“Let me make you beautiful,” he said and Sparrow blushed. Hawk was handsome, smooth pale skin and white blond hair pulled back in a ponytail that was bound with a silver clasp. His voice was low, melodious, and seductive. “A small one here on that gorgeous neck of yours.” He placed his fingers against her skin, and her pulse had quickened.
“Will it hurt?”
“I won’t let it,” he answered smoothly, helping her lie down on the table.
Sparrow was surprised at how quickly she’d arrived at this moment: alone in Hawk’s studio, stretched out on his table. She’d merely meant to visit, or just watch as Jenna had a new piece to her own tattoo touched up with more color. But Hawk had come into the room, and a short time later, he was kissing Jenna good-bye and leading Sparrow into his studio.
“Something pretty,” Jenna had called out to her before closing the door.
She and Hawk had talked about her skin, Hawk had stroked her arm, and Sparrow found herself agreeing to a small tattoo. She wasn’t sure she was the “pretty” tattoo kind but she didn’t tell him that. There had to be trust. He’d said that. She trusted him.
He sat next to her and leaned down close to her face.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said and as she inhaled the sweetness of his breath, she felt herself become relaxed and sleepy. Almost like being hypnotized. Or drugged. She felt his hand warm on her throat, stretching the skin where he would begin the design. She stared up at the smooth arch of his brows, the almond-shaped eyes of malachite green, and waited for him to begin.
He was beautiful, but he lied.
It had hurt a lot, stinging like hundreds of wasps injecting fiery venom into her neck. Yet, each time Sparrow gasped, clenching her fists against the pain, his eyes met hers, and the pain subsided in his cool forest gaze. Had she slept? She wasn’t sure, but something dark skittered like an insect across her vision. She felt it enter her blood, felt her veins contract. Her heart pounded violently and she groaned, trying to waken. But each time she surfaced, Hawk was there, murmuring into her face, stroking her cheek. When he was finished, he oiled the tattoo with a thin layer of Vaseline and taped a bandage over it. As he sat her up on the table, she felt the fear subside.
“Can I see it?”
“Later,” he said. “When the swelling goes down and it’s not so raw. I promise you it’s just what you wanted.”
His green eyes sparkled beneath the cool lights. He touched her shoulder, slid his hand down her arm and held her wrist for a moment.
By the time Sparrow was on the street walking home, she could hardly recall the pain of the needle, only the longing sensation of wanting to return to Hawk’s side. She clasped her hand over the bandage to keep it secret, needing to hold on to the intimacy of the event.
* * *
MARTI WAS OUT WHEN SPARROW arrived home and she was grateful that she didn’t have to explain just yet about the tattoo. She took Lily on an urgently needed walk around the block and then fed her.
Sparrow thought about eating something herself, but nothing in the fridge seemed appetizing. Instead, she grabbed a handful of crackers, washing them down with a glass of milk that hinted of turning sour. She poured the remains of the milk down the sink, suddenly tired, as if she’d been awake for a month.
Twilight had settled into darkness, and though it was still early in the evening, Sparrow undressed, climbing into bed with a book. Though she was exhausted, she couldn’t sleep, but instead read feverishly and without pleasure, turning the pages of her book rapidly. She thought she could still taste the sour milk, her mouth flooded with a bitter gall despite smoking cigarette after cigarette to rid it of the unpleasant taste. As she turned a page, she burned her leg with a careless flick of hot ash. Rushing to the bathroom for water to cool her skin, she banged her head along the bedroom doorjamb. In the bathroom she administered cold compresses to her leg, then checked her temple in the mirror and saw the reddish bruise welling up. She tossed back two aspirins in hopes they would soothe the headache that was sure to follow and returned to her bed.
Late that night, the moon a dagger in her window, Sparrow sat up on the edge of her bed and shivered violently, her arms clutched tightly around her shoulders. She was weeping uncontrollably, stifling her sobs so as not to disturb Marti and Mitch who had come home late and were sleeping in the next room. She had awoken from a string of nightmares, each one more brutal than the last. They’d never been this bad before—the searing flashes of beasts chasing her, fangs tearing at her throat, her breasts, while she ran and fell and ran again with infinite slowness, blood everywhere, slick and stinking. She moaned, and clamped a hand over her neck where pain, real pain, throbbed and itched like a burn.
Her legs trembled as she walked to her dresser and fished out a small mirror from the top drawer. Standing in a rectangle of blue moonlight shining in her window, she held the mirror up and removed the bandage taped to her neck. She burst into fresh tears seeing the circular knot of a gnarled sprig inked into the skin, still glistening with oil.
She lay back down on the bed, trembling, dazed. And a new string of howling nightmares began, one following another on its heels, giving her scarcely a moment to wake between them. She managed to rouse herself finally, and sitting up in the bed, her eyes full of the vision of blood and terror, she was plunged by memory into the life she had left behind with her father: the constant beatings, the rages, the verbal abuse, and then finally, the attempted rape in the motel.
You are shit. You are worthless. You’ll never be like her. It’s your fault she left. Please baby, I need you. Be her for me . . .
In the dark, Sparrow gagged on the tormenting weight of the past. There had to be a way out of its powerful grip, but she couldn’t think what. There was only the abyss and the lashing sting of the tattoo on her neck.