SLAYER ↬ BOOK ONE

ONE

 When Dash Mackenzie woke up to the blinding morning light, he wanted to roll back over and fall back into that deep slumber slowly slipping from his grasp. He sat up, in fact, and went to follow that stupid routine he did every morning. Well, he thought, it seemed to be a routine everyone did. It was just the simple change your clothes, brush your teeth, do your hair. He had changed, into a simple grey shirt and jeans, and then peered at his reflection. Sneaking out of his short sleeves was a the curl of a line, the ending and swipe of what his mother would describe as a fine tipped paint brush. Although Dash did some pretty weird things in his sleep, he never painted, especially not on himself. He thought to himself about his roommate and best friend Alec, but Alec had a shaky hand and absolutely terrible depth perception, so it couldn't have been him. 

He wasn't drunk last night, was he? No, no, he didn't drink, but it was the only thing that made sense. Wait, it didn't make sense, he finally realized. He didn't have a hangover, and if he didn't have a hangover, he couldn't have been black out drunk last night. 

All his conclusions were dead, and he was starting to feel a bubbling in his stomach, a knot that made him feel nauseous. He rubbed his forehead with his right hand, a sigh that was nearly exasperated leaving his mouth. Why was he so worried? He hadn't even lifted up his sleeve to see what the curl led to. So he reached up, seizing the material between his thumb and index finger, and pulled it up to the edge of his shoulder. Even across all the terrible freckles that lay on his skin, he could see the marking, the tattoo sort of thing, clear as glass. 

It was a bird, with a scribbling word under it that made him scrunch up his nose and cross his arms, a bird that made him regret his whole life. 

"Dash?" He heard a voice behind him and spun around, not at all surprised to see Alec standing there with pajama pants and a robe on. However, Dash was sure the stupid robe was useless, because it was wide open. He snapped himself out of his thoughts; utter luck he did, because his best friend was about to flick his nose. "What's on your mind, sweetheart?"

"This." 

When Dash pointed to the tattoo, Alec's bemused and impish expression fell, returned with a concern for his room mate. The other man, squinting, reached forward to brush his fingers across it. That was when Dash realized the panic had returned and it didn't feel like panic anymore, it felt more like dread. "What is it?" Dash managed, and as if Alec knew all the answers, turned to stare at him pleadingly. "Do you know?"

"I took Spanish," Alec explained, and for a second, Dash was confused. "The bottom word 'incendiar' means to set aflame, or light something on fire." The man put his hands on his hips in a proud stance, and had his best friend giggling and covering his mouth.

The fact that something relating to a burn was written forever, it reminded him of the burn his mother had on her wrist, and he almost wanted to go tell her they could relate now. Two burns, but he guessed now wasn't the time. "What's 'set aflame' got to do with a bird?" Dash said, and this time, it was in exasperation.  Of course he was annoyed, it was kind of odd to have some tattoo thing appear on your arm, and the internet was his best friend more than Alec sometimes. That did explain why he reached for his phone and searched the freakin' tattoo up, quite hastily. When no searches came up, he looked towards Alec.

Then his phone beeped, made a buzzing noise in his hand, and he jumped and looked at it. An unknown number had just messaged him, and the eerie thing was, it was merely an address sitting on the screen. 

A small and upbeat sound began to play from the device, a song Dash didn't recognize, but it made the whole thing worse.  

  • •• 

It turned out the stupid address had been a street corner filled with hustling passerby's and loud honks of horns. Dash had been standing outside, in the freezing cold with just a t-shirt on, looking around curiously. No one was going to show up, he assumed, because no one had shown up. 

"Alec, I think we should go." He said, and looked around. Alec was no where in sight. When he glared further around the two sides of the corner, he found nothing. No sign of his bestfriend laid anywhere on the corner, and Dash felt utterly stupid for assuming Alec would have stayed on the cold street corner with him. He was probably cuddling up with a mug of hot chocolate back in their rickety apartment, and he sighed. 

Damn it, he was going home.

He thought he was, at least, until someone grabbed his bicep and yanked him in an unknown direction and then into an alley.

"I'm Rosaline, and if you talk, I will not hesitate to slice your throat."