Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits, #1)(9)

“Hey!”

I glanced over my shoulder. Echo bounded after me, leather jacket on one arm and pack slung over her back.

“Get your damn jacket on. It’s cold outside.” I didn’t stop for her, but I slowed my pace, curious as to why she followed me out.

She caught up quickly and kept step beside me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I told you, to work. I thought you were smart.” I’d never met anyone so fun to mess with.

“Fine. Then when are we going to make this session up?”

I slammed my books on the piece of crap I called a car, causing rust to scatter to the ground. “We’re not. I’ll make you a deal. You tell Mrs. Collins that we’re meeting as many days after school as you want, collect whatever volunteer hours you need for whatever little club you belong to, and I’ll back you up. I won’t have to see you and you won’t have to look at me. I get to continue with my screwed up life and you get to go home and play dress-up with your friends. Deal?”

Echo winced and backed away as if I’d slapped her. She lost her footing when she hit a patch of ice. My right hand swept out and snatched her wrist before her body could smack the ground.

I kept hold of her while she steadied herself using the trunk of my car. Embarrassment or cold flushed her white cheeks. Either way, I found it funny. But before I had a chance to make fun of her, her eyes widened and she stared down at the wrist I held.

Her long blue sleeve was hiked past her elbow and I followed her gaze to the exposed skin. She attempted to yank her hand away, but I tightened my grip and swallowed my disgust. In all the horror-show homes I’d lived in, I never once saw mutilation like that. White and pale red, raised scars zigzagged up her arm. “What the f*ck is that?”

I tore my eyes away from the scars and searched her face for answers. She sucked in several shallow gasps before yanking a second time and successfully jerking out of my grasp. “Nothing.”

“That ain’t nothing.” And that something had to hurt like hell when it happened.

Echo stretched her sleeve past her wrist to her fingertips. She resembled a corpse. The blood rushed out of her cheeks and her body quaked with silent tremors. “Leave me alone.”

She turned away and stumbled back to the library.





Echo

“Nothing,” said Lila. “Not a word, not a peep, not a sound. Natalie, Grace and I even put a few feelers out to the juniors, but there is absolutely no gossip flying about you. Well, at least nothing involving Noah Hutchins.”

Lila sat in the passenger seat and I sat in the driver’s side of Aires’ 1965 Corvette. She’d come home with me to act as my barrier for Family Friday—or as I liked to refer to it, Dinner for the Damned.

In the garage, the radio played from my 1998 forest-green Dodge Neon. Aires’ Corvette still had its original radio. Translation: a piece of crap, but the rest of the car was totally beast. Flashy bloodred with black pinstriping running horizontally— Aires typically lost me at this point, but he would still continue talking even though my eyes glazed over—three functional, vertical front, slanting louvers on the sides of the front fenders; a blacked-out, horizontal-bars grille and different rocker panel moldings.

I had no idea what that meant, but Aires said it enough that I had the description memorized. The car looked awesome, but it didn’t run. Thanks to Noah Hutchins, my chances of it ever running lessened each day. I tightened my hands on the steering wheel and remembered Aires’ promise to me. Days before he left, he had hovered over the open hood as I sat on the workbench.

“It’s going to be okay, Echo.” Aires’ eyes had flicked to my rocking foot. “It’s only a six-month deployment.”

“I’m fine,” I’d said as I blinked three times. I didn’t want him to leave. Aires was the only person in the world who understood the craziness of our family, plus he was the only one capable of keeping the peace between me, Ashley and our father. He wasn’t Ashley’s biggest fan, but regardless of his feelings, he always encouraged me to give her a break.

He chuckled. “Next time at least try to stop your telltale sign of lying. One of these days Dad will pick up on it.”

“Will you write?” I asked, changing the subject. He’d talked a lot about our father before he left.

“And email and Skype.” He wiped his hands on an already greasy rag and stretched to his full six feet. “I’ll tell you what. When I get home and finish the car, you can be first to drive it. After me, of course.”

My foot stopped rocking and I was flooded with the first real feeling of hope since Aires told me of his deployment. Aires would return home as long as his car waited for him. He’d given me a dream and I held on to it after he left. My dreams died with him on a desolate road in Afghanistan.

“Whatcha thinking about?” asked Lila now.

“Noah Hutchins,” I lied. “He’s had all week to tell the whole school about my scars. What do you think he’s waiting for?”

“Maybe Noah doesn’t have anyone to tell. He’s a stoner foster kid who needs tutoring.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I answered. Or maybe he was waiting for the perfect moment to make my life a living hell.

Lila played with the rings on her fingers, signaling nerves.