The other vampire overcame his momentary shock and lunged at me with amazing speed. He grabbed me around the throat with one hand, nearly crushing my windpipe so that I couldn’t draw a breath. His long white fangs were bared as he snarled at me. “As my companion was stating before he was rudely interrupted, you will clean up this mess you created.”

“I’m not touching Dalton again.”

The vampire squeezed harder and slammed me into the wall, causing white spots to dance before my eyes. As my vision cleared, I noticed that the second vampire had regained his feet and looked even more pissed than his companion. This was turning out to be a great night.

A part of me relaxed when I heard the heavy thud of Bronx’s footsteps as he approached the front of the parlor. I expected him to execute some wonderful violence as he beat these two assholes to bloody pulps. If anything, I was looking forward to him freeing me from the vampire who was currently clamped on my throat, causing my lungs to burn from a lack of air.

To my surprise, the troll stopped at the glass counter and reached under it to some of the hidden shelves where we kept paperwork, ink pens, and our MP3 players. The troll pulled out a large mason jar of buttons of different sizes and colors, and unscrewed the top. I had no idea that the container had been under there, but then the troll was always full of interesting surprises.

The eyes of both vampires locked on the jar, and they seemed to grow even paler. I thought I even heard one of them whisper “No” before Bronx poured a large handful of buttons into his massive palm and tossed them in the middle of the floor. The vampire holding my throat released me so fast that I slid down the wall to the floor. Dark curses were muttered from each as they knelt on the ground, gathering up the buttons. With lightning-fast hands, they sorted the buttons, stacking them according to size, color, and design so that a rainbow of buttons covered the worn carpet on the floor.

Rubbing my throat, I patted Bronx on the shoulder as I stood. Instead of risking his neck and mine, the troll had decided to go the wiser route and take advantage of a known obsessive-compulsive trait in vampires. Seeds, buttons, and even flower petals: if they could be sorted and organized, the vampire was compelled to stop whatever he was doing and complete the task.

When the two were finished, they carefully eased away from the buttons so that they wouldn’t be disturbed. They both looked frustrated and more than a little humiliated. They also looked eager to take that frustration out of my hide, but right now Bronx was still standing by the glass case with his hand on the top of the jar of buttons.

Reaching into my back pocket, I pulled out my wallet. I withdrew fifty dollars and threw it at the nearest vampire. “Here’s Dalton’s refund. Tell him to take his problem to another tattoo parlor and to never step into mine again. Case closed.”

“This case may be closed, but it’s not forgotten,” said the dark-haired vampire as he scooped up the money and stuffed it into his pocket. “Dalton told us what really happened in the alley yesterday. You’re going to attract their attention and bring them all down on our heads. We can’t afford that. We will stop you before we come to that crossroads. TAPSS is watching you.”

The two vampires glided out of the parlor while I fought the urge to throw a handful of fucking buttons at their backs. Bronx gave me a dark look but said nothing as he returned to the back room. I sighed as I grabbed the jar and walked into the middle of the room. I picked up the little piles of buttons and threw them back into the jar. At least I now knew it was there in case we had another vampire run-in. In most cases, such a tactic served as little more than a distraction. I was sure Bronx’s presence in the main room had also helped to deter the two vampires from trying to attack me again. OCD or not, they would have gotten to me eventually.

I sat down on the bench and rubbed my neck. I listened to Trixie finish up with the client who had been present to hear the entire altercation in the front room (fabulous), giving him proper tattoo care instructions while collecting her fee. It was only after he left the shop, the door banging closed behind him, that I dragged my sorry ass into the back room, where I was sure there were a few questions waiting for me and only so much that I was permitted to say.

“What happened in the alley?” Trixie immediately demanded, sitting on the side of one of the tattoo chairs.

“Nothing important. He attacked. I fought back and I won. You should be happy about that,” I teased, but I knew that it wasn’t going to get me anywhere with her. I refused to look over at Bronx. His perceptive eyes unnerved me in too many ways. He simply knew things without being told. He watched while others talked, and he remembered things that were better left forgotten.

“Are we going to lose our license?” Bronx asked.

“They aren’t going to touch your licenses. I was the tattooist. I’m the one they’re pissed at. You’re safe.”

“What about the parlor’s license?”

“I don’t think they would go to that extent yet. They just wanted to scare me a little bit.”

“I hope by the bruises on your neck, it worked,” Trixie grumbled.

“Who are they so afraid of?” Bronx demanded, getting to the real heart of the matter.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said with a shake of my head, hating the words as they left my mouth. I hated evading their questions and I hated even more that I was forced to lie to them. Trixie and Bronx were the closest I had to family in this world. My own family had been lost to me in an attempt to protect them from the Ivory Towers. My coworkers deserved the truth, but I couldn’t give it to them if I was going to keep them protected as much as I possibly could. Trixie had her secrets. Let me have mine so I could sleep at night. “I swear to you, if shit comes down, I will handle it.”

Bronx settled on one of the stools next to his tattoo chair, laying his beefy hands on his knees. “You know, it doesn’t have to be that way.”

I flashed him a smile that crumpled from my lips before it could fully form. “This time, it does.”

I had done the impossible and walked away from something that no one was allowed to turn their back on. I knew that it was going to haunt me until someone finally killed me over it, but I refused to drag my friends into my mess if I could help it. And for the moment, I thought the best way to protect them was to keep them as ignorant as possible. The less people knew about me, the better. When there’s a monster under your bed, sometimes it really is best not to look.

THERE WAS AN unexpected gift waiting for me when I came into the shop the next afternoon. I paused as I reached to turn on the overhead bank of lights in the main tattoo room and saw Trixie’s body outlined by the light seeping in through the shaded windows. She was stretched out in one of the tattoo chairs with one arm thrown over her eyes, her breathing even as she slept. In the stillness, her beauty seemed to have softened, as if I had just chanced upon Sleeping Beauty after scaling the castle walls to the tallest tower in the keep. Her long blond hair cascaded from the head of the chair in a golden waterfall, while her pale skin glowed in the dim afternoon light. Her beauty was nearly heart stopping.

When she was moving gracefully about the parlor, perpetually light on her toes, cracking jokes and intent on her work, it was easier to overlook or put aside her beauty and focus on the person. I could remember that she was just a friend and coworker. It was easier to put up that mental barrier against both the sexual attraction and the something more that ached in my chest when she smiled at me. But in the stillness of that vulnerable moment, it all came rushing back to me so that I could barely breathe.