“What I’m seeing doesn’t define you.”
Yeah, it does. More than you know.
Chapter Seventeen
She touched every scar on his back. Every fucking one.
Shade didn’t know if she was counting them, something he’d never done because he didn’t care to know.
She started at the top and worked her way down.
“These look like cigar or cigarette burns,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.
It wasn’t a question but, even if it was, he wouldn’t answer that they were both.
“I don’t know what this is.” She brushed her fingers lightly over one and then another along his rib cage. He knew what she was touching. They were different from the circular scars because they were done with a hot Bic lighter.
Because of his countless scars, he never had the club’s colors tattooed onto his back. The ink wouldn’t hide them and he didn’t want to explain to the tattoo artist what they were or how he’d gotten them. It wasn’t only one or two, there were so many, it would only be human nature to ask.
Having the Fury’s colors inked permanently onto his back was not a requirement, thank fuck. If it had been, he might’ve moved on. The only requirement the executive committee made for displaying their colors was for them to wear their cuts when representing the club.
Over the years, once Deb freed him, he’d had his arms tattooed, but only on the skin exposed when he wore a tank top, which boiled down to only his arms. Everywhere else he was tattoo-free and planned on remaining that way.
The closer Chelle got to the small of his back, the tenser he became. Every muscle locked, his jaw clenched and his fingers curled tightly into his palms.
While the circular scars continued down the back of his legs and finished at his feet, they skipped over his ass, since that was Daddy David’s favorite part of him. He didn’t want to ruin the “perfect sweet peach” he paid for.
However, the motherfucker had done something else to Julian one night in a fit of rage that ruined him in future buyers’ eyes. While the burns were bad enough to bring down his value, this was worse since most owners didn’t want the skin of their sex slave marred in any way. Unless they planned on snuffing the child once they were done with him or her.
From what he had seen over that decade, he knew that was what happened to damaged goods. Sold cheap and disposable.
But most wanted their boys to be young and their skin to be perfect, especially if they were used for commercial purposes. Films, photos or to add to their stable as an investment to make scratch.
But what Julian did one night had pushed David to lose his shit and lash out in a way Julian never expected. In a way most people wouldn’t expect. At least, normal people.
Chelle traced each letter in the word “MINE” that had been carved into the small of his back with the same knife Julian had come close to killing David with. It wasn’t only the claim that had been cut slowly and deliberately into his skin, under it was an arrow that ended at the top of his ass crack.
That permanent claim had been his punishment after the struggle over the knife. That struggle also almost filleted his gut wide open. When he failed at slicing David’s throat, Julian had tried to plunge the knife into his own chest to end it all.
Even at fourteen, he hadn’t been strong enough to follow through once David got a hand on the knife. When they fought over the blade, it sliced Julian open.
Unfortunately, not deep enough for him to die. But enough to leave a permanent reminder after a “doctor” showed up at the house to stitch Julian closed.
After he was bandaged and the bleeding had stopped, David was still furious at not only Julian, but at himself for trusting Julian.
It had taken a year, but Julian had managed to convince David he was trustworthy and enjoyed everything David did to him and would willingly do things in return. It was only then that the man allowed Julian to move more freely about the house and actually moved him into his bedroom, where Julian continued to pretend to be compliant.
Every night Julian laid in that bed with David next to him while he worked on his escape plan as the cum seeped from him. When Julian was finally trusted enough to have access to the kitchen, he hid a butcher knife under his clothes and then under the mattress. Finally, when David was sleeping, Julian tried to slice the motherfucker’s throat.
He only managed to nick the skin before David woke up and they began to struggle over the blade. The price Julian paid after it was all over was the long, thick scar along his stomach and David’s claim carved above his ass.