JAY WOKE UP IN the middle of the night, his lips parted in a silent scream. As soon as he realized he was in his bed he placed his hands in front of his face, the sweat on his forehead reminding him that though he was awake, the nightmare hadn't ended. He always had the same one and yet he never stopped feeling that same fear.

It started in a huge room, the floor glistening like diamonds and filled with the same luxurious, white furniture in his father's house. In the middle of it all he was sitting, the space around him unoccupied, and though the room was so large, though the beautiful windows were ajar, he always suffocated in his dream. He got no air and there was nothing he could do about it.

And there, on the other side of the room, sitting on a throne befit a king, sat his father, ever so high. He looked down on him and just stared as he choked, not lifting a finger to help, his face the same emotionless mask as always. Jay hated the fact that even in his dreams his father haunted him, but he couldn't get rid of it, couldn't stop the fact he woke up full of panic several times a week.

He stared at his arm then, the intricate lines of the tattoos he had curling around his muscles. This was the only thing that was his, the only way he could make sure his body was his own. His father chose everything else for him: his clothes, his education, his friends. But this, this was something he couldn't do anything about. The man had raised hell when he had found him after his first tattoo about their now stained reputation and he had felt the consequences of his choice days later, but that didn't matter. Whatever his father did, however far his power went, it wasn't enough to make the tattoos on his arm disappear.

So he continued on. With each new tattoo he had he felt like he could breathe again, not only because it was his choice, but also because of the anger it caused to his normally cold father. It was a petty form of revenge, that he knew, but the only one he could have. More importantly, nowadays it was the only thing which made him feel alive.

His feet touched the cold floor then as he stepped out of bed and he walked towards the closet, quickly pulling on some jeans and a shirt. That man wasn't home today, off to God knows where for the weekend. Jay hadn't asked and he hadn't said, like always. He was glad he wasn't home though as he sneaked out of the house, careful to not alert the guards stationed all around it. After years he had learned all their routes to heart and he knew exactly which paths to follow to avoid them all.

This was how he had been able to go to that party as well. A large part of him had wanted to stay home, but Sahar had asked him. That had been enough of a reason to go honestly, because she was one of the few people in this world who looked at him with no expectations in her eyes. There was no prejudice, no need to profit off him or ridicule him. She didn't care that he was the son of some ambassador, no, for some reason she just wanted to be friends with him.

He wasn't quick to trust people, but he had seen and heard enough about Sahar during his years at Athena to know it was genuine. She had been one of the most popular people there and yet hadn't cared about any of that. In the beginning, when his father's bodyguards forcibly dropped him off at school and practically pushed him inside, he had gone to great lengths to annoy the man further by skipping class almost immediately.

His father's bodyguards were stationed around the school, his influence not yet enough to get them to enter a school as famous as Athena High, so he just stayed on school grounds. That was before his father went even further, before he paid his classmates to get closer to him and keep a close eye on him. But he didn't want to think about that, only about her for a moment. The cab he had called in his room pulled up then and he sat down, murmuring an address.

On the roof of Athena's staff building, smaller and mostly empty during school hours, he spent most of his time. It was secluded and literally hidden behind the main building's shadow, the only thing there a small patch of flowers; marigolds, poppies, forget-me-nots. He wondered who took care of it and the same day that question was answered, as a pretty girl in blue came. She sat down beside the flowers and took care of them, before taking a navy blue pin from her bag and placing it down in the soil. It was an eye, he noticed, a droplet of baby blue in the navy, a pupil in the middle.

"So you'll stay safe," she had smiled.

When the concierge had come then she had greeted him by name and made small talk, asking about his children. When the Iranian man had glanced at the eye and laughed, telling her it was sweet how she had put an evil eye down beside flowers.

"Someone has to protect them from nazar," she had said.

He had googled the words later, at first surprised to see it was a charm against malicious intent, then feeling a surprising endearment about the fact she had put it down beside the forget-me-nots.

After that he saw her a couple of times more, though he always hid in the shadows and never spoke to her. When he had stopped going to school entirely he had somehow missed her, that brief moment of sunlight in his life, but he had never expected there to be a conversation between them. Not until that day in school, when she had asked him to join her protest.

They were friends now, actual friends. And he had ruined that with his short temper, as always.

He shook his head, trying to shake the thoughts out as well. Luckily there were plenty of distractions around him now anyway. With all his worries he hadn't even noticed he had reached the city already and he paid the cab driver, before stepping out.

This neighbourhood would be enough to give his father a heart attack. It was loud and dark, filled with fluorescent lights, shady alleys and even shadier people. This was the part of town you didn't want to be in at night, not if you valued your life and possessions. That was exactly why Jay loved it here.

He headed towards his usual tattoo shop, a small place which you could only find if you went down two sets of stairs beside an abandoned pub. The glass from the shattered windows crunched underneath his feet as he walked downstairs, the soft murmurs already soothing to his ears. The owner was a stoic woman, not one for small talk at all. It was his own personal heaven, because she allowed him to sit down in a corner and watch her place tattoos on people for hours, without even asking him something once.

So he neared the door, ready for a night of silence, when he was suddenly greeted by a booming laugh. He recognized the voice from somewhere, but couldn't exactly put his finger on who exactly it was. When he opened the door though, he wished he had stayed in ignorance.

There, in his heaven, stood the principal of St Joseph, the sleeve of his shirt rolled up as the owner put the last touches on a tattoo there. Jay stared at him, perplexed, before stepping back.

"Jay?" the principal blinked then," what are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" Jay asked, a bit accusingly.

"I was thinking about getting a new tattoo," he grinned, not flinching at all despite the process," and who else to do it than my wife?"

The owner simply nodded in confirmation when Jay looked at her with horror-struck eyes. His sanctuary was gone, now defiled by a tracksuit-wearing, loud man. He was about to leave when the principal called out his name again as the owner put a thin layer of petroleum jelly on the tattoo.

"Wait up," he said," you didn't answer my question."

She started bandaging his tattoo and he glanced at her with a loving smile. The owner was the only one who was keeping him from replying snarkily and heading out, the fact he was somehow her husband making him stay. The principal of St Joseph annoyed the hell out of him, but she had given him a place to stay at night which had felt more like home than his house had, so he wouldn't disrespect her husband like that.

"I come here sometimes," he said," either to get a tattoo or to sit and watch as she does others. That's all."

The principal seemed a bit surprised at the fact he had actually answered, but that quickly morphed back in his usual friendly smile then. He stood up, squeezing her hand before he walked towards him. Jay watched him carefully, but that wasn't enough to keep him from stumbling wide-eyed when the principal slapped him amicably on his shoulder.

Jesus, why was he so strong?

"I'll be back later, honey," he said as he looked at his wife," I'm just going to hang out with my student for a bit, okay?"

She just nodded, dismissing him with a wave of her hand, Jay's desperate eyes not enough for her to save him. He was pleading with her through them to not let him go with this man, but she just shrugged and he got pulled along out of his sanctuary.

"I don't want to hang out with you," Jay said.

"Too bad," the principal grinned, practically pushing him along through the crowd.

Jay was just thinking of a way to escape, whatever friendliness he had had out of respect for the owner gone now they were on the streets, when the principal's loud voice interrupted him.

"Well," he said, placing a hand over his eyes," look who we have here. I just spotted Mateo."

Oh God, he should have just stayed in bed.