Ink Me Insane (Book One)

Eighteen

"I. Hate. My. Life. I. Hate. My. Life." Rene muttered bouncing her head against the bathroom wall in her and Cassie's room.

She groaned and rubbed the small red spot forming on her forehead from her frustration. This was so ridiculous. It was her choice and it was the right choice. Danny and Cassie shouldn't get mixed up in all this crap Rene had plunged head first into. She was right, right? Then why did it hurt so much? Besides the fact she had been having a head banging sessions sans the heavy metal music. Rene met her gaze in the mirror. The eyes were hollow and critical. "Don't look at me like that. We both know this was for the best. I might play jump rope with my sanity and risk losing the game, but that doesn't mean they have to."

And now she was talking to herself again. How had everything changed so fast? This morning she had been so excited to be back in the game. She had naively thought there was a chance she could actually do something with her life, maybe even make a positive difference in the world instead of vanishing without a trace. What a childish thought. What a crazy thought. Life was never that simple. This was no fairy tale. God help her, she was everywhere lately. I. Hate. My. Life. She lifted a hand slowly, her reflection mimicking the movement, and slapped herself hard across the cheek.

"Wow, that hurt more than I thought it would!" Her cheek burned red accusingly at her.

Alright, no more self-pity. It was time to focus. Rene gripped the sink's edge staring into her own eyes until the green consumed her. Cassie had yet to come back to the room. She would have to eventually though, and Rene needed to be ready. She had to toughen up and not crack the moment she saw her. She hadn't picked up the nickname ice princess for no reason. Dig deep and drag her out again. Find the ice and pack it back around your soul. Cassie and Danny had chipped it away over the years. They had snuck between the fissures slipping in to warm her freezing heart, but she needed to reseal all of them. Be strong. Be cold. She had to protect them even if they didn't want anything to do with her anymore. Ice them out.

Her own sharp scream pierced the room, "What the hell?"

Her left shoulder was biting into her nerves firing off pain. She ripped and torn at her shirt in pain. She managed to cause a tear in the collar allowing for her to slip the one side down her shoulder. She turned around to exam it in the mirror. Her pale, thin shoulder was shaking in the reflection for more reasons than one. A small patch of ice was seeping across her shoulder blade. Even as she watched, the ice crawled in fine lines mapping out her veins. She bit her lip to suppress the next bubbling scream so it came out a gurgle. This took giving someone the cold shoulder to a whole new extreme. What was happening to her?

The skin around the ice was turning a sickly white. At this rate, she was going to lose a limb to frost bite. Tears of hopelessness fell down her face as she angrily grabbed a toothbrush and stab repeatedly at the ice with the handle. What the hell was wrong with her? Was this all in her mind? Was she just attacking something that wasn't even there? The ice certainly felt real enough. Its sting was jabbing needles into her body down to the bone. Her body...Rene stopped dropping the toothbrush. She knew her body. After years of examining repeatedly out of necessity, she had memorized all the scars, mapped out the freckles and moles, and traced each of the ink...oh God help her.

Somewhere underneath that layer of ice laid in wait a set of twin short swords. They had appeared not long after she had first been emitted to the asylum. By all appearances, the blades were ready to charge into battle. Both were deep bluish, grey steel and had a pale whitish aurora with the slightest tint of blue enveloping them. The hilts had no cross guard and their grip had some sort of black wrapping ending in pommels shaped into diamond spikes. The spikes themselves were an array of azure. Just like the other tattoos, they were beautiful in their detail and dynamic. None of the ink were simple. It would have taken hours under the needle to complete one of them. Yet they appeared basically instantaneously and given this, and other recent events, that wasn't even the weirdest part about them.