Page 98 of The Hardest Fall

As he rounded the desk and made it to her side, I spoke up before he could say anything else. “Keith, I don’t think this is a good time. Something is obviously going on between you two, but this isn’t the place to hash it out. Just let me talk to her.”

He stared at me with a blank expression for a full twenty seconds or so, pupils dilated to hell. Something was wrong with him, even more than usual.

Was he on something? Was he high?

“Shut up, Zoe—or better yet, get the hell out. This doesn’t concern you.”

I watched him with my mouth open. Sure, he was a dick, always had been, but I hadn’t ever seen him high or heard anything from Kayla about him using drugs. Was this what she’d been hiding from us?

He crouched down next to her, one hand on the chair, the other on the desk, boxing her in. Kayla stiffened even further and leaned her entire upper body toward me so she wouldn’t have to touch Keith.

I stood up when he opened his mouth to speak. I had no idea what I thought I’d do, but I sure as hell didn’t want him near my friend anymore.

“Keith, I don’t know what you’re on, but go get sobered up. You can’t do this here.”

“I’m sorry, babe,” he groaned, ignoring my presence. “I thought you were into it, swear to God. I didn’t hear you say no. Why didn’t you say no if you didn’t want it?”

A cold chill ran through my body, freezing the blood in my veins. I had to hold on to my chair to stay upright.

“What did you do?” I asked in a broken voice. “What did you do, Keith?”

Kayla started crying in sobs, her body shaking and shaking. Keith kept muttering to her the whole time. I couldn’t hear a single thing he was saying through the roar in my ears. It couldn’t be true…shouldn’t be.

Livid, I mentally shook myself off so I could think, or at least try to think of what to do. The best I could come up with was pushing Keith away from my beautiful friend so he would stop trying to touch her.

I tried to yell at him, tried to shout at him to get the hell away from her, but my voice wouldn’t work and all I could manage was a harsh rasp. “Don’t touch her you son of a bitch. Don’t touch her.”

He clearly wasn’t expecting me to touch him because he fell right on his ass on the black and red checkered floor when I pushed at his shoulder with all the strength I could muster. Before I could get Kayla out of her chair and away from Keith, he was on me, pushing me away from my friend. Then he kept pushing me again and again until I crashed into the chairs.

“Who do you think you are, you little bitch,” he snapped right in my face.

Shocked and enraged out of my mind, I pushed myself up, ready to go after him, but he gave me another shove and managed to knock the breath right out of me before I could do anything.

Then his fingers wrapped around my throat, and I had no choice but to still. With him so close to my face, I could smell the alcohol on his breath.

Kayla finally snapped out of wherever she had disappeared to, jumped up, and tried her best to yank him away by clawing at his arms, but to no avail.

“No, Keith! Stop. Let her go. Please!”

Starting to panic for real, I looked around and realized that the few people in the library couldn’t really hear us, and nobody could see what was going on. None of the other students had a direct view of our spot.

His hand around my neck wasn’t tight enough to cut off my air completely, but he was getting there, taking his time, enjoying the shock in my eyes. When he pressed harder, I gagged and gasped, my eyes starting to bug out. I put my hands around his wrists to pull him away, tried to kick him to get him to let go, to loosen his hold, but his eyes looked empty, dead.

He pushed his face into mine until we were nose to nose then hissed, “Don’t touch me again.”

When he was done playing his game, he shoved me away, and the back of my head bounced off the desk with a loud thud. I slid down to my hands and knees and coughed until I couldn’t anymore.

When I looked up, Kayla was covering her mouth as she cried silent tears, inconsolable. Keith was cooing to her, touching her hair, caressing her face. The closer he stood to Kayla, the harder her tears slid down her cheeks. He gripped her arm and yanked her to his body, whispering something in her ear.