Juliana's POV
"I love the beach. What about you?"
Taking in a deep breath I turn my head, ignoring the grains of sand that press into the side of my face.
"It's really peaceful. Especially when there's no one else around." Closing my eyes I listen to the waves crashing against the shore. There are seagulls, somewhere in the distance, making a ruckus.
"Sissy?" Opening my eyes I see that Jeremiah is no longer laying in the sand next to me. Instead, he's sitting up, staring at the ground.
Plunging his hands into the sand, he allows it to fall through his fingers, shaking off the excess. "When you die, will you meet me here?"
His words startle something in my brain and I too bring myself to a sitting position. Swiping the brittle sand off my face, I turn my body so that I can get a good look at my little brother.
"What are you talking about Bubs?" I ask softly, reaching over and giving his necklace a light pull in hopes to turn his attention back to me. It's the same one we all have. A small, purple and blue rose pendant.
"When you die, can we come back here? I'm too scared to do it by myself." He whispers the last part, staring out at the ocean with a strange type of longing in his eyes.
Warning bells go off in my head as I reach over, grabbing Jameson by the waist. I haul him over to me, setting him in my lap as I wrap my arms around him.
"Too scared to do what?" I ask, but get no reply. "You don't have to be scared bubs. There's nothing scary out there." I try again, motioning with my head out to the water.
Jeremy just hums, leaning back and turning his head to look me in my eyes.
"Just promise me."
The promise practically falls from my lips faster than my brain can comprehend it. Looking satisfied, Jeremy smiles up at me brightly. A complete 180 to the hardened fear he had previously.
"Daddy should be done with dinner now."
Like clockwork, I hear Dad yell out our names, telling us to come wash up. Jeremy wastes no time jumping up and sprinting towards the door of the little cottage we had rented for the weekend.
He slips past dad, disappearing through the cottage door before I can even stand up. Staring through the now empty opening, I can't help the shiver that works its way down my spine.
It's like someone had turned on a blast chiller, canceling out the previously warm summer air.
Turning my head back towards the once peaceful ocean, I feel a sense of unease and dread. Maybe Jeremy was right to stay away.
"Juliana, we're back." Gino's voice has my head snapping up as I try to blink away the confusion. My head feels foggy, and my whole body feels really heavy. Looking around through squinted eyes I can see that we're in the car.
"We're back at Uncle Stefano's. Let's go." Gino demands, getting out of the car and slamming the door.
Still rubbing away the sleep in my eyes, I try to remember how I got here. I remember thinking Grandpa was trying to murder me. Then seeing a baby horse. Then getting to walk around on a bigger horse. Then we left.
And where did we go? Oh, the park. Yeah, that's where we went. We met up with everyone else at the park once they were done walking the trails.
I know Jamie and Justin, who is definitely still mad at me by the way, going off on their own. I ended up tagging along with Gino and Elliot.
Surprisingly those two have been getting along better than I thought they would. Then again, the two of them both very frequently have sticks stuck so far up their ass that their intelligence takes the brunt of it.
We honestly didn't stay there for long. Maybe twenty or thirty minutes before someone (Justin) managed to almost give himself a concussion. He really thought he could jump from the top platform, onto one of the support beams that was at least seven feet away from him, and then do a fireman slide the rest of the way down.
It's safe to say his hand didn't even brush the pole before his face was smashing into the ground.
After that narrowly avoided A&E trip, Aunt Stephanie called it quits and everyone slowly made their way back to the cars. That's where I, apparently, took the world's shortest nap ever.
If the government announced tomorrow that there was a prototype of humans that were made to run off of coffee instead of sleep, I would believe it.
I can't get a moment of good rest. I'm either having a night terror, or dreaming about some boy who I call my brother.
The weird part is I don't have a younger brother. But it also unnerves me that it's always that same boy that shows up in my dreams.
Slowly making my way out of the vacant car, I notice that Zeke seems to be waiting for me by the door of the garage.
Even though I'm beginning to become a pro at the one crutch hop, it's still absolutely exhausting. Not to mention that it takes me like, five minutes to get across the fricken room. When I finally do reach Zeke, a thin line of sweat is beginning to form over my forehead.
I groan, dropping my head back when I realise that I still have to find a way to manoeuvre myself up three stairs, across half the house, and then up another flight of stairs before I can even consider myself anywhere close to my room.
"Do you want some help?" Zeke offers, holding out his arms while he keeps the door open with his foot. On any other day, I would have declined- actually I'm not even going to play that game. I'm too lazy to say no.
Zeke grabs my waist, very easily swinging me up to sit on his hip. He takes my crutch from me and I lay my head down on his shoulder. Partially for comfort, partly because of embarrassment.
When we get inside, I expect Zeke to take me to my room, but we don't even make it to the stairs before his path deviates.
He takes me down a hallway I've never seen before, passing by a multitude of very similar looking doors before he finally stops, opening one. I don't get the chance to look around before I'm being thrown down onto a suspiciously fluffy mountain.
I hold my breath, waiting for the pain to kick in, but it never does. Instead, I'm having what I can only assume to be a blanket, thrown over my head. I yell out, fighting to get my left arm free so that I can kick the blanket off.
Zeke doesn't leave me to suffer for very long, before he's plopping down next to me, pulling the blanket down so I can breathe. Taking in a deep breath, I glare at Zeke.
He barely looks at me, instead, he's got a remote in his hands, staring at a large projection screen that's been mounted onto the wall. And when I say large, I mean the white sheet takes up the entirety of the wall.
Right now, Zeke seems to be mindlessly flipping through different shows and movies. "Anything you want to watch?" He asks, finally glancing over at me.
"I'd like to watch you face plant into a pile of horse shit." I say in a sickly sweet voice, smiling innocently at him. He just rolls his eyes, bringing the blanket back up to cover my face. This time, my arm is free so I don't suffocate. What is it with people in my family and trying to kill me?
My life is not a game, thank you very much.
"You'll have to ask Massimo. I'm pretty sure he's the one who was recording at the time." He says cooly, making me laugh.
"You've actually eaten horse shit?" I ask, between chuckles and Zeke nods, pressing his lips together.
"I'm pretty sure most of us have at one point or another. You're one of the lucky few who have never been made to work at the rescue."
I make a mental note to ask more about that place later. It was really fun, and I definitely plan on roping someone into taking me back. I think I've heard something about it before, but I just can't seem to find a place where.
"I want to watch that." I say, pointing to the screen when he comes across a show I think he'll hate.
"You want to watch Barbie?" He asks, a tone of something I can't identify soaking his voice.
I hum in agreement, hiding a smug smile when he turns it on with a deep sigh.
Barbie fucking sucks. It might just be the most annoying show on this planet. Not to mention my plan of annoying Zeke totally backfired. I asked him like twenty minutes ago if he wanted to switch, but he said no. Said something about liking my pick or whatnot.
I think the sicko knows that I'm somehow suffering more than he is.
"Do you know how to ride horses?" I whisper over to Zeke. I think I've just about reached my limit of children's tv shows.
"Since I was a child." He whispers back, turning his body towards me.
"It's really fun." Zeke's smile widens as he shakes his head disapprovingly. "Did they let you on a horse?" He asks in an amused voice.
I nod enthusiastically, recalling the nice tan horse they allowed me to walk around on. Her fur was really soft too. It was a little scary at first, because I was sort of having to completely trust another living being not to kill me.
Not to mention how high I was. It felt like I was on top of the freaking world. Everyone looked so small. I wonder if that's what Zeke sees. He's an unusually tall shit head. Then again, something needs to match his ego, cause his old man style is not doing the job.
But once you get over the height, and the constant shifting back and forth with every step, it was really fun! I don't know why I liked it so much, seeing as we literally just went in circles for a couple of minutes and then stopped. But I really want to do it again.
"Well I'm sure we can make that happen." Zeke promises once I've finished giving him a literal play by play of what this afternoon was like.
This causes a big smile to form on my face, and I don't try to stop it. Without truly thinking about my actions, I've launched myself across the couch, wrapping my good arm around Zeke.
"Thank you thank you thank you!" The words are muffled by his shirt, but I'm sure he gets the gist of it. He wraps his arms around me, letting me settle down in his lap. My legs curl up on one side of me as I let my body relax.
He lets me slip down, one of his arms cradling around my head and the other still resting on my waist. He's been very careful and purposeful about the positioning, taking great care to not hurt me.
Any other time I would have been very grateful for this, however my brain feels funny. It feels like thoughts are slowly slipping from my grasp. My head is slowly emptying, my body becoming light.
Maybe I'm just tired. Yeah, that's it. I've had a long day. Bubba won't mind if I close my eyes for a couple of minutes. No, he won't mind. Bubba will keep me safe.
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I hope this wasn't too boring.
Two updates in two days! I'm sorry this chapter was short. Like really fucking short.
But I'm gonna try the whole, short chapters, quick updates and hope I don't keep losing readers.
Thank you to everyone who's stuck with me this far, I promise we're gonna be introducing some new aspects soon.