Her sockets are empty. Filled and puffed out and rimmed with lids, but there’s just nothing in them. Not even skin behind. Just a void. I shift backward, hoping to break her visual grip, but she’s got me. And then she reaches out and grabs my wrist, securing my bond to her. I swallow and try to calm the shaking building up inside me, but she blinks, and I see the emptiness of her eyes all over again.
“Give her the pitch, Tanni,” one of her friends calls over. I can’t look to see who because my eyes won’t move; they’re locked on this freakish empty-eye-socketed girl.
“Make her know she’s responsible,” the other girl calls.
Tanni tightens her grip on my wrist. “Only you can stop Global Warming, Piper.”
When she says my name, she lets it drawl out, nice and slow, like every single letter is coming out of her mouth one at a time.
I can’t tear my eyes from her face even though shivers run up my spine. “How do you know my name?”
She grins and closes her empty eyes. “Did you hear me, Piper?”
“I read your sign,” I manage to say. I think I sound braver than I feel. Because I feel like I should turn and run away—if only my body would comply. But I hold my ground. “How do you know my name?” I say again. I’ve never seen this girl before in my life. She’s certainly not the type of person my mom ever mingles with. And I don’t ever remember her coming into our shop.
And where the hell is Chloe?
Tanni opens her eyes again and lashes out, grabbing my other wrist, and she pulls me so close to her, her features blend together into one big blurry spot in the middle of her face. When she opens her mouth to talk, her hot breath pours into my own open mouth, tasting sweet. “Do you know your fate?”
My fate? Until I left school to get this tattoo, I thought my fate was to live under the compressive thumb of my mom forever. To hide from a father I’ve never met. To change cities every time he gets too close. But now I’m not so sure.
I pull back and shake my arms loose. Tanni lets go and takes a step back, and her friends start laughing. Every muscle in my body is tensed up like skin stretched over a drum, and when I feel another hand on my wrist, I whip around.
“Chloe!”
“What happened, Piper?” Chloe says. Sweat beads all over her face and neck. “I thought you were right behind me.”
I let my breath out, and my muscles try to relax. “I stopped to look.” I motion at the group of girls. Tanni is back on the rocks with her friends, sunglasses over her eyes. She’s not even looking my way. None of them are, in fact. It’s like they never talked to me. Almost like they never even noticed me. One of the girls takes a long sip from a water bottle, and I realize my throat feels like sawdust. Maybe I imagined the whole thing. Except I can’t get the image of the empty eyes out of my mind or the taste of her sweet breath out of my mouth. And I wonder if I do know what my fate is.
“They’re just a bunch of freaks,” Chloe says. “The Drag’s full of them.”
Chloe starts walking again, and this time, I vow to stick with her, casting one final glance back at Tanni and her friends. They’re already talking to someone else, pointing to their Global Warming sign. To them, I don’t even exist.
“The tattoo parlor is right around the corner,” Chloe says. And she leads me the rest of the way.
I’ve never seen one, but there’s an image in my mind of what a tattoo parlor should look like. It’s a dirty dark place run by a guy wearing nothing but leather and chains. And bonus points if the crack of his ass shows when he sits down. So when we walk into a waiting area, smelling of bleach, with stenciled dots of red and purple on the walls and a water cooler off to the side, my butterflies settle down enough to walk over and get a cup. It’s one of those tiny conical cups, so I stand there and refill it five times before I finally toss it in the nearby recycler.
“How’d you find out about this place?” I ask.
Chloe fills her own cup now that I’ve moved aside. I think the A/C unit’s stopped working because even though the place is shiny and bright and filled with vibrant colors and the ceiling fans are on full blast, it’s roasting hot. A drop of sweat trickles down my face, and I lick it when it hits my lip. It’s bitter from the misting gel we got sprayed with earlier.
“My brother’s dating the owner. It’s how we got ahead of the waiting list.” Chloe fills her cup three times before recycling it. And then we both sit. On cue the butterflies start up again.
My fate. Tanni, the eyeless girl, asked if I knew what it was. Whatever my fate was, with every second that ticks by now, it careens further and further off course. My mom pops into my head. No surprise since I’m sure the school’s called her by now. With taking a shuttle down here, we’ve been gone almost an hour already, which makes us officially late for our tattoo appointment and definitely missing from school. But the tattoo artist hasn’t come out yet, so there’s nothing to do but wait.
“I’ve heard it doesn’t hurt that much.”
I shift my thoughts at Chloe’s words. “I hadn’t really thought about the pain.” And it’s true, even though we’ve talked about it in the past. Of all the things going through my mind today, pain hasn’t come into the equation. Until now. “But thanks for mentioning it.”
“The arm isn’t supposed to be that sensitive. At least not the outer part.”
If she’s trying to make me feel better, it’s not working.
“Where is the owner?” I stand up and look around, walking over to a board covered with designs. Our Greek letters are nowhere to be found; it’s mostly dragons and snakes like Tanni had on her legs. “You know, maybe we should forget it. If we get back to school fast enough, I could say I’ve been in the bathroom sick or something.” The butterflies are back, and my arms shake. I won’t even have to fake the sick part. My stomach is clenched so tight, I’m sure I could throw up on cue if needed.
I hear Chloe stand and walk up behind me. She wraps her arms around me and squeezes. “Don’t worry about it. You need to do this.”
“Having second thoughts?” someone says.
We both turn at the sound of the voice, and Chloe lets me go. I put my hands in my pockets and try to take deep breaths but find it’s harder than I thought. When I get home with a tattoo, my mom is going to kill me. I won’t have to wait for Global Warming to do it. That will be my fate.
“Nope,” Chloe says, pulling the piece of paper with the Greek letters out of her pocket. “We’re ready.”
The Asian girl who’s walked into the room smiles. Her head is shaved, and Polynesian tattoos cover it. Tikis of all sizes and shapes. I can see the top of it because she’s probably under five feet tall. But the strangest thing is that for just a second she seems to be covered in patchy mold. It’s mostly got an orange hue, but spots of dark fill in gaps here and there. I watch it shift and grow on her skin because it’s among the oddest things I’ve ever seen.
When I blink, it’s gone.
She doesn’t make eye contact with either of us. “Good. Tattoos are easy,” she says. “They heal fast these days. Used to be they caused all sorts of scabbing and infection. But now we seal each puncture once the ink’s inserted.”
I nod and decide the orange mold was just the lights flickering. It had to be.
Chloe’s brother once told us that tattoos had been used to mark slaves, and that they were used now to barcode criminals. I wonder if my dad got tattooed when he was in prison.
“So who’s first?” the girl asks, turning and walking into the next room. The red tiki on the back of her skull watches me as she goes, daring me to follow.
I look to Chloe, who smiles. “Piper is.”
Chapter 5
Botanical Haven
