Free Tattoo #1: Tattoo by Jennifer Lynn Barnes Page A

Then, we'll talk" I stared at Annabelle. The blond girl didn't seem to have any idea that Annabelle had just worked some kind of freaky mind control mojo on her. Until this moment, none of us had realized the full extent of Annabelle's power, or, for that matter, mine. The second the girl was inside, Zo turned to me. "You set her on fire," she said, awed. "Bay, you wouldn't even set the trash on fire" "I didn't set her on fire," I said. "I set the tentacles that were pulling her out of her body on fire. There's a difference" Zo stared at me like I was speaking Indonesian. "Never mind," I said. "I'll explain when we talk" I glanced back at the spot where the last of the tentacles had been a moment before. Nothing. "Bay?" Zo's voice broke into my thoughts. "You okay?" I could feel the heat draining out of my body, and with the heat, every ounce of energy I had. I sat down hard on the ground. "I'll be okay," I said, barely able to manage a whisper. I sat there for a while, putting all my concen- tration into breathing. Apparently, Delia's power wasn't the only one that took a lot out of a person. As I sat there, I stared out at the ocean. The waves crashed down, and as I watched, the water be- came a brighter and brighter shade of blue-green that I was all too familiar with. Mist the color of our tattoos rose off the ocean from as far as I could see in any direction, and as I watched, I heard their voices again in my head. From earth she comes From air she breathes From water, her prison beneath the seas The blue-green color flashed so bright that I had to shield my eyes, and then the rhymes were gone and my head was silent. I wasn't as logical as, say, Annabelle, but I was going to go out on a limb and guess that the ominous "she," whoever she was, had come. Biting my bottom lip, I grimaced and put my hand to the tattoo on my back. Safe. For once, the voice in my head was giving me good news instead of cryptic rhymes or warnings about blood. I breathed a sigh of relief a second too soon. With the day in majority, the light will block you from her. Do not venture out after nightfall, child. She will find you. She will destroy you and all that you know. Great, I thought as Adea's voice quieted in my head. World-endy goodness, here we come. Onbekend It was a full hour before the girl we'd saved came out of her hotel bathroom. Apparently, honey wasn't the easiest thing in the world to get out of hair. I had to wonder what Delia's thing was with gooey, nonsolid food substances. The girl opened her mouth and then closed it again, looking at each of us in turn. Zo was lying on the couch, completely absorbed in the soccer match that was blaring on the TV. Delia had helped herself to the contents of the fridge and was sipping on a canned mocha. Annabelle was sitting primly in a chair, quietly examining a book lying on the coffee table in front of her. And me? I was still curled up in a fetal position on the floor. Every now and then, I brought my hand to my tattoo, hoping to hear something useful, but all I got was a whole lot of nothing. "No offense, but who are you people?" the girl asked. Delia took a sip of her mocha. "Delia," she said. She was one of those people who liked to believe she could survive on only one name, like Madonna or Cher. "I'm Bailey," I said, scampering into a sitting position and trying to look less sketchy. "That's Zo" Zo, her eyes locked on the screen, didn't seem to have any intention of shifting her gaze from the game to the girl standing in front of us. As far as Zo was concerned, we'd saved her, and that was that. "I don't mean your names," the blond girl said, wrapping her arms around her waist. "I mean what are you doing in my hotel room? And what was up with the fire? And the honey?" She paused, and her eyes narrowed. "Did my mother send you?" Her mother? What kind of mother did this girl have, anyway? "You don't really need an explanation," Annabelle said soothingly. "But we'll tell you what we can"