Chapter Seven Decker
Chapter Seven
Decker
Jackson spat on the floor, blood mixing with his saliva. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that, right?”
I didn’t give a damn what Jackson thought of me. I only cared that Maia was hurting. I knew she blamed herself for this latest dustup between Jackson and me. But it wasn’t her fault. This thing between us had always been there. Sometimes I thought since Jackson’s birth.
“What did I ever do to you?” I asked.
I truly wanted to know. To understand why so much hatred lived inside Jackson and why it was most often pointed at me.
“What’d you ever do to me?” he snarled. “How about being a crap brother and fooling everyone around you into thinking you’re the second coming?
Friends, teachers, parents. ‘Why can’t you study harder like Decker?
Why can’t you give others the spotlight like Deck?
Why can’t you be a team player?’ How about because teams are a waste of time? ”
I tried to see things through Jackson’s eyes. He was right that it wasn’t fair for anyone to compare him to me. But he was also a little shit who would steal the soccer ball from his own teammate if he thought it meant he could score.
“Listen, Jack—”
“No. You can get the hell out of my face,” he snapped, stalking down the hall in the same direction Maia had gone.
I watched for a second, making sure he didn’t take the door she had, but he kept right on going. At least there was that.
The girl he’d been with stared after him for a moment and then shook her head. “This is a little much for me. I’m going back to the party.”
Booker gave her a salute. “Smart play.”
“Find me later if you want to dance, cutie,” she shot over her shoulder before walking away.
That only made Booker laugh. “Dude, your brother only has good taste when he’s trying to steal from you.”
I scowled at my best friend. God, I regretted that I’d spilled the whole saga to him the night I’d had a little too much to drink after winning a championship game. I’d invited my whole family and Maia.
Of course Jackson had bailed at the last minute, saying he had an important meeting he needed to attend and couldn’t reschedule for some little game.
But Maia had come with my parents. Not only that, but she’d also made a huge poster board sign like she used to do in high school and had screamed so loudly she’d lost her voice for three days.
“Sorry,” Booker muttered. “Too soon for jokes?”
“Something like that.”
He really took me in then. “You okay?”
“I kissed her.”
Booker’s brows about hit his hairline. “Seriously?”
I jerked my head in a nod. “Better than anything I’ve ever experienced.”
“Shit, man. You’ve got it bad.”
“Sometimes, I thought I might be inventing the connection in my head. But I’m not. We both felt it.”
Booker sent me a confused look. “Then why do you look so depressed?”
I tugged the stupid mask off my face and shoved it into my pocket. “Because I don’t think she’ll ever go there. She takes too much on her shoulders. She won’t want to risk hurting my family. Even Jackson.”
Booker shook his head. “That girl needs to start living for herself.”
I wanted that for Maia, too. Because she deserved all of that and more.
Booker opened his mouth to say something else, but a scream tore through the air.
Everything in me turned to stone. Because I knew that voice. And I’d heard it that scared only once before. When Maia had been climbing a tree and the branch under her feet cracked. She’d been left hanging nearly twenty feet in the air until I climbed up to get her.
My feet were moving before my brain even gave them the order to do so. Maybe it was instinct. Perhaps it was simply knowing that Maia was in danger.
I dodged people left and right as they looked around, confused, and moved in the direction the sound had come from. I hit the door at nearly full force, turning the handle just in time. I came up short as I tumbled onto the back patio.
Maia crouched over a fallen woman, her face completely pale. “I think she’s dead.”
My gaze dropped to the woman on the ground. Blood seeped out onto snow that had blown in from the storm.
“What the—” Booker barked, coming up short behind me and his words halting along with him.
But I was already moving. I crossed the distance to Maia in three long strides and scooped her into my arms, holding her to me. It wasn’t logical, but I didn’t want her anywhere near a dead woman.
Maia’s body trembled violently against mine. I held her tighter, brushing my hand over her hair. “It’s okay, Birdie. You’re safe.”
Booker knelt and pressed two fingers to the woman’s neck before shaking his head.
Hell. She looked like she’d been hit on the back of the head with something. And that was when I saw it. A small bird statue cast aside in the snow. Blood dotted the area around it.
Someone had killed her.
“Gonna get you inside. You’re freezing,” I gritted out.
As I moved with her still in my arms, two security guards came running. Booker motioned to them, and I was sure he would explain. All I cared about was Maia.
I carried her into what looked like a library and lowered us to a couch, but I didn’t put her next to me. I couldn’t. I settled Maia on my lap and gently rocked her.
She curled into me, clutching my shirt. “Do you think she fell? Slipped and hit her head?”
It was possible; I was no crime scene investigator. But it hadn’t looked that way. The statue was too far away from the body.
“What the hell happened?” Jackson barged into the room, looking rumpled and wild-eyed. “They said someone’s dead. They said a redhead found her.”
“Tone it down,” I growled.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Jackson snapped.
Maia’s friends Violet and Erik ran in then, both looking pale.
“Oh my God,” Violet whispered, her hand shaking as she covered her mouth. “They said someone died. And I couldn’t find you.”
“Are you okay?” Erik asked, shock bleeding into each word.
Maia nodded shakily. “I—I . . . she was just out there in the snow.”
“Has anyone called the cops?” Jackson demanded.
Violet fumbled for her phone. “I’ll call them now.”
A security guard stepped into the room, surveying the space and landing on Maia. “She’s the one who found the woman?”
“Yes,” I ground out, even though I would’ve done anything for that not to be true.
“Did you see anyone else out there?” the guard asked. “Hear any signs of a struggle?”
As Violet murmured into her phone, Maia shook her head. “No, I . . . I was just watching the snow. I needed some air, and when I tried to find my way back inside, I saw her. I thought maybe she tripped, but there was all that blood.”
“Did you see the statue?” I asked the guard quietly.
He nodded, his features tight. “We’ll preserve the scene until law enforcement arrives.”
Violet pulled her phone away from her ear. “They said they aren’t coming. There was an avalanche on the south side of the mountain. Covered the road. We’re trapped.”
But I heard what she didn’t say.
We were trapped up here, with a murderer.