'And the black keys

Never looked so beautiful

And a perfect rainbow never seemed so dull

And the lights out

Never had this bright a glow'

It was the only thing I hadn't given much attention to, and of course, my curious gaze had to peer, just a quick discreet glance, which ended in a staring frown when I caught sight of the lines and shapes.

A map?

"Yes, inspector."

I jumped, my hand, which had been hovering above the papers, stopping midair, as I realized I'd let out my thoughts in a whisper, and mostly, that he was close enough to hear my quiet murmur.

He was close enough to feel the skip of my heart rate.

Yet when I expected him to grow distant or throw a sharp comment, he just wrapped his arms around my waist, resting his chin on my shoulder, and as my heart started up again with fiercer energy, my fingers too, gently tracing the outlines that felt familiar.

"Subrose?"

He hummed against that fresh mark on the hollow of my neck, but I didn't lose my focus.

There was something intriguing me, almost calling a tickling in my guts as if it was like the secret maps the little girl from my dream had used to find the treasures. Though maybe it was just because it was part of Blade's life.

"Why?"

"Business. You don't wanna know... Let's go."

Even if I could already hear his lifted eyebrow and sly smirk, my head snapped towards him.

"Don't worry, it's not murder."

The thought hadn't crossed my mind in this long second, but I still let out a faint breath of relief. It was already a good thing, although it didn't ease the itch of curiosity, and I was still searching in the crystalline shades of his gaze for a clue, as if I'd ever pierced through the depths there without him letting me.

"It's a delivery."

I blinked, needing a moment to process he'd answered so easily, and maybe I was testing my luck when he pulled me by the waist and I slipped out of his embrace to turn back to the map.

"Drug?" It wasn't a question as my brain connected the dots as fast as my fingers grazed the drawings. "And it's the police?" I stopped on the red crosses, and it wasn't only my shaky fingers halting as I spotted the marks scattered near the area of the police station and all around the town.

"Yes." His voice was casual, his posture I could feel against my back as unaffected as always, then why a weight seemed to fall down in the small room?

Maybe it was just on my chest, making me hold my breath, as I once more took in the reality of the world, of his world because in mine, it only happened through kids' games. But here, it was adult matters with serious consequences.

"And you're the beer cap?" I approached softly the indented disc of metal, which was stuck on the outskirts of the Subrose map.

"The drug cargo. It's a truck, and we can't use our usual paths 'cause the cops 'mysteriously' spotted us last week."

"'Mysteriously'?" I frowned, looking at his features as attentively as at the puzzle of lines on the table. Well, with the sharp edges, the defined shapes, and the indents appearing and disappearing on his right cheek, it was also an enigmatic maze, where it was easy to get lost in while searching for the hidden treasures.

"Yes, 'mysteriously' just before our biggest deal, when we've been using the same roads for years." New lines appeared between his eyebrows, making the paths look more inaccessible as I gazed into his eyes.

"What do you mean? They're just doing their job to enforce the law." My words were careful as I realized I wasn't on the side I usually was. I was on the line, and the perspective was different.

"Yeah, sure... Then why the Carrion's rival gangs can pass their shitty dope just by the Subrose beltway with no sweat?"

Two daggers, not his eyes, but his voice on the words 'Carrion' and 'shitty dope', so much that it made me flinch as if a knife had been pointed to my throat.

I wasn't scared, but it was a reflex, and he must have noticed as his hand reached for mine with a touch more featherlike than ever.

"Not everything is black or white."

I shuddered again, yet this time it was because of two figures that I'd almost managed to forget through everything that had happened here flashing back in my mind, and they were followed by a more familiar silhouette in blue when Blade added,

"Things aren't always what they seem."

I swallowed hard; however, if the saying felt bitter the first time, coming back, it seared the back of my throat with sourness, and I shook my head, denying what he'd said, and mostly what was forming in my head. I refused to believe the police could step out of the law, and even less to picture gray areas as one particular person was representing it in my mind.

Raymond might have been Spencer's dad, but he was also an important figure I'd always looked up to for his integrity.

"Never mind. I'll find another way. I'm the best, that's why the boss asked me." Blade's grin was back, letting out rolling syllables as he tugged on my hand, pulling me out of the room.

Yet it wasn't as easy to bring me out of my thoughts and to 'never mind'.

My mind was resembling the map of Subrose: a maze of lines, corners, and dead-ends but no way out and no clear path as there were too many cluttered thoughts standing on the sides like the red crosses that had been almost everywhere on the paper. Almost.

"The Callum farm!" I exclaimed, lowering my voice when I realized we were standing in a dim hallway, and from the change of atmosphere and smell, I could guess we were inside the house. "If I remember there was no red cross there, and it's near the outskirts. There's easy access, and they have deliveries for livestock so it won't look suspect."

I at least had found a way out for the map.

"Yeah, except for them, if they see us on their land." I'd almost believed I'd found the solution when his dimple popped, but it just ended in a half-smile.

Of course, he had probably thought through everything already. To be an outlaw, you had to consider every danger, every detail, every inch, and every second...

"The mass!" I once more was a little too loud, and the discretion was still an outlaw's must-have I didn't master, yet I was too proud of my idea.

I had to hold myself from jumping up and down as I tugged on Blade's hand, and he looked at me like... I was crazy.

"On Sunday mornings, the staff doesn't work, and the Callums go to the church, almost the whole town is going. So it's the perfect time... I don't think you go?" My gaze found instinctively his 'sinner' tattoo, and actually, with his whole appearance, people would surely throw him holy water before he could ever set one foot in the church.

When that devious sparkle lit up in his eyes, it confirmed my suppositions. "Yeah... that could work..."

Was he really considering it? I stopped my movements to do a double-take, and the frantic energy seemed to spread to him, first, to his gaze that flickered from thoughtful on the wall next to us to wide blue on me a few times, and then, it was to his nods.

"That's genius, evil genius!" The last part was emphasized by his full Cheshire cat's smile, and I burst with pride.

The only reason I didn't literally jump was because his gaze was pinning me, but inside, a lot was leaping.

Coming from my evil genie, it was probably the biggest compliment.

"You just found the solution we've been searching for days in two minutes!" He let out a chuckle under his breath.

"You're welcome." I tried to shrug it off, mainly because if he kept staring at me with this sparking intensity, it wouldn't be only with pride that I would burst, and my cheeks were warm enough.

"Yes, thank you, Shooting star."

He led me down the hallways, and it was almost ironic how we stopped in front of the door with a wooden skull and crossbones sign when he asked, "And what's the time of the mass?"

"From 9.30 to 11 a.m." I knew it by heart, as my mom made sure we were seated in the first rows by 9.25 a.m.

If she knew where I was in the middle of the night, especially at the moment he opened the door with the deadly sign. There was no doubt; it was my evil genie's bedroom, and surprisingly, I wasn't even nervous, well, not more than the warm rush still fluttering in my stomach since a few minutes.

My heart rate was even slowing down. Maybe it was because for once, he didn't hint at any bad intention, keeping the conversation casual.

"1h30?! And you do this every Sunday?!"

"Yes." I smiled as he looked as stunned as I'd been in front of his illegal map.

I guessed it was what people called 'worlds colliding'.

Yet I didn't feel in a foreign world here. On the contrary, I breathed in the air filled with wood, a hint of vanilla, and his unique scent, nothing else, and the room appeared familiar.

In the dimness, I didn't even question where I was going. As if I'd been there a million times, I walked to the faint light source, which caught my eye on the other side of the room, and it was only when I was seated with my legs bent under me, gazing at the sky through the window, that I took in the softness under me.

I was on Blade's bed. I'd rushed on Blade's bed because it was right under the window to watch the stars. But still.

I should have been burning or shivering in unease, yet I was warm, just warm, perfectly warm, the kind of warm that you felt under a fluffy blanket in a cold winter morning, and this blanket was wrapping around each cell of my body, even when he turned on a faint orangey bedside lamp, even when he kicked off his shoes, and even more when he sat beside me, putting his chin on my shoulder again.

There was no more cold sweat on my back. I felt safe. It was a contrast with my nightmare, and it was the first time today, and maybe in a long time.

"Do you wanna talk... about your nightmare?"

This disturbed the calm rhythm of my heart as much at the mention of my bad dream as the sound of those words that I wouldn't have expected in his voice more used to sharp curses and bad intentions.

I turned slowly to him, and his eyes weren't on the stars although their intensity could have pierced mysteries as far. They were on me, and as I didn't want anything to break this bubble of peacefulness, I didn't use words.

I simply shook my head, wrapping my arms around his waist, and I could feel his sigh of relief through all his muscles as he relaxed and we toppled on the mattress.

Of course, he was more used to this kind of exchange than talking. Yet as I was lying half on top of him, everything stayed the same – I wouldn't have said 'pure' or 'innocent' as nothing about him really was, but it was warm – and the only movement of his fingers was to pull the comforter over us and then they found their place in the middle of my spine, exactly where my tee-shirt had been damp earlier.

How had he found this spot? The only plausible explanation was that it was his magical powers, and we clearly didn't need to talk. He was seeing all of me, all my secret places, whether I led him there or not, whereas I was still searching for his.

Yes, I'd seen his storage room, and I was now in his bedroom. I couldn't really ask more. Yet it didn't show me more as my gaze scanned each detail of the room.

I noted the wooden rocking chair, which I would have run to if I hadn't been this comfortable in his arms, lulled by the steady thuds under my ear, and I caught his leather jacket laying on top of a pile of clothes on what I guessed was a chair, and a piece of metal, which must have been for his motorbike – at least, that was what I told myself as I glimpsed the metal chain hanging from a pin behind the door. But except for this, the umber-colored room appeared again too ordinary for someone like Blade.

Maybe that was the thing: he was so sharp, so contrasting, so tenebrous, and so unique that he didn't need a place to show who he was, or maybe his secret places were inside him.

I lifted my head, resting my chin on his chest as my eyes and fingers naturally found his tattoos. The snake, dice, the gun... all those inks I pictured every night to help me fall asleep, I was now tracing them with the tip of my fingers, and even if my eyelids were growing heavier, I fought them open.

"I like your tattoos," I confessed absent-mindedly, just like without thinking, I was tugging his tee-shirt down to follow the black lines – okay, maybe I'd realized it with his impish smile, although I didn't stop.

"What do they mean?" As I was just above the barrel of the inked gun, I could hear the rumbling of his heart before the one from his chuckle.

"What?"

"What's the meaning behind?" My fingers stayed on the tattoos, but my eyes focused on the expanse of blue which was taking new reflections in the dim orangey lighting.

"They don't have one. I just thought they looked good and fun, and I got most of them when I was high." He shrugged lightly, and my stomach, right on top of him, followed the faint movement up and down. "And it makes me look hotter."

So here were the designs that had filled most of my sleepless nights for two weeks. It made sense in a way, and they indeed made him hotter and more captivating, while he also made the inks special because they were part of him.

Yet it didn't feed the growing curiosity inside, or more exactly, there was still this itch in my guts, and that was surely why my fingers weaved to my favorite ink.

"And this one too?"

His gaze flickered to our intertwined hands that I lifted above us. "Yes."

I narrowed my eyes, and although I could have dove into the clear shades, highlighted by his cocked eyebrow and get lost there, I just turned to the intriguing designs.

"I don't think so..." My voice trailed off, becoming quieter as if whispering a magical secret; it felt like it as it was the darkest hour of the night, and the bedside lamp seemed to cast a special light on our linked hands, creating dancing shadows in the whole room.

"I think the roots represent where you're coming from." My fingers slid down to the tangled and twisted patterns along his wrist, slowly climbing up. "Here, it's what you are..."

I took my time to trace each sinuous branch, each vein, and each little scar, not forgetting one, and at any other moment, in any other position, I wouldn't have caught the breath falling out of rhythm from his other steady sighs. It was faint, but with the top of my hair under his mouth, and my ear on his chest, it traveled throughout my whole body until it caught my own breath.

"And the branches growing on your fingers are all the possibilities you can reach with your left hand." I poked each of his fingertips with mine, slipping in the space between, where I could still picture the sharp blade spinning.

"The only thing I don't know is the leaves flying around." And none of them on the branches. "Maybe the experiences... or the people you meet?"

"You really have an imaginative mind," he taunted, and when I glanced back at him, it was once again a shooting-star-glimpsing kind of moment, where only at this second, only from so close, I could catch the twinkle in his gaze before it flickered down and the twitch at the corner of his smile.

It didn't scratch the itch in my guts, only tickling it more, yet I knew it was a glimpse of a secret place that, like for shooting stars, only the most patient and reckless could see.

So with a satisfied and tired grin, I threaded my fingers with his, and after kissing the same tree fork as earlier tonight, I brought our hands between our chests. There, no one else than us two could have guessed the uneven beats of our hearts, perfectly in sync with each other, and I let this rhythm lull me as my gaze got lost in the square of starry sky.

It was definitely a meteor shower night.

Whose heart exploded like a shooting star? 🥺😍🤩 I bet you didn't expect this kind of precious moment happening in Blade's bedroom? 😏

Tell me if you liked it! And don't forget to vote if so ⭐

Also, tell me if you think Dorothy is right about the tattoo's meaning 🤔

And her 'evil genius' idea? Could it work? Will it work? 👀

Let me know all your thoughts!! And I hope this chapter will make up for leaving you on a cliffhanger last time 🥺 You know I love you, and if I torture you, it's only made with love 😘🌠❤