Keep From Falling (Markson Grove Series Book 1) (50 page)

“I’m going to kill you,” Parker says with an eerie calmness to his voice. A chill runs down my spine. He grabs Tris’ by the shirt and yanks him up from the ground. “Stand the fuck up. I’m not done, not even close.”

He punches him again. Tris’ body stumbles, but he catches himself and manages to stay standing. Parker punches again, and then again, and finally after the third punch, Tris collapses to the ground. “How does it feel?” Parker asks, somehow still keeping calm. I don’t understand the calmness, and it worries me. I’ve never seen him like this before.

Tris gasps for breath. His face is a swollen mess and already barely unrecognizable. Parker packs an unbelievable punch.

He takes a step toward Tris. “What about this?” he says, still eerily calm, kicking him in the ribs like Tris had done with me. This time Tris screams out in agony. A very similar sound to what I had made. “Doesn’t feel too good, does it?”

“No,” Tris whimpers, “please stop.”

Parker hesitates, he looks down into Tris’ pleading eyes instead. “Why?” he demands. “Is this because I pushed you away today? Because I fucking rejected you?”

When Tris doesn’t reply Parker kicks him again, this time right in the stomach. “You know where I was tonight, asshole?” He asks with a growl, finally unable to keep his cool. “I was fighting for Dimitri to save your ass! To protect you, you piece of shit!” He kicks him again. “And this is the thanks I get?”

Dimitri.
Parker’s never said the name before, but I assume it must be their boss, the one who owns Parker for life and forces him to fight at the mansion.

Tris inhales, gasps, and then coughs up some blood. He looks up at Parker. “I just wanted… show you…she’s a whore.”

Parker shakes his head in what appears to be disappointment and then instead of kicking Tris another time, he spits in his face. “We’re done,” he says with no amount of remorse. “Dimitri can do whatever the fuck he wants to do to you. I’m done protecting you. The next time I see you, I hope it’s in a body bag.”

He makes his way over to me once again and very gently lifts me up into his arms. As he is walking to his car he looks down at me with pain in his eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it here sooner,” he tells me with so much pain in his voice that I want to cry at the sound of it.

I close my eyes. “I know.”

Bree

We leave the loft shortly after finishing our meals, not really wanting to continue on with the evening after everything that happened earlier. I keep looking at my phone as if I’m expecting to hear from Skylar. I want to know if she’s ok. I need to know. I’m so worked up and worried that my stomach is actually aching, churning with anxiety.

“Colton’s going to walk me home, ok?” Ellie asks Evan, breaking into my thoughts.

Evan seems distracted by something else and doesn’t fight it. He nods to Ellie, then climbs into the driver’s seat of their mother’s car. Spencer grabs my wrist and turns me around to face him. “I’m going to Skylar’s to see if she got home ok. I keep texting her and she’s not responding.”

My heart jumps into my throat. I want to go too.

“Ok,” I say with a small nod. “Will you text me and tell me how she is?”

“Of course,” Spencer replies, leaning in and kissing me softly on the cheek. I force a sad smile before climbing into the passenger seat of Evan’s car.

She’s my friend, and she’s been my friend for a very long time. I’m worried about her. I don’t think I should feel ashamed of that, but I do.

We drive to my place in silence, neither of us wanting to say what it is that’s bothering us because the minute that it’s out in the open, everything between us will change.

But I want to go see her. I
need
to go see her.

Once he pulls into the driveway, I turn to look at him. “I’m going to go to Skylar’s. I need to know if she’s ok, and I don’t want to be dishonest with you about it.”

He closes his eyes, seeming to have already known this was coming. I know he doesn’t want this, I know it makes him nervous, but I don’t want to let my friendship with her go. I care about her too much.

We sit there in silence for a long time and I eventually decide that he isn’t going to reply. I turn to leave, but just as I put my hand on the door handle, he whispers to me without turning his head in my direction. “Do you want me to bring you?”

I know how hard it must have been for him to ask that. He’s trying so much to be supportive. “Ok,” I reply just as quietly.

He doesn’t know where Skylar lives so he follows my directions until we are at her apartment building a few minutes later. I see what I think to be Parker’s car parked in Cecelia’s parking spot and, oddly enough, let out a small sigh of relief. I hope this means that he found her.

I jump out of the car and slam the door behind me.

When I reach the top floor of Skylar’s building, I rush over to her door and, without knocking, walk inside.

“Sky?” I call out as I ease the door shut behind me. I look around the kitchen and notice a first aid kit opened up on the table. Right next to it is a large
Ziplock
freezer bag filled with vials and packets of powders, liquids, and pills; all of which are not legal, I’m sure. A syringe and tourniquet lay on the table beside the bag. My heart sinks into the pit of my stomach.

Parker emerges from Skylar’s room, shirtless and with his jeans hanging low off of his hips. At first I’m startled by his appearance, and I think that I’ve walking into something private between the two of them. But the minute I see his blotchy face and bloodshot eyes, I know that isn’t the case. He’s been crying. When he sees that I’m standing in the kitchen before him, he wipes his eyes and turns his gaze away from mine.

I stare at him, not knowing what to say. What did Tris do?

“Is she ok?” I finally manage, cautiously moving toward her room.

“She’s sleeping. I gave her morphine,” he says, picking up everything lying on the table except for the syringe, tourniquet, and the bottle of morphine. “You didn’t see this,” he tells me, shoving the freezer bag into a backpack and tossing it in the corner of the room.

I nod absentmindedly, continuing toward her door. Once I reach it, Parker grabs my wrist and stops me abruptly. “It’s bad. Just… prepare yourself.”

I yank my hand away, feeling even more panicked than I did a moment before. I stumble to the bed, my head feeling dizzy, and my mind full of guilt. I should have stopped her from leaving with him. I should have been there to keep her safe!

I look down at her in the bed and I see her face, cut in three different places, her eyebrow, the side of her lip, and her chin. Her left cheek is swollen and a dark shade of blue. Her arms are covered in bruises, her wrists have a distinct bruising around them telling me that he held her hands down on something very rough because the tops of them are all scratched and bloody.

I bring my hands to my mouth, trying to muffle the intense agony I’m feeling from escaping from my lungs, but I’m unable to keep it all in. A whimper creeps out and my legs give way. I fall to my knees and rest my head on the bed next to her as I gasp for breath. I lift the blanket that’s covering her partially naked body. The entire side of her stomach and ribs are blue and severely swollen. I gasp. Tris must have kicked her while she was lying on the ground defenseless… probably begging for him not to!

My head is spinning and I immediately start to cry. I’m unable to contain the tears any longer. I wasn’t there to protect her! I should have stopped him!

My wails echo through her room and even though they are loud enough to wake the dead, Skylar doesn’t budge.

Parker, placing both of his hands under the crooks of my arms, yanks me to my feet. I spin around and, without thinking, slam my fists into his chest, over and over again as my cries continue to flow out of me. He tries to stop me from hitting him, reaching for my arms to keep them at bay, but I keep pulling them back and continue hitting. Eventually, he wraps his arms around my entire body tightly so that both of my arms are pinned between us. It’s the only way to get me to stop. Moments later, he lifts me up off the ground and walks us out of the room.

He lets me go once we are in the kitchen and all I can do is stand there and continue to cry uncontrollably. I’m unable to stop gasping and sputtering, and I’m unsure why that is. I think seeing her like this has left me in some sort of hysterical state.

He watches me bawl, waiting for me to stop, but when I don’t, he hesitantly steps toward me, and once he’s sure I won’t hit him again, wraps his arms around me, this time in an embrace, attempting to calm me.

It’s a stiff, awkward hug, a hug between strangers, but it still does the trick and I am finally able to slow the tears down and catch my breath. He pats my head softly once I’m calm again and takes a step back. I see the pain in his eyes, and I know, without him saying so, that he’s feeling the same way I am. Someone he cares about was hurt by another, and that pain resonates from him.

“Tris did all that?” I ask finally, between sporadic breaths.

He nods. I see the emotion in his face, his lower lip is struggling to keep it together, and his eyes are close to giving his pain away. He turns from me quickly so that I don’t see.

“Why isn’t she at the hospital? What if she has broken bones, ruptured organs? Morphine might not be enough.”

“I wanted to,” he says, “but she made me promise her not to. You know how she is with hospitals. If she gets worse, I’ll bring her, I promise.”

“You aren’t exactly able to make that type of call. You’re a drug dealer, not a doctor,” I say probably a bit too harshly, but I don’t care. I’m pissed and this is his fault. Tris did this to hurt him.

He looks me right in the eye, staring me down with an intensity I hadn’t anticipated. I take a slight step back because of it. “I love her as much as you do!” he growls.

The confession breaks my heart. I know he loves her, but I wasn’t expecting him to be so forward about it with me. He must know how much that type of confession would hurt me.

“I know you do. I’m not saying that you don’t. I just want to make sure she’s going to be ok.”

“I’ll make sure she’s ok,” he assures me.

“And what about Tris?”

“I don’t know what to do about him yet. But I
will
do something. I promise.”

“He’s your friend,” I remind him, although I’m not sure why. There is no need for the reminder. He knows Tris is his friend, or at least he was.

He winces. “A friend wouldn’t do something like this to a person I love.”

There it is again. The love confession. It hurts, and even worse, it sucks that it hurts.

“I’m going to go,” I say, wiping a stray tear from my face and starting toward the door. “Evan’s waiting downstairs.”

Parker raises an eyebrow and shoots me a look that’s somewhere between a standard smirk and his trademark condescending smile. “Daniels brought you here to see your ex-girlfriend and waited downstairs for you. I have to say, I’m actually impressed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, frowning.

He shrugs. “Nothing. I just didn’t expect him to be so casual about you still caring about Skylar.”

“She’s my best friend. I can’t exactly shut that off overnight you know,” I reply defensively.

Parker doesn’t seem too phased by my defensiveness. He leans up against the kitchen counter and nods. “I know that. I just don’t think he does.”

I sigh. “He’s trying. He’s downstairs, isn’t he?” I say, gesturing toward the patio door.

“Does he know I’m up here?”

“I don’t know,” I snap. I know where he’s going with this and it’s really pissing me off that he thinks he has a right to even go there.

“I bet he doesn’t. I bet he thinks you’ve been up here alone with your ex-girlfriend, getting back with her. I bet he’s scared as hell.”

“That’s ridiculous. I needed to know if she was ok.”

He walks over to the patio door and slides it open. He peeks over the edge of the balcony at Evan waiting in the car, but Evan doesn’t see him. He turns back to look at me. “You could have called, or texted… You didn’t need to come here. You know that, right?”

I did text her first, not that I need to defend myself to Parker. If he has a problem, he better just spit it out, because I hate games like this. “Do you have something you want to say to me, Parker? Is my being here threatening you in some way?” I ask, testily.

He thinks for a moment, seeming to gather his words carefully as he re-enters the kitchen and closes the patio door behind him. “I’m not threatened by you. I know how Skylar feels about me. But if she were running after
you
the way you’re running after her, I just might be worried.”

What an ass! He thinks he knows it all. “Evan trusts me,” I say, clenching my teeth together in an attempt to calm my anger. “He knows I’m just worried.”

“Does he?”

“You’re trying to piss me off, but it won’t work,” I say.

He shrugs carelessly. “I’m just trying to make you see things through Evan’s eyes for a minute. Not that I care or anything, but you’re hurting him.”

“How the hell would you know that I’m hurting him? You two having heart to hearts now?”