by Chloe Walsh
My breath hitched in my throat. "Please don’t trade me, Daddy."
With a reluctant sigh, Dad slid his phone back in his pocket and turned to face me. "You really should have stayed at Tully House, Ramona." His tone was gentler now, with a hint of sympathy, and I hated it. "The transition after the trade would have been so much easier with a little sedation."
"Transition to what?" I croaked out, fearing the answer, but knowing that I needed to be prepared. "What's going to happen to me?" Nothing good was coming.
My dad turned his head toward me and arched a brow, like he couldn’t believe I was asking such a stupid question. And maybe it was stupid, but I was clinging tightly on to denial, because acceptance of this fucked up reality wasn’t an option.
"I just want Sketch," I sobbed, curling my arms around myself protectively. "Please. Just take me back to Sketch."
"That won't be happening."
"Please –"
"Don’t beg for him," he snapped. "It won't change a thing."
Our eyes locked, and for the first time in my life, I truly saw it. The distance. The lack of emotion and love. The wonderful lie that I had been led to believe my entire life. And just like that, a life full of repressed memories bombarded me…
The room was dark and full of tension. My body was swaying. I was struggling to remain on my feet as I watched the horror unfold in front of my eyes.
"You're making a terrible mistake," a much younger version of Mr. Capaldi warned in a low, hard voice. "All hell will break loose. You'll start a war you can't win, Cal."
"I'm already at war," Daddy told him, and then he pressed the piping hot branding iron against the little boy's hip.
"No!" the three-year-old version of me cried out, eyes locked on the blue-eyed boy enduring horrendous torture at the hands of my father. "Daddy, stop hurting him! Daddy, please, he's my friend –"
"No!" I sobbed into my hands as my mind continued to play tricks on me. "No, god, no!"
"Now you're getting it," my father said. "Finally."
"The boy behind the door," I squeezed out, shaking so hard I could hardly breathe. "It wasn’t just a dream." Teary eyed, I stared at my father. "It was real, wasn’t it?"
"Yes."
One word, one small concession of truth, and my whole world crumbled around me.
"Oh my god, Dad," I choked out when the car came to a sudden halt. "I was there, wasn't I? And I saw…. oh god, I saw everything –"
"We don’t have time for this," he snapped, pressing a button and unlocking the car. "We have business to attend to."
"He was real," I repeated, mind reeling. "The scar." Stunned, I racked my brain, desperately trying to piece together a puzzle I knew I held the pieces to. "The T on his hipbone. It's a burn mark, not a birth mark –"
The door flew open, causing my words to trail off, as we were faced with what looked like a small army of men. "The liner is waiting, sir," one of the men announced. "Did you bring the boy?"
"Better again," my father replied, climbing out of the car. "I brought the girl."
"Sketch," I whispered, numb to the bone. "It wasn't a dream. I'm not going crazy. The boy behind the door was Sketch!"
"No, Ramona." With a dispassionate look etched on his face, my father turned back to answer my frantic ramblings, and in doing so, he caused my world to crash down around me. Because my father, the man who raised me, then spoke the name that would irrevocably change my world forever. "The boy was Jacob Toretto.”
2
Sketch
I died three times on the way to the hospital and twice more on the operating table, while the doctors furiously fought to remove the bullet from my chest.
I knew this because I was a witness to my own death. It was the creepiest damn experience I'd ever endured, watching from above as my own heart flatlined and then jackknifed back to life over and over again.
Where I was now, I couldn’t tell.
Alive or dead, heaven or hell, purgatory or limbo.
I had no clue if my heart was still beating or not.
All I knew was long after the bullet perforated my flesh, and long after the doctors began their frantic race to save me, whiskey-colored eyes continued to materialize just beyond my reach.
In the emptiness of nothing, only one face kept me company.
Romi.
And still, I couldn’t fight my way out of the darkness.
I couldn’t get to her.
The hauntingly honest lyrics of Selena Gomez’s song Back to You looped through my brain continuously. I knew there was a reason my brain insisted on this particular song.
Junior year.
The Winter Formal.
Romi was my brother’s girl that night but, for one song, one three-minute dance, she was mine.
At the time, I had felt like I had died and gone to heaven.
Maybe this time I really had.
I guess it made sense that dancing with Romi Dillon would be my version of heaven. After all, she'd been the only good part of my life when I was alive.
And just like that, every memory I had of Romi flooded my mind, replaying in vivid technicolor, and keeping me company in my darkest hour...
"Hey – I gotta kiss her," Danny Cortez goaded from his perch in the treehouse. It was Saturday evening and we were all sitting around, playing a game of spin the bottle. Unfortunately for me, the bottle Danny just spun had landed on Romi. "Sorry, Sketch," he added with a grin. "But it's the rules, dude."
He wasn’t sorry.
Not one damn bit.
I knew he looked at her the way I did. All of my friends did. Goddammit. Anger bubbled up inside of me, causing my flesh to grow hot and my palms to sweat.
"Put your lips on her and I'll throw you out of this tree," I warned, glowering at my football buddy as he shuffled closer to Romi. "I mean it. I ain't fucking around here."
"Language, Mr. Capaldi," my brother's dopey best friend teased from his perch next to Chris.
"Fuck off, Pres," I shot back, entirely uninterested in dealing with his motormouth. Besides, Quinton Presley touched her knee earlier. Her bare knee. That officially put him on my shit list.
"Uh, that's okay, Danny." Romi flushed bright pink and shifted away from him, eyes wide and full of embarrassment. "I'd rather skip."
"You ain't skipping," he huffed, leaning towards her. "Rules are rules, now pucker up, Dillon."
"And you sure as hell ain't kissing my girl." Pointing my finger at him, I said, "One more inch and you're a dead man, Cortez."
I didn’t care when all of our friends snickered and made whipped gestures. I was hella jealous and not afraid to admit it. Besides, it was pointless trying to hide my feelings. When it came to my heart and Romi Dillon, I was an open book. Hell, the only reason I had agreed to play this stupid game in the first place was because she was playing.
"Romi's your girl?" Stephie Gundersen demanded with a huff. "Since when?"
"Since forever," Chris chuckled, answering for me. "Ain't that right, bro?"
Damn straight, I thought to myself but didn’t have the balls to say aloud out of fear of Romi rejecting me. Yeah, I might have no problem admitting I was jealous, but public rejection wasn’t fun. After all, I endured it on a daily basis when it came to my folks.
"Well, is it true, Romi?" Stephie asked, causing all eyes to land on Romi. "Are you Sketch's girl?"
I held my breath, fucking terrified of her answer and desperate to hear it all at once.
Say yes.
Say yes.
Please God make her say yes.
"Yes," Romi replied sweetly.
Thank you, God.
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, universe.
"Since when?" Stephie demanded, narrowing her eyes at Romi.
"Since forever," Romi replied, reciting Chris's earlier words, as she straightened her spine and glared back at her friend. "He's mine."
Snickering loudly, Presley muttered something in Chris's ear, causi
ng them both to explode in a fit of laughter.
"Prove it," Stephie pushed, glowering. "Kiss him."
Romi's eyes widened at the same time my brows shot up.
"With tongue," Stephie goaded.
"You think I won't?" Romi challenged, face set in determination as she pulled herself onto her knees.
"I know you won't," Stephie countered. "You're too chicken."
"You're gonna break your own heart watching this," Romi growled before crawling across the circle and onto my lap. "He's mine, Gundersen," she declared, wrapping one skinny arm around my neck. "And don’t ever forget it."
And then Romi Dillon kissed me for the first time.
With tongue.
Dead or not, I could feel my lips smiling as I mentally recanted every single moment of our first kiss. Jesus, the girl took the air clean out of my lungs that day, and I hadn't been able to breathe easy since.
A flood of warmth hit me straight in the chest then, making every part of me feel light and free.
Romi.
Romi.
Romi.
"Clear!"
Suddenly, the flood of warmth felt like a bolt of lightning surging through my flesh. Pain encompassed every inch of my body, and I could hear voices again.
"One more time."
"You sure?"
"He's flatlining again."
"Yes, I'm sure. Keep going!"
"Yes, doctor."
"Clear."
Goddamn, these voices needed to stop distracting me from Romi...
"Oh my god, Ro, don’t panic–" leaping to my feet, I grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the creek, "but I think you're bleeding."
"Bleeding?" she squealed, eyes wild with fear. "Where?"
"Uh, I think it's coming from your butt." Spinning her around so that I could examine what I thought I spotted when we were in the water, I bit back a sob when my eyes landed on her white bikini bottoms that were tinged with blood. "Holy shit, Ro, your butt is definitely bleeding," I told her, feeling queasy at the sight of the pinkish water droplets trickling down her inner thighs. "Holy fuck, did something bite you when we were in the water?"
"What?" she screamed, hands moving to her butt. "No, I mean, I don’t think so. I didn’t feel anything bite me –" Her words broke off when she caught sight of her bloodstained bikini bottoms. "Omigod, Sketch, I'm dying!"
"No, I ain't gonna let you die," I promised, while internally losing my goddamn mind. Grabbing my bike from its perch against the tree, I hurried back to her. "Come on, Ro. Hop on my seat. I can pedal real fast."
Forty-five minutes later, we were sitting side by side in the treatment room of Pocketful's lone doctor's office, both barefoot, both still in our swimsuits.
"And then it just started coming out of her butt," I said, having given Dr. Berry a detailed run-down of my best friend's near-death experience. "I got her here as fast as I could, sir," I added, breathing hard and fast, still completely freaked out. "Is she gonna make it?"
Dr. Berry, an ageing man in his mid-sixties, asked, "Bleeding from her back passage, you say, Holden?"
"Yes, sir," I replied honestly. "It was so gross."
"So, so gross," Romi agreed with a sniffle, still clutching my hand. "And it's still coming."
"Yep." I nodded solemnly and then leaned over and blocked Romi's ears before whispering, "And I think it's coming out of her, uh, front butt, too."
A choked noise tore from Romi's throat at the same time Dr. Berry began to cough profusely.
"And you're, what, ten-years-old now, Ramona?"
"Ten and a half," Romi sobbed. "I'll be eleven in the fall."
"Yeah, it's her birthday first," I agreed. "I'm younger."
"I see," Dr. Berry said with a sympathetic smile ghosting his lips.
"Oh god, Sketch," Romi wailed, throwing her arms around my neck. "I am dying!"
"No, you ain't," I vowed, hugging her back as tight as I could. "Right, doc?"
Dr. Berry cleared his throat and wiped each lens on his glasses before speaking. "Has anyone spoken to you two about the facts of life? Your mothers, perhaps?"
"She ain't got one," I told him, feeling defensive. "And I ain't…my mama…well, she –"
"He doesn’t have one, either," Romi sniffled.
"So, neither one of you have any clear understanding of the human reproductive organs?" he asked kindly. "Or the body's transition into puberty?"
Confused, Romi and I stared blankly at each other before facing the doctor and shaking our heads in unison.
"What about the female menstrual cycle?"
"You mean like a bike trail or something?" I asked.
"Excuse me?"
"You asked if we knew anything about the female and men's-trail cycle," I reminded him. "Is it near Pocketful?"
"Oh, lord," Dr. Berry said with a weary sigh. "I don’t get paid enough for this…"
"Come on, kid. Stay with us!" someone shouted in what felt like my ear, and just like that, I was, once again, ripped away from Romi.
The son of a bitch stuck me with another bolt of lightning, sending me spinning into another memory. This time, an ugly one…
"Angel?" I whispered, staring at the tiny fingers poking through the crack under the door. "You were gone a long time."
"Sorry," a little voice called back. "But I gots you a cookie."
Moments later, a cookie slid under the crack in the door. "You like cookies?"
"Uh-huh," I sniffled, sinking to my knees and snatching up the food. "Don't go away for so long next time, 'kay?"
"'Kay," she replied, touching my fingers with hers. "Hey - you gots another picture for me?"
"Uh-huh," I replied, munching on my cookie. "And it's a real good one."
"Show me," she demanded excitedly. "I wanna see."
Proud of my hard work, I carefully pushed my drawing under the door to her. "You got it?"
"I gots it," she squealed happily. "Oh wow! It's a real pretty lady."
"It's my mama," I replied proudly. "Mama says it's called a sketch."
"A sketch?" she repeated, sounding confused. "What's a sketch?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "Ain't sure. But Mama says that's what I do when I make her pictures."
"Sketch," she giggled. "I like it. Is that your name?"
"Maybe?" I mumbled, frowning. "I ain't sure no' more."
"Where'd your mama go?"
Tears filled my eyes and I tried not to remember. "Ain't sure."
"Huh. Well, I'm 'a call you Sketch, 'kay?" She giggled again. "Sketch likes to sketch."
I grinned. "And I'm 'a call you angel, Angel."
"You already call me that," she laughed.
"That's 'cause you are," I replied with a sigh. "Just wish you gots some wings to fly me out of –"
"Ramona Priscilla Dillon! What did I tell you about staying away from that door!" A louder, angry voice boomed. "He's a Toretto, for Christ's sake –"
"Sorry, ma'am," she called back.
"What did you call me?"
"Mama," Angel squealed, sounding frightened. "I meant Mama."
"You better start running, child, because if your father catches you playing with the enemy's son, he'll strike you down."
"Gotta go, Sketch," Angel mumbled, her words coming out in a rush. "I'll come back soon, 'kay?"
"'Kay," I whispered, feeling sad again. "Bye, Angel…"
No, I did not like that memory.
Not one fucking bit.
Another jolt from the lightning cables and I was nose-diving into the darkness at full speed.
Ah hell.
3
Romi
If I had been waiting for some sort of a terrifying climax when my father carted me onto one of his awaiting haulage liners the night of the shooting, then I would have been in for a major let down because nothing happened.
Instead of a dramatic showdown, or a gruesome rape before death, I was taken under deck and shown to a cabin before being locked inside without comfort
or explanation.
Hours had turned into days, maybe even weeks, and I was still trapped inside the same tiny room, cold and hungry, and without a soul to keep me company.
My meals were scarce at best and always delivered by a man who only spoke in Arabic.
I hadn't seen my father since that night and I was glad. I couldn’t stand the sight of him. Knowing that my father was responsible for Chris's murder and having watched him put a hole in Sketch was too much to handle. And well, knowing absolutely nothing about where he was taking me was even more terrifying.
I could only presume that we were a long way from Pocketful by now. God knows we'd been at sea long enough. I knew we were still at sea because, just like my so-called dreams, the floor continuously swayed beneath me. The waves crashing against the circular windows of my cabin were also a dead giveaway.
Oh, and the cries of wailing women? The sound that had always tormented my dreams? Yeah, not a dream. They were all around me now.
So close I could hear their breathing.
Alone with only my thoughts and the women's screams to keep me company, I tried to piece together everything I knew up until this point. I desperately tried to make sense of the madness unfolding around me. Breaking it down into bullet points on a mental list in my mind made it easier to comprehend.
I wasn't crazy after all.
Nothing in Pocketful was as it seemed.
My father was an evil lunatic.
I had been brainwashed or drugged or freaking hypnotized into forgetting my past – presumably by my sadistic, evil criminal dad who had murdered Chris – or at least ordered the hit.
Catochi and his men did work for him, making my asshole dad the 'boss man' they spoke about.
Dad plotted to swap me for something important that had been taken from him.
He had kidnapped and then stowed me away on one of his haulage liners, destined to god knows where.
I wasn't the only prisoner on this ship – the women's screams and pleas assured me of that.
When the ship docked at its final destination, there was a big chance that I wasn't going to make it off alive.
