Poison Ink by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online Page A

conservative in comparison, but Sammi wore jeans and a loose green cotton shirt. This was supposed to be girls’ night. Whom were they trying to impress?
    “Letty?”
    They all looked around to see Mrs. Alecia silhouetted in the entrance to the kitchen at the end of the hall.
    “Hello, girls,” Letty’s mother said.
    They all greeted her, but Mrs. Alecia stayed near the kitchen, and they did not move from their spot by the door. Sammi shifted in the moment of awkward silence as the woman appraised them, obviously wondering if one of them might be her daughter’s girlfriend, and if so, which one?
    “Are you sure you don’t want to have dinner here? I’m cooking for your father and Teresa anyway.”
    Letty smiled. “No thank you, Mami. We’re just going to have pizza, if that’s okay. It’s girls’ night.”
    Mrs. Alecia smiled wanly. “All right. Have fun, Letitia.”
    Letty rolled her eyes at her mother’s use of the name. “We will. We’re just going up to my room for a minute. Gotta show the girls something before we take off.”
    Mrs. Alecia vanished into the kitchen. When Letty turned to face them, Sammi saw the sadness in her eyes, but Letty covered it with another one of those giddy smiles.
    “Let’s dump your bags upstairs,” she said to Katsuko and Sammi. Then she looked at Caryn. “Wait’ll you see the designs our favorite artist has come up with.”
    They all exchanged conspiratorial looks and followed Letty upstairs, as if the whole thing might be some wonderful game. Sammi went last, trailing behind the others, wishing she had never agreed to play, knowing how hurt they would be if she tried to back out now.
    Knowing that by morning, whatever she decided, she would have betrayed the trust of someone she loved.

 

    4
    A fter dark they made their way down to Valencia Avenue, a street that Sammi had ridden past with her parents many times over the years but could not recall ever having gone down. There were bakeries and dollar stores and empty storefronts with the glass postered over or whitewashed. One relic had once been a video store, but such places were nearly extinct now.
    Across the street, Sammi spotted the shop with blacked-out windows, a blue neon Open sign the only indication that it was inhabited. That particular shade of deep blue ought to have seemed cold and wintry—especially on a night that had turned so unseasonably cool—but to Sammi it looked like blue fire. Just looking at it made her flush with a strange heat that might have been excitement or embarrassment, or maybe a little of both.
    Her heartbeat sped up and she ran her tongue across her lips. Frightened as she was, the sensation of doing something so taboo, so forbidden, exhilarated her. Being bad had its allure.
    “Are we really going to do this?” T.Q. asked.
    Sammi blinked in surprise and looked over, relieved that someone else had put voice to the question that had been on the tip of her tongue all night. When they had sat in Letty’s room looking at Caryn’s intricate and elegant designs, she had tried to make herself say those words a dozen times. Knowing the way the other girls would look at her, knowing that it would hurt them, she had not been able to summon the courage.
    T.Q. had asked the question. Her eyes were wide, staring across the street at the black windows, at the flickering blue neon letters. Open.
    “Maybe—” Sammi began.
    “Damn right we’re doing it,” Letty said.
    Katsuko laughed as she unconsciously rubbed at her hipbone, the place she intended to get her tattoo. “We didn’t come down here to just forget about it now, T.Q.”
    A nervous, almost giddy smile blossomed on T.Q.’s face. She nodded. “All right. Let’s go.”
    Sammi tried to open her mouth, tried to reverse time just a few seconds, long enough for her to agree with T.Q. and maybe make the others hesitate. But the moment had passed. She had missed the opportunity. Sammi wanted to do this for her friends, but her