The Dragon Tattoo

My question, what do you want?, hung in the air for several long moments, and I was disinclined to break the silence again. The man above me was breathing harshly, as though he’d just run from a long way away in order to tackle me, the unsuspecting girl, into the deserted alley from the sidewalk of the deserted street. The sunlight hid his face from me, because, being directly above, it cast the unknown visage into shadow. I was uncomfortable at the fact that my shirt had risen up on the right side, where a tattoo I never remembered getting always peeked back at me. It was a stylized dragon, in black ink, and it went from just a little below hip to just below my armpit. The head of the dragon was nestled just two short inches from my chest.

To say the least, I strongly disliked this rather compromising position.

“Don’t say anything else,” he hissed darkly after a long silence, his deep voice sending shivers up my spine. I stared up at him although I couldn’t see him, eyes wide with the fright that I didn’t let show. He spoke again, saying, “Don’t move. Don’t scream.”

Something touched the side of my head, and I let out a small sound of surprise before I could stop myself. A low growl came from my attacker, and I kind of reflexively curled up a little, in a vain attempt to protect myself. Another growl ripped from deep in his throat, not quite animalistic but definitely displeased with my actions. I squeezed my eyes closed tightly then as the object pressed harder against my head, waiting for the blindingly painful but nearly instantaneous death I felt awaited me. I waited, but it never came.

Instead, there was a sharp intake of breath and all of the sudden, whatever was at my head lessened pressure just slightly as his other hand released my wrists. Before I could open my eyes to assess the situation, I felt a light touch on my side, and flinched.

“Where did you get this tattoo?”

The voice surprised me, and my eyes opened to look up at the blurry face above me. There was an edge of desperation in his tone, and I almost felt like there was some sort of manic sense of need in the words.

“Where did you get it?!” he asked again, louder, and I flinched another time. “How long have you had it?”

“I-I don’t know where I got it!” I squeaked, breaking under the pressure. “I think it started when I was about twelve, almost eight years ago! It started out as some sort of blotchy, bruise sort of thing, and ended up as this!”

I mentally cursed myself for just telling him all of that. I had basically told him that I was almost twenty, which I didn’t really like the idea of. And I’d told him something about the tattoo that I had never told anyone else before, which was how it had started. Even my own mother didn’t know how I’d gotten it, and somehow I’d kept it hidden from her until I’d turned eighteen and she thought I’d just went out and got a tattoo on my own.

He leaned closer, and I flinched away again, but nothing else happened except his fingers still poking and prodding at the marking.

“All right, then,” he said, and it seemed as though he was talking more to himself than to me. Whatever he held to my head disappeared into a pocket and he pulled me roughly to my feet. I still couldn’t see his face, as he pushed me ahead of him, farther down the alley, and said to me, “Don’t try to run. Don’t scream, don’t protest, don’t struggle, and don’t try to get away.”

Something in the way he said it made me heed him. His voice was very alluring, but there was a definitely threatening undertone. I didn’t want to know what the unspoken “or else” in his statements was, and so I did as he asked - told - me to and stayed silent. I wanted to ask him what he wanted from me and where he was taking me, but I kept my mouth shut. Hell, I wanted to ask him what his name was, but I didn’t want to break the silence and risk getting shot or stabbed to death or something. I did chance self-consciously tugging down my shirt, though. He didn’t say anything, or even let out one of his menacing growls, so I decided that the small action hadn’t bothered him.

I never for a second believed he had missed the movement on my behalf.

As we neared the next street over, I felt him move closer to me.

“Act casual,” his voice said right next to my ear, and I did my best to do so as he walked up and dropped an arm around my shoulder, as thought he did this sort of thing every day. And who knew? Maybe he did do this every day. At first I wanted to shy away from the arm across my shoulders, shrug it off, but I didn’t. “Good,” he said when he felt the tension ease slightly from my muscles.

The mysterious man and I neared the lights, and I chanced a peek at him. From what I could see, he had dark brown hair. We weren’t close enough to the lights for me to glean much more information about this stranger than that, but I tried anyway. His arm was warm, covered in a jean jacket and seeming to fit right where it was, even though I didn’t know him or his plans for me. I couldn’t shake the strange feeling, no matter how hard I tried.

Finally, even though I told myself not to, I asked him, “Where are you taking me?”

My voice betrayed my nervousness now, and I felt his breath on my ear as it escaped him in the form of a sigh.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said lowly, “not when you’ve got that marking. It’s really hard for me to explain it right now, but there are other people I know who wouldn’t even look at you twice before killing you. So I’m not taking you to them. Does that make sense?”

I stopped, against my better senses, and turned around under his arm with my own crossed over my chest.

“That doesn’t explain anything,” I said defiantly, before I realized what a stupid mistake it was. I was prepared to flinch away, but was slightly distracted by the sight in front of me. We were under a streetlight, and the features of the mysterious person were finally revealed to my searching eyes.

His hair wasn’t as deep a brown as I had initially thought, but just a few shades lighter than chocolate brown. It looked kind of ruffled and unkempt, but in a completely and desperately attractive way. I couldn’t help but want to stand on my tiptoes in order to run my hands through it. It looked so soft! Aside from this man’s hair, his skin was lightly tanned and you could see, just from looking at his well fitted t-shirt underneath his jacket, that he was built just right. Not too muscular and not too skinny. Again the urge hit me to just touch him, to run my fingers down what was clearly defined as a decent six pack, even to trace his pectoral muscles. And his eyes - oh, his eyes! Those orbs, which showed millions of emotions in the span of the few seconds I’d been looking at him, were the most brilliant shade of green I had ever seen. Gold flecks littered the iris, but the green still shone brightest, and I was drawn in unwillingly to those eyes. He had a firmly defined chin with a day’s worth of stubble adorning it, and that was another feature that I consciously had to stop myself from reaching out and stroking in a loving manner.

This man, this kidnapper-of-sorts, was exceedingly gorgeous. He far outstripped any other man I could remember having laid eyes on, and more. And even as my last words, the accusation that he hadn’t explained anything really, left my lips, he ran a hand through his hair and heaved another sigh. The look of helplessness, confusion, and uncertainty that flashed through his eyes and across his features made me want to take it all back, but of course I couldn’t. So I resorted to biting back the next kind of scathing remark, which would have been something about how he should go into more detail in his descriptions, and just looked away uncertainly.

“I was going to kill you,” he said quietly, and my eyes instantly darted up to meet his in the lurch of fright that racked through my body at the softly spoken, spine-tingling words, “but I can’t.”

The words kind of shocked me, enough so that I opened my mouth to say something, but at a look and a gesture from this mysterious person, I closed it and remained silent.

“But I can’t take you to the others because they won’t even take a second look at you before trying to kill you. They don’t think there are any left, and I’m not exactly their favorite person right now. So I’m taking you somewhere that you should be safe. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Others?” I asked incredulously. “What others? What do you mean by saying that these others wouldn’t look at me twice before trying to kill me?”

I covered my mouth quickly, but the damage was done. However, he didn’t react in a harsh manner at all, but let out another confused sort of sigh, and the look in his eyes made me want to freeze yet again.

“You’ll probably find out sooner or later, but let’s hope for later. All I know is that they’ll sense I’ve been near you, so you’ll need to stay with me whether you want to or not. Unless you want to die a painful death, and take me with you,” he paused briefly, then let out a dry chuckle. “I don’t see why taking me with you in death would really bother you, since I’ve given you no reason at all to trust me, but it’s the truth. So don’t try to run, or you certainly will die. They won’t see that marking, won’t know to stop.”

“What is it about this dragon thing that’s so important?” I demanded, gaining a little bit of confidence. “Why is it the defining factor in whether you can or can’t kill me? Or whether you will or won’t? It’s just some sort of tattoo thing that started showing up when I was twelve. Yeah, it’s weird, but what’s it got to do with anything?”

For the first time, he looked away in an emotion that was almost defeat. When he looked back, he had an expression tantamount to regret etched on his features.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that yet.”

“And why not?” I said indignantly, taking a strong stance with my feet spread and my hands on my hips.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I did,” was his answer, and without any further ado, he grabbed my arm in a strong grip and started leading me down the street once more. I stumbled for a few moments until I fell in step with his quickened pace.