Dare You To (Pushing the Limits #2)(66)

If I buy anything with the cash Isaiah gave me, Scott would be all over me like flies to crap. I’m not ready to tip my hand that I have cash. Besides, he’s always wanting to do something for me—now he can.

“No,” he says.

Um…did I misunderstand him? “No?”

“No.”

“I’m not going to be a blonde.”

“It’s who you are. Why do you have to change something so beautiful?”

“So only blondes are beautiful?”

Scott closes his eyes. “I never said that.”

“Then buy me the dye.”

He reopens them and studies me during one of his patented long silences. “I’ll buy you something that will match your original hair color.”

“I don’t want to be blond.”

“Give me a good reason why not.”

“I prefer black.”

“Not good enough.”

I purposefully gawk at Allison. “I hate blondes.”

“Still not good enough.”

I cross my arms over my chest and redirect my gaze to him. I can also do long silences.

“That’s it, Elisabeth? You want to have black hair. Just because. You have no reason. You want what you want.”

“Yeah.” I don’t like his tone or the way his blue eyes look right through me.

“When did you first dye it?” he asks.

“Eighth grade.” My instincts yell at me to run.

“Why?”

My throat becomes tight and I glance away.

“Because.”

“Because why, Elisabeth?”

Because one of Mom’s boyfriends thought I was her in the middle of the night.

“Tell me.” Scott keeps staring right through me. “Tell me why you dyed your hair.”

Isaiah knows. I told him once when I was too high to keep secrets. Mom’s boyfriend stumbled out of our only bedroom in the middle of the night. He sat on the floor next to where I slept on the couch. He lifted my hand, kissed it, and called me my mother’s name. He smacked me when I screamed and he smacked me again when he realized I wasn’t my mother.

The memories rush forward and I can’t shove them away. They need to go away. I need someone to ground me. I need someone to erase the bad memories. I haven’t forgiven Isaiah yet for betraying me. I haven’t talked to him in weeks and I’m not sure I’m ready to.

Even if there wasn’t our recent past between us, I’m not sure that I’d want Isaiah. For some reason, I crave someone else…and that scares me, and being scared only gives power to the memories.

In my head, I can hear the bastard’s voice. I can feel the bastard’s touch. My fingers claw at my head. Get out, get out, get out! I stand so abruptly the stool wobbles, then crashes to the floor. “Fuck you, Scott. I’ll buy the dye myself.”

Ryan

…and George looked at the girl with new eyes. No—not with new eyes, but maybe with eyes he had possessed in another life. With eyes that belonged not to his head, but to his heart. Her smile caressed him as if her fingers had slid up his arm. She constantly amazed him—a human willingly befriending a zombie. The opposite of him somehow gave this horrifying new life meaning. But what really amazed George was that she granted him the grace of a second chance.

Pleased with myself, I lean back in the chair and fold my hands over my stomach. Turns out George’s life was more confusing than he could have imagined. First he wakes up a zombie. Then he discovers that the other zombies expect him to be a leader, and then he shocks himself by loving his newfound power.

And then comes the girl.

Girls always complicate things. My lips turn up as I think of Beth. Yeah they do, but in a good way.

My phone vibrates and I glance at the caller ID. It’s an unknown number so I let it go to voice mail. Seconds later the phone chimes, telling me I have a text. I grab the phone and smile: Friends, right?—Beth

Me: Yes

“Then let me in.” Beth’s sexy voice drifts from the other side of my open window.

I check the clock—eleven. Mom and Dad would be in bed. To be safe, I lock the door to my bedroom before I raise the pane and pop the screen out. “What are you doing here?”

Beth swings one leg into my room, followed by the other, with such ease that I believe she’s done this before. “I got bored.”

“You could have called.” Popping the screen in isn’t nearly as easy as popping it out.

“I did.” Beth assesses my room. She picks up a baseball on my dresser, tosses it into the air, and barely makes the catch. “You didn’t answer.”

“You called thirty seconds ago.”

She drops the ball back onto my dresser.

“But I did call.”

The reality of the moment smacks me when she leans over and taps the lava lamp that stopped working a year ago. Her smooth skin and tattoo peek out when her top rides up. I inhale and focus on anything but touching her.

“Does your uncle know you’re here?”

“No.” Beth walks over to the computer.

“What are you working on?”

“A creative writing assignment.”

She pinches her lips as her head falls back.

“Damn. Do we have one? When is it due? Ah hell, Scott is going to rip me on this. And here I thought I was finally keeping up.”