The Life Of A Crazy Girl And Her 10 Brothers

Following Up on the Dares

It was Friday when she brought it up.

"Avy!" Ember said in a singsong voice as she busted into my room, still in her work clothes.

I squinted. She looked too happy. She's planning something. "Yeah?"

"You remember our bet, right?"

I looked away. "No." I definitely did. I'd just hoped she'd forgotten about it.

She rolled her eyes. "Anyway, it's time to put it into play. Rock, paper, scissors, winner chooses who goes first."

I glared, but she just raised an eyebrow in response. She's not budging. "Fine," I huffed. "Best out of three."

We faced off, wielding our fists.
I threw scissors first, and she threw rock. Fuck! We both threw rock next. There's still hope! I threw paper and she threw scissors. Fuck!

"Since I'm so nice, I'll let you go first," she said, eyes shining with glee as she tugged me out of my room, dragged me down the hallway, and shoved me to our guest room.

"Oh, how kind of you," I sneered, but frowned as she shoved me on the bed and then blanched.

The particular guest room we were in didn't have any overhead light fixtures, so we resorted to lamps. Except there were none in the room.

"Ember," I started quietly, "where's all the lights?"

She shot me a mischievous, evil grin. "I took them out. It adds to the ambience, don't you think?"

"No."

"That's too bad." She had found the movie she wanted to play and strode over to me, hand out. "Hand over the phone."

I sighed and handed it over.

"Alright, have fun."

She left, taking the remote with her and with a click, I was locked in the room.

With nothing else to do, I could do nothing other than watch the movie. It wasn't bad, a movie about vampires, but very gruesome with minimal jumpscares.

When the first movie ended, about an hour and half long, Ember came in shortly after, changed into a pair of my pajamas, grinning, all teeth. It was like one of the scary ass smiles Carter did.

"You sly whore," I said. "What's the look on your face?"

"A brilliant look! That movie was good right?"

I eyed her suspiciously. Why's she so happy? "It was alright," I said carefully.

Her smile grew wider and I grew alarmed. "Hey, this is just out of the blue," I said, "but I'm sorry for every time I've called you a whore."

"It's too late for that, Car," she cackled as she pulled up the next movie.

I caught the title, Zombie's Revenge, and immediately turned to her, but she was already gone, door locked behind her.

Number One on the list of supernatural-shit-I-don't-fuck-with was zombies. I wanted to leave as soon as I saw the opening scene, but it didn't end up being bad.

It was so much worse than bad; it was horrible. The music made me want to jump out of my skin and the sudden, gory jumpscares made me scream multiple times. And the zombies, fuck the zombies. They were fast and they could scale buildings in hordes and I couldn't help but glance at the windows hidden behind blinds and curtains.

The total time Ember had left me to watch the two movies totaled to about four hours and it was well after dark when she retrieved me, glee written all over her face even in the dark.

Relief flooded through me, even though I knew it was temporary.

"Get up; straight to Seth's room," she demanded. "And you better spill all the details tomorrow."

I smiled back at her as she shoved me towards the other guest room, which was basically Seth's room. "I'm going to massacre you when it's your turn."

She laughed. "Do you promise?" We arrived at his door and she knocked before bolting to my room.

As she left, I let my shoulders drop and cast a quick glance around. Everyone was either asleep or in their rooms. All the lights were off and it felt abnormally quiet. What if a zombie showed up?

The door creaked open. "Avy?"

I turned to face him, but I must've not wiped the fear off my face well enough.

Seth's eyes widened and his brow furrowed. "What's wrong?" he asked, arms reaching out and pulling me into his room.

Should I tell Seth that I was scared of zombies? Hell no. I distinctly remembered the terror I went through when my brothers found out. I am not going through that again.

A tremor shook through me and I watched Seth notice it and frown.

"What's wrong? Are you cold?"

I took a deep breath, insides cringing. "Can I...." jesus fuck, lets just get this over with "Can I stay with you tonight?" Please don't ask why, please don't ask why.

He didn't answer, so I let my gaze rise from the floor. His cheeks were dusted red with wide eyes.

"What?" I said, suddenly self conscious.

"Yeah," he croaked out. "You can stay."

I moved past him and flopped on the bed. Let's get this party started.