Page 3 of Just Dare Me
All the while, I’m patting him down. “Say, mister, about that ciggy?”
His terror turns to outrage. “Get your paws off me, you traitorous, two-faced tramp!”
Nora’s eyes widen. “Hey! I dare you to say that again.” She pushes him toward me.
I push him back toward her. “Go on, Alfred, say it again. She dares you.”
She pushes him back to me. “Nobody talks to her like that, got it?”
I push him back. “Put your hands down. Look at a lady when she’s talking to you.”
“A blight on this city!” he screams, staggering away from us. “That’s what you are. A blight and a scourge on this city, the both of you!”
Nora, bless her little short-fused heart, is suddenly red-faced with anger. Picking up the smoldering end of his cigar, she chucks it at him with impressive speed and aim. “Choke on it! Don’t show your face here again!”
“Or I’ll take it clean off with my razor-sharp claws!” I shout.
“I’ll shatter your puny, fragile mind with my siren song!”
“I’ll take your balls off—your sagging, wrinkly balls—and feed them to my blood-starved labradoodle.”
Yeah, so…the guy was long gone two threats ago. Now we’re just shouting at a closed door, alone on the balcony. I take a long, soothing breath. “Meh, I feel like that last one was a bit cliché. With guys, it always ends up being about the balls, you know?”
Nora’s chest is heaving with anger. Some of her perfectly placed hair has fallen down into her flushed face. “They have a right to fear me. They’ve seen what happens when I can’t control my powers. They can hate me all they want. But you…they don’t know the first thing about you, Shayne. What you’ve sacrificed for them.” The storm passes from her face as quickly as it came. Her shoulders drop. She hangs her head in her hands. “Not sad sacks, huh? Not antisocial, reclusive, misunderstood outcasts?”
“Nora, did you not hear a word that man said? Ablightand ascourge, he said. Very different thanoutcastorsad sack. Which one do you want, blight or scourge? You seem more like a blight to me. Yeah, I’m definitely a scourge.”
Nora shakes her head, exasperated, but now with a reluctant smile. “Everything just glances right off you, Shayne.”
“If you really believe that, I’d love to play poker with you some time. But now that we’re finally alone out here, I’ll quote one of my favorite songs from the Pointer Sisters.”
“And that is?”
I jerk my head toward the balcony railing. “Jump.”
Nora’s smile spreads, showing perfect white teeth. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Hitching up the skirt of her cocktail dress, she climbs to the top of the railing and leaps off. After a silent thirty-foot fall, she points her toes for a perfect plunge into the Rouge River.
When I climb down thebalcony to the rocky shore, Nora has shifted into her siren, bobbing up and down in the water. I can never get used to how stunning she becomes in this form. She shimmers with scales of pearlescent purple and teal, and her eyes are so exotic, framed with swirls of color, shining in the darkness under the balcony. She even can’t help being beautiful when she wrinkles her nose with a scowl to complain. “Ugh, this water’s nasty! It’s like trying to breathe in a room full of smoke.”
“I know. It’s from all the factories and processing plants. All their oil and industrial waste runs off into the river. That’s why nobody ever swims in it.”
“Wait, what?”
I locate the duffle bag we hid in the rocks early this morning. “I’d bet you’re probably the first person to get in the Rouge River since it caught on fire in the 1950s.”
“Shayne! Caught on fire?!”
“Yeah, the wateritselfcaught on fire from being so oily. Can you believe that?”
“Yes, I really can!”
“Relax, I’m about to be the second person to get in that shit.”
“But you don’t have tobreatheit.”
“Just wait till you see the child-size wetsuit I have to wear. Trust me, I’m the one getting the raw deal here.” To demonstrate, I find the thick neoprene headcap in the duffle bag and pull it over my head. The heavy material feels like two giant hands surrounding my head and pressing inward, trying to crush my skull. My whole face gets scrunched into a tiny round opening, forcing my brows down over my eyes and pushing my lips out like a duck bill. Nora bursts into laughter. I would have a few choice words for her, but I can’t talk with duck lips, so two middle fingers will have to do.
