Indelible Ink by Matt Betts Read Free Book Online Page A

difference between making a clean getaway and being delivered back to her old life. She thought about Harper and wondered how she would feel about running away and leaving her life behind. Images of the things she’d done began to flood back to her, but she pushed them down and swallowed them like the heavily minted beverage in front of her. She stared at a trifold brochure about rafting down a nearby river. With the next sip, she got instant brain freeze. It was a nice distraction from trying not to remember what it was like to actually be fourteen years old back in the day.

8
    Deena at 15 the first time around
    The tree fort that Deena made in the woods near the highway wasn’t the most spectacular thing ever, but it was stable. Stable enough. She’d borrowed a few old busted up pallets from behind the Kroger, pocketed a handful of nails from the nearby hardware store and used a rock to pound them all into a decent flat surface to sit on.
    She used to come to sit and watch the traffic zip by on the four-lane and wonder where they all were going in such a hurry. Life in Talmadge didn’t lend itself much to rushing for anything, so it was always a novelty. Deena couldn’t remember being anxious to do anything except get away from this place. She figured everyone was on their way to San Diego or Los Angeles or some other city on the California coast. She hadn’t even made it to those places, close as they were. She and Harper begged on a regular basis to make any one of those places a vacation destination, but no luck.
    Lately though, she’d been coming to the little sanctuary to stare at the black and blue blemish on her arm that had appeared, seemingly overnight. It was prominent one day when she went to wash her face before bed and it puzzled her as to whether it had been there before. It was halfway between her elbow and wrist, about as big as the head of a screw.
    She licked her thumb and rubbed at it, but it didn’t come off. She’d tried it all before; scrubbed it with a washcloth and soap, rubbed it with an emery board and a pot scrubber, but no luck. It was an ugly little blemish and she was stuck with it.
    “Deena? You up there?”
    It was her wet-blanket sister, Harper.
    “Yeah,” Deena answered and leaned over the side of her dumpster-salvaged platform, careful not to put her weight on the cracked plank that she feared might snap if she wasn’t careful.
    “Dad just left for work and we have to wash the breakfast dishes and vacuum the living room before we can leave for the pool,” Harper said. “So let’s go. I’m not doing it all on my own and I want to go swimming today.”
    “Ehh,” Deena said.
    “Dammit Deena. Don’t screw around. Mike is going to be there at noon and I want to get there early to claim a lounge chair that he has to walk by to get to the diving board.”
    “Meh.” Deena liked torturing her sister. It was becoming something of a pastime. She was an easy mark.
    Harper practically growled up at Deena. “I will climb up there and drag your bratty ass down and shove the dishes down your throat if I have to.”
    “Bullshit.” If Harper wanted to go so bad, she would cave in and do all of the housework herself. Deena knew that and was prepared to wait it out. She sat up and leaned her back against the tree and watched the traffic quietly. After a moment, she heard her sister stalk off, stomping her feet on the leaves and twigs as she went. The sound dissipated in the distance and Deena could feel a smirk come across her face.
    She raised her arm and stared at the dot. It was just over her wrist and had swollen to the size of a penny. In the time she’d briefly interacted with her sister, it had become twice as large, and it seemed to have moved several inches. Deena was fascinated… and worried.

9
    Morgan sat in the comfortable seat of Marsh’s private jet and stared at Wallace. “Marsh didn’t say anything about bringing you along. Shouldn’t you be babysitting