Page 44 of Violent Reign (Violent Kingdom)

Am I in fucking Mexico?

The inside of the gas station, with its labels in Spanish first, confirms it. The clerk banters with a guy who might or might not be a customer and jovially hands me the key to the restroom. In the bathroom, I lock the door and splash cold water on my face. I barely recognise myself. But there’s enough cash in Tyler’s wallet to fill up the tank on the car, buy myself a t-shirt from the meager selection on a stack of shelves by the window, and a burner phone. Some water. And snacks. Some fucking snacks.

Night has fallen completely, a blanket of stars in the sky, and I shut myself back in Tyler’s car and tip half a bag of chips into my mouth. They taste like heaven. I didn’t even look at the flavor—the flavor doesn’t matter. After days and months in that fucking cell I’d have eaten anything. It doesn’t matter. Once I’ve swallowed all the chips and wiped my mouth, I dial my dad’s cell phone number.

He answers before the first ring has run its course. “Hello?” I’ve never heard him sound so tense, so frantic.

“Dad. It’s me.”

“Rome. Oh my god.” There’s a heavy thud as if he’s sat down, hard, on the first available piece of furniture. “What the fuck? Where have you been? The police have been looking for you. Everyone’s been looking for you.”

The full force of what happened while Tyler and Rosaline were running my life smacks me in the face, then comes back for another sucker punch. How can I ever describe what it was like to be chained up to the wall for days on end? How can I describe the particular pain of handcuffs cutting into my skin? My dad doesn’t want to know what it was like to lie there under Rosaline, and then worse, Tyler and Rosaline. Nobody will ever want to know.

“I’m in Mexico.”

“Jesus, Rome. Are you on the run?”

“No. Yes. Kind of. It’s - I can’t explain. I need to get back. Dad, I have to get back.” My voice quavers and I lock it down immediately. What, am I going to lose my shit now that I’m finally out? No. Not for years. Not until I know it’s safe. That might never happen. “I don’t have ID. I can’t get across the border.”

“Hang on.” He holds the phone away from his mouth and all I can hear is the muffled sound of his voice. I lean my head back against the headrest and just listen. If the car explodes right now, or if I die in a burst of gunfire, I’ll at least have gotten to hear my dad’s voice one more time. “Can you get to Tijuana?”

“Yes.” It’s not far. I’m an hour away outside of El Sauszal de Rodriguez, or so I learned in the gas station. “I’ve got a car. Just nothing that will prove I’m an American citizen.”

My dad sounds like he hasn’t taken a full breath in weeks. “Go to Tijuana. Hotel Suiza, park in front, and someone will meet you there in a few hours with passport and ID. And Rome?”

“Yeah?”

“Is somebody after you?”

“They might be. I don’t know.” A car passes by on the highway in front of me and my heart beats faster, waiting for it to turn into the gas station. It does, pulling up at a pump. I breathe a little easier.

“Okay.” I can picture him now, clutching his cell phone tight in the middle of his house in Joshua Tree. “Somebody will be there. I’ll text you the details. Is this number okay?”

“It’s good, yeah.”

“Get going.” My dad hangs up the phone, and I listen to the silence on the other end of the line.

My shoulders sink down to their regular position. I’ve spent a good part of my life resenting being a Montague. Not because being a Montague is any better or worse than anybody else, but because my last name has locked me in a mortal feud with the Capulets. Without that, none of this shit would have happened.

Just over an hour later, I pull up in front of the Hotel Suiza in Tijuana. I should keep driving around, in case anybody’s following me, but I’m fucking exhausted. I pick the darkest spot on the street and parallel park Tyler’s car, then lean my seat back and take a nap.

Three and a half hours after that, somebody taps at my window, scaring the ever-loving shit out of me. I raise the gun in my hand, my finger itchy on the trigger until I vaguely recognize the man’s face from my father’s compound. “Rome?”

“It’s me,” I croak, lowering the gun, winding down the window.

“Here.” He tips a full set of papers into my hands. ID. Passport. None of it says Montague.Even better.Then he’s gone, gunning his Honda motorbike out onto the road. I ease the car back onto the street, heading for the border crossing. It’s relatively quick at this time of night, the lanes of cars moving efficiently. The border agents don’t take a second look at any of my stuff.

Before I know it, they’ve waved me through, and I’m breathing California air, big lungfuls of it, by the time I realize I have to make a decision.

I can’t go to Joshua Tree. I can’t go to Merc. I definitely can’t go to Avery. I’ll get captured again, and I won’t survive next time. So finally I call my father and tell him to meet me in the one place that everybody has forgotten about.

The facility where my mother lives is in Palm Springs - about forty-five minutes away from my Dad’s place in Joshua Tree. Visiting hours are on the edge of being over when I get there, but something about my expression softens the nurse’s pinched look. She lets me pass.

My dad sits hunched over at my mom’s bedside, his shoulders drooped like he’s praying. At the sound of my footsteps he stands up and turns around, and fuck, I almost fall to the floor right there. But I don’t. That’s just not how I live my life.

He wraps me up in a long hug. “What the fuck happened, Rome?”

I tell him about the plane. About the needle in my neck. About the cell. About the Capulets. I leave off everything else, except for the fact that it was a violent escape. He gets a knowing look in his eyes when I tell him that, but otherwise just listens.

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