by Chloe Walsh
"But you were only a baby," I whispered, horrified.
"What kind of tests?" Pres asked, brows creased.
"Like I said, I don’t remember," Sketch grumbled. "I don’t…" He blew out another breath and ran a hand through his hair. "I don’t have any memories of back then."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I couldn’t tell you shit about what happened before my fourth birthday," Sketch bit out. "I took a lot of different medication for whatever the hell they thought was wrong with me, and there's nothing there." He tapped his temple. "It's blank."
"Jesus Chris," Presley breathed.
Sketch shrugged. "Anyways, Mama didn’t want me anywhere near my brother after the fire. Said I was evil. My dad convinced her to let me stay. After that, he moved our family to Pocketful," he explained, voice flat and empty. "Dad already had property there, but we'd been living at his home in New Orleans when the fire broke out. I guess he wanted somewhere quiet to raise us, somewhere I could be kept out of sight until they figured out what the hell was wrong with me. I always assumed that's why Cal has such a problem with me."
Stunned, I placed a hand on his arm. "Why didn’t you tell me?"
"I swear I didn’t keep it from you on purpose." His voice thick with emotion now. "I just…I didn’t want you to be afraid of me," he admitted, tone anxious, blue eyes full of remorse. "You were the first friend I ever had and I didn’t wanna scare you off –"
"I am not afraid of you," I cut in fiercely. "And you couldn't have scared me off, so put those thoughts out of your head."
Relief flickered in his eyes. "Really?"
I opened my mouth to respond, but Presley got in there first.
"I'm sorry, but did anyone else hear what I did?" he demanded, appalled. "You said that she let you stay? Like you were an unwanted family pet?" He shook his head. "This has to be the most disgusting form of child abuse I've ever heard."
"I wasn't abused," Sketch growled, instantly on the defensive. "I've always been well taken care of, so don’t look at me like that."
"You were neglected," Presley countered unapologetically. "Emotionally starved, and purposefully isolated from your family. That's child abuse, and I'm sorry if you don’t understand that, Holden, but that's what it is."
"She was scared," Sketch snapped, bristling. "She thought she was doing what was right."
"Are you for real?" Presley's mouth fell open. "You're actually defending her?"
"She's my mother," Sketch ground out. "She gave me life. I'll defend her until my last breath."
Presley gaped. "Why?"
"Because that's what a son is supposed to do," Sketch hissed, hands balling into fists. "She did her best –"
"For Chris," Presley muttered, disgusted. "Not for you."
"Fuck you," Sketch snarled. "You don’t know what I put her through."
"Supposedly," Pres hissed. "How do you know if it really went down like that? You said it yourself that you don’t remember. You have a four-year block in your brain, dude. Anything could have happened to you in that space of time. It's weird and hella suspicious."
"What are you trying to say?"
"Nothing in Pocketful is as it seems," Presley recited the words that haunted my dreams. "Think about it."
"My dad wouldn't lie to me," Sketch strangled out, trembling. "He cares about me."
"Not enough," Presley huffed.
"That's enough," I warned, giving Pres a meaningful look. "Stop," I mouthed to him, feeling Sketch's entire frame vibrate with tension alongside me. "Just take it down a notch."
"There's something very wrong with your families," Pres declared, leaning back in his seat.
"Why are you looking at me when you say that?" Sketch growled, instantly on the defensive.
"Because you are a complete victim in all of this," Pres replied without hesitation. "It makes me sad and I feel sorry for you."
"Don’t," Sketch growled. "I don’t want your pity."
"Too bad because you have it, and I'd hug you if I didn’t think you'd strangle me to –"
"Touch me and you'll be joining my brother in his plot," Sketch warned, holding a finger up. "I mean it."
"Broken baby lion cub," Pres said with a sad sigh.
"Yeah, I'm done." Sketch jerked to his feet and this time I didn’t stop him when he climbed over me and stalked away. He'd reached his limit and I wasn't about to push him over the edge.
"Do you have to goad him?" I asked, staring after his back as he shoved the door of the diner open and stalked outside.
"What?" Presley huffed defensively. "You can't tell me that you don’t feel bad for the guy?"
"Of course I do," I replied. "But you can't pull that crap with him. He's prideful. And private."
"Yeah, well, the pride before the fall," Pres muttered, waving a hand around. "All I know is that his parents – the mom more than the dad – are real pieces of shit."
"Agreed," I said with a sigh. "A-freaking-greed, Pres."
"Actually, I'm not done, asshole," I heard Sketch growl as he stalked back inside, moving straight for us. "I'm not even close to being done because you don’t know a goddamn thing about my family –"
The sound of a gunshot ricocheted through the air, causing the window we were sitting beside to explode, and thousands of shards of broken glass to rain down on us.
Chapter Twenty-One
Romi
Everything happened in slow motion after that. The people in the restaurant started screaming and running for their lives, more gunshots blasting around us, but I couldn’t move a muscle.
Trapped beneath an insufferable weight, I held my breath, paralyzed with fear, as images of the night behind that dumpster flashed through my mind...
"…You can't be in Pocketful after your eighteenth birthday. They're coming for you... For both of you."
"…You're gonna park your sweet little ass in your daddy's mansion and stay there…"
"…Right now, I need you to keep on forgetting, but when it's time to remember, you'll find what you need in here..."
"…You even think about running away, and I'll put a bullet in his brain..."
"Snap out of it," Sketch's voice dragged me back to reality. "We need to move." Blinking rapidly, I registered the weight I was feeling was his body as he pinned me to the floor. "Look at me, Ro," he whispered, breathing hard and fast. Pushing my hair off my face, he gripped my jaw in his blood-smeared hand and forced me to look at him. "Good, now stay with me," he instructed. "I've got you."
I nodded frantically, too terrified to say a word, as gunshots sounded close by.
"Come on," he said, rolling off me. "We've gotta get out of here."
Trembling, I ignored the shooting pain in my leg and, using my hands and one good knee, I dragged myself along after him.
My stomach rolled when we passed the waitress from earlier, bleeding out on the floor, and a strangled sob tore from my chest.
"It's okay." Catching ahold of the collar of my sweater, Sketch dragged me past the dying waitress, narrowly avoiding raining bullets and broken glass. "Just keep moving."
"Pres," I strangled out, terrified.
"I don’t know," Sketch grunted, pulling me behind the staff counter. "I didn’t see where he went."
"But we can't leave him –"
"No," he snapped, dragging me along like a ragdoll. "Forget him. I'm getting you out of here." Shouldering the door of the kitchen open, he pushed me through before scrambling inside. "Come on, Ro, move," he hissed, pulling me to my feet. Hand wrapped around mine, he dragged me through the huge, industrial-sized kitchen, hunting down an exit I wasn’t sure existed. "We've gotta get the fuck out of here. They’re still shooting outside."
"How?" I cried, hobbling after him. "There's nowhere to go!"
"There has to be an emergency exit around –"
"Pretty little princess?" a male voice boomed from just inside the restaurant.
"Oh god," I strangled out, immediately recogni
zing the voice. "Sketch, that's Catochi."
Sketch's eyes widened. "What?"
"Catochi," I choked out. "Catochi."
"Fuck!" Grabbing a knife off the stainless-steel countertop, he looked around frantically, eyes landing on something in the corner of the room. "Come on, come on," he hissed, pulling me towards the walk-in freezer. "In here."
Yanking the door open, a gust of arctic air blew out before he pushed us both inside and closed the door behind us.
Weaving between crates of raw meat, Sketch shoved me into the corner of the freezer. The light above us was clearly set on timer to switch on when the door of the freezer was opened because it suddenly faded out, cloaking us in darkness.
"Sketch!"
"It's okay." His hand found mine. "I'm right here."
Muffled voices came from just outside the freezer. "Where is she?"
Tears filled my eyes as my body shook from the glacial cold. "Oh god, we're gonna –"
"Shh," Sketch whispered, body rigid and welded to mine. His breath fanned the top of my head and I felt him tense and tremble against me. "No, we're not."
"We know you're in here somewhere, princess."
With my heart hammering along to the same erratic rhythm as his, I pressed my face into his chest and tried to steady my breathing – and stifle the sob rising up in my throat.
Sketch cupped the back of my neck, drawing me as close as two human bodies could get, aligned and flushed together. "Shh." His arm moved from my neck to tighten around my back. "Just breathe."
I could hear them mere feet away from where we were hiding and the knowledge that we were this close to danger caused a layer of goosepimples to prickle my skin.
A loud bang from just outside the freezer startled me, but it was the sound of another gunshot piercing the air that caused me to almost jump clean out of my skin.
Terrified, my body started to jerk uncontrollably and I couldn’t stop myself from knotting my fingers in the waistband of his sweats, tugging his big body closer to mine.
"Come out, come out wherever you are –"
"Shit," Sketch hissed, hooking an arm around me and shoving us behind a stack of meat crates just as the freezer door was yanked open and were bathed in light.
Crouched behind the crates, Sketch pulled me flush against him. I could feel his heart thundering violently against my ear. Keeping one hand clamped over my mouth, he gripped the knife with the other, ready to strike.
Wide eyed and petrified, and with my head twisted at a painful angle, I kept my eyes glued to Sketch's face. His breath was coming out in visible puffs of air; the only sign that he was affected by the frigid temperature of the freezer. Meanwhile, my body racked with tremors.
"Well hell," someone mused. "I really thought she'd be in here. Saw the skinny one get out, but she wasn't with him."
My body went weak, sagging against Sketch's, while the men that had taken his brother's life stood mere feet from us.
"Did you see the kid?" the voice I knew belonged to Catochi asked. "The way he moved? His reflexes? Remind you of anyone?"
"Yeah," the first one replied. "Impressive."
"Kid's quicker than his brother was," a third one laughed. "Although, that wouldn't be hard."
I could feel the tremor roll through Sketch's body and I prayed to God to give him the self-control he needed to not coil and strike. Reaching up, I covered the hand he had on my mouth with mine, desperate to ground him and keep him with me. Don’t be reckless, I mentally begged him with my eyes, knowing this must be torture for him, just stay with me.
"Think she told 'em?"
"Nah," the one with the cruel voice sneered. "Girl's a fucking headcase. She was rocking in a padded cell last week. Besides, if she remembered anything, don’t you think she would have blabbed by now?"
"Then what the fuck are we doing here?" a fourth one asked.
"Following orders, pup." That was Catochi. "Sending a message."
"This was a waste of our goddamn time."
"Damn, that kid's got good instincts, though," Catochi mused.
"He'd have to, poor bastard, to survive up until now," the first one said, and all four of them chuckled.
Moments later, the light above us flickered out, bathing us in a semi-state of darkness, sans the open door.
"What a fucking mess."
"Let's clear out before the filth make an appearance."
"What about the girl?"
"We were sent to scare her, not kill her. She looked scared to me. If she has a braincell left in that defected brain of hers, she'll go back to where she belongs."
"And the kid?"
"He'll follow her. He's a teenage boy – a territorial little shit, by the look of it. He'll chase that snatch around like a dog chases a bitch in heat."
More laughter filled the air as their footsteps slowly retreated. Seconds later, the door slammed shut. We were alone.
Still frozen on the floor, both literally and figuratively, I ripped Sketch's hand away from my mouth and dragged air into my lungs. My body was shaking so violently that I was making his body vibrate. "God…" Gasping for air, I twisted around and threw my arms around his neck.
"Fuck." Tossing the knife on the floor, his arms came around me, hugging me to his chest. "Are you okay?" He squeezed me so tightly that I could hardly breathe and it wasn’t enough. "Fuck, baby." I couldn’t seem to get close enough. "Jesus Christ."
"Yes, yes, I'm fine. Are you okay?" I cried back, grasping and pulling at him, desperate to convince myself that he was still here. "God, Sketch, I thought I was gonna lose you…" Burying my face in his neck, I kissed his skin over and over, so grateful that he was here with me. Adrenalin was still pumping through my veins, making me feel dizzy and frantic. "I can't lose you." Injured knee be damned, I scrambled onto his lap and clung to his hard chest like a baby monkey. "Not ever."
"I'm here," Sketch said, his breathing as hard and uneven as mine. "Jesus Christ, I thought I was gonna lose you." A shiver racked through his body. "Scariest fucking moment of my life."
"They're the four men," I sobbed, clutching him with a death grip, "that killed Chris."
"Yeah, I know. I heard them," he strangled out, breathing hard. "Fuck, I'm so fucking sorry for doubting you, Ro." Smoothing my hair back, he tugged my face out of the curve of his neck and cradled my face between his big hands. "So fucking sorry, baby." His cold nose found mine in the darkness, stroking and nuzzling, his breath fanning my lips. "I swear, I will never doubt you again –"
I crushed my lips to his, pulse racing, mind reeling, heart starving. This time, Sketch didn’t hesitate to kiss me back. Unlike the bathroom, he didn’t hold back. He didn’t deny me his affection. Instead, his lips devoured mine, his kiss drugging and consuming, as he slid his tongue into my mouth to dance with mine.
It wasn't a sweet kiss, or a slow burning one. No, it was a kiss full of teeth and tongue, a kiss full of desperation and gratitude. To be alive. To not be splattered on the diner floor. To be together.
"Thank fucking god!" The overhead light in the freezer came on and I tore my lips away from Sketch's in a rush. "I thought you were dead!" Presley bellowed from the doorway, looking all cut up and frazzled. "As in, deceased, departed, gone from this world, no longer in existence, extinct, but noooo…" He waved a hand around like a deranged lunatic. "You two are fornicating in a freezer full of raw meat– which, FYI, is totally unhygienic considering you're both bleeding!" He shook his head, causing tiny shards of glass to spill from his curls. "I'm fine, by the way. Thanks for asking. I only got almost fucking shot by a mob of madmen!"
"Glad you're alive, Pres," Sketch replied, his eyes and hands still roaming over me, like he was checking to make sure I was still here.
"Sure you are, Judas," Presley huffed. "No thirty pieces of silver needed for your loyalty, huh? Just a golden pussy. Good to know where your priorities lie."
"Do you wanna stand here and bitch at me, Pres, or do you wanna get the hell out of d
odge?" Sketch demanded, squeezing my thighs in a gesture for me to move.
Presley's brows shot up. "Leave the scene of a crime?"
"Or wait around for the cops to show up, identify us, and take her back to Tully House?" Sketch replied hotly. "I know what I'm choosing, Pres, do you?"
I didn’t want to move an inch from Sketch, I never wanted to let him out of my sight again, but I reluctantly climbed off his lap, not wanting to face the police that little bit more. "I'm not going back there," I croaked out, taking Sketch's outstretched hand and letting him help me to my feet. "No way."
"Dammit, Sketch, you're right," Presley groaned, digging his fingers into his temples. "It's such a rare occasion that I'm sporting a migraine."
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sketch
Crossing the state line between Texas and New Mexico, I drove for most of the afternoon before finding another motel to check into a couple of hours south of the city of Santa Fe. This room had two beds – Presley was insistent that we all stay close and I couldn’t agree more. After the day's events, I had no plans on letting either one of them out of my sight.
Even though I knew he was only half serious with the Judas digs, I felt guilty as hell for leaving him to fend for himself back at the diner. My only explanation for my knee-jerk reaction to protect Romi at all costs was exactly that; my knee-jerk reaction. I couldn’t help it and I was fairly certain that if I was put in a similar situation, I would do it all over again.
My world felt altered. All of the revelations that had come to light in such a short span of time, the near-death experience, and Romi’s mouth having been on mine no less than twice today, had fractured my thoughts and left me completely reeling.
He didn’t touch her.
She didn’t sleep with Chris.
They were hunting her.
They wanted to scare her.
What the actual fuck was happening?
Jesus Christ, my emotions were in tatters. I was feeling too damn much, absorbing too much of her pain and fear, just like I always had. It wasn't good for me, but whenever I was near her, my brain checked out and my heart took over.