by Chloe Walsh
Copyright 2014 by Chloe Walsh
All Rights Reserved. ©
Smashwords Edition
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Fall On Me
The Broken Series #3
by Chloe Walsh
Other Books by Chloe Walsh
Break My Fall (Broken #1)
Fall To Pieces (Broken #2)
Fall On Me (Broken #3)
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my loyal readers who follow me on Facebook and Twitter. I could have never hoped for such a lovely bunch of ladies. Their support, encouragement and enthusiasm for another piece of Kyle and Lee is why I wrote this book. Ladies, this book is for each and every one of you. You're all important to me and I hope you know how much I appreciate your kindness.
Thank you.
Contents
Copyright
Books by Chloe Walsh
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Acknowledgements
Fellow Author L.J Burnley
Prologue
Camryn Frey
June 28th 2013
Turning my key in the door I smiled to myself as Lee's warbling voice filled my ears. She obviously thought she was alone. There was no other way to get that girl to sing – thank god for that because she held a note similar to the way an injured animal howled. I closed the door as quietly as I could and slipped down the hallway to his room. I wasn't going to bother Lee. She didn't need to know I was here or why for that matter. Or that I was leaving Colorado. I didn't want to burst her bubble. Not tonight. She'd been so excited when she visited last week to tell me her plan and all I could think of at the time was 'about damn time.' I knew what tonight meant for her and Kyle. It was the night she would finally come off her high horse and Kyle would become the luckiest son of a bitch in the world.
In the beginning, I hadn't thought Kyle would–or could–ever be worthy of my best friend. His asshole mood swings and her ignorant naivety blended together as well as oil and water. But after all they'd been through, and overcome, I was beginning to realize that there was never two people more suited. It tore my heart to think that I was leaving my old roommates behind…leaving him behind.
But I had to go.
I'd made too many mistakes.
If I had one wish, one do-over day in my life, I would go back to that morning in January. I would go back to that freezing cold morning and I would climb into the shower with my boyfriend instead of answering his phone. If I had just let his phone ring out I'd never know and I could have lived in ignorance. But no, of course I'd taken the call and had my heart ripped to shreds and my world turned inside out. In an act of vengeance–because I was a get even kind of girl–and sheer fear over what happened to Lee I took something away from Derek and in doing so, I lost myself.
After that day, after what I did, I hadn't cared. I'd been numb. I was still numb. I'd slept with Mike. I told him I loved him. All lies. All bullshit. I cared about him and for a while I'd thought I might love Mike. I tried to make myself love him, but all I'd wanted was...Derek. I knew I'd ruined everything. I was a big girl. I didn't want anyone's sympathy. Every time Derek called me or text I'd been filled with such self-loathing and disgust with myself that I'd lashed out. I had used her words-her wrecking ball of a confession-to keep my guilt at bay. But it had always swamped me because deep in my heart I knew he hadn't betrayed me. Not like I had him. He knew about Mike, but if he knew everything...
Lifting his mattress, I slid the letter I'd written him underneath and I prayed with all my heart that he would find comfort in the truth. In knowing that there was never anyone for me but him. Not really. Not at all.
I knew I was being a coward and selfish and a million other horrible things, but he needed closure. And I needed forgiveness. When he read that letter he would know. Everything.
I couldn't stop myself from hugging his pillow to my chest, and inhaling his scent one last time. Oh god, even though I didn't deserve it I secretly hoped he would follow me. I hoped he could find it in his heart to forgive me…
"This isn't going to make Kyle love you, Rachel. Killing me will only make him hate you more."
My heart rate spiked. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.
Rachel.
Dropping Derek's pillow, I bolted out of his room towards the hallway with Lee's terrified voice screaming in my ears. "Killing me will only make him hate you more."
Over my dead body.
I'd ignored too many incidents. For years I sat back and remained silent while Jimmy Bennett beat her to a pulp. Over and fucking over. The marks…the burns…the tears of that five year old version of Lee huddled in our tree house–her face so bruised I could barely see her eyes through the blood and the swelling– penetrated my mind. A fire roared inside of me.
Vengeance.
I had to help her. I had to stop the fucking nut job aiming a gun at my best friend. On shaken legs I rushed Rachel so hard the gun fell from her hands, shooting off before sliding across the tiles of the kitchen floor. Grabbing her hair I slammed her head against the door. "You bitch," I spat before slamming her head again. "How dare you? How fucking dare you point that thing at her?" How the hell Kyle and Mike had ever seen anything in this freak was beyond me.
"You're too late," Rachel cackled not even trying to fight me off. "Poor little princess has a boo-boo."
My eyes followed where her finger pointed and my stomach lurched. I gaped in pure horror as Lee's frightened gray eyes fluttered closed. The hand she had pressed to her stomach drooped to her side. Her entire body slumped forward as she collapsed to her knees.
"Lee!" The roar that tore from my throat was that of a feral animal. Her stomach...Oh god, there was a freaking hole in her stomach. Fury–red hot burning rage–flooded my veins as I turned on Rachel. "You crazy bitch."
Digging my nails into her scalp I dragged her forward, and with every ounce of strength in my body I crushed her head against the frame of the door. I couldn't think straight. I wanted to inflict so much pain on this girl that she'd never open her evil eyes again. She fell to the ground, eyes closed and unresponsive. I wished her dead. I prayed that I had taken her last breath. Spluttering noises drew my attention back to Lee. I had to force my eyes open as I went to her. "Lee, hang on. I'm going to get help."
"Cam..." she tried to speak but dark clots of blood spilled from her mouth.
She's dying...
Oh god, I knew she was. No one bled out of their mouth. No one's blood was that black. She was going to die. That crazy fucking bitch had finally done it. Blood… All I could see was Lee's blood spilling from her mouth, her stomach. I could smell it. It was suffocating me.
"Cam…Get out of here…Run." Lee kept trying to speak to me and all I wanted to do was cover her mouth with my hand to stop the blood. I wanted t
o scream at her to keep quiet and close her mouth. There was so much of her blood on us–on the floor–that I couldn't imagine much more being left inside of her body…
Grabbing my cell phone, I dialed 911. "I need an ambulance and the police." I glared at Rachel's slumped frame. "And a strait jacket. Thirteenth Street. University Hill. Hurry," I paused to stop my voice from rising to a scream. I didn't want Lee to hear my fear and right about now it was crawling up my throat. "My friend has been shot."
"Okay, ma'am. We'll send someone out straight away," the voice on the other line said. I couldn't tell if I was speaking to a man or a woman. I couldn't think, period. "Is the wound visible through the clothing? Can you tell me where your friend has been shot?"
I looked down at Lee's stomach and flinched. "Yeah. In the stomach, I think."
Please don't die...
Please don't die…
"The paramedics are on the way, ma'am. I need you to put pressure on the wound," the operator told me. "Have you got a towel you can press to her stomach?" Oh my fucking god. I hung up before I could scream at the idiot. What the hell? I had just walked in on a shooting and now I was supposed to pull a towel out of my ass like I'd been doing the freaking dishes.
Asshole.
Shrugging off my jacket, I pressed it against her belly. Warm ooze seeped onto my hands. Blood. My mind was flooded with images of a blue eyed, eight week old baby looking for her momma. Her momma was dying in my arms. Oh god, how was I going to face Kyle? Should I call him? No…I needed to stay calm and stop her from bleeding out. "Lee, I have to put pressure on the wound. I need to slow the bleeding."
She looked up at me with her huge glassy eyes full of fear. I tried to smile to comfort her, but my jaw was strained so tight I could barely twitch my lips. "You need to get out of here," she coughed. "She could…wake up."
Shame filled me, mixing with the huge tsunami of fear in my gut, cracking my heart open. "Shut up," I hissed as I dragged her body into my arms and cradled her. I rocked her in my arms the same way I had her all those years ago. She needed to live. This was so unfair. Everything she had endured. All her suffering. I couldn't stand this. I couldn't live with this…I battled down the sobs that were dangerously threatening to overpower me.
I was supposed to be leaving tonight for Ireland. I was leaving and I was going to let her down again. "God, I'm so glad I forgot to pack my swimsuit when I left," I lied. "That's why I came here. Me and Mike, we're taking a trip…" Bullshit. Truth was I hadn't seen Mike in days. Since the day I woke up and came clean with myself. The day I told him I was still in love with Derek–that I'd been consistently in love with Derek since I was nineteen years old.
I was going to Ireland alone. I needed to find myself again, but I didn't know if Lee was going to make it. I didn't want her last memory to be of me letting her down again. If she knew all the ways I'd let her down. The guilt I felt for her life turning out the way it did churned in my stomach. Should I tell her what I knew? I couldn't. I couldn't do it. I just needed to hold her and keep her alive. My god, I needed to make this better. She needed to make it. I would do anything if she would just stay alive. I'd stay. I'd stay for her.
"Cam, I'm scared…" she gasped for air. Her body shook violently in my arms.
So am I…
The fear in her eyes was too much to take. In that moment I would have done anything to trade places with her. "You better not be," I warned her. I was serious. She had too much to lose. Too many people to leave behind. "You have a beautiful baby who is depending on you. Focus on Hope. Put her picture in your head and keep it there. Do NOT lose focus."
"Get up." My head jerked up at the sound of Rachel's venomous tone. That bitch just wouldn't die… "Get out of the way, Camryn. She has to die."
Lee tried to push me away, but I held her tighter. This was not happening. Not on my watch. I needed to stay calm. I needed to talk this bitch down long enough for the cops to come and knock her out. Where the hell were they? "You don't have to do this, Rachel." I hated myself for even speaking to her, but I needed to slow her down.
"Cam, run…please move," Lee begged. "Do it. Do it…or she'll…kill us…both."
I shook my head in disgust. How the hell was she asking me to do that with a straight face? I looked at her face and I was transported back to a time when this girl had been a vulnerable child, begging me to run away with her. The life she'd endured from her father, from the bullies in school who had taunted her for being poor and for the clothes she wore, ate through me. It had broken my heart then. It broke my heart worse now that I knew. I wanted to tell her about her mother. I wanted her to know what I'd discovered when I'd stayed with my parents back in January, but she'd hate me for not telling her then. She would resent me and my parents. "And what kind of a person would that make me if I did that?" I demanded. She was trembling and terrified and so was I. But I couldn't…I just couldn't leave her.
Have you ever felt so much love for another person–such a pure, raw overwhelming love and connection for another human being that you would put your heart, soul and body on the line to stop their pain? Have you ever owed another human everything you have? Have you ever known a secret about someone close to you that made you feel sick with guilt and unfairness? I have and that's the way I felt for Lee. Our bond ran deeper than bloodlines. She was the other half of me. My sister…My best friend. I wasn't going to sit back and stay quiet this time.
I would NOT watch her die.
Setting Lee aside, I knelt slowly and tried some persuasion. "Rachel," I coaxed. "If you go now, if you run you'll have time. Think of your family. You're twenty two years old and you're going to ruin your life. And for what, a man?" I cursed every inch of Kyle Carter's penis in that moment. "Don't be stupid. The cops will be here any minute. You're never going to get away with this."
Rachel's hand shot out so fast I didn't have time to defend myself before she grabbed my ponytail. "Do you think I care anymore," she screamed, eyes focused on Lee. I tried to free myself but the girl had trapped me. "I have nothing left to lose. She took everything from me." Grabbing the back of my neck, Rachel shoved me forward. I hit the refrigerator so hard I was pretty sure my nose was printed on the door. Stupid bitch. I have a photo shoot in Dublin next week...
"It didn't have to come to this," Rachel roared. I shook my head to clear my vision. "If you had just left when I told you to...goodbye, Delia."
"No," I screamed. A surge of desperation surged though my body causing me to hurl myself towards Lee's limp body huddled on the floor.
There was noise…pain…silence.
Heat encased my mind...burning though my body.
Everything stopped.
My heart.
My mind.
My body.
Light and warmth filled my soul. I closed my blue eyes and thought of his green ones.
Chapter 1
Stuck in the past
Present Day
Derek
I knew where I was going, and I also knew it was a really bad idea. It had been months. I needed to move on. I needed to get a life.
I needed a lobotomy.
Her headstone had been erected. It stood there in front of me, a constant reminder of who was underneath the ground.
Rest in Peace
Camryn Louise Frey
10/06/1990 - 06/28/2013
God's mercy shall never falter.
Nor shall the ferocity in which we love
one another. For it is cherished
within the depths of our human hearts,
until we meet again.
It had been one hundred and seventy-seven days since she left me and one hundred and five since she left this world. Except she didn't leave. She was stolen–fucking robbed from me. First by Mike, and then by Rachel.
I leaned forward and stroked her headstone–something I did every day–as I placed the bouquet of lilies on her grave. "Happy birthday, babe."
Kyle didn't know I came here every da
y. I lived on my own now so it was easier to keep my shit to myself. As soon as Lee had been released from the hospital he'd taken her and their daughter to stay at his hotel in Boulder while he sorted out somewhere permanent for them to live.
He stopped by most days to check on me, probably because of how freaked out he'd been the morning when he came into my room as I was taking the meds I'd been prescribed after the shooting.
I'd been hung over to shit and holding a bottle of sleeping pills in my hands so I really couldn't blame him for jumping to conclusions. He'd thought I was going to end it, and to be perfectly honest, I still wasn't sure what I'd intended to do that morning.
My head had been all over the place. I'd been drinking at some crummy bar the night before and had brought home a girl–the first since she left me. And every second I'd been inside her I'd thought of Camryn which was wrong and messed up on more levels than I'd ever dare to think about.
All I remembered from that morning was that I'd felt like shit and had been thoroughly disgusted with myself for using that girl. It hadn't stopped me from doing it though. I couldn't seem to stop myself from living like this.
"Hey you."
The sound of her soft, familiar southern twang curled around my heart like a blanket of comfort. I turned and watched as my curly-haired, former-roommate made her way towards me pushing a stroller. I liked listening to Lee's voice. It was gentle and sweet. It reminded me of melted butter and Camryn.
I'd hoped I wouldn't run into her today. I knew she was worried about me and I didn't want to put her under any more strain. She had enough going on with her parents.
"Hey, ice," I mumbled, jamming my hands into my jean pockets. Lee thought I called her 'ice queen' because of how screwed up and weird she was when she first moved here. But I actually meant Kyle was the ice–cold and hard as a rock. He'd been virtually impenetrable until Lee came along and softened him up. Hell, she'd turned him into a puddle of goo at her feet. Kyle called her his princess but she was his fucking queen and he protected her like their lives were a chess game. I'd seen the change in him the moment he set eyes on her in our kitchen. His stance changed, his whole body went on high alert and I reckoned if we were animals, he'd have marched straight over and marked his territory. Shit, thinking back he did that anyway. Douchebag had almost taken her virginity in his damn kitchen…