“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.