I fight on an empty stomach, I will stab someone.
Only, I don’t get the chance to eat. Because when I storm into the canteen, I can’t miss them. At the head of the room, sitting alone at a table big enough for twelve, are my three targets. And I’ve made enough of a scene entering in a huff, that I can’t back down. Our gazes lock and I march over to them, seething.
“What the fuck is this?!” I screech, yanking the shoulder strap of my tank down with a little too much force, baring a good amount of my breast in the process. Whatever. They’ve seen it all before, although admittedly the last time they did see my chest it was considerably smaller.
Three searing hot pairs of eyes land on the tattoo – blue, black and silver – and for the briefest moment I see murder flare in Spirit’s silvery gaze, before he carefully schools his expression once more.
The Holy Trinity. Nothing changes. The Father sits in the middle, The Son to his right, The Spirit to his left. Always was, always will be.
Arseholes. I think that outside of their fucked-up families I may be the only person left living who knows the real them. I was certainly the only one brave enough to challenge them. Am I still?
Axel Abbot: The Father. So named because he’s the eldest of the group. The leader, the protector, the disciplinarian. Fierce beyond anything I’ve ever seen and not to be messed with. Black hair, black eyes, black tattoos, black soul.
He also became a baby daddy on his sixteenth birthday. His parents had the woman, histeacher, arrested on statutory rape charges and thrown in prison. No one knows what happened to the kid.
The Son: the baby of the group with the most influential father in the country. The quintessential boy next door, all smiles and blond hair and baby blues. Of course, when we were all growing up together, his dad was barely a politician, let alone the Prime Minister. McKenzie Montgomery, or just Zie to me, was my best friend, my protector, my first love. He’s the guy who ripped my heart out and ruined me for anyone else.
And then there’s Kaiden Kelly. The Spirit. So named because he died three times. Once in my arms. I’m still fucking traumatised by the light leaving his eyes. Five years later, I still wake from the nightmares of it. The boy is beautifully damaged and fucked up beyond all belief. I may just hate him the most, because his monster calls to mine, and he taught me everything I know.
But some days it’s a tossup with the others when the memories I’ve tried hard to suppress threaten to rise up once more.
“Looks like a tramp stamp to me,” The Spirit drawls. I flay him with my stare, eyes on fire. He wilts and avoids my gaze. For all his talk, he never had much of a backbone when it came to me.
“It is not okay to kidnap, drug, and tattoo someone against their wishes!” I hiss. All eyes in the room are on us but it doesn’t matter; there isn’t anyone stupid enough to side with me in this fight. Back home in Deathfalls, no one went against The Holy Trinity and I can’t imagine things being any different here. They’re probably more powerful now than ever, but I wouldn’t know because it’s been two years since I’ve seen or heard from them.
“We told you not to come here. You didn’t listen.” Ice. Actual ice forms on my spine at The Father’s baritone. This guy is a total stranger to me, hiding in a painfully familiar cold and beautiful face. Where are the boys whose back gardens I grew up running around in?
I keep my eyes glued to The Father, refusing to even acknowledge The Son. He hasn’t spoken, and I won’t break first. I can’t. All fight and anger will leave me and I will crumble if I do. Of course, the head of the bloody Trinity watches me like a hawk, a knowing smirk on his face. Axel knows too much. Sees everything. Always did. And there are no secrets between the Trinity. I learned that the hard way.
“Of course I came here! It’s the best university in the country. I’m not missing out on the education I deserve because you’re an arsehole,” I seethe at him. “Besides, you said you were going to Southview in Arkala, not Trinity in Black Hallows.”
