Sealed in Ink ¤ l.h. [The Bound: Book One]

Chapter Five.

Chapter Five.

Luke had changed his door sign to closed much earlier than he usually did.

When Elle asked him for a new tattoo, he feared what it would be about. His fears were right.

When she handed him the piece of paper with what she wanted to get, his blood ran cold. In the white surface, an intricate design of a timepiece was drawn, but instead of having any numbers for the needles to point at, in the center of the watch, four small words were written.

"Currens foras de vita." The Latin words rolled off his tongue with a sense of familiarity. 

Luke glanced up at Elle. 

"It means—'" she started, but Luke stopped her.

"I know what it means," his voice was dry and strained. He turned around to get his tattoo gun, but really he just wanted to recompose himself. 

Running out of life. That's what the words meant. 

If it were someone else, Luke would think that she's just worried about growing old and not accomplishing something with her life. But this was Elle, and even though she never told him what was going on with her, he knew something was seriously wrong in her life. 

His fingers fiddled clumsily, trying to change the needle in the gun, but this one ended up breaking with the force he was using in trying to replace it.

"Fuck," he swore under his breath. Before he grabbed for another needle, he turned around to face a frowning Elle.

"Are you okay? I've never heard you curse before," she said quietly.

Luke's temper didn't subside.

"Are you okay?" he asked, emphasizing the 'you' part.

Elle said nothing.

"Right. Of course you won't tell me. Just like I'm sure you won't tell me why you want to get this tattoo, or any of the others you already got," he said angrily. He was frustrated, she could tell. But she wasn't about to spill her guts at his first sign of frustration.

"I never ask questions Elle. You've been coming here every week for 6 months and not once have I asked you any questions about you or your life. I've been waiting for you to be ready to tell me, to let me help you. But it hasn't happened. Now I'm starting to think that it's never going to happen".

"Luke, it's not like that okay... I just—" but he cut her off.

"Please just let me be here for you, Elle. We are doing this thing now, whatever this is, and I care about you and I'm assuming that you care about me too, so just let me be here for you".

She was shaking her head at his words and it only served to upset him more.

"Why do you care so much?" she asked in return. She had meant to yell or scream, but it came out barely a whisper.

"Because it's you!" he said, now even more frustrated. "I'm worried about you and about what's going on and it's killing me not knowing. Every single time that you come here, you have this haunted look in your eyes, like you've seen something terrible and I wish I could..."

"You wish you could what? Make me unsee what I have seen? Erase the horrible things I have to live through? Well, you can't!" this time she did raise her voice. Luke blinked and took a step back. He let out a long hard breath and pushed a hand through his hair.

"Elle, I just... I just want to help," his voice had lowered in volume. He sounded defeated.

"I'm fine," she lied. Luke saw right through it.

"You're not," he said softly, "I can see the light dimming in your eyes". 

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A/N: So they just had their first fight :(

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Liz x