Status: Active

Blood, Sweat & Ink

Chapter Seven

The night before, the remaining contestants had a wonderful time making fun of Mystical Mike as they drank their shots of Jagermeiser.

"You only brought one tattoo machine!" Maddie said, holding her sides as tears of mirth streamed down her face.

"It's not funny!" Mike yelled. "I didn't think it was a requirement to have more than one!" That only made them laugh harder.

"Oh lord!" ES said rolling his eyes.

"Thanks to Frank's shitty baboon, we all have to put up with Mike's annoying hipster ass for one more day," Jackie said, raising her glass.

"To Frank's baboon!" they all said, except for Mike, clinking their glasses together.

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The next day, the contestants found themselves in a garage filled with classic cars. Dave announced that the challenge was to be put into teams of three to create a grill for one of the classic cars in the garage and that the guest judge for the Flash Challenge would be...his wife Vanessa.

Silently cursing her luck, Lydia prayed that at least she wouldn't get stuck with Mystical Mike. She went to art school with men like him-arrogant, self-centered and a bit of a know-it-all. But having dealt drugs to guys like that, she knew all too well that they had built a house of cards personality: one wrong move, one gust of wind, and the whole thing would collapse. And she hoped to be that gust of wind.

Cursing, she discovered that she would indeed be working with Mike. Fortunately, she also would be working with Craig and Kyle. She breathed a sigh of relief. Lydia knew that Craig was a very patient man and Kyle would tell just tell Mike to shut the fuck up.

Three hours later, Dave told the contestants to put down their tools and display their works. Lydia, Kyle and Craig were relieved. If she had to hear one more piece of "helpful" advice from Mike, she was going to kill him. "The goal is to follow the instructions," he had said in a sing-song voice.

"Shut up, Mike," Kyle snapped.

"Agreed," Lydia and Craig said at the same time.

The team of Jackie, Joey and James had won the challenge for their work. Kyle glared at Mike, who looked defiant.

"Told you, asshole," Mike muttered.

"Get fucked, Mike," Kyle shot back.

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After shooting was over, she went to talk to Vanessa.

"What happened to your eye?" Lydia asked, observing the purple mark that her sister clumsily tried to hide with concealer.

"Josh happened," she explained.

"What was his excuse?" she asked.

"Tried to say some bullshit about how he was so much better than that," Vanessa scoffed.

"That explains the split lip I saw on him and why he's been avoiding me at the loft!" Lydia exclaimed.

"I think he's also the reason why the judges are thinking of kicking you off," Vanessa told her older sister. "The producers had gotten word of our relationship from a secret informant with one of those voice-changer thingies used by criminals to hide their voice."

"Thanks for the tip. I'll have a word with Josh."

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"Hey Josh!" Lydia exclaimed.

"What do you want?" Josh sneered.

"To do this!" She kicked him in the balls and for good measure punched him in the nose while he was down.

"Nobody messes with my sister but me!" she spat, flipping him off.
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