Protective Ink. Misty Simon

       Chapter Two

      Jackson didn’t feel any different for being invisible. He still saw everything around him in the same old way, smelled things normally, too. His hands looked the same as always when he glanced down at them, flexing and balling his fists. So how did this work and how could he turn it on and off? It would be damned inconvenient if he thought he was invisible in some crucial moment when in fact everyone and their mother could see him.

      He’d always been stealthy; it was one of the reasons he’d been given recon jobs other guys couldn’t pull off during his time in the service, but this was adding a whole new dimension to things.…

      Asking Lissa was probably the smartest thing to do, but he wasn’t feeling very smart as he circled her with the light tread he’d perfected in the military. She was right there, right in his space, and she had no idea what he was doing. And so he did the one thing he knew he shouldn’t—he stood inches behind her and inhaled the scent that was all Lissa. A mixture of the woods and honeysuckle. It was no different than it had been twenty years ago, and it still triggered something in him.

      He raised his hand to run his fingers through the midnight lushness of her hair but stopped himself at the last second. There was stealthy and then there was creepy. He settled for taking her hand in his and kissing her open palm. “Crazy,” he whispered a breath before he apparently popped back into view.

      “Oh,” she said, jumping back and knocking into the filing cabinet behind her.

      He laughed. “Sorry about that.”

      “No.” She cleared her throat. “No, it’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting you to be standing…so close.”

      Taking a step back, he removed himself from the temptation to kiss more than her hand. That was the first and last time he’d invade her space.

      “We should tell Garrett what happened,” she said, her hand on her heart.

      The bottom dropped out of his stomach. Though invisibility was a wicked cool power to have—or at least it would be once he figured out how to control it—there could be some serious drawbacks. What if he had to pay a price? Garrett did, after all.

      Grabbing his T-shirt from the back of the chair, Jackson shrugged into it. He was not going to willingly subject himself to the suffering Garrett had undergone for years because of his power. To expel the darkness he needed to transform his tattoos into weapons, Garrett used to strap himself into a self-made electric chair, zapping his body with currents of light. But after Garrett met Dory, his girlfriend, he didn’t need to do that anymore. She was somehow able to dissipate his darkness—no violence necessary. And what a blessing that was.

      “Jesus, Lissa, do you know what you might have just done to me?” Jackson said. Rage reared its head, but he shoved it back until he couldn’t feel anything but the edges of it. “Can you take the power back?”

      “I can’t.” Lissa stood with her hands behind her back, a frown on her face.

      “Can you block it? Do something so I can’t use it? I refuse to suffer like Garrett.”

      Lissa’s hands came out from behind her back and plopped onto her hips. “I’ve never seen a power like Garrett’s before.… He’s the only one I’ve ever tattooed with that ability…and its price.”

      “Right, and just how many people have you given your ‘special’ tattoos to, anyway?”

      “Don’t be a dick, Jackson. How was I supposed to know you’d go invisible on me? There wasn’t any latent power in you the last time I gave you ink. I didn’t want this to happen any more than you did, you know, but I can’t exactly remove the tattoo.” She paced away from him in the confined space. “I’ve only ever tattooed one person with real superhuman powers, but my great-grandmother tattooed a ton of warriors, and none of them had to suffer like Garrett.”

      He wasn’t buying it. He needed time to think and space away from her. He put his jacket on in anticipation of the frigid November night. “See you around.”

      “You don’t have to be afraid of it, Jackson. Not every power is bad, not everyone has to struggle.” Her fingers glided along his sleeve.

      “Maybe not in your world, cupcake.”

      Then he was gone, out into the night, away from her. Maybe he’d find Garrett and see if he wanted to shoot some pool. Do something normal for once instead of their endless, unwinnable fight against crime.

      Right as that thought crossed his mind, Jackson’s cell phone chirped. It was Garrett’s special ring tone. Digging the phone out of his back pocket, Jackson answered. “Talk to me.”

      “I need Dory. I’m fucked up, and I’m cornered. Help.” And then the connection went dead.

      * * *

      Well, that obviously hadn’t gone quite as planned. Lissa flipped off the lights in her new shop and made her way upstairs to her apartment. When she’d moved into this building four weeks ago, she’d had high hopes for this next phase of her life.

      And Jackson’s tattoo was supposed to have been some kind of christening for the shop. She’d thought it would make a nice circle to give another tattoo to the last person she’d inked before giving Garrett his powers. But it had turned into a disaster. Hopefully it wasn’t an omen for how things would go for Wicked Ink.

      Two years after Jackson’s first tattoo, he’d returned from his initial deployment overseas. When he’d stopped in to say hello to her and her boss, he’d been older, much more so than a mere twenty-four months could explain away, and his eyes had been haunted. All thoughts of him as a guy—as possibly her guy—had fled from her mind. Garrett had needed a savior, someone to teach him discipline and self-control, and who better than Jackson? She had begged him to take the new superhero under his wing. She very clearly remembered begging him. And now she might have inadvertently done the one thing to him she’d never wanted to do to another person after Garrett.…

      Unlocking the front door of her apartment, she let herself in and dropped her bag and keys on the sideboard. She unzipped her boots and left them in the hallway on her way to the living room. A glass of wine would help her relax and regroup. Not all her “special” tattoos came with a price or she would have stopped doing them years ago. She needed to remember that, too.

      Diving into a book would take the edge off and give her some distance from the situation. Originally, she’d been planning to invite Jackson up for dinner in celebration after his tattoo, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen now.

      It had been cool to see him disappear, though. She would bet dollars to donuts he wouldn’t have to hurt himself to make the power work, either. But once he set his mind to something there was little chance of changing it. She knew that one all too well. He was the most stubborn person she’d ever met. And her family was filled with stubborn people. It was going to be hard to convince him that having a power wasn’t a bad thing, but she’d have to try.

      There was a distinct possibility that Jackson could use his power without suffering. After all, not everyone she gave a “special” tattoo suffered from the experience. Still, she hadn’t tried to do more than small boosts since her experience with Garrett. Perhaps it was time to finally get the answers to questions she’d