CHAPTER FOURTEEN
no grave can hold my body down
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𝐈 suppose funerals were meant to look beautiful and peaceful but there was nothing beautiful about burying the dead twelve feet underground. A body to leave for the Earth to consume. There was nothing about the tear-stained faces and ugly sobs coming from the people around her was peaceful. Despite it all, it was now something that Josephine Torreto found herself terribly familiar with when it shouldn't.
These grounds had been one of the places she visited the most in the past few years. To give her best friend, Jesse, flowers made out of scrap metal and tin coils. Something that never dies so his tombstone will look alive unlike most of them around her. Now, as she watched another of her closest friends get lowered down into a casket━Josephine had never felt so empty.
She wanted to sob and scream until her lungs gave out. But she could only stare into space, trying her best to comfort everybody else but herself. She had been the one who delivered the news to Dominic through a phone call. For the first time after months, he finally answered. The only problem was she didn't exactly have the best news for him.
Her brother ended the call after that. He didn't say anything else. And frankly, Josephine had ran out of words to convince him to see her and Mia. So she let the phone line die and began to prepare for another funeral.
A few of Letty's relatives and close friends from the street racing scene attended the burial. Their cars lined up alongside the grassy area on the concrete path. The priest read scriptures and recited prayers that Josephine had long forgotten. I suppose after praying to God so many times to keep her family safe and only receiving the opposite━she began to forget how to pray.
God never heard her and so she stopped trying to be heard.
Josephine kept her gaze on the ground, feeling the unwanted eyes of strangers on them. On the other side of the cemetery were a line of black sedans, obviously FBI-issued cars, and there were a few agents scattered around in their black suits. She almost wanted to confront them and make them leave. This was a private ceremony━their family was getting buried. They couldn't even let her rest peacefully for the last time.
Then again, she knew why they were there. The cops were expecting Dominic Toretto to show up just because they knew he wouldn't be able to help himself not to stay away from the funeral of his loved one. Josephine hated that they knew how important Letty was to her brother. It was almost invasive. But they were criminals. They ought to know a few important things about them.
Josephine wasn't blind. She could very well see Brian O'Conner standing among the agents, and she hated to admit that he did blend in well with the crowd. Brian looked like he belonged there, and Josephine felt bad that she disliked him because of it even though it was probably one of the best achievements he had in his thirty years of life. God, they'd grown so much. Both of them.
Now, she was near the age he was when he met her for the first time. Twenty-six. It felt like she was just nineteen a minute ago. Now she was this grown woman that Josephine could barely recognize whenever she looked in the mirror. Honestly, she shouldn't be this tired at her age. But the evidence was there on the faint wrinkles on her face from frowning so much and the dark bags under her eyes from sleepless nights.
Everything about Josephine Toretto made Brian want the Earth to swallow him up whole as he watched the funeral from afar. He was supposed to look for the older brother. But he just couldn't help looking at her. It was torture. Being able to see her and not touch her or talk to her the way he used to before. It killed him to know that she was probably suffering and he couldn't be there for her in a way he wanted to.
There was now a barrier between them. His golden badge and the stupid law that set Dominic Toretto's tragic fate.
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall now want." The priest's words simply went past her ears as he spoke, because Letty Ortiz was never coming back and that meant they would have to live with that fact. "He makes me lie down..."
Her wearied eyes turned to the sky, and for a moment, Josephine had an inkling feeling somebody was out there watching them. No, it wasn't the obvious cops who had large cameras invading the funeral or the unwanted presence of the Federal Bureau of Investigation━Josephine just knew that Dom was out there. I suppose it was a gut feeling.
"Facial recognition software matched Toretto... about ten minutes after he crossed the border." Stasiak, another FBI agent and associate of Brian, stood next to him as he delivered that information. Behind them, the other cops were leaving. Brian kept his gaze on Josephine. "I don't get it. I thought he'd show."
Oh, he did. Brian thought. But he didn't say anything and when the agent left him alone, Brian furrowed his brows and looked toward the nearest hill that overlooked the whole cemetery. Dom was here. Brian O'Conner had never been so sure his whole life.
Josephine was just leaving when she saw an awfully familiar man in her peripheral vision. Her jaw clenched, stopping a few distances from him. Mia had already gone with their friends. She couldn't have it in her to drive alone so she rode in her doctor boyfriend's gray Maserati Granturismo. The youngest Toretto had met him a few years ago at medical school. He was two years her senior and Mia only adored him more when he showed his mutual interest in cars with her.
"Jo." The way Brian said her name almost took her back to the first time she met him and Josephine tried really hard to be angry but her tiredness had won over again.
Josephine turned around. After three years, she faced him again in a different circumstance. Unlike those other times, she wasn't about to get drowned in those ocean eyes again. She looked at him, annoyance clear on her distinct features. "You just can't stay away, huh?"
"I want to talk." Brian pursed his lips, his eyes studying her expressions. He almost begged. "Please."
"We have nothing to talk about, Brian," Josephine said shortly. Her teeth gritted, forcing herself to look away from him. Because no matter how many years pass, you will never forget someone who treated you the way anyone else couldn't. "Don't do this. Not now."
"Jo." Brian reached for her hand and retracted them just as fast. He sighed loudly, running his hand over his cropped hair. He had grown a beard and his golden curls were gone, Josephine noticed. She used to like his hair so much. "Just let me explain."
"We just lost Letty," Josephine snapped, her narrowed gaze made him remember all the things he'd done. The way he ruined her family and left her to pick up the pieces that eventually scarred her hands. "I don't want your explanation. Just... Just leave us alone, all right?"
Then she walked away and fastened her pace because she was afraid to hear Brian call her name again━that she would accidentally cave into his arms like a child. Because all this anger was once love. And nobody knows her like Brian does. But it was tormenting to realize that nothing would ever be the same.
Their relationship was now what it had been from the start. Just two strangers again with different lives. Five years was a long time and they both had drastically changed. Brian and Josephine might know each other well before but there were a lot of things they didn't know now.
Time had caught up to them, and now they were back to the beginning where Josephine stubbornly caved back into her shell and Brian tried to make her let him in. But Brian didn't care. He would go through all that pain again, as long as he got her in the end. Josephine Toreto was the only peace he'd ever known in his life. He would be crazy to let her go for the third time.
Brian was not going to let that happen.
"Oh, great," Josephine muttered and let go of the curtains that covered the living room's windows. She turned to Mia who was putting things inside a box. "The stupid cops are still out there."
"I know," Mia sighed heavily. "They're never gonna leave until they make sure Dom isn't here."
"Well, he's not!" The older sister threw her arms up in frustration. After everything that happened━her dislike of the police force had grown over time. "Our life's already worse than it is and now cops are watching our every move. I'm sick of it."
Mia shook her head. Of course, she agreed with Jo. But she wasn't quite getting the brunt of the situation since she practically lived at the university now. So Mia never knew how much it was affecting her sister. She wished she could take Josephine with her but the older girl had been stubborn enough to say that she didn't need to run. (Why would she? Josephine did nothing wrong).
"You know, Derek had offered us to live at one of his condos," Mia said carefully like she was treading on thin waters. She eyed Josephine who stood idly by the windows with one clenched fist. "You can get away from this━"
"That's nice of your boyfriend," Josephine cuts her off. Her tone sounded short like she had already made her decision to stay. She looked at Mia and the latter had just realized how exhausted she looked. "But someone has to stay."
"It doesn't have to be you," Mia argued.
"Then who would?" Josephine said hardly. Somebody had to carry the baggage, and she wasn't going to let Mia have all that. It has to be her. She had to step up for the empty space that Dominic had left. "Besides, I'm too spiteful to give these pigs what they want."
Mia smiled faintly. "Of course you are."
"Come on," Josephine muttered, grabbing the other box filled with car parts. Mia went to pick up another heavy box from the floor of their house. "Help me get this in the garage."
The Toretto sisters tried to ignore the obvious sedan parked across the street and they walked up the driveway to the old garage. Mia went first and Josephine followed, seeing the magnificent build of her white 1999 Subaru Impreza WRX STI type r with a carbon fiber hood beside the unfinished Charger. The color was not her pick but she still stuck to her plain-colored cars as she had never been one for sticker designs.
"Jo," Mia gasped quietly behind her.
Josephine quickly turned around and the frown on her face instantly disappeared when Mia threw her arms around somebody they hadn't seen in a long time. She almost froze, gaping at her older brother as he hugged Mia. "Dominic."
"Hey, Josie," Dominic smiled ever so slightly before opening an arm out and the younger girl didn't hesitate to throw herself into his arms. He hugged them both together and for a moment, all their worries had washed away.
"We told you not to come," Mia cried silently, shaking her head at their brother. "They're staking the place out. If they find you..."
"They won't," Dom said stubbornly. He briefly studied his sisters, noticing just how much they changed. He almost seemed proud as he looked at them with warmth. His girls had become strong and smart women. "Look at you two."
Everything in the garage looked the same way the day Dominic left. His eyes scanned the walls where pictures were plastered and the shelves full of trophies from the races their father had won when he was alive. Dust gathered on them, untouched, but nobody ever tried to move them. Because it held a special meaning to the siblings, and it was the only thing they had left of Jack Toretto.
"I've been fixing it." Josephine noticed him staring at the barely-finished Dodge Charger. "There's still a lot missing but we managed to salvage her."
"You've done a great job, Jo." The girl had a feeling he wasn't just talking about the muscle car. Because Dom smiled slightly and pressed a gentle peck on her hair as Mia hugged Josephine's arm.
"Letty wouldn't let them junk it," Josephine added, watching Dom approach the car as if it would suddenly burst into fire.
Mia chuckled halfheartedly. "Even though it is a goddamn curse."
"When she came back, she was always in here, with Jo," Mia told him as Dom slowly studied every inch of his Charger and touched the body like it was this most precious and yet dangerous thing. "They work on that thing day and night... It was weird. It was like she knew you were coming back."
"Letty has a way of knowing things before they happen," Josephine chuckled bitterly, suddenly missing the older girl more than she could admit. Thinking about Letty hurt. But if that meant she was keeping her alive still━maybe in a different way━then Josephine was prepared to get hurt over and over again.
"I want to see the crash site," Dominic suddenly said which made Mia uneasy.
"Let's go." But the latter was different. Josephine shifted determinedly on her feet. Two pairs of familiar eyes turned to her. "I was going to do that anyway."
Josephine hopped in the back of Dominic's red Chevelle while Mia situated herself beside him in the front. She could still remember driving through this road many other times but after what happened, it became something that made her feel unease as the hardened asphalt crunched underneath the weight of the car. Dominic stopped a few inches from the exact spot where Letty's car had flipped over multiple times with her in it.
"It's straight ahead," Mia told him, staying beside the Chevelle.
Meanwhile, Josephine remained seated with a heavy chest. She had already replayed the scene a thousand times in her head, trying to figure out why, how, and who, but she always fell back to nothing. Because never in a million years she would've thought that someone out there wanted to kill Letty Ortiz.
Nothing made sense about her death. Not unless Letty knew something that she didn't. Maybe Josephine was the one not making sense because she didn't know anything in the first place. It frustrated her to know that maybe she could've done something about it if she just knew something.
The moment Dominic jumped back in the driver's seat with that look on his face━Josephine immediately knew. He found something in the crash and she was going to confront him about it. Because Josephine was tired of losing people because she couldn't help them. Now, she had set her mind to the most dangerous thing a man could engrave in his mind. Revenge.
Dominic dropped them off somewhere in the neighborhood, a little far from their house since there were cops out there searching for him. Besides, they probably saw his car already tonight and the siblings knew those little pigs just never stop.
For a minute they just sat inside the vehicle in silence. They had so much to say but not enough words to form them. Mia wanted to cry again. But she was afraid she'd already run out of tears. Dominic was bound to leave as soon as they stepped out of the red Chevelle. He was going to disappear again and they would let him if that meant he would be safe and free.
"You found something back there," Josephine said matter-of-factly, eyeing her brother in the rearview mirror.
Dominic pursed his lips, shifting uneasily. He hesitated. "There were burn marks on the ground."
"The kind that could only be caused by nitromethane," Josephine realized. Her knowledge of cars and all the things she learned in chemistry at MIT had become useful in the long run. She furrowed her brows, looking at him. "Dominic, there's only one guy in all of LA that sells that thing."
Mia glanced between the two of them with a small frown. She knew them all too well. They weren't just talking about it. They were going to do something with that information. She shook her head almost desperately as she said: "Nothing you can do is gonna bring her back, Dom."
Josephine looked down. Maybe. But it would surely make her feel better to find out who killed their friend and get the justice Letty will never get for being a wanted criminal before her death.
"If I were Letty, I would ask you━No, I would beg you, please, let this go. Before it's too late."
"It's already too late."
Dominic had never been so right. Mia bid her goodbyes and I-love-yous and exited the car, which left Josephine alone with their older brother. The silence was heavy with unsaid words. Dominic looked at her from the mirror. Josephine looked like she just set her mind on something and he was afraid because he knew he wouldn't be able to stop her.
"Don't. Don't tell me to stay here and do nothing." Josephine cut the silence, her expression hard and uncalculated. "Letty was my friend, too. I was right here. She was with me, and then just like that she was just... gone. I feel like I have to do something about it, Dom."
"Josephine." Dominic clenched his jaw and then he tilted his head to look at her in the backseat. "Don't do this."
"I can't sleep, Dom," Josephine admitted. "I feel like I might go crazy if I didn't at least try to find out why Letty had to be the one six feet under. She didn't deserve that."
As soon as she stepped out of the Chevelle, he drove off. Before she left, after what she had told him, Dominic did not say anything else. But their eyes spoke a lot of words. Dominic wasn't happy about it and he did not want her to tag along at all on this probably dangerous journey ahead. But Josephine already knew where to go, and it seemed like she would either meet him there or she'd be the first to arrive.
Maybe in another universe, Josephine Toretto wasn't the angry sister who had to face her demons head-on so she wouldn't feel any less useless than she already thought she was. She loved her brother and her sister who worries a lot, but this was something she just had to do. After playing the easy game for many long years━she was prepared to give everything she had to something bigger now.
It was time to play with the big bad wolves.