Marked by My Ex's Biggest Rival novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Open Again

Vickers Ink opened again eight days later, on a Saturday morning, at nine sharp.

Roark cut the chain off my front door with bolt cutters while half of Main Street watched from the diner.

The padlock fell into his hand.

He held it out to me.

"Keep it," Krista said, before I could. "We're framing it."

She'd already bought the frame.

By ten the padlock was hanging on the wall behind the front counter, under glass, with a little brass plate Krista had ordered off the internet.

EMERGENCY ORDER. DENIED.

The line started at the door and went down the block past the hardware store.

Girls of twenty-two, mostly, with their mothers.

Some of them were Yardley. Some were from the packs over the pass.

One had driven nine hours from Wyoming with her grandmother and a cooler of sandwiches.

There were older women too, with old plain bites, holding their collars closed.

"Okay," Krista said into a headset she absolutely did not need. "Awakenings sign the clipboard. Cover-ups take a number. Moon ink happens under the moon, so nobody's getting it today, ma'am, I'm so sorry."

"Where did you get a headset?" I whispered.

"The diner. Don't ask."

My first apprentice started at noon.

She was seventy-one years old and wore rubber boots.

Gran's friend sat down in Krista's piercing chair and held out her hand for a practice skin.

"Your grandmother tried to teach me in 1974," she said. "I told her I'd faint."

"Did you?"

"Twice." She took the machine from me and weighed it in her hand. "My mate's been dead twenty-three years, and I've kept his mark every day of them. If it comes from that, I've got plenty."

Her first line on the practice skin wobbled.

Her second one didn't.

Addison came in at four, straight from the vet clinic, still in her dog scrubs.

The crescent over her heart showed silver at the open collar.

She'd stopped buttoning her top button entirely.

"I want in," she said.

"You're a vet tech."

"Weekends. I'll sweep. I'll mix. I'll do your cover-up linework in plain black." She leaned on the counter. "I can't put the silver in. I know. Not without a mark I'm keeping. I'm in no hurry for one of those."

"Your brother's going to have opinions."

"My brother," Addison said, "is out on the sidewalk handing out free coffee to a line of she-wolves, wearing an apron that says SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WITCH."

← Chapter 21 · All chapters · Chapter 23 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend