Pill By Pill {Muke}

16 - Chained

No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky. ~Bob Dylan

A/N: So..I deleted this chapter earlier today so many of you have already read this. So sorry if you thought it was a new one. 

Luke's POV

Michael and I stared at each other for a long time. For such a long time I could feel the cigarette in my hands starting to burn my fingers. I glanced down at them and threw the cigarette to the ground. Stomping it out with the toe of my shoe.

The door opened and Ashton stuck his head out. "Are you both done screaming at each other?"

"You heard that?" I asked and he nodded. "Oh man.."

"Luke you're so ignorant." Ashton rolled his eyes and closed the door again. I folded my arms and glanced off to the side. I saw Michael walking down the porch steps and stood waiting.

"Luke, come on." Michael said as he turned back to me. I walked down the steps and followed Michael down the streets, waiting for him to say something.

"Michael, what are we doing?" I finally asked. He told me to shush as we kept walking. And after a while, I found we were standing right in front of Skarlet's house.

"What are we doing here?" I asked. I did not really want to go inside. I felt like Skarlet was still mad at me and I did not want to have to face her.

Michael tapped on the door with his fist. I heard someone yell from the inside - probably Skarlet.

"I don't want to go in there." I said and began to walk backwards, but Michael grabbed my upper arm and tugged me back towards the door.

The door opened and revealed Skarlet. "Michael why did you bring him here? We don't want him even if you don't."

Michael just pushed me into the room and I fell onto the ground. I looked around and saw everyone - Barbie, Sammy, Axel, Karla, and Riley - glaring at me.

"Easy everyone." Michael said. "Luke isn't going back to Kody. I'm here to ask you to do something else."

"Oh phew. Glad we can go back to normal." Skarlet smiled as she lifted me up off the floor. "What's going on?"

"Luke says he's alone. That you guys don't like him anymore. So I need you to prove otherwise." Michael said.

"Luke of course we like you." Barbie said. Looking quite shocked.

"You all kinda screwed with him a little after Skarlet's idea." Michael said. I found myself wanting to hide behind Michael. Or to be able to turn small like Alice, and just disappear. Honestly my life was crazy enough to be Wonderland. 

"Aw Luke.." Skarlet mumbled. "We didn't mean to do that, we still care about you. You just needed to see the error in your ways."

"I will admit that may not have been the best way." Barbie said, chewing on her lip.

"Yeah but Luke doesn't listen otherwise, so.." Riley chimed in.

"Well he decided not to go with Kody so it worked." Michael said. "I saved his butt too." 

"What?" Axel asked, everyone exchanged glances with one another. 

"Oh that's right you don't know, Kody came chasing after Luke." Michael said, his voice was sour. "And thank goodness I was just down the hallway with Calum and Ashton. He owes us but he still feels the need to be completely unreasonable with all of us." 

"Well that's Luke's way." Skarlet smiled. "Why are you here then?" 

"I thought maybe you guys could say something to make him see reason in everything we're trying to do. He won't listen to me." Michael said. "I feel like a bad guy but I've never even done anything to him."