Free Fall: Fallen Duet: Book One

  Free Fall

  Fallen Duet: Book One

  Copyright © 2019 Abigail Davies.

  All rights reserved.

  Published: Abigail Davies 2019

  www.abigaildaviesauthor.com

  No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form without written consent from the author. Except in the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a piece of fiction. Any names, characters, businesses, places or events are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, events or locations is purely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and have not purchased it for your use only, then you should return it to your favorite book retailer and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Editing: Jennifer Roberts-Hall

  Proofreading: Judy’s Proofreading

  Cover Design: Pink Elephant Designs

  Formatting: Pink Elephant Designs

  Contents

  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

  Down Fall: Book Two

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Abigail Davies

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  LOLA

  Sometimes I wondered if there was only one path each person’s life was meant to take. Did we have control over the decisions we made or were our choices laid out the moment we were conceived? If that was the case, then I was sure someone had gotten my path mixed up with someone else’s. Either that or this was my destiny. But we could change destiny.

  At least I hoped we could.

  My feet burned from the barely there sole of my shoes that had definitely seen better days. New shoes were on my very long list of things I needed but couldn’t afford right now. My life had become this merry-go-round that I couldn’t get off. Each time I stood, I’d take a step and fall, the ride refusing to let me go.

  I’d learned a lot in my nineteen years of life. The most important lesson being to only rely on one person: myself. There was a time when that was different, but it was so long ago that I could barely remember it.

  The streetlights blinked in the dark night, threatening to give up. I didn’t blame them, not in this neighborhood. I’d grown up in one of the houses here, right in line with all the others that needed extensive work on them but were left to rot. My front yard was just as overgrown and dilapidated as everyone else’s, and the stench on the streets became the cologne to my life. Most people called it a dump, but I’d simply called it home.

  Welcome to Cresthill.

  I stepped over the cracks in the sidewalk and lifted my head. The gray siding was scarcely hanging on the outside of the walls, having been beaten into submission with various activities throughout the years. My stepbrother, Emerson’s, favorite activity was knife throwing, and his preferred spot was anywhere he could find. It didn’t matter what I’d tried to do over the years to make this place a home, nothing ever worked. If it weren’t Emerson who ended up destroying it, then my stepmom or Dad would.

  I sighed as I walked past the car that had sat in our small driveway for at least a decade, unmoved and planted in the earth as if it was always there. I balanced the ball of one foot on the bottom step and jumped onto the top step. It was second nature to miss the middle step now. The hole that had been made by someone’s head being smashed through it had been there for the last eighteen months. People should have learned years ago not to come after Emerson. He protected what was his with his life, or theirs.

  The front door was open, only the screen door separating me from the house. I could smell the smoke from out here, and I was already dreading having to walk through the main room and past all of Emerson’s “friends.” I used the term loosely because they were nothing more than lackeys.

  I pulled the screen door open, the squeak getting lost in the bass of the hip-hop music, and I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. Emerson was an emo through and through. He loved rock music almost as much as he loved the money he made from running his “business.” But apparently, that music didn’t go with his life now.

  I stepped through the doorway and into the living room, the smoke from cigarettes and marijuana clearing a little and bringing me face-to-face with Emerson and his crew. The music channel blasted away on the large flat screen TV that was attached to the only wall left in the room. The sofas were nearly as old as me, threadbare and stained, and yet, we had the latest TV on the market. No, scratch that, Emerson had the latest TV.

  The screen door banged shut behind me, announcing my presence, and they all looked up. Some days they’d all be so high they ignored me, but today was not one of those days. I could tell that the moment Emerson’s lips lifted into that grin I hated so much.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” Emerson’s gruff voice announced, making sure all attention was on me—as if it wasn’t already. “Stayed out late, I see.”

  I puffed out a breath and hooked some hair behind my ear that had fallen out of my ponytail. “I was working,” I told him, but I didn’t know why I even bothered. It was a waste of breath.

  “Sure you were.” Emerson stood, trying to make himself look bigger than he actually was. Unfortunately, for him, he got his mom’s genes, and that also meant her height. He was a couple of inches taller than me at most, and I was only five foot four. Everyone around him may have towered over him, but that didn’t stop them looking up to him.

  Emerson ran his hand through his shaggy, light-brown hair as he stepped closer to me. “Where you been all night, Lola?” He raised one of his brows, his hazel eyes focusing on me, a warning clear in their depths.

  “I told you,” I said, trying to let my voice carry over the noise blasting from the TV. “I was at work.” I shook my head and moved through the room, ignoring everyone else, and headed into the kitchen. His footsteps followed me, but I ignored him and pulled open the refrigerator. The coldness that should have greeted me wasn’t there. “Shit.” I grabbed a bottle of warm water and slammed the door closed. “Why isn’t it cold?” I looked over at Emerson, where he was leaning against the doorframe.

  “What?”

  “The refrigerator, Emerson. Why isn’t it cold?”

  His nostrils flared at me for using his name, but he shrugged it off as if I hadn’t said it. “Fuck if I know.”

  I let my head dip back and blew out a frustrated breath. Why? Why did he have to be like this? But then…at least he was home half the time.

  I twisted the cap on the bottle and took a huge gulp of the water, grimacing at how warm it was but grateful for something rather than nothing. It was a good job that we didn’t keep normal things in our refrigerator, like cheese and meat.

  “I’ll take a look tomorrow before class.”

  Emerson pushed off the doorframe and stalked toward me. “I don’t know why you bother going to college.” A muscle in his jaw ticked, probably fed up with having the same conversation over and over again. “I told you I’d take care of you.”

  I backed up a couple of steps and stopped when my ass hit the counter. The L-shaped units covered half of the space, leaving just enough room for an apparently broken refrigerator and a small table complete with three chairs.

  “I know,” I ventured, clearly seeing his pupils that were twice the size they should be now that he was closer. “But I want to go to college.” I kept my voice even, not wanting to set him off, but trying to keep a part of myself in the process.

  “You don’t need to go.” His voice was deeper now, the frustration becoming more evident. All he wanted was for me to stay home and become one of his crew. That way, he could control what I did and who I saw.

  He hadn’t always been like this, not that first couple of years when Dad and I first moved in. I’d been twelve that year, and having a protective older stepbrother who was four years older than me was something I relished. But it hadn’t lasted long. I’d quickly realized that he didn’t want to protect me—he wanted to control me.

  I may have lived in a place that never felt like home, surrounded by people who were strangers, but that didn’t mean I had to stay here. I had a goal, a promise I’d made myself the first time my dad and his mom had gotten high and left us for three weeks. Those three weeks when I was fourteen had been the wake-up call I’d needed. Five years later and I was closer to that goal than ever. I could nearly touch it if I stretched far enough.

  “I want to, though,” I told him, for what had to have been the thousandth time. “I enjoy it.”

  “You—”

  “Hut?”

  We both froze at the intruder’s voice, my eyes widening as Emerson’s narrowed. Everyone knew not to disturb him when he was talking to me. It was a rule I hated more than anything else in this world. It didn’t matter what was happening, or what he was doing, they all turned a blind eye. Every single one of them.

&nbs
p; Control.

  He controlled them all.

  I flicked my gaze over to the doorway and frowned at the newcomer. His dark-blue jeans fit him perfectly and trailed up to a pristine white T-shirt. I didn’t think anything could be that white if it weren’t brand new. Tattoos trailed from his wrist and up his arm. I followed their path and continued to his face. Full lips were encased in day-old scruff that he ran his palm over as he met my gaze. The chocolate brown of his irises rendered me speechless, and I forgot for a moment who I was and where I was standing.

  “What do you want, Brody?”

  Brody?

  “Just wanted to let you know that Griff called.”

  Emerson’s hand gripped on to my arm, his head coming closer as he growled, “This conversation isn’t over.”

  I stayed silent and raised a brow, wanting to tell him that it was never over and that he’d never stop me from reaching my end goal.

  * * *

  BRODY

  I shouldn’t have gotten up and stalked into the kitchen. I should have ignored the girl who’d walked into the house five minutes ago, but I couldn’t stop myself. The moment she stepped inside, I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off her. There was a strength hidden behind her eyes that hadn’t been there in the photos.

  They said a picture could tell a thousand words, but in this case, it hadn’t told more than ten. She may have been his stepsister, and a possible in for me, but the photo hadn’t told me what her face was saying right now as I stared at her leaning against the counter.

  Emerson “Hut” wasn’t moving, and if the grip he had on her arm was anything to go by, he didn’t want to move away. She was his weakness. We all had one. It was just about finding it and exploiting it.

  “What did he say?” Hut asked, still staring at the girl.

  “Wants to know when you want to meet.”

  It was all an illusion, every second of it, but I didn’t know why I’d chosen that exact moment to tell him something I could have said an hour ago when I first got here. Maybe I was biding my time?

  “When?”

  I pulled my cell out and shot off a message to Ryan, telling him the meet was in the bag. “Thirty minutes.”

  “Fuck.”

  Hut let the girl go and spun around. “Let’s get.” I moved to the side as he practically sprinted into the living room to tell his crew about the meet he’d been trying to get for over a month.

  “Hey,” I greeted the girl. She raised her brows at me in response and uncapped her bottle.

  “Brody!” Hut shouted, a command that I couldn’t leave unanswered. However much I wanted to talk to this girl and see if she’d be my in, I needed to go through with the plan that had been set out.

  I spun around, moved into the living room, and grabbed my leather jacket on my way out the door. It wasn’t hard for me to fit into this world. I’d grown up in it. I never thought I’d get myself out only to thrust myself back into it, but that was the job.

  Hut and his crew climbed into his blacked-out SUV that was out of place in the run-down street, but no one took a second look at it. “He wants to meet at Lucky’s. I’ll follow you there.” Hut nodded in reply, and I pulled the door open to the car I was using. I hated this thing. I preferred my Mustang, but I couldn’t rely on that in a gunfight.

  I took one last look at the house, my gaze meeting the girl as she closed the door. She paused for a second, her brows furrowing, and I sped off.

  My mind was a whirl of thoughts as I caught up with the SUV. The girl could be the answer to everything, but I needed to investigate it more. A file on people could only tell you so much, and as much as the words on a page and photos taken in the streets said, it had nothing on figuring it out in person.

  I’d been biding my time for months, working my way in with Emerson “Hut” Hutton slowly. He surrounded himself with his crew—four guys who he trusted. I’d been chipping away at a couple of them, but no one had said anything that I could use as of right now. They were impenetrable, no matter what I said. Time was a gift we’d been given, but it was also a curse. The more time I spent on this case, the more I felt like the person I was before I’d gotten out.

  I pulled to a stop outside the bar Lucky’s and switched my engine off. Hut and his crew jumped out of the SUV, and it hit me how easily I could have become him. There was a fundamental difference between us, though. He wanted to hurt people and make money. I wanted to help them.

  My cell vibrated, and I pulled it out, seeing Ryan’s reply.

  Ryan: To your left.

  I pushed out of the car, stretched my arms above my head, and flicked my gaze over to the left. I couldn’t see inside the car parked at the curb and a little way down, but I knew that Ryan and either Kyle or Jordan would be inside it.

  The four of us were a force to be reckoned with. Hut had his crew, and I had mine. The only question was which crew would win.

  I was taking bets that we would. After all, we were the good guys.

  Chapter Two

  LOLA

  I walked down the hallway, following the flow of people out of the main doors. Community college was a lot different from what I’d been expecting. I thought it would just be an extension of high school, but I was so wrong.

  The people who attended ranged in age and experience, but I found myself veering toward the older students who were taking classes. They were more serious about their studies, probably because they thought it was their last chance.

  I loved it here more than anywhere else. It didn’t matter that I had to travel for an hour on the train each day to get here, because it was all mine. My own little slice of heaven that no one could snatch away from me. No one knew who I was here. They didn’t know that I was the stepsister of “Hut.” They didn’t steer away from me, afraid that one wrong look or one bad word would get them hurt. They didn’t use me to get closer to him. If anything, I was invisible, just the way I liked it.

  The heat of the sun beat down on me as I stepped outside, and I paused on the sidewalk to bask in it. I never just stopped to take everything in. There was always something to do or somewhere to be. Between my classes and my job at the diner, I felt like I never stopped. But it wasn’t enough. Once I’d paid my travel costs and paid for my food, I barely had anything left to save, and that was the end goal. To save enough money so I could leave the house. It had been six months since I’d started college and my new job, and I had just over five hundred dollars in an envelope under my bed. It was slow going, and at this rate, I’d be out of the house in four years.

  I wasn’t sure if I’d survive another year, never mind four.

  Emerson was getting worse and worse—Hut, I had to remind myself. The more time I spent away from home, the more he tried to control me. I wouldn’t let him though. I wasn’t his to command, no matter how much he disagreed with me.

  I shook my head and walked forward, needing to get to the diner to start my shift. It only took me ten minutes to get there, and as soon as I stepped inside, I knew today’s shift wasn’t going to be an easy one.

  The black leatherette booths lined up in front of the windows with tables dispersed between them and the main counter. Most of the stools were taken, and people lined up behind them to make their orders. Janice stood behind the counter, her dark-red hair falling out of her ponytail as she scribbled on a pad, so I stepped toward her.

  “I’ll be right there, Jan!” I shouted over the fray of students who wouldn’t do without their shakes.

  “Oh, thank god.” She raised her hands in the air. “It’s Friday.”

  The diner sat in the middle of the college and high school, which made for periods where we were rushed off our feet. The most popular time was when the high school would get out on a Friday. Apparently, there was something about Fridays that made all the students want milkshakes and fries. Life here was drastically different from home, and yet, I was only an hour away. These kids didn’t know the hardship of growing up where I did. All that mattered was if they made their grades and what four-year college they could get into.