Marked

Chapter Twelve pt 2

Rachel stared long and hard at her reflection in Charles's broken bathroom mirror. The same familiar face stared back at her- blue almond-shaped eyes that were a little too far apart, a small nose, round at the tip and lips too big for her face- but it seemed different somehow, older.

Gone where the laugh lines produced by her happier moments with Jed on the mountain, replaced now with lines of worry and fatigue.

The purple eye Charles had given her several days past during his lunatic training was in the final stages of healing. The bruises around her arms were fading to yellow and her red hair remained a tangled mess no matter how many times she combed through it.

Charles had finally agreed to mark them.

It felt like a turning point in their lives, but why then did she still feel so much dread?

Deciding that she'd stalled long enough she splashed some cold water onto her face and stepped out into the room, mustering up as much courage as she could.

Now, twenty minutes later, sitting in a chair inside Charles cabin while he dilly-daddled on her forehead with an assortment of sharp instruments, Rachel couldn't help but cringe.

She tried to convince herself that what everyone had been repeating to her over and over for the past few days was true. This was the most sensible thing to do, the smart thing to do. Maybe the fake mark wouldn't fool anyone, Hector had said, but if it could make the poachers hesitate for even one minute then that was one more minute they could use to their advantage.

But getting the fake mark was excruciating. Rachel didn't even want to think about what getting the real one would feel like.

Her forehead felt on fire and she could feel blood running down over her eyebrows each time Charles pricked her skin. She was the last of them to do it and she kept glancing at Hector who was standing beside her, wiping the blood from her forehead with a blue rag.

He and Juan had gotten their fake mark the day before and it still gave Rachel a pang of shock each time she looked at them- shock mixed in with a little bit of fear in those few seconds when her self-preservation instincts told her that a mark on the forehead meant she should run.

But no, this was still the same Hector with the dimpled chin and brown, brooding eyes, the same sarcastic, impatient Juan with messy curly hair. There was nothing to be afraid of here except for Charles seemingly unsteady hand over her skin.

"You can hold my hand if you want to, Ray," Simone offered. She was sitting across from Rachel. Her eyes were big and wide with her own little barcode nestled between her eyebrows.

"Just talk." Rachel said through gritted teeth.

Mercifully, Juan obliged. "Okay so let me get this straight. You didn't pull these barcodes straight out of your ass? They belong to dead people?"

Charles made a little disapproving sound and turned his glare on Juan. Rachel wished he wouldn't keep working on her while he was looking away, especially with a sharp needle so close to her eyes.

"You're darn tootin I aint got these out of no where. There is a method to my madness, I assure ya."

"How do you even have access to these things?" Rachel asked.

"Well just b'cus we's in the middle of nowhere that don't mean we's cut off from the rest of the world girly. I've got me ways." He replied. "Now sit still or you's gonna make it come out wrong."

Rachel stared at the place between Simone's eyebrows again. For a moment she imagined her as one of them- heartless, cold, a killer. But then Simone's face lit up with a smile and the mirage was broken.