Imprinted Tattoos (The Lost One's Book 1) Read online

  IMPRINTED TATTOOS

  THE LOST ONE’S BOOK 1

  NIKITA PARMENTER

  Copyright © 2020, Nikita Parmenter All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the Author’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover Design by Moonstruck Cover Design & Photography, moonstruckcoverdesign.com

  This is for the Sherlock (She totally made me write this) thanks for being an awesome beta reader, you’re amazing, I love you my gorgeous bestie!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Other books by Nikita Parmenter

  About the Author

  "Sage!" My mother screams, most likely from the stained and sunken couch, where she is yet to move from today, "get your lying, whore ass down here! Where the fuck did you put my vodka? I know you took it, you fucking slut!

  I sigh heavily and make my way down the rotting staircase, holding an arm to my bruised ribs. They’re still sore from the rage she flew into the last time she ran out of booze. I try to avoid the various stains of questionable origin that adorn the threadbare carpet when I finally reach the bottom the stairs.

  Our house is small and falling apart. I've tried to do as many repairs as I can myself, loaning out library books on various things to help me do so but with limited money and therefore limited supplies, there's only so much I can do.

  It's a two-story craftsman, with a bedroom and bathroom upstairs and the master bedroom downstairs, along with the outdated kitchen and a small living room. I have tried repeatedly to keep it at least clean but my mother flies into rampages often where she ends up destroying everything she can reach.

  It's become a daily struggle.

  The only rooms that I can stay on top of are my bedroom and the upstairs bathroom. My mother rarely bathes and is normally too drunk or high to make it up the stairs to use the bathroom, so it’s a lot easier to keep it clean.

  Stepping slowly and cautiously into the dilapidated living room, I spot my mother tearing through the cabinets and discarding the minimal contents behind her. Haphazardly adding to the already destroyed living room. I quickly survey the mess. The couch cushions are scattered on the floor, there are empty liquor bottles strewn about, books ripped through, their innards strewn everywhere, and the coffee table is upside down the legs sticking straight up in the air.

  "I haven't taken your vodka mother" I say firmly, hating the fact that my hands are shaking in fear. I clench them tightly in a bid to hide it.

  books ripped through, their innards strewn everywhere, and the coffee table is upside down the legs sticking straight up in the air.

  "Don't fucking lie to me, you worthless bitch!" she screeches, spit flying from her lips.

  I duck down just in time to miss the empty bottle she throws at my head. For a drunk she has surprisingly good aim. I learnt that the hard way when I didn't move quick enough the first time she threw one at me. I slowly back out of the room, never taking my eyes off her since one of her favourite things to do is to attack me from behind.

  "I'll get you more, mother" I say slowly keeping my voice calm in a futile attempt to keep her calm.

  "Damn right you fucking will" she screeches again and I barely control the urge to cover my ears, fuck the woman is loud.

  This time when she throws an empty bottle at me it glances off the door frame and hits my cheek bone but at least it didn’t shatter on impact, pulling shards of glass out of your own face is not fun.

  My cheek explodes in pain for a brief moment before I push it away and effectively block it out.

  When the beatings started to become a regular thing I had to find a way to deal with the pain or it was going to destroy me, and even at such a young age I outright refused to let her fucking break me. For obvious reasons she won't let me go to the hospital when she takes her violent tendencies a step to far, in fact I have never been to the doctors. Not that I can remember anyway.

  I have a feeling that there is more to it than just not wanting to expose her abusive ways but I'm so busy trying to simultaneously keep her happy and avoid her as much as possible. As well as make sure I get good grades so I can get my G.E.D and get the hell out of this shit hole. I don't have time for any what 'if' questions or curiosity.

  I spin on my heel and grab my purse on the way out, making sure I have my fake ID. I'm only eighteen but due to my mother’s drinking and the fact that she’s too damn lazy step outside of the house, I was forced into getting a fake one. A quick look through my bag as I slam the door shows me that my meagre funds are even more depressing than I initially thought.

  Well shit.

  I haven't got enough for food this week and mothers booze. I can either get one or the other but definitely not both. I let a weary sigh escape and scrub my hands over my face. Out of the two options, not having any food is by far the lesser of two evils. I've gone without food many times before, I'm used to it now. I think there might be half a loaf of bread and a few crackers left at the back of one of the kitchen cupboards, I can ration them.

  I will be fine, I always am.

  I make the long walk to the liquor store in good time, but I desperately miss my car. It was a pile of junk but it’s a hell of a lot easier to drive with bruised ribs than it is too walk. It may not have been pretty to look at but it got me from A to B that's pretty much all I ask for in a car. I had to sell it last week because we were behind on rent again.

  Sighing I mentally calculate how many bottles I can buy with what little money I have and how long they will last her until we’re repeating this whole shitty thing again. I hate doing this. I hate the look of pity the cashier always gives me when I come in with new bruises or a limp. I’m almost certain he thinks I’ve got an abusive partner, after all my ID says I’m twenty-two. Who would think that it was my own mother who was the one hurting me?

  She actually rarely marks my face, so I’ve gotten away with telling the school that I’m just clumsy where they’re concerned, they accept it because it's easier for them. I’m in and out of the store within minutes and make my way back to the house. I will never call it a home it lost that title a long time ago.

  As soon as I make it through the front door I’m thankful to see that my mother obviously still had enough alcohol in her system to pass out and she's now sprawled across the couch, her greasy brown hair streaked with grey lying listlessly around her and her dirty clothes hanging off of her gaunt frame.

  I used to try and get her to clean up,
to bathe and put on fresh clothes on but she'd always get in such a rage and the beatings would become worse than normal, so I just stopped trying.

  I quickly and quietly tidy up as much of the living room as I can and return it some semblance of normal. Then place a bottle within easy reaching distance of her and put the other two I bought in the kitchen where I know she will be able to find them before grabbing a few crackers and a couple of bottles of water and making my way back upstairs, stopping in my room to grab my clothes before I step into the bathroom.

  I slowly peel off my clothes, being careful of my ribs and newly bruised cheek and look myself over in the mirror.

  My Raven black hair is hanging in a tangled mess down my back as dull grey eyes stare blankly back at me. It's been a long time since I saw a spark of life in them. I have what would be an hourglass figure but due to lack of food, my waist is too small, and my face is beginning to look too thin, my cheekbones sticking out just a bit too far to be considered attractive. My ribs are still purple and black from the rage my mother flew into a couple of days ago and to add to it my cheek and eye are now swollen and turning a lovely shade of deep purple.

  Awesome.

  These things don't keep my attention for long though as I trace my fingers lightly across the tattooed words on the side unmarked by bruises. I read them again searching for strength ‘You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice’. The words appeared when I was nine, exactly one week before my mother first hit me. I have found more strength in these words over the years since than I have in anything else.

  My hand moves to the small blue and green swallow at the very top of my thigh, normally covered by the band of my underwear. This is the newest one to appear. It appeared about two months ago on my eighteenth birthday. Two days later my boyfriend who I thought I loved despite all his flaws, hit me so hard I was knocked unconscious. He'd pushed me and hit me before but never enough to leave a mark and always played it off as a joke.

  I was so starved for human interaction and companionship that I ignored the warning signs and forced myself to believe that whenever it happened it was an accident. If I couldn't convince myself that it was then I told myself that it was my fault anyway.

  I should do better, be better.

  He lost his shit that night because I didn’t get him a beer quick enough. We hadn’t been together long and I’m glad now that I never had sex with him. I don’t know why it makes the situation better but for me, it just does.

  I’m by no means a virgin, I just wasn't ready to have sex with him, it didn’t feel right.

  He got so terrifyingly angry all because I didn’t get him the damn beer as quick as he thought I should’ve. Something had happened with his business and it wasn’t good, which just meant he was in a volitile mood. He wrapped his hand around my throat and pinned me up against the wall making my breath come out in short gasps. All the while shouting obscenities at me before he threw me roughly onto the floor. I tried to get back up but he punched me so hard that I passed out.

  When I awoke, I was sprawled out on his front lawn next to the trash cans, thrown out like garbage. I slowly pulled my stiff and aching body up off the hard ground. My head was pounding with pain but thankfully I was still fully clothed with nothing out of place so at least there was that. I painfully slowly made my way back to my house.

  I never told him where I lived, ironically, I didn't want to drag him into my own problems and subject him to my mother. The beatings I would have suffered if I had bought him back to the house would've been too bad to even think about anyway so, it was better for everybody if he didn't know.

  In those moments walking home beaten and bruised because of him, I was so thankful that I never told him and swore to myself that this was it. I wasn't going to go back; I was done with him.

  I can't free myself from my mother yet, but I could free myself from him, so I did. It was then that I realised what the swallow and the script inscribed on my thigh meant; ‘Sometimes you have to forget what you thought you wanted and remember what you deserve’.

  I need to believe that. I have to believe that after everything he put me through, everything that my mother puts me through that I do NOT deserve it.

  That tattoo reminds me when I forget.

  Maybe I should explain the whole appearing tattoo thing; there’s a small percentage of the population that when they are about to go through a key event in their lives good or bad, the kind of event that affects you in such a profound way that it leaves an imprint on your soul, a tattoo appears on you. It could just be a picture, a quote or both. Whatever shows up on your skin gives you a small clue as to what the coming key event will be.

  When the tattoo appears, you get a brief burning sensation wherever it shows up. I say brief but in all honesty it hurts like a bitch for the brief time it takes to appear.

  Everyone knows that this happens to a small percentage of the population but very few members of that small percentage actually show their Imprint Tattoos off or tell anyone that it happens to them. Imprint Tattoos are very personal. My knowledge on them is extremely limited, I only know the small amount that we are taught in school as part of the general curriculum and that’s it. It’s not like I had anyone I could ask either. I shudder to think what would have happened if I’d told my mom. I’m forever grateful to nine-year-old me for listening to her instincts on that one and not mentioning it.

  What I do know is that most people's tattoos only start to appear after their sixteenth birthday. That's not say that the minute a person turns sixteen they instantly get a tattoo foretelling them of a key event. Some people wait years before they get one, but I have never heard about someone getting one before they turn sixteen.

  Which makes me an anomaly because my first Imprint Tattoo showed up when I was only nine. I sigh heavily sweeping my hair over my shoulder and giving my shadow filled grey eyes one last glance before stepping into the shower and quickly washing my tired and aching body.

  I’m exhausted, it’s already eleven at night and I have school tomorrow. The first day of senior year and what a way to start, covered in bruises and bone tired. The bruise on my face I can cover fairly easily with foundation. I’ve had to do it, what feels like a million times before so I’m a pro at it now. Hopefully by tomorrow morning the swelling will have gone down, not that anyone is close enough to me to notice any sort of distortion to my face.

  I keep to myself and have no friends. I have too many secrets and my life is too fucked up to maintain any semblance of a relationship; I can't bring someone else into the mess that is my life. I tried to once before with the ex and look how that turned out.

  It doesn’t really matter anyway because as soon as I turn eighteen and graduate, I'm leaving. I can make friends then, maybe.

  I slip on some sleep shorts and a tank before crawling under my thin blue comforter. Fortunately since it's the south, and it’s the end of August, I won't need to wear extra layers to bed for a while longer.

  I lay still and listen to the sounds of the house, making sure that what I hear is the usual creaking and groaning and not my mother coming up the stairs. Whenever she comes up to use the bathroom, she always uses it as a ‘kill two birds with one stone situation’ and I just can't take any more pain today. I’m drained, completely and utterly drained. I needed to try and regain some strength back if I want to get through school tomorrow.

  Once I’m satisfied it’s just the normal sounds, I slowly allow myself to drift into a restless and nightmare filled sleep. It’s the same every night, the nightmares never leave me.

  I shoot straight up in bed, my heart pounding from yet another nightmare. I can never quite grasp ahold of the remnants long enough to fully remember before the nightmare drifts away completely. Once my heartbeat has finally calmed, I glance over at my battered alarm clock and groan when I see the time.

  Five am.

  I still have a couple of hours before I have to get ready for school an
d knowing that there’s no chance I can go back to sleep now, I decide to go for a run. I dress in my running gear and quietly make my way downstairs making sure that I step lightly and avoid the spots that I know creak.

  I release a relieved breath when I safely make it out of the front door without waking up my mother. I pause to stretch my muscles being careful of my bruised ribs but quickly deciding that although a run is going to cause me pain, the pros far outweigh the cons. I make my way down the short drive and turn left, running past the other run down houses on my street, although none of them are in quite as much disrepair as my own.

  My feet pound the pavement and for a while, that's all I hear. No thoughts, no worries and no pain. There is absolute silence and it’s bliss. This is my escape.

  I probably shouldn't be running with my ribs still healing, but this is the first time the pain has been tolerable. It’s been an extremely long two day’s without my escape and I have desperately missed it. I run for forty-five more minutes and after eight miles I arrive back at the house. I use the same caution to enter as I did to leave, entering as quietly as possible.

  A quick glance into the living room shows that my mother is still passed out, although now she is cuddling a half empty bottle of vodka to her chest like it’s the most important thing in the world. I guess to her it is.

  It’s pitiful really. Surely, she can't have always been like this and I can't help but wonder where it all went wrong for her? What happened to cause her to be this way? I will probably never know the answers to those questions. I run quietly up the stairs and take a quick shower washing off the sweat that coats my skin from my run.

  As I'm stepping out from behind the yellowed shower curtain, my sternum burns with an intense pain that has become familiar to me but seems to last longer than it ever has before. The intensity of it causes me to double over. My sight dims as the pain increases and just as I think I’m going to pass out the pain recedes as quickly as it started.