Plausibility

Chapter 10

Seri couldn’t believe what she was seeing, that son of a bitch. “Turn it up,” she requested from Manny as she sat on the edge of the sofa. It was agent Dick Face, right there in front of the cameras, taking every last bit of glory from Aquilla’s rescue.

“That lying son of a bitch,” she said aloud. “Sorry,” she offered to Manny.

“No worries. Why do you say he is lying?”

“He’s making it sound like he has been investigating her case all along. We were investigating a drug cartel. We just happened to find Aquilla in the middle of it.” Agent Malone was the one to call in the press. He was retiring. He wanted to go out with a bang, stupid fucker. He didn’t care about how hard this was for Quill or her feelings one iota.

Seri walked over to the window to see the massive amount of press still lurking.

“How long do you think this will last?” Manny asked.

“I’m not sure. I can’t say that I’ve ever been in this situation before. I would imagine they won’t give up until they talk to her or you guys,” she explained.

“Sarah?”

“Uh?” she said stupidly. She hadn’t even noticed Liz walk downstairs.

“Can we talk?” she repeated the question, holding the photo album.

“Yeah, sure,” Seri replied, following her to the dining room.

“I need to know what Shelby’s relationship with Julius was like. I’m worried that she’s a little, um, I don’t know. I just need to understand what went on in that house. I’m kind of creeped out about the two of them being raised as brother and sister and how it became more.”

“Quill led a very sheltered life. She never got to go to school like normal kids. She never had friends. She spent a considerable amount of time with Julius. I don’t think it became intimate until the last few months. Monica will be here Tuesday to talk to her. I’m sure she will dig deeper into that. Quill hasn’t really disclosed much of that to me.”

“But you know for sure that he actually did things with her?”

“Yes, Liz. I am sure of that.” Of course she was sure. She did things with her too. Oh, God.

Liz breathed in a puff of her lifeline. “Manny, will you go to the store and pick up some fish? Shelby doesn’t really eat any meat but seafood. Why is that, Sarah?” she asked, turning back to her.

Seri shrugged her shoulders. “I guess that’s what she grew up on. It’s what she’s used to. I think you should try to accommodate that as much as possible. She has never really eaten processed foods. I also think you really need to call her Quill. I know you don’t like it, and I know that it bothers you to call her something that he named her. She doesn’t understand that. She needs to feel some sense of who she is.”

“You have no idea how hard this is. I guess I didn’t expect her to be so distant.”

“She’ll come around, Liz, give her time. Remember that as hard as this is for you, it’s ten times harder for her. I also think you should let Reese go to her friends. Quill isn’t going to warm up and be the big sister that you’re expecting overnight. This has got to be hard for Reese too.”

Liz took a deep breath. “Okay, maybe you’re right. You can drop her off at Lil’s, Manny.”

“Do you mind if I ride along, Emmanuel? I need to pick up a few things myself.”

“Sure, not at all, and you can call me Manny.”

“Great, let me run up and tell Quill.”

Quill quickly closed the stupid laptop that she couldn’t get anywhere on. She wasn’t sure why she closed it. Seri thought that it was her laptop, but still.

“Hey, I’m going to run into town with your dad. What can I pick up for you that you’ll eat without complaining?” Seri asked, teasing.

“I never complained, and maybe we should just make a run to Jamelia Lea and get some crab legs or lobster or something. I know this amazing little market that only sells the freshest, best seafood in the world.”

“Nice try, do you want some fruit?”

“Sure, bananas would be okay.”

“Anything else?”

“You can’t get me what I want in this stupid little town.”

“Julius?”

“No, I hate him.”

Seri snickered and tousled the top of her hair. “I’ll be back in a little bit.”

Aquilla checked her cellphone for messages from Julius or even Talin. Maybe she knew something. Maybe she should text her and see if Julius contacted her. Maybe she could find something out about his whereabouts from her father. Fuck, it didn’t work anymore. Her only communication to her prior life had been shut off. Did Julius do it? Did the feds do it? Shit, she needed on that laptop.

“Call me in the morning and I will pick you up,” Manny told Reese as she exited the car.

“I will, and thanks for talking my mom into letting me go, Sarah,” she added with a smile. She so didn’t want to stay home and deal with the drama unfolding between the walls of that house.

“You’re welcome.”

“How long are you staying?” Manny asked as they drove the short distance to town.

“How well can you drive?” she asked, evading the question as she watched the reporter through the passenger side mirror.

“What?” he asked, not understanding.

“We’re being followed. Have you ever ran from the cops, raced a car, or anything?”

“Um, no, and I don’t think it’s a good idea now. I don’t drive faster than my guardian angel can fly.”

“Push your seat back and let me drive. Just slide from under me when I move over, okay?”

“You’re serious?”

“Unless you want to be bombarded in the grocery store, than yes.”

“Have you ever run from the cops?”

“I am sort of the cops, I have had the training and I have led a few high-speed chases in my time.”

“Okay,” he reluctantly agreed, pushing the seat back.

Shit, maybe sliding across Manny’s crotch wasn’t such a good idea. He just had to go and hold her hips as he slid from beneath her.

“Hang on,” she warned as she hit the gas pedal.

Manny held onto the door like he was going to be ejected from the car at any second. Seri darted in and out of back roads, sliding the rear-end of the car sideways every time. Seri lost the van within five minutes.

“FUCK!” Manny exclaimed. “Sorry,” he said correcting his language.

Seri smiled over at him. “You okay?”

“I’m not sure, I may need to change my pants after that. You’re going to have to teach me how you made those turns like that.”

“It’s called drifting. You learn a lot with my profession.”

“How did you get into your profession?”

“Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday,” she replied. She wasn’t going there. She didn’t talk about her life or how she ended up working for the FBI. It wasn’t a pretty picture and she avoided the feelings that went along with the memories at all costs. “Tell me about Liz. She seems to be dealing with this a lot worse than you and Reese.”

“Liz had a misconception of all of this. I think she was expecting to get three year old Shelby back, not some grown girl with a different name. She’s so pretty, I can’t get over how much she looks like Liz when she was younger.”

“She is a very pretty girl. Am I safe to say that the two of you divorced, because of the strain that it put on your relationship?”

“I would say that is exactly what happened, although Liz doesn’t think so. She blames herself for taking her eyes off of her. It was like she literally disappeared into thin air. Nobody saw anything, nothing. I still don’t understand how he got her out of the country. I mean she was all over every television station across the country. Why didn’t someone see her at the airport?”

“I’m working on that. I’ve got someone going through flights from that time. It might take some time though, it was 14 years ago. And the chance of ever really finding out, are slim to none. When did Liz move to Connecticut?”

“Reese was only a year old when Shelby was taken. Liz’s parents came and stayed for two weeks and took care of her while Liz stayed locked in her room sleeping from the valium. I had to hire someone to come in and take care of Reese once they had to return to their lives. Liz wouldn’t bathe her, feed her, cook, clean, or go to work. Nothing, she just stopped existing. Three months later, I came home from work and she was waiting in our room with her bags packed. She informed me that she was going home to Connecticut. I thought it was a good idea and it might help until she told me that she wasn’t taking Reese and she wasn’t coming back.”

“Wow, I can’t imagine going through something like that,” Seri admitted. “When did she come and get Reese?”

“Reese was almost four.”

“Three years?” Really? How could you leave your child for three years?

“Yes, she stayed with her parents and did nothing. I mean nothing, she didn’t even get dressed. I brought Reese here on weekends and her parents kept her some, trying to get her to wake up and realize that she still had a responsibility to Reese. Nothing worked, she just couldn’t cope. It was really sort of crazy. I thought she was crazy. She showed up one evening in a new car, had a new job, and looked the best that I had seen her in three years. She took Reese that night and has been doing okay ever since.”

“And you didn’t try to work things out?”

“Not really, I had just gotten my business off the ground. I wasn’t moving back here. She had just gotten her teaching job, and it just didn’t work out. I tried to come here when I could. I was putting in a lot of hours, and that didn’t go over well with her. We fought, a lot, it got pretty nasty and we got a divorce that year.”

Aquilla didn’t mean to eavesdrop. She only wanted a drink of water.

“Hey, beautiful, how are things going?” Connor answered, just as the last bell rang.

“She hates me, and she hasn’t been here a full day yet,” Liz assured him, sliding to the chair at the small table in the kitchen.

“She doesn’t hate you, Liz. Give her some time. She’s just been ripped from the only home she’s ever remembered. You, of all people, know how hard this must be for her.”

“I just wanted it to be a happy family reunion. I know I am expecting too much from her, but I can’t help it. I want to do so much with her, and I don’t think she’s going to want to do anything with me. She doesn’t even like Reese.”

“I don’t think you are expecting too much. I think you are expecting too much too fast. Give her some time, sweetie.”

“I need to see you, Connor.”

“Well, that’s good to know. How do you presume we do that? Don’t you have some FBI agent staying with you?”

“Yeah, and my ex-husband.”

“Wait…Manny is STAYING there?”

“Not by my choice, I can’t tell him no, he has a right to be here.”

“I guess you’re right, just don’t kiss him, okay?”

Liz snickered. “No worries.”

“I love you, Liz.” Connor quietly said.

“Don’t do that Connor. I can’t handle anymore right now.”

“You can’t handle me loving you and letting me be here for you. Let your guard down, Liz. You deserve to be happy.”

“How can you say that? I let my daughter get kidnapped. I have no idea what kind of life she has lived and she won’t talk to me. I don’t deserve to be happy.”

Hearing Liz say that made Aquilla feel sad and guilty. She didn’t mean for her to feel that way. She just didn’t belong there. Not now, maybe when she was three, but not now that she was an adult, well almost anyway. In her mind, she was an adult. She was eighteen, not seventeen.

“Can you get away for a little bit tonight?” Connor asked.

“No, I better just stay here. I don’t want to leave just in case she wants to talk to me or something.” Fat chance of that happening, she wouldn’t even come out of her room.

“You can go,” Aquilla said, interrupting. She wanted her to know that she didn’t need to stay there on her account. She wasn’t going to talk to her, she had nothing to say to her.

“Let me call you back, Conner,” Liz said, seeing Aquilla enter the kitchen.

“Okay, but try to get away for a couple hours. You can wait until everyone’s in bed. We’ll just go over to the Goose and drink a beer and talk.”

“I’ll let you know.”

“I’m right here if you need me, Elizabeth.”

“I know, thanks.”

“Hi,” Liz said to Quill. Hi. Really? How stupid did that sound?

“Hey, I just wanted a drink of water. Where can I find a glass?”

“Right above the coffee pot. Do you want something to eat? You didn’t eat much.”

“No, thanks, I’m good.”

“Ice?”

“No, I hate cold water, it hurts my teeth.”

“Do you need to go to the dentist? Did you have regular dental checkups or doctor’s appointments?” Dumb? Yeah, probably.

“Yes, I saw the dentist twice a year. I had braces when I was 12, my teeth are fine.” Really? Did she think she was some medically deprived orphan or something?

“Sit with me,” Liz requested, pulling out a chair for her.

Great, I would love to sit and be fucking interrogated by you. “This water tastes like a swimming pool,” Aquilla alleged as she sat and stared at the water in the glass.

Liz smiled and picked up her phone. “City water,” she guaranteed. It always tasted like there was bleach or something in it. On days when they treated it, you couldn’t stand to smell it, let alone drink it.

“Hey, we just got to the store. Seri here had to lose the press on the back roads,” Manny answered, smiling at Seri or Sarah, whatever her name was. He was going to ask her about that.

Seri smiled back. What the hell? Was she attracted to Quill’s dad? Oh, for God’s sake. This wasn’t good. He needed to go back to New York.

“Can you pick Shel__ Aquilla up some bottled water?”

Aquilla smiled at her correction. She knew she was trying. It wasn’t that at all. It wasn’t any of them. She just didn’t fit in with their family.

“Yeah, sure. Anything else?”

“No. That should do it.”

“Thank you,” Aquilla said. “You can meet your friend tonight. I’m fine.”

“You may be okay with that, but I promise you, your dad wouldn’t be. Manny would be pretty mad if I did that, and it would turn into a big argument I’m sure of it.”

“But I heard you tell whoever you were talking to that you needed to see him. You should see him.”

“Maybe it was a her,” Liz teasingly replied.

“Maybe, but what mother in her right mind would name her daughter Connor?”

“I did say that, didn’t I?”

Aquilla nodded with a weak smile. “You should go, Seri will be here with me. Do you love him?” What? Where the hell did that come from? You don’t care, remember?

Liz smiled. “It’s complicated. Do you love Julius?”

“It’s complicated,” Quill replied.

Liz laughed. “I think I do, but I haven’t really allowed myself to be happy since the day you were taken. I didn’t think I deserved to be happy. I was always afraid that you were either dead or being abused. I never let myself think that you were safe and happy.”

“I was, I was happy and I always had everything that I needed and more.”

“Can we talk about your relationship with Julius?” Liz wasn’t sure why she was having such a hard time with that part. She was sure that he had been doing things with her the whole time she was growing up. He had to, none of it made any sense.

“What about him?”

“I’m just having a hard time trying to figure out how you can love a man that kidnapped you.”

Aquilla was trying to hold it together. She wanted to yell at her and tell her she didn’t know shit about anything. “Are you talking about my father or Julius?”

“He’s not your___.” Liz stopped. She couldn’t say that. “Both, I guess,” she rephrased.

“First of all, he is my father, well, he was anyway. They killed him, and Julius didn’t do anything. He was just a little boy when I was taken. He couldn’t have stopped anything. Julius took care of me. I loved him. The way I loved him just changed the older I got.”

“You’ll find someone, Shel__Quill. You are a beautiful young lady. The right man will come along and sweep you off of your feet. I promise.”

“I’m going to be with Julius. I’m only staying here until I turn eighteen and find him.”

Wow, what did she say to that? “I hope in time you change your mind. I’m really excited for you to go to school and meet friends your own age. Sarah tells me that you’ve never really gotten to go to school.”

Fuck, is this lady serious? “Um….I won’t be going to school here. I graduated this year. I won’t be doing that.” Aquilla had always wanted to go to a school where there were a lot of kids, gym class, a cafeteria, sports, and band. She didn’t want that anymore, not here anyway.

“Quill, you have to graduate under Shelby Rimmer. You’re not Aquilla Chavez. You will never get into a college with that diploma.”

Aquilla snorted and got up. This needed to stop right now. Who the hell did she think she was? “I am Aquilla Chavez. I don’t care about college, and I am not going to school here,” she demanded and stormed out.

Well that went well. What the hell was she supposed to do with this girl? How did she get through to her? She could only pray that this Monica girl could get somewhere, she sure the hell wasn’t able to.

Aquilla once again closed the laptop that she was getting nowhere on. What the hell did all of these numbers mean? It had to be some sort of code. Julius, I don’t understand. She sat at the corner desk and wrote the numbers out. 2-16-22-8-13-13-1. “Oh my God,” she said out loud. It was so simple. Each letter was her name in code. The first number 2 was the second letter after the first letter of her name in the alphabet. The second number, 16, was the letter before her name. But, that still didn’t make sense. She figured out how the numbers were coded to her name but she had tried Aquilla. It didn’t work. What if I use the letter with the number? She opened up the laptop and typed. A2-16Q-22U-8I-13L-13L-1A. Voila, it worked. Her heart sped to an unhealthy beat. It really worked. Damn, she was smart.

Maybe not, he had another stupid code to get into the word processor where she knew his journal was kept. 9-12-21-22-21. What the fuck, Julius? She worked out the same concept and knew that the numbers represented I LUV U in the alphabet. It didn’t work. Neither did using the letters before or after. Grrr. Why did he have to make it so difficult? She didn’t have time to finish decoding Julius’s fucked up encryption when Seri interrupted.

“What are you doing?” Seri wanted to know, with a curious expression as she crumpled up the paper and closed the laptop.

“Nothing, leave me alone,” she demanded.

“What’s wrong? Your mom thinks she made you mad.”

“She is not my mom. She did not make me mad. She doesn’t hold that power over me, and she needs to just go fuck her boyfriend.”

“Quill! What the hell? You need to stop this. You’re just making it hard for everyone around, including yourself.”

“Fuck you, Seri, I don’t need you. Why don’t you just go back to wherever it is you came from?”

“Talk to me, Quill. What’s going on?”

“WHAT’S GOIN ON?!? WHAT’S GOING ON!?! Surely you’re not that fucking stupid. What’s going on is you guys fucking shot my father, you made Julius run from me, and now this fucking stupid ass bitch thinks I am going to high school and be her little cheerleader or some shit. That’s what’s going on, Seri.”

Seri locked the door, walked over, and opened the window. Aquilla quizzically stared. What the hell was she doing? She watched her take a small plastic container from her purse.

“Get over here,” Seri demanded.

“Why?”

“Because, I am going to help you settle down. Get over here.”

Aquilla cautiously made her way to the window.

“If you tell anyone about this, I promise to kill you,” Seri threatened, holding up a thinly rolled joint.

“I don’t do drugs,” Aquilla protested, taking it from her.

“It’s weed, it’s not going to hurt you. It’ll mellow you out a little. Lord knows you need it.”

“I never pictured you to be a druggy.”

“I’m not, I have a prescription,” Seri smirked.

“You’re such a liar,” Aquilla accused, taking the green lighter from her.

Aquilla coughed the smoke out the window into the back yard. She coughed hard. Damn, that burned. She didn’t need that shit, no way.

Seri laughed and took the joint from her. “Don’t take such a big hit, and don’t you dare tell Monica that I let you do this. She will kill me.”

“Does Monica smoke weed?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“You just did,” Aquilla accused, taking a smaller hit from the joint. She didn’t feel anything after four hits. She thought it was stupid.

“Had enough?” Seri asked when it was half gone. Seri had enough. She was suddenly paranoid. What the hell did she just do? This girl was only 17. Her mind was screwed up the way it was, and she goes and gives her a mind altering drug? She needed a vacation. She needed to get away from Aquilla and her good looking dad. Jesus Christ, what the hell has gotten into her?

“I don’t feel anything,” Aquilla admitted.

“Just wait a couple of minutes. It’s not going to do much to you, just smooth your rough edges a little.”

Fuck, she could feel it all of a sudden, and was sure that her new buzz had just done something to her brain. She knew what the numbers meant. She knew how to crack Julius’s encryption. There were five numbers, five numbers when used with the correct letters spelled I LUV U. It had nothing to do with that. QUILL, that’s what it was. She stared out into the back yard, decrypting the letters into numbers. 17-21-9-12-12. That’s it, that had to be it, Seri needed to leave.

“I’m fine now, can I be alone for a while?” Quill asked.

Fuck.

“Don’t open the door,” Seri demanded when they heard the knock. Ah man, this was bad. Her parents were going to smell the weed. She would be looking for a job by the end of the day.

“Yeah?” Aquilla called through the closed door.

“Your dad picked something up for you while he was out, can we come in?” Liz called.

“I’ll be down in a minute,” Aquilla called back. What the fuck? She didn’t want gifts from him or her.

Seri grabbed her chest and sunk to the bed with a relieved breath of air. “Jesus Christ, Quill. Forget I did that. I’m never letting you do that again….What?” she asked, looking at Aquilla’s constricted eyes, boring into her.

“You’re a hypocrite.”

“Why? Because, I like to smoke a little weed? I didn’t go after your father or Julius because of weed, Quill. They were smuggling some pretty fucked up shit.”

“Like what?”

“Well, the vessel that we busted was carrying a LOT of cocaine.”

“And you’ve never done cocaine?”

FUCK!!!!

“I have, a long time ago, that’s sort of how I ended up working for the FBI.”

“How?”

Shit, she was going to have to tell her about it. Aquilla wasn’t the type to mind her own business. Why the hell did she let her smoke weed?

“Let’s go see what your parents have for you. I’ll tell you sometime.”

“You already know what he bought, you were with him. And I am holding you to that, I want to know.”

“Here, put this in your eyes. Your eyes look like they are bleeding.”

“So do yours,” Aquilla assured her as she squirted the red-out into her eyes.

Seri used it too, spritzed a couple squirts of body spray on them both, and followed Aquilla out.

“Seri,” Aquilla whispered, as they descended the stairs.

“What?”

“I’m hungry, did you buy bananas?”

Seri laughed. “You’re not hungry, you’re stoned, and yes, I bought bananas.”

Aquilla was so confused. Why?

“Your dad thought maybe you would want a new phone, now that you were home,” Liz spoke, pointing her eyes to the new iPhone 5 lying on the table. Who the hell was she going to call?

“Um, thank you,” she said. What the hell was she supposed to say?

Manny was the one to laugh. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll have so many numbers in there by the time you finish your senior year of high school, you won’t know who is who.”

Great, let’s discuss the high school that she would not be attending again.

“This thing will do more than call people; you can watch movies, read, download music, text, video, and I’m sure a lot more that Reese can teach you,” he assured her, reading her mind.

TEXT! Yes, she could text Talin. She opened the box and powered on the phone. Hmm. It was very nice. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad gift after all.

“I hope you’re hungry. Your dad bought enough fish to feed an army,” Liz alleged.

Aquilla smiled. “Thank you, is it okay if I go to my room and try it out?”

“Yes, go ahead, I’ll call you when it’s time to eat.”

“I’m going to watch a little bit of the news, and see if I can get anything from when these idiots outside are going to go away,” Seri said, tossing Quill a Banana.

Aquilla smiled and walked upstairs.

She didn’t play with the phone. She had something else she had to do first.

Oh my God, Julius. I’m going to kill you when I see you. The numbers didn’t work. What the hell did they mean? She was sure that it was Quill. She tried every number combination there was. Nothing, denied access. She didn’t use any numbers and typed the simple name Quill. Fucking A, yes!!! Stupid fucker, there better not be any more barricades to get through.

Hey pretty girl. The first sentence confused the hell out of her. Did he know she was going to read his journal? This is not the journal that I lied and told you that it was. Remember a few years ago when we were stuck in that hotel for a month? You made fun of me for keeping a journal. It was never a journal, Quill. That was the first time that I was scared for you. I didn’t know what was going to happen. My father had never screwed up enough to stay in hiding for that long of a time. He wrote this for her?

If you are reading this, Quill, then one of two things have happened, either I am dead or we have been separated. I have no idea if you will even get the chance to read it, but I have to try. I’m not worried that you won’t be able to figure out my gibberish codes. You will, you’re too damned stubborn not to.

I have to tell you things that you have a right to know. The first one is that I love you. I love you so much, Quill. I have always loved you. It goes way beyond how a man loves a woman. It’s different than that, and I’m not sure I can even explain it. I felt an attraction to you when you were three, when we first took you from your family. You didn’t take me, Julius. You were just a little boy.

That is where I am going to start, Quill, from that morning in New York. Wait…let me back up just a bit. You need to know where I came from, as well. I know how much you love my father. I know that you think there is no one like him. I am glad of that. I am glad that he has always treated you like his little princess. He wasn’t always a good man, Quill. He was not a good husband to my mother…at all. I was afraid of him for many years. I hid behind my mother’s legs many times. Valdez is the one that gave me the story. It was shortly after you came along.

My mother was never meant to be anything more than another chattel. My father was training her when she became pregnant with me. He never knew it until he showed up months later to ask her to do another three month assignment. She was almost ready to give birth. He left her there until I was born, and sent his own physician in to do the paternity test. Although, he resented her for getting pregnant (like she didn’t have help), he wasn’t about to leave me there. She gave up her life for me. She thought that he would be able to give me a better life than she could in that poor little village. I’m sure we would have both been better off to have been left alone. I would think that her worrying about feeding me was less bothersome than what she lived through with him.

They were never like a married couple, and not even close to being a mother and father. They slept in separate rooms and my father got his thrills from training chattels. He was never intimate with my mother. Not usually, anyway. I do remember a few times when things were a little touchy and he would cease any new chattels coming in. He would just burst into any room or whatever she was doing and demand that she go to the training room. I assume that is how my blood sister came along. He was mean to her? Aquilla couldn’t believe what she was reading. Not from her father. He wasn’t capable of being mean to his family, was he?

I was the reason we were in New York. I begged my father to take me. I was too young then to know that his business consisted of a large shipment of coke being brought into the city. I wanted to see Times Square, Central Park, the Empire State Building and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I had just finished doing a report on the city and begged my father to take me. Aquilla was only four at the time, and although she had no idea what New York City even was, she crawled onto my father’s lap and begged too.

It melts my heart thinking about her. She placed both her little hands on the sides of his face and said, “I want to see the tire building too.” I didn’t think it was possible for him to love anyone as much as he loved her. He did, Quill. He loved you so much. I don’t know how or why, but he did. I’m sure he was a little sick. He had himself convinced that you were his little Quill. It’s actually kind of funny. You look like a ghost compared to the real Aquilla. I know now that he chose that week because of all of the commotion that would be taken away from the barges coming in and more focus being put on the festivities at Times Square.

I blamed myself for years for being there. We shouldn’t have been there. He shouldn’t have had us in that car. I miss her, Quill. I miss them both. She was such a joy to be around. I too didn’t think I could love you. I didn’t want to love you. You weren’t my little Quill. You were some white girl that my father snatched from the streets. Don’t worry. I did fall in love with you. I had to. You followed me around like a stray dog and I felt compelled to protect you, even though I too was just a boy. It was my duty. You were my new Quill, and I would have done anything to make you happy.

Aquilla wiped a tear that she hadn’t realized had fallen, and quickly closed the laptop.

“Hey, you okay?” Seri asked, sitting on the small bed with her.

“No,” she accidently sobbed. “I miss him, Seri. I need him. I don’t want to be here.”

Seri had no words. What was she supposed to say? She brushed her hair behind her shoulder and smiled a caring smile. “I don’t know how to make this easier for you, Quill.”

“I haven’t even been here one Goddamn day and I feel like I have been away from him for years. I need to touch him. I need to smell him. I have to find him, Seri.”

“Quill, you’re right. It’s only been one day. Give it some time. You’ll forget him. Time mends all wounds. You’re going to be okay.”

How the fuck did she know? She was going to leave and go back to her life. Aquilla moved the laptop to the nightstand. “I’m going to take a shower in my shared bathroom that isn’t even in my room,” she complained, grabbing clothes from her bag.

Aquilla appeased her so called parents and ate dinner with them. She didn’t talk much and only answered questions when she was asked. They tried to get her to stay downstairs and watch television, but she didn’t want to. She was already tired of seeing her picture all over the news. She hated it. She hated being the kidnapped girl. She wanted to go home. She wanted her father and Julius. This was so unfair and nobody gave a flying fuck about what she wanted. They all knew what was best for her. Fuck them, all of them, even Seri. She didn’t need any of them. She needed Julius. Julius had to have something written about his whereabouts. He just had to. How long could she keep this up?

Aquilla showered, letting the hot water mix with the tears. Why the hell was she crying? She didn’t cry. She was a Chavez. Chavez’s didn’t cry. She wanted Julius, that’s why. She just wanted him. She needed him.

Aquilla used a little of Reese’s makeup, trying to hide the puffy eyes before rejoining Seri, who needed to leave her alone so that she could read.

“I’m going to grab a shower and then we’re going to talk,” Seri warned, dropping her cellphone to her twin bed.

“About what?” she wanted to know. Aquilla didn’t want to talk. She wanted to read more. She needed to read more. She had to get out of there, somehow, someway, she had to. She was going to lose her mind.

“Life, my little Quill, life.”

Great.