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

  I feel like there's more to the story than that, but I have just met them. I’m not going question them, if they wanted me to know they would’ve told me.

  "Anyway, these are my brothers Maverick and Levi" Kai gestures to the other two.

  Maverick is the more muscled one and Levi is the one with the unique eyes. I send them a small smile.

  "Want to sit down Titch?" Maverick asks me.

  I raise my eyebrow at the nickname.

  "You're just so small I thought it fit" he smiles at me, shrugging, as I sit down next Hunter and opposite him and Levi.

  Everyone pulls out their lunches and starts to eat and I sit listening to the easy banter and friendship between them, wishing that I could have it too. Maybe one day.

  Levi glances up from his meal and points to the table in front of me. I frown at him not understanding.

  "Are you not eating?"

  All the guys stop eating to look at me small frowns on their faces.

  "Oh, I'm not hungry" I state, glancing away and hoping that my tone is as nonchalant as I was aiming for. The truth is, I couldn't waste what little food there was in the pantry to make lunch this morning. I need to save as much of it as possible.

  "Are you sure? You can have my chips if you want? Or I can get you something from the cafeteria?" Jax asks me, his frown deepening like he somehow knows I’m not telling him the whole truth.

  I catch them all sharing a look over the top of my head, seemingly having a silent conversation that I'm not privy too. I'm starting to feel overwhelmed again, like they are getting too close to asking questions I don't want to answer.

  They all seem to be a lot more observant than any of the other people I have tried to make friends with before. Not that I want friends it's too dangerous, I need to keep reminding myself of that. For some reason though it's a lot harder to remember the reason why I can't be friends with these guys, I keep feeling myself being drawn towards them.

  Wanting to escape I get up quickly grabbing my bag.

  "I have to go to class, I need to talk to my teacher before the lesson starts, thanks for letting me sit with you" I say in a rush barely taking a breath before I'm running out of the cafeteria and not noticing the death glares the other girls are shooting at me. The same girls, that I’ve been invisible to for the last three years.

  I walk down the hallway deciding to walk around for the next twenty minutes until class starts. As I'm walking, I silently berate myself. They definitely think I'm weird now and won't want to talk to me anymore, let alone be my friend. I know that's what I said I wanted but I'm so lonely. I'm just so sick and tired of being by myself. I want a real friendship and I think these five guys could be that for me.

  I feel like I keep talking in circles, my mind constantly skipping from one decision to the other. Never fully committing to either letting them in and trying to be friends or keeping them at a distance for their own good. As I walk around the corner, I notice the same group of popular girls that I saw this morning with the two girls that were talking about their Imprint Tattoos. I start to walk around them when one of them shoots their hand out and grips my arm tightly.

  "You need to let go of my arm right now" I say in a deathly calm voice.

  I may be quiet and yes men do scare me, that’s a fairly recent development thanks to my dickhead ex. I know that if I wanted to, I could defend myself against my mother, but I don't want to hurt her. I can't do to her what she does to me. I don’t want to stoop to her level and end up like her.

  Despite being quiet and shy unless I’m comfortable around someone, I don't let people walk all over me. I put up with enough crap at home so if anyone tries to pull the same shit anywhere else, I stand up for myself, I will not be walked all over.

  Shock covers blondies face temporarily before it morphs into an ugly smirk.

  "What are you going to do, skank?"

  I sigh, even her insults aren't intelligent.

  "I will remove it for you" I say calmly grinning at her and letting her know she isn't intimidating me in the slightest. Her eyes widen slightly before she scowls, squeezes my arm tightly and then let's go before getting in my face.

  "Listen, you little nobody skank" she growls at me as her friends line up beside her smirking, "I don't know who you think you are but Hunter is mine, stay the fuck away from him."

  I burst out laughing. Hunter? She's seriously into Hunter? I mean I can't blame her at all, he is gorgeous but from the little I know about him she would be the last person he would be into. I get the feeling that he doesn't like fake. He also probably wouldn’t like that it’s the first day and some random is staking her claim on him.

  "Have at it" I say still chuckling as I walk away to my next class.

  The rest of the afternoon goes by quickly, and I try to avoid the guys as much as possible. I need to get my thoughts in line and decide whether I want to try and pursue a friendship with them or if it would be better if I kept them out of my life.

  Safer.

  I also have to come to terms with the fact that I am extremely attracted to all five of them. I know that they would never reciprocate my feelings, I'm just a boring, broken girl. Although It’s not conventional to have such strong feelings towards five different guys at the same time, for some reason it doesn't feel wrong.

  Which means I also need to think about whether I can put my feelings aside to pursue a friendship with them. I'm so tired of being alone.

  I walk briskly home praying my mother isn't in one of her moods and I can just slip past her and up to my room to get on with my homework. I listen at the door before I make my way in. If there's crashing and the sounds of glass breaking then I'll just go for a walk down to the park, do my homework there and come back in a few hours.

  Fortunately, it's silent so I carefully make my way through the door trying to avoid the glass still on the floor from the bottle she threw this morning. I silently creep up to her partially closed door, looking through the small sliver of space to see her drinking and watching some sitcom about housewives.

  I make my way silently, up the stairs to drop my bags in my room and then just as quietly go back down and clean the broken glass up from by the door. She will never clean it up herself even though she's the one that made the mess but if I leave it, she'll use it as an excuse to use me as a punching bag. Not that she ever really needs an excuse. I'm really hoping she will just leave me alone tonight. After the day I have had, although good because of meeting the guys, I just need some time to decompress.

  After it’s all cleaned up, I go back up to my room and make a start on my homework. It doesn't take me long to finish and I'm soon going through my bedtime routine, having a shower and getting into my pyjamas before I climb under my comforter feeling thankful that my mother hasn't called for me.

  It's never good for her to call for me.

  I need to figure out what I'm going to do about the guys. If I'm being completely honest with myself there's not really much, I need to think about. I don't want to be on my own anymore, I don't want to have to deal with my mother and the potential threat from my dick of an ex by myself.

  I don’t want to drag them into my mess, and I want to avoid telling them too much about myself for as long as possible, but I want the potential to have the support of another person or in this case five people. I've only known them for a day and in that time I've barely had any sort of conversation with them, but I feel inexplicably drawn to them for whatever reason and that makes me want to get to know them and as scary as it is to me, I want them to get to know me too.

  My thoughts are drawn to my new Imprint Tattoo, I briefly consider that maybe the guys are the reason for it but immediately dismiss the idea as improbable at best and downright ridiculous at worst. It can't be about all five of them that would be impossible and I'm not that fortunate anyway. Which makes me wonder what on earth this Imprint Tattoo could mean.

  I try to think more about the reason behind my new tattoo, but my though
ts keep circling back to Jax, Hunter, Kai, Levi and Maverick. I can't help but once again think that everything is about to change, I just hope it's for the better and not the worse.

  I'm hoping my luck is going to change. Finally, coming to a decision, I decide that starting tomorrow I'm going to let them in a little bit. I'm not going to run away and I'm at least going to try not to be too weird, although at this point in my life the weird is now ingrained pretty damn deep so that might be a losing battle.

  I'll just have to aim for not awkward instead. I fall asleep thinking about the guys with a slight smile on my face.

  Unfortunately, because I was so distracted by my thoughts of them when I first came upstairs, I forgot to lock my door and my mother uses it to her advantage in the early morning hours, crashing her way through the door. I shoot up in bed as soon as I feel the air shift. I briefly curse myself for being so fucking stupid, as my mom comes flying towards me her fists already swinging.

  I try to scoot away from her, but my legs are too tangled up in my comforter. Unable to escape I try to minimise the damage she will cause by curling up into a ball and trying my hardest to protect my head. I have no idea what set her off this time but I'm praying she burns out of energy quickly.

  She lands a hard blow on my already bruised ribs and I hear a sickening crack, I choke down a sob not wanting to encourage her further. After one last blow this one glancing off my shoulder she's finally had enough and stumbles her way back out of my room and down the stairs.

  I lay there for a while trying to gather up my strength before I slowly and incredibly painfully, make my way over to the door shutting and locking it. I grab some bandages from my emergency kit before remembering that I recently read online that you shouldn’t wrap ribs if they’re broken as it can cause pneumonia. So instead I take out an ice pack, squeezing and shaking it to activate it and gently press it against my ribs whilst taking as deep breaths as I can manage and then taking a couple of painkillers.

  A glance at my alarm clock shows me it's about three in the morning. I don't have to be up for school until seven and although I really shouldn't go in like this, it would be worse to stay at home where she can get to me.

  I need a couple more hours of sleep, I just want to escape for a bit. I carefully lay down on my bed trying my hardest to find a somewhat comfortable position to sleep in. Most of the blows were on my stomach and ribs but she did land one in my shoulder that I know is going to leave a nasty bruise.

  After what feels like hours of uncomfortable and incredibly painful shifting but is probably only a couple of minutes, I finally give up trying to be comfortable and just try to sleep.

  I'm miserable.

  I start thinking about the guys and a sense of peace flows through me taking away a small portion of the pain. I realise that the guys have already become my happy place, which is a pretty terrifying thought actually but I’m too tired to focus on that right now. Once again, I fall asleep with a tiny smile on my face, thinking about my guys.

  The Guys

  We’re all sitting around the living room of our shared house, talking about Sage. She is so beautiful and although we didn’t spend much time with her, we can see a fire in her that’s currently trying to break free of the dark shadows that are trying to smother it. You can easily see the shadows that torment her dancing in her beautiful grey eyes. After all like recognises like.

  None of us have perfect backgrounds.

  We all want to help her but know that we can be a bit overwhelming, even more so to her because she seems so wary to begin with. Even Hunter seems taken with her and he even has a small smile on his face whilst we are talking about her.

  She isn’t a part of the plan; we are supposed to gather as much information as possible about the son of a known local mafia leader, who no one has ever been able to get close to. The idea was to get to him through the students he sells to, since he is a couple of years older than the students themselves. He’s supposedly selling drugs and guns to the kids at the local high school.

  Our mission is dangerous. We are all highly trained for this kind of thing, but it doesn't make it any less dangerous. We all agree though that now we have met her, we want to get to know her and we want to help her fight whatever demons she seems to be fighting by herself. All of us have demons that we have to deal with but having our brothers standing by us and helping us makes it a fuck-ton easier to fight them.

  As we are discussing a few details to do with the mission all five of us suddenly get a sharp shooting pain in our ribs causing us all to yell out loud. We frantically pull up our shirts shocked to find severe bruising that seems to appear as if from nowhere.

  As we look to check on one another we notice that the bruising is in exactly the same place on every one of us. Glancing at each other in confusion we watch in morbid fascination as the giant purple bruise slowly fades until it’s like it wasn't there at all. We all sit in shock for a few minutes until Levi quickly gets up from the couch and tells us he's going to do some research about whatever the fuck just happened, to see if he can find out what it means. We all slowly nod before making our way up to our rooms for the night. Our brains spinning with the possible reasons for the strange bruises to appear.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Son of a bitch, what is that fucking noise. My groggy and pain filled mind tries to fight through the haze of sleep and slowly succeeds. Once I’m somewhat more awake my arm slowly and painful creeps out from under the covers and I smack my hand down on the top of my beeping alarm.

  Fuck.

  I am in so much pain. I debate whether I actually want to attempt to go into school today but a crash from downstairs makes my decision for me.

  To school I go!

  I don't think I should let my walls down around the guys like I had planned. At least not today. I learnt yesterday that they are far too observant and will pick up on my distress and pain almost immediately. Especially since I'm going to have to move extremely slowly and carefully to avoid further injuring my battered ribs.

  I should probably go and get them checked out by someone who at least knows a little bit more about medical stuff than I do. I don't know anyone though and I can’t go to the hospital, so my own self-diagnosis will have to do.

  I take the pain killers; I had the forethought to leave on my nightstand last night and wait for them to kick in before I slowly make my way to my tiny closet. There is no way I will be able to pull up a pair of jean shorts right now so instead I choose a pair of black leggings, a long black tank top and a long thin grey button up cardigan made out of jersey material that covers my butt, it’s too hot today to wear a cosy jumper, no matter how much I want to just for comfort.

  Slipping on a pair of black flip flops that I can put on without bending down. I carefully empty my book bag only leaving a pen, a thin notebook and the few pieces of homework that were due in today, in an attempt to make it as light as possible.

  Wrapping my arm around myself for extra support and because that arm is pretty much useless anyway, I quietly make my way out of my room and out of the house with no further incidents.

  My mother obviously exhausted herself last night beating the crap out of me and is still sleeping.

  I had to leave extra early this morning because It’s going to take me a long time to make the walk to school since I’m in so much pain. The morning is still crisp, and the breeze is cold although the sun is starting to gradually warm it up. It's still early enough that only a couple of cars are out on the road and the silence is incredibly peaceful. I soak up as much of that peace as I can, peace is a rare thing in my world.

  I have to stop to rest several times on the way, but I finally make it to school with a few minutes to spare. As soon as I walk through the front gates, I can feel eyes on me, and I just know it's my guys.

  No one else ever pays me any attention.

  I straighten my spine and try to walk normally even though it hurts lik
e a bitch. I know eventually, if I want to get to know the guys better, I will have to tell them about this part of my life but not yet. I want them to get to know me before they learn about my shitty home life.

  A sharp pain stabs through my side and I inhale sharply, glancing out the corner of eye hoping the guys haven't noticed. They are all standing holding their left sides and wincing. The pain fades and I frown slightly as I walk through the doors to the school, that was extremely fucking weird.

  The walk to my locker is painful but I do it and somehow manage to avoid the hordes of people pushing and shoving each other through the hallways. I grab the book I need for my first class and make my way to the classroom taking my usual seat in the back corner. It's not long before the chair beside mine is pulled out and Jax sits down next to me. I can feel his eyes on me and as much as I want to turn and talk to him, I can't. They are too observant and I'm not ready to share that part of my fucked-up life. I mean come on! I met them yesterday and we said at most three sentences to each other before I freaked out and bolted.

  I want them to get to know me before they find out about all the shit that happens in my life. That way, maybe, they'll stay.

  "Are you ok Sage?" Jax asks quietly, concern evident in his voice.

  The fact that he’s concerned is like a balm to my battered body and I feel myself soften my defences against him, unintentionally. I turn in my chair slightly, hiding the cringe of pain that goes through me.

  "I'm fine Jax, thank you though" I say softly.

  "Are you sure sweetheart? I can't shake the feeling that's somethings wrong."

  I frown at him in confusion and frustration.

  "I'm fine" I state bluntly turning back to face the front.

  Lying to him feels wrong. So incredibly wrong and that just makes me frown harder. Because of the life I live lying has become second nature to me and I don’t normally feel guilty about doing it.

  The rest of the lesson passes quickly and although I really want to, my body will not allow me to make the quick exit that my head and heart want to. Finishing packing my bag, I slowly make my way to the door of the classroom.