She just wasn’t ready to do that yet.

Chapter 5

“It’s gotta be a trap,” his twin brother said as they stood there, staring down at the small stack of Black Jack’s pizza boxes that they’d discovered hiding in his normally barren refrigerator twenty minutes ago.

“I know,” Darrin said, staring down at the boxes and damning Marybeth to hell and back for teasing them like this.

“Didn’t you double dare her to go on all those rides?” Reese asked, swallowing nervously as he glanced around the large kitchen.

“Yes,” he admitted hollowly, wondering what kind of sick person could do something this.

“They’ve gotta be empty,” Reese said, shifting his attention back to the boxes.

“No,” he said, shaking his head slowly, “they were heavy.”

“What are you thinking?” Reese asked, poking the box with a butter knife. “A diuretic?”

“It could be anything,” he said, folding one arm over his chest while he cupped his chin in a thoughtful manner with his other hand.

“Maybe we should just throw them away,” Reese suggested, but they both knew that neither one of them would be able to do that.

There were just some things that you didn’t do, and throwing away Black Jack’s pizza was one of them.

“Just try it,” he said, hoping that his brother would man up and get it over with so that they could end this bullshit.

Reese shook his head, assuming a similar pose as he continued to study the box. “You first.”

“No fucking way,” he said, having absolutely no desire to willingly accept Marybeth’s revenge.

“I double dare you to do it,” Reese said, which was really fucking sad.

“That only works coming from Marybeth,” he reminded his brother.

“Why?” his brother asked, frowning as he tore his gaze away from the boxes to glare at him.

“Because you refused to play the game when it started.”

Reese snorted. “I wasn’t going to eat that fucking shit. That was disgusting.”

Darrin chuckled as he returned his attention to the box. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“They admitted you to the ICU for a month!” Reese said, looking just as horrified as he had that fateful Sunday afternoon when Darrin had followed through with Marybeth’s first double dare and ate the entire bowl of penicillin covered worms.

“It was just a bad reaction to the worms,” he said, waving it off.

“Then this should be a walk in the park for you,” Reese said, gesturing towards the boxes.

“Eat a slice or get the hell out,” he told his brother, hoping to cut the shit and get this over with.

“No,” Reese simply said, using the butter knife to pop the cover open on the top box, revealing-

“Oh, fuck no,” he said, swallowing hard when he realized what they had in front of them.

“A Monster,” Reese said, licking his lips hungrily as they stared down at the pizza in front of them.

“Four slices are missing,” he pointed out, moving closer to examine the pizza for any obvious signs of tampering.

“She did that to fuck with our heads,” Reese said, coming closer to examine the pizza as well. They examined the pizza from every angle, looking for anything that would give away Marybeth’s sick and twisted plans for him.

“I bet there’s nothing wrong with the pizza,” he said, chuckling.

“You’re probably right,” Reese agreed, matching his chuckle, but didn’t make a single move to go for that pizza, he noted.

“Then try a slice,” he said, gesturing to the pizza.

Reese narrowed his eyes on him. “You.”

“No, you,” he snapped, wondering why his brother was being so damn difficult about this.

“Just eat a slice!”

“You eat a slice!”

“You!”

“You!”

For another minute, they glared at each other. Waiting for the other to back down and give in, but they both knew that would never happen without a little physical prompting. With a nod of understanding, they pushed away from the kitchen island, stepped to the side and with a bored sigh, they did what they had to do.

*-*-*-*

Perhaps she should have said no when Uncle Jared called earlier to see if she could start the old Mason mansion project tonight. A moment later when she opened her truck door and moved to climb out only to wince as every muscle in her body screamed in protest she decided that there was no maybe about it. At the very least she should have waited until tomorrow when she had her crew to help carry everything inside and prepare the house.

Instead, she’d carried over twenty five-gallon buckets of primer to several different locations, most of them up to the third floor of the large mansion. Then, because she really was an idiot, she’d carried in the heavy drop cloths, ladders and all the equipment that they were going to need to paint the interior of the freshly renovated mansion and placed them where they would be needed tomorrow morning.

Six hours later she was sore, exhausted and starving, but at least she wasn’t on the verge of crying about this hopeless situation any longer. Well, tonight she wasn’t. Every time she felt like she was in danger of crying, she’d pushed herself harder and harder until all she could think about was how heavy those damn buckets and ladders were. It’s hard to focus on anything else when your arms felt like they were going to fall off.