Uninvited (Uninvited, #1)(42)

And what is he? Is he truly dangerous?

“And secondly . . .” His voice fades and I wait, expecting him to add that we are friends now. With a start, I realize I want to hear him say that. I want a friend. I need a friend. Now more than ever.

“And secondly?” I prompt, feeling stupidly hopeful.

“Secondly, stop asking so many questions . . . hurry up and get over here. I’m already late for work.”

I drop my arms to my sides and move, lifting one leg after another. Grudgingly, I sink onto the cushioned bench and stare at myself in the mirror, seeing what he sees.

My hair is a mess, the light strands lank and tangled—in need of a good wash. The gauze around my neck is no longer a pristine white. Rusty streaks stain the bandage. I would never have been caught dead looking like this before. Before. “Before” doesn’t exist anymore.

Before, I looked like someone who had it all together. In control. I inhale. I couldn’t be that girl anymore, but I could take back some of that control. I could stop simply allowing everything to happen to me.

It’s time I decide what happens next.

Gazing at Sean’s profile, I get the impression, wrong or right, that nothing happens to him without his consent. Even with the imprint on his neck, he’s somehow in control.

I inhale a deep breath and face myself, confront the me in the mirror that I’ve been avoiding for the last twenty-four hours. I nod at him.

He squats next to me, examining my neck. His voice cuts through me so no-nonsense that I blink. “It’s not the end of the world.”

“How come you haven’t run away?” I hear myself ask, my voice small and faraway sounding.

I tremble as Sean slides the hair back off my shoulder, clearing it away from my neck. He shrugs as he concentrates on me. “Thought about it. But it’s not like I can run to anything better. We’re in the national registry. We can’t get into a college or get a decent job. They screen for everything. You can’t hide from this. Why? You thinking of running?”

I shrug. Maybe. After today, running away has its temptations.

He glances around my room again. “You won’t find anything better out there than what you have here. Off the grid . . . or in the cities.” He shakes his head. “That’s a brutal existence.”

His touch is gentle, at great odds with his words and tone of voice. He peels back the edge of the gauze, flicking enough material away from my neck so that he can snip at it with the scissors.

I hiss as he peels it back.

He pauses. “Sorry. It’s sticking.”

And he doesn’t say it, but I hear the mild accusation in his voice. I know it’s my fault. Because I left the wrapping on too long.

“Just rip it off.” I clench my fingers around the bench as I say this.

He gives me a look. His lips twitch and he breaks into an almost smile. The closest I’ve seen from him, and my stomach does an odd little tremble. “It’s not like a Band-Aid, tough guy. I need to ease it off, okay?”

“Oh,” I murmur, and steel myself for the slow tug and pull of the gauze on my raw skin.

“There,” he announces, dropping the soiled fabric on my counter. “Now I’ll just clean it up for you.”

I stare at myself in the mirror—at my neck. There’s a lot more ink than I expected even though I’ve seen it before. On others. On Sean. It’s one thing to know, and another thing to know. To see it on yourself.

I know what an imprint looks like, but the band looks so thick, the H so large and stark against my neck. Tiny flecks of crusted blood mar the tattoo. The skin around the collar of black is an angry red.

“It looks bigger than yours.” Turning my neck from side to side, I scrutinize it almost clinically. It’s hard to connect the girl in the mirror with an imprint around her neck as me. It’s like I’m watching someone on television. Or looking at someone else from a distance, across the street. A stranger with greasy hair and wild eyes. An inked collar with an obscene circled H stamped on her neck.

“Your neck is just smaller. It’s the same as mine.”

“That makes sense.” I nod once and marvel that I can talk so calmly—appear so normal about this.

“Let me clean it up.” He wets a washcloth and gently wipes at the tender flesh. I wince but don’t utter a complaint. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Will I?” I say this curiously. In a voice that doesn’t even sound like me. And maybe it’s not me. Maybe the real Davina Hamilton is dead, left back there in that room. Replaced by the girl in the mirror. A shadow of myself. A new creature without lip gloss or tidy, brushed hair . . . with an ugly tattoo on her neck.

He flicks me a glance as he wraps a hand around my hair and lifts it from my neck to dab at my nape. “You can’t let this define you . . . beat you.” Dropping my hair, he trickles astringent onto a fresh washcloth. My gaze catches on his bicep, on the tattoo there, the one he wanted to have. I watch as it moves over his skin with his actions, the pattern crawling and alive. Then I watch his face again. He studies my neck intently, eyebrows drawing close over his deeply set eyes. Leaning closer, he lightly presses the cloth against my neck, not even glancing at me as he treats the skin.

Don’t let it define me?

Isn’t that the purpose of it? The point? To define me for everyone who crosses my path?