Tainted Attraction (Ziall)

Chapter 16

"Do you ever think about getting this removed?" Zayn asked me while placing his fingers on the small, serial number tattoo that I had on my side. I looked down at it, having to lift my arm slightly and read the four letters inked into my skin. P.O.L.T. Property of Louis Tomlinson. It was his brand telling anyone who saw it that I belonged to him. He was my pimp and I was his property. 

"I hardly notice it anymore." I told Zayn while toweling off and walking into his room to lay on the warm bed.  Zayn frowned at my words, but followed me, towel wrapped around his waist. "It's just a tattoo." I said, pulling a pillow towards me and laying my head down. All the crying and hot baths had tired me out. 

I remember when I first got the tattoo. I had just turned sixteen and Louis had found me on the streets begging for my life. He picked me off the streets and gave me the only option out there for me. So when he pulled me under his wing, I had to be marked just like the others that Louis controlled. I had only met a few of the others and hardly knew anyone's names. Louis liked to keep things separated. He said it was "good for business" or something along those lines. 

But he had told me that I needed to get a tattoo and that it would only take about an hour to get done. I was apprehensive about it because I was virgin skin, having never been in a tattoo parlor before either. We went to this one place where there were no questions asked. Louis sat me down in a chair and a larger man covered in tattoos came into the room, lugging his equipment with him. 

I was nervous about it. A tattoo was something permanent and at the time I didn't think that I would be doing what I do now for this long. It's been almost two years with my seventeenth birthday coming up soon. So freshly sixteen me hadn't seen much of the world and got the tattoo for the money. It's been there ever since. I honestly don't mind ti being there. It's almost hidden under my arm, on the upper part of my ribcage. But for some reason, whenever Zayn brings it up, which has been two times so far, the ink burns in my skin and reminds me that I do not even belong to myself. 

"I see." Zayn stood in front of the bed and stared at me. After a while he went to his dresser and pulled on some briefs. The muscles in his back flexed as he moved. "You should get dressed." He told me. There was a hint of coldness in his voice and I worried that he was going back to how he was before our warm and touching moment. 

"Alright." I got up from Zayn's bed and walked past him, running my fingertips over his bare bare, making his skin rise. While I was on my way back to my own room, I ran into Charles and he was holding a large bag in his hand. "Oh hey, Charles."

"Good evening, Niall." He nodded. "If you might excuse me, I have to get this to Zayn. It's his suit, you see." I moved out of the way for Charles to get passed me in the hallways and watched him enter Zayn's room. I heard more footsteps coming up the stairs, light ones that sounded like heels and saw Naomi's head of red hair come whizzing up the staircase. She saw me and gave me a short smile before rushing past me and towards Zayn's room. 

When I entered my own room, I thought about what Zayn had told me before everything happened. The rules that I had to abide by for the night. I was to introduce myself as his cousin and stay by his side at all times. The cousin thing would be hard to pass since we looked nothing alike, but staying by his side wouldn't be a problem. Especially since Liam would be attending the party.