You justhadto have that stupid tomato-red hair and that stupid one earring and thosestupiddistinctive tattoos.
You justhadto break in when the door was locked.
Oh, and for good measure, in case that’s not enough, you’ll let them catch you with whatever’s in your bike from Krye.
You’ll get yourself hauled away, arrested, locked up.
You’ll leave me. You’ll leave me.
Pan blinks. Bright eyes on mine.
“You’re right,” he says.
My throat tightens. “I didn’t say—Pan!”
He’s moving. Turned back to the kid, crouching down…
No. My body clocks it before my brain.No, no, that’s not what I meant, don’t?—
“Hey.” He looks her in the eye, smiles all big and broad. “Wendy, is it?”
She nods.
“You ever wanted to fly?”
CHAPTER 9
PAN
Thank God for Tink.
That’s the only thought in my brain as we fly down the 303, our little witness safe and sound on the back of my bike.
Thank God for Tink. ThankGodfor Tink.
I don’t know what I’d do without him.
CHAPTER 10
KIT
Cover-ups get a bad rap,but I like them.
“Hold still, okay?”
I smooth the stencil out over Pearl’s skin as she awkwardly balances on the leather of the chair, her skirt hiked down over her hip.
I like original work, of course I do. But working on top of something, removing the fear of the blank page—I don’t know. A cover-up gives you something to start with, some parameters to work around. Kind of like an inkblot test. What could I make fit to this?
And…well, maybe I’m sentimental, but I like knowing that I’m fixing something for someone. That my art’s not just making something beautiful, but blotting out something ugly.
I feel like maybe that’s what art is for.
Certainly has been for me.
“How about…that?”
A few firm passes of my hand and I peel the paper away to reveal the bluish lines of my sketch. I pass Pearl a handled mirror from my cart, and she angles it at herself, looking back and forth.
