chasing angels ・❥・Brian O'Connor fic

eighty three ・❥・ city of ghosts

・❥・

Lolas pov...

"You know, back home, you wouldn't have been caught dead wearing that shit." Vince muttered with a stupid grin on his lips, pissing me off.

"Tell me about it."

I was wearing a fucking flannel- A FLANNEL! And I wouldn't have been caught dead in it in LA. However, I managed to snatch a pair of low waisted micro denim shorts, so at least I still had some part of my personality.

"I guess we all left almost everything of ourselves in LA." Vince continued, and even though he probably meant it as a dig at the crap I was wearing, it poked me the wrong way.

"I came back for you by the way." I threw back coldly.

"What?"

"A couple days after you were shot, after- Jesse died. I was in San Fran and, everything was terrible. I lost my mind for a while. Nobody's daughter, no family, no home." I had nothing. "I was in San Fran, spent a few days losing it and then I pulled myself together. I went to the hospital, in LA, for you. But you weren't there. You ran an hour before I arrived."

Nobody went back for Vince but me, hell, even the cops didn't go back for him. Everybody left him alone, injured and abandoned. Dom walked away without thinking twice about it- I was the only one who remembered him. And I remembered too damn late. It could've been worse, the cops would have remembered what he had done, or the Trans could've gone after him- but nobody did. And he slipped away unnoticed just like I did.

I glanced at him slyly, his eyes were somewhere else, somewhere back in LA on that day. He wouldn't ever say it, but I know Jesse's death ruined him. Even if he always bitched about him, made fun of him, and picked on him all the damn time. He loved Jesse, the same way I loved Vince, even though he was the most annoying person I'd ever met.

I glanced back at where we were walking in Rio, a crowded street, nobody watching us- a world so different from LA. We didn't belong in Rio, we didn't fit in the way we did in LA. And we were both kidding ourselves pretending we could still be those people. I'd sell my soul if it meant going back to the way things used to be, before everything terrible happened.

Letty, Jesse, Leon-

"I think Jesse's death made us all lose our minds." I added, needing to get it out before I sealed it away again. "From what Dom told me, Leon got into drugs- overdosed. I wasn't even a person anymore. Vodka for breakfast-"

"You don't drink."

"I know."

I didn't do a lot until I lost it all- and sacrificed everything. Racing, garages, bbqs, ridiculous bets, clubs, race wars, running from the cops who chased us over our petty little crimes. Even if I could have it all back it wouldn't matter. LA was ruined. My old home was empty. The shop had been sold. My favourite car in the world was abandoned down some alleyway. And my favourite person was dead. LA, the city of ghosts.

"You know Mia has a baby?" I was probably giving him emotional whiplash, jumping from one topic to another.

"No way."

A genuine smile tilted on my lips. "A baby girl, Beau." I'd watched after her from afar. Mia got everything she wanted in life, the way things were supposed to go for her.

And even though I had no reason to say it, I suddenly needed to say it out loud to someone. "I had a baby, Vince." I could feel his eyes suddenly on me. "Last year, I was pregnant, almost five months and I didn't know, and then when I did know it was too late because I lost it. Cryptic pregnancy. That shit was my worst fear in high school."