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mellifluoushood · 4 years

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Into The Dark - C.H. AU [Chapter 4]

A/N: So, in a day, I have written two fics and had a ‘talk to me about calum’ session.... At first, I couldn’t tell why I was so motivated to write, and then I realised it was me procrastinating doing my college work. So, here you go. Procrastination fuelled fanfic. Those always make the best if I do say so myself. Synopsis: Full-time college student, Seraphina Sallow, works as a receptionist for world-famous tattoo artist, Calum Hood. Their friendship blossomed when she wrote an article about his tattoo parlour, Fallen Angel Tattoos, for a journalism project at school. Since then, she’s been working as a receptionist at his parlour to put herself through school. As college tuition increases and her social security checks get smaller, she’s beginning to struggle to keep up with her payments. And then, a fallen angel shows up in the parlour, offering her the solution to all of her problems. But, at what cost? (TEASER) (CHAP. 1) (CHAP. 2) (CHAP. 3) Genre (this chapter is): angst / fluff / smut / normal Warning: heavy mentions of drug use and selling, strong language, weapons (firearms), violence, blood Taglist: @calumscalm @gigglyirwin @ammwritings @loveroflrh @dukehoods @toofadedtofight @babylon-corgis @talkfastromance4 @thesubtweeter @vipclifford @spicycal @cals-wildflower

He was silent in the car ride home. He didn’t know why she called him, or why she thought it was okay to call him, but he still picked her up anyway. The last they had spoken was the screaming match in the tattoo parlour. They sat silently in his car, watching the dark streets pass them by. Calum’s tattooed knuckles wrapped around the steering wheel, turning white at the pressure he was applying, trying to relieve some of the tension in his chest. He hadn’t even looked at her when she had shuffled into his car. He didn’t notice the limp in her left leg, the small bit of blood trickling down her split lower lip and the black and blue bruise flowering on her left eye. He had kept his face forward, thumb tapping on the steering wheel, and skidding out of his parking spot the second she shut the door.

She hadn’t spoken to him either when she had gotten in the car. She hadn’t opened her mouth for two hours now. She had said just a few words several hours ago, but not since then. She deserved it, she knew. She should’ve just kept her mouth shut, that’s what everyone does in this business, but in her cocaine-induced high, she had let her lips spill Calum’s name. Calum had always been a touchy subject with her boss before she had ever been around. Roy could’ve warned her that. But, when she had mentioned Calum asking about her whereabouts, her boss dropped the blade he had been using to make small lines of coke on the mirror and walked over, landing a direct hit to her temple and eye. He didn’t even wait to find out if she had told him. She remembers the feeling of her neck snapping backwards at the force, feet fumbling to find their balance.

She didn’t even ask why he started hitting her over and over, she took it. She learned not to question her boss. Just like Calum had learned not to question her. And the one time he did question her, it cost her a beating. One that Calum hadn’t even known about yet. So, she had left the abandoned building, leaving the car out front and walked several blocks away. At first, walking didn’t hurt. The adrenaline scorching through her system kept her moving. And when the adrenaline started to wear off, so did her pain tolerance. Every move of her left leg made it feel like she had just been shot, every tug of air into her lungs felt like another blow to her ribcage. But, she kept walking as far away as she could.

With her gun still in her pocket, she sat on the edge of the street, a single streetlight hanging overhead. The only sound in her ears was the rushing of her blood and the occasional car peeling along the wet streets a few blocks over. Her teeth began to chatter, her shoulders bare in a tank-top. The rips in her jeans did little to protect her legs and her old Converse didn’t do much to keep body heat surrounding her feet. She hugged her arms to her chest for a few moments before grabbing for the pack of cigarettes in her pocket. She flicked open the top, grabbing a cigarette, popping it into her mouth and lighting it. Then, she decided to call Calum. He picked up on the second ring.

Calum began chewing on his newest piercing, a lip ring, since the moment he saw her name pop up on his phone. Michael had said a ring straight away could cause problems, but Calum had given him the same look he had given him in the bar a week ago and Michael went ahead and slotted the ring through his lip. It became his newest addition when Seraphina had left the shop after their last argument. The tenderness of the piercing had him wincing, but biting down harder, trying to use the pain to inflict some sort of feeling other than anger. His temper was short-fused, waiting to light at the slightest issue.

When he pulled up to her house, he reached over her, pushing the door open for her, hurrying her out. She turned to look at him for the first time that night. Her face was blank, void of emotion. She was numb. At first, Calum avoided her gaze, but caved and looked up at her. Underneath the moonlight, he could barely make out her features. But he saw the trail of fresh blood seeping from her lip and the ruptured blood vessels around her eye. His brows, that had furrowed the second he hung up the phone, rising into a position of shock.

“Thanks, Cal,” she sighs, turning to exit out the door he pushed open. He quickly grabbed onto the back of her shirt, pulling her to stay in her seat. Her back hit the leather behind her, causing her to cry out in pain.

“Shit,” Calum mutters, getting out of the car, slamming the door and jogging over to her side. She’s clutching her right side, hands covering her ribs. Her breaths are shaky, “What happened to you?” He whispers, hand meeting her cheek gently, holding her chin between his pointer finger and thumb.

“Nothing,” she replies, avoiding his eyes and gently pushing Calum back so she can stand up. He doesn’t miss the whimper that falls from her lips at her movement. He shakes his head, chewing at his lip ring again,

“Seraphina,” his voice is a warning and she won’t put up with it,

“Listen, you asked questions, this is what happened to me,” she snaps at him, “So if you know what’s good for me, you’ll stop asking.” She shuffles around him, not even bothering to look at him, struggling to climb up the stairs of her front porch. Calum swears to himself, looking up at the sky and cursing her parents for making her so fucking stubborn. He shuts the door and locks the car, following her up the steps.

“If you actually answer the questions, I can help you.” She scoffs, body jolting at the movement against her ribcage. She opens her front door, moving to close it behind her and to lock Calum out. But, he sticks the foot of his boot in between the door frame and the door, keeping her from shutting it. She doesn’t even bother to stop him, shuffling through her kitchen and to her bathroom. Calum shuts the front door behind him, making sure the deadbolt is in place before following her slow movements down the hallway.

“I asked for a ride home. Not for help,” she mutters, attempting to lift the bottom of her t-shirt over her head, but the pain in her ribs only lets her expose her lower stomach. She sucks in a breath through her teeth, pulling the fabric over her head, not caring about Calum standing behind her. She holds in a screech at the pain, crackling like a firework along her right side.

“Well, by the looks of it, you could use some help,” Calum retorts and she shakes her head. She lets out a sigh from her nose, hanging her head and looking at her floor. The white tips of her beaten up Converse were splattered with her blood, drops drying against the silicone.

“Listen, Calum,” she uses his full name, taking a moment to turn around and look at him. In the light, he notices the full extent of her black eye. Her flesh is fully bruised, the blood vessels staining underneath her eye like she has rosacea. Her brown eyes are tired, bags shadowing the bruise. Her bottom lip is split clean open, a ring of her own on the left side of her lip. The bruise from her eye spreads to her cheekbone, the yellow undertone sticking out against the usual olive tone of her skin, “I made a decision. I have to live with it.”

“Why did you make the decision, though?” She sighs, her gaze accidentally flashing to the dining room table, thinking about the piles of bills that had been sitting on the surface, unopened, with ‘URGENT’ stamped across the top of her tuition payments. She was curious to see if her social security would come this month. It hadn’t last month, or the month before that, even though she turned 21 in a month. She hadn’t been receiving payments for three months now, which she was sure was illegal, but who was she to sue the US Federal government?

“It’s a long story,” she shakes her head, turning and heading into the bathroom. Calum didn’t miss the fleeting glance, his eyes trailing to what she had looked at moments earlier. His feet carry him into the dining room table, looking at the neatly organised stacks of envelopes. He takes one off the top of the pile, the only pile with ‘URGENT’ stamped on top of it, ripping open the seal and pulling out the letter.

Dear Ms Seraphina Sallows,

The college is contacting you based on some issues regarding your college tuition. For the past three months, you have not made any payments toward your outstanding balance of $18,309.47. If you intend to continue your education here with us, we ask you to pay the remaining balance in full, as our leniency with monthly payments to reduce the balance can no longer go forward.

Your stellar grades from last semester led us to be inclined to support you with a scholarship, but your recent attendance has caused us to rethink our decision.

If you would be interested in receiving a scholarship, we ask that you bring your attendance back to above 80% and continue to maintain a 4.0 GPA. With these requirements met, we will provide a full scholarship for your last year of college. After you have paid the outstanding balance on your account and meet our requirements, please schedule a meeting with the Board to discuss the logistics of this offer.

If you choose not to pay your remaining balance, we ask that you withdraw from our college.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Yours truly,

Dean Mathers

Calum’s eyebrows furrow as he fumbles for the next pile of letters, ripping open one from the US Social Security Office. His fingers press open the paper, his eyes scanning the paper:

Dear Miss Seraphina Sallows,

This letter is to inform you about your remaining payments. A month after you turn 21, your Social Security payments will cease in regards to:

the death of Anita Sallows,

the death of Benjamin Sallows.

You have two months remaining of Social Security checks. Please alert the Social Security office if you believe you qualify for payments after the ending date. Qualifications for payments after your 21st birthday must be:

- musculoskeletal problems, such as back injuries - cardiovascular conditions, such as heart failure or coronary artery disease - senses and speech issues, such as vision and hearing loss - respiratory illnesses, such as COPD or asthma - neurological disorders, such as MS, cerebral palsy, Parkinson's disease, or epilepsy...

Calum looks back at the bathroom and to the letter in his shaking hands. She had never once let on any sort of financial issues. But then again, he had never really questioned where she got her money from. He didn’t know the nature of their death until Michael had let it slip to him in the bar a week ago while they waited for her to return his texts. The only reason Michael knew was that he remembered reading about their murder in the paper. When Michael learned Seraphina’s last name, he made the connection that she was the daughter the paper left nameless because she was under the age of 18 when they were killed.

His lips draw into a line, tears beginning to sting at the corner of his eyes. He looks at the piles of the same letters, stacked perfectly in her dining room. There had to be a dozen, at least, in each pile. She had been paying her electricity and water bills. Calum hadn’t noticed a letter from any of her utilities. The only bill that sat on her table was her college tuition and no one in her position could ever afford those kinds of payments. She kept the letters from the US Federal Government as if to remind herself that she wouldn’t have those payments in two months.

Her house was bright, just like she appeared to be. The dining room walls are a glistening white, the table a light grey. It didn’t seem like the house always used to look this way. She reupholstered each and every piece of fabric in each and every room, she changed the floorboards herself, she painted all the walls herself. To remain in her house, she had to make it feel like it wasn’t their house.

She rented a dumpster and got rid of everything in her house that didn’t serve a purpose. She donated her mother and father’s clothing, scrapping the drug paraphernalia decorating the surfaces of her home. She replaced the bongs and pipes with house plants, pictures of her and her best friends. That was the darkest part - there were very few pieces of herself throughout the house. She only had one picture of her parents hung on her living room wall: the single and only day they were sober in her lifetime. The day of her birth.

He drops the letter on the dining room table, walking down the hallway to the shut bathroom door. He knocks on it. She doesn’t answer, but he can hear the tub running.

“I’m not looking,” he says, placing his hands over his eyes and opening the bathroom door. He can hear her exhale and move about the bathtub.

“Okay,” she sighs. He enters the bathroom, only looking at the floor and holding his hands to shield his vision directly in front of him. When he shuts the door behind him, he sits down on the floor, looking at the cabinetry of her bathroom. It’s painted white as well.

They’re quiet for a long time. Seraphina doesn’t wish to say anything to him and Calum doesn’t know how to address his recent discovery in her dining room.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Calum risks a glance at the bathtub, where the only thing he can see is her head tilted against the wall behind her. She sighs again, head turning to look at him. The blood below her lip has been wiped away, the flesh swelling, burning red underneath the light of the bathroom. Her brown hair is tied up in a bun on top of her head, her eyes dark.

“There’s nothing to tell you, Cal,” her voice is weak. Her resolve is breaking. Calum wracks his brain, trying to find a way to get her to tell him what’s happening.

“What if this entire situation you’re in, is hypothetical?” He says slowly, trying to get her to just talk to him.

“What are you talking about?” She sighs, turning her head to look at the wall of her shower in front of her. The hot water boils her skin red but soothes the muscles that throb and ache with every movement she had made earlier. The only pain that doesn’t go away is the sharp sting in her left ribs.

“You can’t get in trouble for hypothesising things,” he explains, chewing on his lip ring. He winces at the sensation, quickly releasing the metal from his teeth. She sighs, shaking her head,

“I don’t even think my brain could keep up with hypothesising. I would say something I shouldn’t and end up dead.”

Her words hang in the air. Calum’s eyes never leave her figure.

He turns away when she’s finished with her bath. She wraps herself in a towel, hair dripping onto the bath mat underneath her feet. She mumbles ‘okay’, letting Calum turn around to look at her. He gives her a sad smile, opening the bathroom door and letting the steam of the hot water float into the outside air. He stands in the doorway, looking at the tips of his boots while she moves around her room, dressing and brushing her hair. When she slips into bed, she looks at Calum. He debates giving in to the look she’s giving him, whether she’s intentionally doing it or not. He has to resist the urge to crawl into her bed as he did a week ago and hold her. To shield her from the man who beat her to a bloody pulp. To protect her from the $18,000 bill sitting on her dining room table. To keep her from everything that has ever gone wrong in her life. And lord knows Calum hasn’t even scratched the surface of that barrel of worms. But, the look in her eyes, whether it’s fear or the need for Calum, he sighs and kicks off his boots, crawling into the empty side of the bed. His heart picks up speed when she immediately turns over, crawling into his side. She tries to ignore the heat of her blushing cheeks because she just needs to be held. He’s careful with where he puts his hands, avoiding her ribs and her cheeks.

He stays with her until she falls asleep, clutching onto Calum for dear life. It takes him some time to unwrap her from him before he gets out of bed. He looks down at her face, fast asleep and relaxed, even with the swelling of her lip increasing and the darkening of the bruise under her eye. He turns away, gently walking to her nightstand and carefully opening the drawer he heard her stuff the gun in earlier. The gun lies across some journals before he picks it up and stuffs it into his pocket. He recognises the heaviness of the barrel, the grip tugging at the fabric of his jeans.

He looks around her room in the dark, checking surfaces and changes in dust patterns for abnormalities that would point to where she hid her stash. He remembered back to when he was hiding his stash, always wary of any traces he may have left behind. It isn’t until he begins to walk out of the room that something catches the hallway light underneath a loose floorboard. He sighs, tiptoeing along the wooden surface and removing the plank of wood. He notices about a dozen different drugs, ranging from weed to heroin. He slowly collects the bags, occasionally checking to see if Seraphina was still asleep. The large baggy of cocaine rests at the bottom of the floorboard. He stares at it for a moment, thinking back to that night when he watched that line disappear up Ashton’s nose. He remembers the seizures, the muscle spasms, his body collapsing to the ground. He remembers falling to his knees, screaming his name, yelling for someone to call an ambulance. He remembers slapping Ashton’s face over and over again, trying to get him to wake up. He didn’t leave his side in the ambulance. He stood in the waiting room for only a few minutes before a doctor emerged from the ER, asking Calum to follow him.

Calum takes a deep breath, picking up the baggy and replacing the floorboard. He begins to walk out of Seraphina’s bedroom, opening the door and allowing the hall light to illuminate her room for a second. He looks at her sleeping frame, sighing before shutting the door behind him. He walks into the dining room, dropping the bags and gun onto the surface. He searches her living room, looking for her rucksack. He empties the books onto the coffee table when he finds her school bag, using it to hold the bags of narcotics. He zips it up, tossing it over his shoulder and picks up the gun. He ejects the magazine, checking to see if there were any bullets in the gun. A full magazine. He checks the bottom of the grip, making sure the serial number had been filed off. Once he’s sure the gun is ready to be used, he injects the magazine again, cocking the gun and loading a bullet. He pulls on the safety and sticks the gun back in his pocket.

He leaves the hall light on, in case she wakes up in the middle of the night and shuts the front door behind him. He uses the spare key hidden under one of the potted plants on her doorstep to secure her deadbolt. He tucks the key in his pocket before crossing the sidewalk and opening the passenger side of his car. He tosses the rucksack onto the seat before shutting the door and opening the driver’s side. His jaw clenches, fingers gripping the steering wheel for a whole new reason as he turns the engine and pulls out of his driving spot.

He could do this drive with his eyes shut.

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