Free Tattoo #1: Tattoo by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

ahead, her eyes locked on nothing at all. Without preamble, Zo stepped onto the balcony and shook her. The girl didn't re- spond. The humming continued, and when I really listened to the sound, it hit me like a punch to the stom- ach. Except for Zo, the girl was alone, but I heard two voices humming. I squeezed out onto the bal- cony and in front of the girl, following her gaze. I saw nothing, but when I turned back to look at the girl head-on, I stopped breathing. A thin, almost smoky, cord was wrapped firmly around her body, extending out past the railing and into the air where the girl was staring. As I watched, another wispy string lashed out, wrapping it- self around her waist. What in the world was going on here? One by one, the tiny, nearly transparent cords appeared, wrapping around the girl and encircling her like string-thin tentacles latching on to prey. I watched in horror as the strings passed one another, moving in a dreadful, purposeful dance. Within seconds, thousands of the strings were weaving themselves together, creating a net behind the girl. And then, as I watched and as Zo shook the girl, trying to break her from her trance, the net began moving forward, the tentacles flexing and quivering as it did. As the strings moved, so did the girl, only it wasn't really the girl. It was something inside her that looked just like her. Something pure. "We have to stop the net," I said, panicked. "It's pulling her out of her body" I stepped forward and tore at the strings, only to have my hands pass straight through them. "What net?" Delia and Annabelle asked at the same time. "You don't see the strings?" I asked, trying desperately to rip them from the girl. The cords moved steadily backward, and the image inside the girl moved farther and farther out of her body. "She's wrapped up in a net of them, and it's ...it's " "No!" Zo yelled as the girl's eyes flashed a brilliant blue color. This shouldn't have been happening. We got there in time, and we should have been able to save her. Whatever this gray stuff was, it was killing her, and there was nothing I could do about it. The panic spread down my body, and with it, I could feel my blood boiling, the heat surging through my veins. This wasn't right. It wasn't fair. Something was killing her. I knew the exact second the heat left my skin. I wasn't even thinking about the fire or my power, but as I stared at those cords, ripping the girl from her physical form, I hated them. Hated them more than Alexandra Atkins. Hated them more than anything. The fire leaped from my body to the cords, scorching them with the intensity of my feeling. "Bailey! You're setting her on fire. Stop it!" I barely heard Delia's yell. I stared at the cords. Burn, I thought. Burn. And just like that, the cords snapped one by one under the force of my flame, and the girl sank back into her body just in time to realize that she was surrounded by fire. "Aaaa-hhhhhhh!" I had to give it to the girl. She knew how to scream. Delia held her hands out to the fire. "Honey," she yelled. Instantly, the flames dissolved into honey. "Aaaahhhhhhh!" The girl continued screaming. Not that I blamed her. For the split second after the scary net of doom had disappeared, she'd been surrounded by flames, and now she was completely covered in honey. Not to mention the fact that the fire and honey had both appeared out of nowhere. I probably would have been freaking out, too. "Honey?" Zo asked Delia. "Seriously. Honey?" Delia looked down at her nails. "I don't deal well under pressure," she said. "Aaaahhhhhhhl" "Will someone shut her up?" Zo asked, but I could hear the relief in her voice that the girl was still alive enough to be screaming at all. "She's going to blow our cover" "Stop screaming," Annabelle said gently. "Come inside. Get washed off, and then we'll talk" "Stop screaming," the girl repeated. Then she looked at us. "Listen, I don't know who you are, but I'm going to go inside and wash this stuff off me.