I glanced into the mirror again, glaring at the desecration of my forehead, my neck.
“Fuck you,” I said to my reflection.
But this time, the thing inside me was ready. A long, slow laugh rolled through my body, spinning through my veins. Don’t tempt me.
Furious, I wheeled away and stabbed the water on. The shower did hurt like a bitch. I was beyond grateful that I could get the ink off my neck pretty well, but my arms had only gotten down to a faded gray, and my forehead was still a mess before I gave up in the early hours of the morning. Max had texted back only once, that things had quieted down, and it was all I could do not to tell him to never contact me again.
It was Wednesday morning, and Steve would need his car eventually, no matter where he’d crashed. The fact that he hadn’t texted me already was a miracle. The bruising on my arms and back had blossomed into teeth-rattling pain, but I still focused on the house long enough to clean my bedroom and the bathroom, then move down into the living room, gathering up Sharpies as I went.
Then I went into the kitchen and saw them.
Every knife in the drawer was now sitting on the counter, lined up perfectly, an arsenal of home-based weaponry. A message? It had to be a message.
And the voice inside me, the messenger?
Definitely. Not. Me.
Not an alt, not a split personality, not even an imaginary friend gone terribly wrong.
No.
I had a demon inside me. A straight-up, horn-headed, swishy-tailed demon. Forget the tortured fallen angel portrait I’d painted on my wall this last time or seen in the mirror at Mrs. Klein’s house. Forget the crudely gross bulbous monsters I’d drawn countless times before that. Mordechai had told me that first a demon would try to intimidate, then manipulate, and that was exactly what was happening here.
“Try all the games you want, asshole. I know how to evict you,” I muttered aloud to the kitchen knives, then to the appliances, the countertops—anything that would listen. “All I need to do is see you.”
The demon inside me didn’t respond.
Slowly, methodically, I replaced the Sharpies in their basket in the living room. Then I continued trying to clean the ink off my face and hands. Unfortunately, the ink was a lot more tenacious than it should have been. Especially on my forehead.
In the end, I had to admit defeat. I had things I needed to do. Places to go. Important places where normal people worked and breathed, and I couldn’t be walking around looking like the Illustrated Man.
I caved at about 6:30 a.m. and dug through all my shit until I found the card. Then I texted pharmaceutical queen Claire Bickwell.
This is Delia, and I’ve got kind of a weird problem. For reasons I don’t want to explain, I have Sharpie ink on my hands and forehead that is fading with soap, but not coming all the way off. Any suggestions?
To her credit, there was only about a 5.7-second delay before the response pinged back on my screen.Do you live close? Can you come to the store?
I sighed, staring down at the phone. Why couldn’t anything be easy?
Sure!I typed with a cheer I totally didn’t feel.I’ll be right there.
Chapter
Sixteen
Still blessed with Steve’s car, I made it to Reider Pharmacy by 6:50 a.m. Claire was waiting for me at the back door and immediately ushered me inside with a big smile and promises of a miracle transformation.
“Oh, this isn’t bad at all,” she assured me breezily when she took my hands. “It’s kind of pretty, right? Like a henna tattoo?”
“Pretty isn’t the word I’d use,” I muttered, tracing the letters that crawled like ants along my fingers. I hadn’t tried to decipher the Hindi masterpiece etched into my hands, but I’d videoed my whole body for the therapist I’d so desperately need eventually. I’d donned a long-sleeved T-shirt despite the impending heat of the day. I didn’t care about my arms, though. I just needed my hands to pass muster. And my face.
Claire’s composure did crack a little when she saw my forehead. The fact that she could read the letters at all convinced me that coming here was the right thing to do.
“Hands are easy,” she said, giving me a small collection of stuff in a net bag, like I’d checked into some kind of spa. “You need to keep at it, but the best thing you can do is to keep using your hands. There’s pumice in there, and a rough cleanser, stuff I bought for my face a hundred years ago that proved to be tooharsh. But for hands, it’s perfect. If you can do anything that makes your hands sweat, that’s also good. Your face, though…” She sat back a little on her heels and finally took in a deep breath as her bright blue eyes dropped to the ink shadows peeking out around my collar. “Jesus, Delia, what happened to you? Who did this?”
I’d thought about this on the drive over. It wasn’t going to work for me to simply tell Claire to mind her own business. She was helping me, and I needed the help. I couldn’t tell her the truth-truth, of course. But it needed to be at least fairly believable. “I know, it’s terrible. But I help out at a kids’ group, and usually it’s fine. Last night was art night, though, and I was so exhausted. I fell asleep. By the time the other counselors found me—well, this had happened.”
“Kidsdid this to you?” She squinted at me. “You don’t expect me to believe that.”
