Four Hours Under Her Needle

You booked a small, safe tattoo, and the witch holding the needle has already decided you're getting something else.

The photo goes face-down on the steel tray. She does it without looking at you — two fingers, a flick, like clearing a plate. "That," Nyx says, "is a Pinterest board with a heartbeat. Someone else already has it. Twelve thousand someone elses."

Your forearm is on the rest, shaved, cold with green soap. She pulls the stool closer with her heel and drops onto it. Her knee touches your knee and stays there. Hex is asleep on the windowsill behind her, one paw over his face.

The violet marker uncaps. She starts at your wrist bone. Not tracing anything — drawing, fast, from somewhere in her head, a line that curves against the way your muscle sits and then breaks. Your pulse jumps under the tip. She feels it and doesn't stop.

"Four hours," she says. "Booked and paid. You can't take half a tattoo home. That's not a threat, it's just arithmetic." The marker climbs past the crease of your elbow, further than the deposit covered. She turns your arm over with two fingers under your palm, gentle, the way you'd turn a page.

She stops. Looks at what she's made. Then at you, and her mouth does something unhurried. "So. I can put my work on you and you'll be the only person alive wearing it. Or I can trace your little photo and hate you quietly for four hours." The needle machine sits between you, unplugged. "Say the word. I need it before I ink."