Chapter One  

[i] I used to wonder, sometimes, exactly what it was that compelled me to wake every morning and live every day. I often awoke questioning my reasons for breathing another breath, or how my heart continued to drive my blood through my very veins. To be honest, I never wanted myself to go on. I wanted everything to stop, for my blood was poisoned, and my heart was broken. I longed for death. 

Whatever it was that kept me alive then, I may never know...[/i]  

During the first moments of waking, the same question always crossed his mind: Why?  

Why, the definition being: a question, concerning the cause or reason for which something is done. Children ask the question every day “Why is the sky blue?” “Why do we have different colored eyes?” “Why can’t the grass be pink or blue? Why green?” Adults, as it turns out, also ask the question, “Why do we have to spend so much on gasoline these days?”  

The word why is riddled throughout the daily vocabulary of every human being. Most of the time, the question is answered when asked. However, for Ian Darnelli, the question he asked had been left unanswered for years. “Why do I exist?”  

To him, his existence and the meaning of was and seemed as though it always would be, a mystery; one enormous question mark. An empty interrogative.  

Ian closed his eyes and nuzzled further into his pillows, dragging a deep breath of stale air into his lungs. His head throbbed, his bones ached. A woman’s soft lips pressed against his shoulder and his skin prickled. He licked his lips and lay still, hoping she would leave him be.  

The intercom buzzed loudly, and the voice of Ian’s most trusted employee said in an obnoxious tone, “Rise ‘n’ shine, butter-biscuit!”  

When there was no response, the voice added, in a much more serious tenor, “Okay, seriously, dude, it’s time to open up and we both know half the people who come in here for a tat today are gonna want your hands to do it, so get up...”  

“Who died and made you the boss?” rasped Ian, rolling over on his back and begrudgedly allowing the girl to drape her body over his.  

“By the way you sound, you did,” replied the voice.  

“I’ll be down in a few minutes, Walt,” sighed Ian.  

“Tell Mia I said ‘Hi’,” Walt said.  

“No,” Ian grunted, turning off the intercom.  

He clenched his teeth as he pushed himself upright, and he swung his legs over the edge of the mattress. His brows knit together when Mia seized his shoulder, however gentle she may have been about it.  

“I have to go to work, Mia,” he muttered, attempting to disentangle himself.  

“I don’t want you to go,” she breathed, pressing her pliant lips to the sinuous curve of his throat, “Please don’t go...”  

He stood to his feet, roughly removing himself from her, “You need to leave.”  

Her brows furrowed when she realized he refused to look at her, not even to glance in her direction. She knew well enough that she was the subject furthest from his thoughts at all times. She knew he used her to extinguish the fire that burned within him for another that he could not have, or would not have him. That morning, Mia could see the burning desire, the restless flame in the green of his bleary, bloodshot eyes, more clearly than she ever had before then. She would never be able to sate his hunger, or his thirst.  

Quietly, she watched as he slipped into a pair of abnormally loose fitting jeans and as he tied his red-paisley bandana over his unruly brown hair. He lit a cigarette and toked it twice before he looked at her. “What?”  

She shook her head and looked away.  

“Mia...” he sighed, sitting on the bed beside her as he plucked the cigarette from his lips, “Look, Mia, I’m sorry... Okay? I just... I have a lot on my plate today... I have five orders for custom boards and three tattoo appointments today... I can’t hang around.”  

“I understand,” she sighed.  

He picked his wallet up off the floor and pulled a five-dollar bill out of it saying, “Buy yourself a coffee, on me.”  

Pressing her lips together, Mia plucked the bill from his fingertips as she stood up and marched into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.  

When Ian came into his tattoo shop, his four employees straightened their backs and turned to face him. There was Tank, who sat slouched over the drawing desk. He was a mountain of a man with sleeves of tattoos on either of his arms, a nose ring, and a record. Walt was scrawny, and unnaturally so. His left arm was painted with a dazzling dragon, and his right shoulder bore a four-leafed clover. His brother, Slim, happened to be the exact opposite in everything other than his skill with a tattoo gun and a piercing needle. Quinn, the only female in the tattooing outfit, wore a pink and white phoenix down up her back and down her right arm, and her right forearm was sprinkled in stars of every size and color. Her eyebrow was pierced with a diamond, as was her navel.  

Ian knew well enough that he fit in with his crew like a piece of puzzle fitted into the right space. But he sometimes hated his place among them.  

“Morning, Boss,” said Tank.  

Ian nodded and sat down at the desk in his own station.  

“Is something wrong, Boss?” asked Quinn, pulling on a pair of rubber gloves as a client sat down on a stool in her space.  

“No... I’m fine...” he muttered, “Just having a time trying to wake up is all.”  

“Rough night?” Walt guessed, grinning.  

“That’s none of your business,” he replied, reaching for a pen when he realized his tattoo gun was out of its place and dripping with black ink, “Did some one mess with my gun?”  

“You said that was none of our business,” joked Walt.  

Ian began to say something, but his phone rang. Instead, he held his middle finger up to Walt as he answered his phone saying, “I.D.”  

“What are you doing, Ian?” said a voice that caused a sudden pang of loss and love echo through his empty chest.  

“Hey... hey, Nykki...” he stuttered, walking outside, “I just started working, why?”  

“Because it’s your turn to take Vic to school and yet, here I am driving to school,” she replied sarcastically.  

“Aww... Crap...” he groaned, rubbing his neck as he sat heavily on the bench outside the Warehouse, “I’m really sorry, baby... I’ll make it up to you. I’ll pick him up, I swear-“  

“Don’t swear,” she interrupted, “Every time you swear you’ll do something it ends up not happening, so don’t swear.”  

“Okay,” he sighed.  

“I’m going to drive by the school at three thirty just in case,” she added, and the line went dead.  

Ian sighed heavily and toked from his cigarette. And that same question crossed his mind a second time that day. Why?