Dare You To (Pushing the Limits #2)(51)

In a flash of black, Beth races over to Noah.

Her hand darts out, and she strikes him across the face. The sound echoes against the walls of the warehouse. Beth’s chest heaves as she gasps for air. “Fuck you.”

I push off the Jeep. What the hell? Noah gingerly touches his cheek, then inclines his head as if to release tension. “I was starting to feel left out after your little show back at the apartment complex.”

“This is your fault!” she screams. “You and Echo and your new life. You turned Isaiah against me because you’re too scared to be real. You want to be fake. Just like your girl.”

Tattoo Guy—Isaiah—places his hand on Beth’s arm and yanks her away from Noah.

Hell no. Punk or no punk, a girl is in serious trouble if she hits a guy and a guy should never touch a girl. My fingers tighten into a ball as I stalk over. “Get away from her.”

“Groveton,” Isaiah says as he ignores me.

“With your uncle. That is exactly where you need to be.” He points south, away from

Louisville, toward home. “That world can give you what I can’t. Not now. Just wait until graduation.”

“If you meant what you said,” she says in a low growl, “you’ll keep your promise now.”

A dark shadow seems to encompass the guy and I quicken my pace. “I said get away from her.” My heart pounds in my chest. Two against one. The odds are bad, but I’ll take them.

“Don’t you dare throw that in my face,”

Isaiah says to her, then rips his stare from Beth to focus on me. “This doesn’t involve you, man, so f**k off.”

“The hell it doesn’t. She came here with me and she’s going home with me. Anything that happens to her in between is my business.”

He angles his body toward me. “You say that like she’s yours.”

“Isaiah,” Beth whispers. “Don’t.”

With only two feet between us, I take another step with every muscle prepared for a fight. “She became mine the moment you laid a hand on her.”

He closes the gap and we’re standing toe-to-toe. His face inches from mine. Anger pulsates from his body. “She’s not yours. She’s mine and I don’t like how you treat her.”

A petite arm slides between our bodies.

“Isaiah,” says Beth. “Let it go.”

“How I treat her?” Is this guy high? “She doesn’t seem to want you.”

“Ryan, stop, please.” I’ve never heard Beth plead before and I want to look at her and confirm those words actually fell out of her mouth, but I don’t dare. I keep solid eye contact with the ass**le in front of me.

An insane smile tugs at his lips. “You think she wants you? Is that what you think? That you’re some type of real man because you torture her at school? Because you spill her secrets? Because you humiliate her? You think she wants a guy that makes her cry?”

“Isaiah!” yells Beth.

His arm snaps back and so does mine. A large figure surges from my left and instead of the hit I’m prepared to take as I throw, Noah pushes Isaiah into a car. “Back off, bro.”

“How could you!” I expect to see Beth’s frigid, accusing stare in my direction. Instead, it’s fixed on Isaiah. Her entire body shakes and she rubs her left arm with her right hand. A continuous motion over and over again. “How could you tell him that?”

Isaiah blinks and the anger drains out of him. “Beth…”

She rushes to the Jeep. “Let’s go.”

She doesn’t have to tell me twice. I shove the keys in the ignition before I shut the door and roar out of the parking lot. Hitting the freeway, I click on my seat belt as Beth rests her head against the passenger window.

I search for the anger I felt earlier and try to find a way to blame her. She was the one that left. She was the one that spent time with those two guys. But the only thought turning in my  brain is the accusation Isaiah spat at me: I make her cry.

Beth

LIVING IS LIKE BEING CHAINED at the bottom of a shallow pond with my eyes open and no air. I can see distorted images of happiness and light, even hear muffled laughter, but everything is out of my reach as I lie in suffocating agony. If death is the opposite of living, then I hope death is like floating.

I’ve never fought with Isaiah and Noah like that. I never thought Isaiah would betray me, but he has. I trusted my best friend with secrets—secrets I’ve never told another living soul. He knows about my father, he knows about my mother, he knows how many times a man has slapped a hand across my face…he knows that Ryan, the way he offers friendship when I know he’s only playing me, hurts.

Resting my forehead against the glass of the passenger-side window, I watch the multiple white lines in the middle of the road speed by. On the two-lane road leading to my uncle’s house, Ryan passes a tractor trailer, easily doing sixty in a forty-five. I sort of wish I had the courage to open the door and fall out.

It would hurt, but then the pain would be over when I died. All the pain. The indescribable ache in my chest, the heaviness in my head, the hard lump in my throat—it would all be gone.

We’ve ridden in silence. I’m not sure if it’s been an uncomfortable silence as I am on the verge of numb. I’m striving for numb. I crave numb. I want to be high.