The Merciless (5 page)

I swear I feel the needle a second before Brooklyn slides it through my skin. It's nothing like the sharp, sudden prick I'd been imagining. This pain is slow. Nausea floods my stomach, and I have to close my eyes to keep from feeling dizzy.

“
Shit
,” I hiss, letting out my breath in a rush. There's a pop,
and I feel the needle slide through the other side of my eyebrow.

I wrap my hand around the chair's armrest and force myself to breathe as the room around me spins. I feel strangely hot. It's so hot that I'm sweating, and now the floor is rising and falling beneath me. I blink, and it's as if I'm looking through a camera's fish-eye lens. Brooklyn is close, but everything around her is distorted and far away.

“Are you okay?” Brooklyn's forehead creases in concern. I stare at my knees, trying to focus on breathing.

When I look up again, Brooklyn straddles her stool and we're sitting so close that our knees touch. She holds the needle in front of her, and my blood winds down the side. The overhead light flickers—it's reflected in Brooklyn's black eyes and in the red droplet of my blood.

“Sofia,” Brooklyn says. She slides the needle into her mouth, smearing her lips with red blood. “Now you're reborn,” she says, her voice distorted, like I'm hearing it underwater. The light flickers again, and everything goes black.

• • •

The next thing I'm aware of is a weight pressing against my eyelids. My throat is dry and scratchy, and I try to speak, but the sound that escapes my mouth is strangled, like a gasp. I force my eyes open, and light fractures and breaks in front of me, making me squint.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty. How you feeling?”

“Brooklyn?” I blink and, slowly, my vision clears. I'm not in the tattoo parlor chair anymore. I'm lying in some sort of office area, and Brooklyn is perched on the edge of a desk in front of me. Her shirtsleeve is rolled up, exposing a freshly bandaged shoulder. She removes a cigarette from her mouth and blows out a plume of smoke that curls around her.

“You passed out,” she explains. “My cousin's like that—he'd pass out from a paper cut. Charlie and Ollie moved you so you wouldn't freak out the other customers.”

“Charlie moved me?” I ask, feeling an immediate pang of embarrassment. Brooklyn nods. There's no blood on her mouth. No strange glinting light in her black eyes or manic smile. It was a dream. Or a hallucination, maybe.

“What time is it?”

Brooklyn pulls a cell phone out of her pocket and squints down at it. “Quarter after six.”

“Crap.” I sit up, trying to ignore the headache beating at my temples. The office door opens, and Charlie appears, holding a bottle of water. I grab my backpack and stand. The room spins, and I hold on to the desk to steady myself.

“Feeling better?” he asks. He smiles, and the spinning immediately gets worse.

“Where's the fire?” Brooklyn asks, lifting the cigarette back to her mouth.

“I just need to get home. Thanks for the—” I motion to my eyebrow, then duck past Charlie and out of the office, cheeks burning in embarrassment.

As soon as I'm outside, I start to run. My backpack digs painfully into my shoulder and slaps against my hip as I move. If my mom gets home before I do and finds out I left Grandmother alone, I'm screwed. I try to do the math in my head—it takes me about five minutes to walk home from school, and Brooklyn and I walked for maybe ten minutes to get to the tattoo parlor. Tonight my mom's class ends at six thirty, and she'll be home by six forty-five. As long as I don't get lost, I should be fine.

My chest burns, and my breath escapes in ragged gasps. I barely notice the buildings and houses as I race past them, working and reworking the math in my head. I'm almost home. I'm fine. I'll be fine.

I tear up the driveway to our house and fit my key into the lock, glancing at the clock in the hallway once I'm inside:
6:40
. I close my eyes, lean against the front door, and breathe. I made it.

Kicking off my shoes, I head down the hall and duck into the bathroom across from Grandmother's bedroom. Her door is open, and the red-tinted lamplight spills into the hall. I hear her wheezing breaths and the rosary beads clicking against her table as I walk past.

“You okay,
Abuela
?” I call to her as I shrug off my backpack and set it on the toilet seat. Then I catch sight of myself in the mirror over the sink.

The tiny gold hoop circles the narrowest part of my eyebrow, looking foreign and wrong against my dark skin. I lean in to touch it, cringing when my finger brushes against the purple bruise spreading across my skin.

I glance over my shoulder into Grandmother's room. She's sitting up in bed, her dark eyes staring out at me from the shadows of her red-tinted room. Her lips mouth wordless prayers as she counts the beads on her rosary.

My breath is shallow, fast. I turn back around, wrapping my fingers around the cold porcelain sink to try to calm myself down. My reflection stares back at me, the tiny golden hoop twinkling above my right eye.

Mom's car rumbles into the driveway, and the engine cuts. In the quiet that follows, I swear I hear my heart beating against my chest. I don't think. I lean in close to the mirror, so close I could count the number of lashes on my eyelid. I hold the tiny golden hoop steady with two fingers and twist the bead off. Then I rock the hoop back and forth, ignoring the blistering pain as I ease it out of my skin. Blood bubbles beneath my fingers.

Grandmother watches me from her bedroom. The front door opens and slams closed. Footsteps thud in the foyer.

“Sofia?”

I let the golden hoop fall from my fingers, and it clinks against the sink, landing a half an inch from the drain. I switch on the faucet and it swirls down the drain in a whirlpool of pink, bloodstained water. Only once it's gone do I allow myself to breathe again.

“I'm in the bathroom, Mom,” I call. I rinse my hands and look back up at the mirror. The blood is still leaking from the hole in my eyebrow. It's smudged across my forehead and cheek, crusted into my eyelashes. I unwind a length of toilet paper from the roll and bunch it up into a ball, holding it to my face.

Beneath my fingers, the blood blossoms like a flower. Within seconds, the entire tissue is stained red.

“I
still don't understand why it would bleed so much.” Mom wraps up the chicken we just had for dinner in tinfoil while I fill the sink with soapy water and start the dishes. I shrug, staring at a folded dishtowel next to the sink. It's red and white with a picture of a rooster on it.

“It was a really big zit,” I say. I cleaned the blood from my face and covered the piercing with a Band-Aid before my mom saw it, but I've had to change the Band-Aid twice since she's been home. Already the new one is red with blood.

Mom puts the chicken in the fridge, frowning as she closes the door. Our phone rings, and Mom leans over the counter and picks it up. “Flores residence,” she answers. A tinny-sounding voice echoes from the other end of the receiver, and Mom smiles. “One moment. It's your friend Riley,” she says, handing me the phone. “She says she has a homework question. Just don't take too long.”

I slip out the back door with the phone and curl up in the wooden chair on our patio. Our backyard stretches forever, without any streetlights or nearby houses to break it up. It's unnerving, like being walled in on all sides with empty space. Insects buzz restlessly, like white noise. I tuck my legs beneath me.

“Riley?” I say into the phone.

“Sof? I saw you with Brooklyn!” My stomach twists, but Riley continues talking before I can worry about whether she changed her mind about the spying. “Why didn't you tell me? What did you find out?”

“Nothing, really. She took me with her to get a tattoo.” I run a finger along the edge of the bandage on my forehead but decide to keep the details of my piercing to myself.

“That's it?” Riley sounds disappointed. I lower my hand, quiet for a second as I try to work out what I want to say.

“What did you expect me to find?” My voice comes out sharper than I intend, but I don't apologize for it. Riley said she was trying to help Brooklyn, but it sounds like she just wanted her to screw up.

“She skinned a cat and left it outside our school.” Riley's voice has an edge to it. “Or did you forget?”

I press my lips together to keep myself from arguing. Riley
thinks
Brooklyn skinned that cat. Tattoos and cigarettes aren't in the same league as animal mutilation.

Riley clears her throat.

“Are you okay, Sof? She didn't hurt you, did she? Or manipulate you in some way?” The concern in Riley's voice is real, and suddenly I feel terrible.
Riley's
been a real friend to me since I got here, not Brooklyn. I exhale and shake my head, pulling at a piece of loose skin near my fingernail.

“No, it was nothing like that. She was . . .”
Cool
. The word pops into my head uninvited. “She was weird,” I finish instead.

As the word leaves my mouth I realize it's just as true. Brooklyn was cool, but I get what Riley means—something about her did feel off. I think of her slender fingers on Santos's needles, her wolfish grin, and how she persuaded me so effortlessly to get a piercing. She made it too easy to be bad.

“Maybe I'll find something better tomorrow,” I mumble. There's a beat of silence. I clear my throat. “How are things between you and Josh?”

“Oh, didn't you hear? We're all better now,” Riley says. “He sent flowers to my class third period. Roses.”

“Wow. That's great.”

“Listen,” Riley says before I can continue. “I just want to say I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable when I asked you to hang out with Brooklyn.”

“Riley, you didn't,” I insist. “Really.”

“It's just that I think she really needs help. I have this feeling like she's standing on the edge of a cliff and she's about to go over. Like she'll fall if we don't help her.”

I run my thumb over a cuticle in slow circles. I try to picture Brooklyn at the edge of a cliff, her combat boots sending rocks off the edge, but it just doesn't fit with the girl I hung out with this afternoon. Brooklyn was having fun, not crying out for help. “You really think it's that bad?”

“I
really
do. Did she tell you she's having a party tomorrow?”

“She didn't mention it.”

“Well, I heard some kids talking about it at school. It's supposed to be intense. You should go.”

I run my tongue over my lips, which are dry now from the cold creeping over the yard. The last party I went to was in a house in the woods, next to the train tracks that ran through town. A bunch of football players stood just inside the door, loudly rating every girl who walked past, and every time a train rolled through, the whole house shook and everyone took a shot.

When I don't answer right away, Riley starts to plead. “Come on, Sofia! There's a reason I picked you for this. Some people have evil inside them, but
that's
what God is for, to fix them when they can't fix themselves. We can still fix Brooklyn.”

The insects in the yard have gone still, but wind sweeps over the grass and pounds against the windows. I shiver and pull my arms around my chest. Grandmother used to pray for people in her neighborhood when she thought they needed strength. This isn't any different, I guess. Riley's just a little more active with her faith. Grams would probably like her.

“Sof? Are you still there?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I'll do it. Promise.”

• • •

I shiver as I make my way to Brooklyn's for the party the next night. An owl hoots in a nearby tree. I pull my sweatshirt tighter around my shoulders and lower my face. Wind sweeps through the tree branches, rattling them like bones. A man with a sagging gut and pockmarked face winks at me.

“How you doing, cutie?” he mumbles. His breath smells like whiskey and beef jerky. I hurry past him as he stumbles toward a dimly lit bar.

Brooklyn lives on the first floor of a cheap apartment complex. It's set up to look like a motel. All the apartment doors face an open-air hallway protected only by the cheap, painted aluminum guardrail. Just beyond the edge of the property, I can see the service road that leads to the tattoo parlor.

A sound like a gunshot echoes down the dark alley near her street. I freeze, every muscle in my body tensing to run. Then a car engine sputters on, and an old Buick pulls away from the curb. Not a gunshot—a car backfiring. I exhale and keep moving. The sooner I make it to Brooklyn's place, the better.

Even if she hadn't slipped me the address in English lit class, I wouldn't have trouble finding Brooklyn's party. The music's so loud it vibrates through the parking lot, and the apartment door hangs open. Girls in short skirts and pierced, tattooed guys lounge against the wall, drinking from red Solo cups and smoking cigarettes that smell like pine needles. Green paint bubbles up around where they stubbed the butts out on the walls. Either they're all over twenty-one, or this isn't the kind of neighborhood that calls the cops for underage drinking.

“Hey, little girl!” someone calls, startling me. I turn just as a large bald guy approaches. He towers above me, and he has to weigh at least two hundred pounds. He wears all black, and a white-and-black skull tattoo covers his face and bald head. It looks like he doesn't have any skin.

I start to turn back around, hoping he's not talking to me. He grabs my arm.

“Don't be like that. I'm talking to you,” he says. Deep black lines shadow his eyes, and tattoos of teeth stretch down over his lips. “I've got a question.”

“Shoot,” I say, struggling to keep my voice steady. The man's lips part, but I can't tell if he's smiling at me or grimacing.

“My friends and I are taking a poll.” He nods to a group of people standing by the apartment door. They're all pierced and tattooed, but next to Skull Guy they look like members of a church group. “If you could choose how you were going to die, would you rather be beaten to death with a shovel or have your face eaten off?”

I swallow, trying to keep my nerves from showing on my face. The guy might be freaky looking, but he just wants to get a reaction out of me. It's all just part of his game.

“I'd go for the face,” I say, meeting his gaze. “I'd want to look my killer in the eye.”

This time I'm sure Skull Guy smiles at me. The white-and-black cheekbone tattoos stretch across his face when his lips part. “Solid,” he says, bumping my fist.

I nod at a couple more people as I walk past, trying to look like I belong. The music pounds around me, an insistent
bomp bomp bomp.
Once inside, I push my sweatshirt hood back and glance around the room. It's smoky and dark. Bodies crowd around me, packed so tightly I can't move without bumping someone's arm or back. The floor is sticky, littered with empty beer cans.

I can't believe I worried this would be anything like my last party. It's a completely different world. I've never heard the music before, and I don't think any of the people here actually go to our school. A girl with long, white-blond hair and glassy eyes passes a tiny bag of powder to another girl in a leather jacket, then walks away without glancing at her. I weave through the crowd to a table covered in booze and beer. I grab the single can of off-brand soda sitting next to a case of PBR, just so I have something to do with my hands.

A voice rises above the music, startling me. “Sofia!”

I turn and, through the sea of people pushing in on me, spot Charlie waving his hands above his head like he's signaling planes. If I were a cartoon character, my mouth would drop to the floor and exclamation points would shoot out of my eyes—that's how excited I am to see him standing there, wearing a worn T-shirt with some faded sports logo on it and a dark gray zip-up sweatshirt. He moves around a crowd of guys to stand in front of me and says something I can't hear over the noise. I smile so wide the corners of my mouth threaten to split.

“What?” I shout.

He grins back at me, and even in the dark I notice the dimple in his cheek. Pushing the hair from my neck, he leans in close enough that his breath warms my skin.

“It's loud,” he says. “Wanna go outside?”

“Sure.”

Charlie takes my hand, and we head for the back of the apartment to a smudged sliding glass door. I crack open my soda as Charlie pushes through the door and we slip outside. Cold air rushes to greet me, and I shiver, almost glad the can is warm, even if the soda tastes terrible.

“You seem to be the only other person here not trying to get completely hammered,” Charlie says once we've left the pounding music behind.

“I'm not a big drinker,” I say. Charlie nods.

“Me neither.” He smiles at me again, that dimple appearing in his cheek. My stomach flips.

“I'm glad you're here. I don't really know anyone else.” Charlie glances around at the kids sprawled on lawn chairs and hovering near the apartment door. At first I don't recognize any of them, either, but then I spot Tom wearing a backward baseball cap. He leans forward, passing his cigarette to a cute girl with black dreadlocks and thick glasses. The girl giggles at something he says, then leans in to kiss him. I cringe. Grace would be devastated.

Charlie sees him, too. “I know Tom, I guess. But he's been preoccupied. Josh said he was coming, but I haven't seen him. And now I know you.”

“Josh is coming to this party?” I didn't think this was Josh's scene—he seems so preppy, like Riley. Charlie shrugs.

I glance around at the patchy grass and dirty white lawn chairs. Beyond them, I see the outlines of a slide, a swing set, and what I assume is a pool surrounded by high wooden fencing. Despite the cold weather, I hear giggling and splashing.

A smile creeps across my face. I pull on Charlie's sleeve. “Come on. I have a plan.”

“Are we going swimming?” Charlie asks when I start to lead him toward the pool.

“It's, like, fifty degrees out!” I pull my sweatshirt tighter around my shoulders. “Besides, I don't have a suit.”

”Why should that stop you?”

I groan and push him toward the slide instead. The playground equipment is made of that old steel that isn't used at schools anymore, because people are afraid kids will impale themselves on the sharp metal while playing. I approach the slide hesitantly and test the bottom ladder rung to make sure it'll hold my weight.

“Are you serious?” Charlie says. I raise an eyebrow in challenge.

“It's either the slide with me, or you go back to the party to hang out with people who don't even remember their names. Your choice.”

Charlie purses his lips, pretending to think this over. “Which people, exactly?”

I pick up a rock and threaten to throw it at him, and he raises his hands in surrender, laughing. “Kidding, kidding.” He jogs to the bottom of the slide and crouches down. “Okay, go. I'll catch you.”

“I don't need you to catch me,” I say. I set my soda down on the ground and climb up the ladder, perching on top of the slide. Charlie grins.

“Of course you do.” He grabs the sides of the slide with both hands and shakes, causing the entire thing to rattle. “This thing is a death trap.”

Despite the coolness of the night, the metal is warm beneath my hands. I push myself down, and as I start to gather speed, I shriek. Charlie grabs my shoulders before I hit the dirt and holds me steady.

“You okay?” he asks. He actually looks concerned. “I can't believe they let kids on that thing.”

“Your turn,” I say, pushing myself back to my feet.

Charlie grins and races around to the ladder. The entire slide rocks as he climbs, the metal creaking so badly I'm convinced it's about to fall apart.

“Shit,” Charlie says as he settles at the top. “Now I have so much more respect for you for going first.”

“Well, I'm a rebel.”

“Here goes nothing.” Charlie pushes off and shoots down the slide. Somewhere along the way he goes into warp speed, and then he's not sliding anymore—he's flying—and I can't move out of the way before he tumbles into me. We both roll backward, hitting the dirt in a tangle of limbs.