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“You’re not the only person in this house who needs to use the bathroom,” my mother shouted through the door.

“I’m hurrying!” I shouted back, flipping my head over to wrap a towel around my hair. And before I flipped back up, I caught a glimpse of red on my back out of the corner of my eye, and rose more slowly, turning to gasp.

My back—my normally completely white, minus a few moles and blemishes back—had a jagged, vividly red mark across it. I leaned in toward the mirror and the mark resolved into bundles and branches—it was like I had an upside-down blossoming tree, starting at my left shoulder and ending at my right hip.

“What the hell,” I whispered, sitting my butt on the counter and scooting back. I stretched a hand over one shoulder, watched the marks move as my shoulder moved, and touched them. They weren’t raised, but when I rubbed at it I realized they weren’t going anywhere.

It was like I’d gotten a very sudden and odd tattoo.

“Mom—” I said, my voice rising as I began to panic.

“The water’s been off for five minutes—pick your zits some other time,” my mother shouted, from just outside the door.

I grit my teeth and swallowed my fear down. Whatever it was on me didn’t hurt, and I doubted there was such a thing as overnight skin cancer. I must’ve scraped myself when I landed last night, but telling my mother that wasn’t likely to earn me any mom points. I’d show her later, if it didn’t go away. I grabbed another towel, cinched it underneath my armpits, and went directly to my bedroom.

CHAPTER 9

Iwoke to my mom coming into my room and zinging up the blinds. She hadn’t properly calculated the extent of her hangover—she wounding stepping back like a vampire in the daylight, hissing. “Get up.”

“What?”

“Time for your shift.”

I blinked awake and looked at my clock—one of those black cats with the swinging eyes and tail. It was four-thirty. The last thing I remembered was crawling into bed and willing myself to sleep because sleeping was better than thinking anymore.

“Mom, can I please call in sick?” I put a hand to my head.

“I’m not rewarding your bad decisions, Jessica.”

“Please, Mom.” It was like there was a drum-session happening inside my skull.

“I can drop you off. Lacey can bring you home.”

“But Lacey’s still in the hospital, Mom.”

“All the more reason for you to go into work. They’ll be short, without her.”

I writhed in bed pathetically. “Can I have my phone back? Maybe she’s better? I could call her?—”

She gave me a look that made it clear what the chances of that happening were. “I’ll be in the car. Don’t keep me waiting,” she said. Then she left the room, and I started hunting for my uniform on my floor.

I hadn’t washed my uniform since the last time I’d worn it on Friday—it still smelled like sweat and fry-grease. But what smelled worse than it did was my mother’s Buick—if the ‘before’ segment of a no-smoking ad was scratch-and-sniff, it’d probably smell like me. I coughed loudly as I settled in and got my seat-belt on.

I waited until my mom pulled into the parking lot to ask the obvious question. “How am I getting home?”

“You can catch a ride with someone.”

“And what if there’s not anyone who can bring me back?”

“Then you can call me. I can get off early on a Sunday.”

“Call you—with what phone?”

“There’s one in the Snax Shax office, I’m sure of it.” I inhaled to plead my case, but she cut me off with a glare. “I made it just fine through my childhood without a phone—and you’re still grounded.”

“Fine,” I said, and shut the door.

I trudged into the back of the Shax, slammed the door behind me the way I couldn’t slam the Buick’s without getting grounded more, and walked to my locker.