by Drew Elyse
She thought she couldn’t come back to me. She was going to; I was going to get another chance to get her to stay. He took that from both of us. He made my beautiful girl feel dirty.
I could feel myself shaking.
With my hands beneath her arms, I pulled Ash up and shifted us both until we were lying on the bed. I wrapped her up, bringing her as close as I could. We needed to hold on to each other. I needed her to ground me; she needed me to make her feel safe.
“You need to understand something, Ashlynn,” I told her. She didn’t respond, but I didn’t expect her to. “I don’t think you’re dirty. I would never think that. I hate that you experienced that, and I would give anything to change it, but you are not dirty. You never were.”
For a while, I didn’t say anything else. I just held her while her cries grew quieter, her breathing steadier. Only when I felt her start to relax did I say what I needed to. I needed to be sure she was hearing it.
“This changes nothing. It doesn’t impact how I feel about you, and it doesn’t impact how I feel about Emmy. Both of you are mine,” I declared. Ash gave a little hiccupping sob and I soothed my hand up and down her back, allowing the touch to calm us both. “We’ll see what we can do about having her declared my daughter without a paternity test. If there isn’t a way to add me to the birth certificate, I’ll adopt her. We can figure out what to tell her when the time comes.”
“You’d do that?” Her eyes were puffy and red, but it was the tentative hope that took my attention.
“Yes. In a fucking heartbeat. I would sign whatever I needed to right now if I could.”
She buried her face in my neck, but I could still hear her muffled voice when she said, “I don’t want to do the test. I don’t think I could handle finding out she isn’t yours. I would never wish Emmy wasn’t in my life, but how could I be happy that—”
“We don’t have to do it. Emmaline is a fuckin’ miracle. That’s it. We don’t have to worry about how.”
Ash shocked the hell out of me when she spoke.
“Sometimes, I don’t know how to handle it. I mean, if I hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have…experienced that. But what if that’s the only reason I have her? It makes me crazy. When I was pregnant, I used to wonder all the time if I was making a mistake. By the time she came, I wouldn’t even let myself think about it. I forced myself into a state of denial, insisting she had to be yours. Then, I held her that first time and…I can’t even put it into words. I fell in love with her the second I heard her crying.”
Fuck. She was so fuckin’ strong. I knew she didn’t think so. She’d always thought she was weak. She thought being shy meant she was fragile. She had no idea. When I looked at her, I saw nothing but fucking strength.
“Will you…” I had to stop and clear my throat to get the words out, “can you tell me what happened?”
I didn’t want to make her relive it, and I knew anything she told me would stay inside me like a scar on my heart, but I needed to hear it. I needed to help her shoulder that burden. If she could unload even a bit of it onto me, I wanted to take it.
And I needed any bit of information I could get if I wanted to find that fucker.
With a deep breath, my Ash, my fucking warrior, told me everything.
“When I left, I didn’t really know where to go,” she started. “I stayed in a couple motels, but I knew I couldn’t afford to do that forever. Then, Penelope called to check in on me.”
Penelope. That fucking cousin of hers. I’d hoped Ash wouldn’t have gone there. It was a lead I didn’t check into for a while, perhaps too long.
Penelope was Indian’s sister’s daughter. Indian and his sister weren’t close, but he’d tried once or twice over the years to connect, I think mostly out of a desire to give Ash more family. The sister was a shitshow who married a drug-dealing bum. I wasn’t sure if the dick was Penelope’s dad or not. What I did know was the girl pulled the short straw when it came to adults who raised her. I knew that straw, I’d pulled a shit one by biology too, but I’d been lucky enough to have Gunner. Indian tried to be the same for Penelope, but he’d reached out too late for her to be willing to take the hand he offered.
When social media became a thing, Ash and Penelope reconnected, much to my and Indian’s displeasure. Ash insisted it wasn’t an issue. She knew Penelope was a mess, but she wanted to be friendly. She wanted to be there in case her cousin decided to stop screwing around and using. Indian and I wanted her to stay far the fuck away, but it was a battle we lost.
Ash went on. “I didn’t tell her much, but I explained my need to get away from the club for a while. She told me I could go up to Seattle and stay with her. I figured it might buy me some time to plan out what I was going to do, so I went.”
I tried to keep my body from tensing to the point where she could feel it, but everything inside me felt coiled too tightly. I wasn’t sure I could handle what she was going to say.
“I didn’t find out she was living with her boyfriend, Jackson, until I got there. Actually, I think it was his place, not hers. I don’t know. I didn’t meet him for the first day or two.” Her voice had gone removed, and I already knew what she wasn’t saying. “Penelope was using, I could tell. I was uncomfortable with it, but I only meant to be there a few days.
“She was working as a bartender, so she was gone at night until late. Her boyfriend came back when she was at work. He was high. I don’t know what he was using, but it was obvious he was on something. At first, he didn’t know who I was. I started to explain and he started saying I owed him. He said Penelope might let me stay just because I was family, but he wanted payment. I offered to pay, but he…”
Ash started shaking and I gripped her to me with such forced that I feared I’d hurt her. She didn’t seem to mind, pushing into my hold just as hard.
“He said he didn’t want my money. He had money. He wanted something else. I told him no, I told him I would leave. I tried to get my things to go, but he…he grabbed me. And he…”
Fuck.
My jaw clenched to the point of pain, it took everything I had to loosen and comfort it. “It’s okay. I’ve got you, you’re safe.”
She nodded in a manic way, then went on, her voice trembling, “After, I hid in the bathroom. There was a little cabinet I moved in front of the door. I didn’t know if it would keep him out, but he didn’t even try. I heard him leave. I stayed in there anyway, terrified he was going to come back.
“When Penelope got home, she started calling my name. I made sure she was alone before I came out. I asked her to take me to the police station. I told her what he did and that I needed to press charges.”
I didn’t like this. I didn’t fucking like where it was going.
“She started screaming at me, saying I’d fucked her boyfriend. She hit me. Said I was a slut and was just trying to ruin his life. She told me if I went to the cops, she would tell them what a whore I was and say I told her I wanted to sleep with him. She said she’d make sure they knew I wanted it, that I started it and he was innocent.”
I was going to find that motherfucker, and I was going to find that bitch cousin of hers.
I was going to make both of them fucking pay.
“I…I ran,” Ash stuttered. “I was afraid to report it, so I just left town. I came back down here to Portland. I stayed in a shelter for a while. Then, I met my friend Jasmine’s mother. She volunteered at the shelter sometimes. She helped find me the job I had at the diner and she knew there was an apartment in Jasmine’s building available. She didn’t even know what happened to me, she just helped me because she’s a nice person.”
She helped her because she probably saw the Ash I had in my arms at that moment, the scared, broken girl. She didn’t have to know what happened. Seeing Ash like that made you want to protect her.
“She’s sick. She’s got Parkinson’s. I worry about her all the time. She did so much for me. Her and Jasmine did so much for Emmy and me,” Ash went on in a hys
terical way.
I rubbed her back more, and promised her, “We’ll go see her. Soon. We can visit them both.”
“That would be good,” Ash agreed.
It would. She didn’t do it for me, but I owed them both a hell of a thank you. They took care of my girls.
Ash didn’t say anymore, and I didn’t speak for a while, either. I was too consumed by rage, by the burning desire to avenge her. I didn’t want to frighten her, but I was afraid I couldn’t keep the thirst for violence from my voice.
It wasn’t until much later, when Ash was calm again and whispered she needed to go see to Emmy, that I said anything. And it was only after she said, “Thank you for listening,” in that sweet voice of hers.
She wouldn’t look me in the eyes as she said it, but I heard the emotion behind those words, and it made the fucking fissure going through my heart worth it. It had hurt her, I knew, but I also knew, with that statement, she’d let go of some of her pain and given it to me. I would suffer a thousand times more to do that for her.
“I love you, Ashlynn. I would do anything for you. Never doubt that.”
I held myself together for five hours. It was sheer force of will keeping me from losing control. I had to be touching Ash nearly every minute just to maintain some semblance of sanity through it.
Jager had watched Emmy for a while, then we took over to get her dinner and hang out until it was time to get her into bed. Ash and I stayed up, watching TV in silence while our thoughts consumed us. I held her the whole time.
It was only once she fell asleep around nine-thirty, obviously tired from the emotion of the day, that I left her side. I moved from her room, keeping quiet so she would sleep through it. Before I left, I did a quick check in Emmy’s room as well. She was snoring. The soft sound would have been cute enough to stand and listen to for a while if I weren’t about to explode.
I got out of the hall where their rooms were before I started to blow. I was passing the kitchen when it came over me.
“I’m afraid of finding out her father is a rapist!”
I snapped.
My hand flew out, barreling through the drywall. It gave too fucking easily.
“What the fuck?” I heard from within the kitchen, followed by movement from the living room.
Wasn’t the first time someone had put a fist through the wall of a Disciples’ place, wouldn’t be the last.
I didn’t wait around for the fucking questions. I shook the bits of drywall from my hands and kept walking. I couldn’t be inside. I was going to lose it, and Ash and Emmy didn’t need to hear that shit.
I got out the back door, slamming it behind me, and let out a roar. It was all I fucking had. I screamed at nothing until my voice gave out, but it wasn’t enough. I needed to break something. I needed to fucking hurt someone.
“Chairs, by the wood line. The old wooden ones. They’re all in shit condition anyway,” Jager said from behind me.
Good enough.
I went across the yard and wasted no fucking time grabbing the first chair. I swung it out, connecting it with a large tree. It splintered apart, but didn’t totally break. I hit it again, the cracking sound and force radiating up my arms from the blow immensely gratifying.
Hit after hit, I kept on, until the first chair was in ruins. Then, I grabbed the next. I tried to focus on the breaking boards, the release when they gave to the force of my swing.
It didn’t work.
I could still see her tear-streaked face. I could still hear her tell me what he did. I could still feel the thirst for violence in my gut only his blood could quench.
It went on and on, a never-resting torture punctuated by the violent sound of the carnage I was creating.
The shattered remains of another chair fell from my hands, nothing but a few inches of splintered wood, and I turned to grab another. There was only one left, and Jager had parked his ass in it.
“Don’t want to fucking talk,” I warned, but not particularly worried. Jager wasn’t a talker.
“Thought everything was copacetic,” Stone said from my other side.
Fuck.
Jager was just there as muscle. Fucker could take any of us down. He was there to restrain me if need be.
I turned to Pres. “Said I don’t want to talk.”
“I got here, heard you two had a blow up, but you were sortin’ it out. Then you all pulled the little happy family routine for a while. Figured everything was alright.”
Not going there. I turned back to Jager. “Out of the way, brother,” I ordered.
“Got higher orders,” he replied, settling into the seat further. I wasn’t fooled. He could be on his feet and have me down in a heartbeat.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Stone demanded.
I didn’t answer.
“Sketch.” It was a warning.
“I can’t fucking talk about it,” I told him.
“It’s got you out here breaking shit while your girls are inside, you can fucking well tell your brothers.”
“Sketch.”
I swung around. Ash was walking our way, one of my long-sleeved shirts pulled over the tank and shorts she wore to bed. Her face looked pale, and I knew it was more than the moonlight doing it. Her eyes moved to the debris scattered at my feet, to my brothers on either side of me, over my body, and then to mine.
“You weren’t in bed,” she said, her voice hushed. I didn’t answer. She seemed to know I wouldn’t. “Your hands are bleeding.”
I looked down. They were. I could see a couple splinters protruding from them. I didn’t feel it happening, I was too hopped up to even feel it then. She came closer, lifting one in her clean, soft hands to inspect.
“We need to clean it,” she said, meeting my eyes again.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“What’re you doing out here?” she asked.
“I can’t take it. I can’t take knowing you were hurt,” I told her, yet even as I said it, I felt some of the fight draining from me.
It was her. She fucking centered me.
She moved in closer, wrapping both arms around my torso. I hesitated to hold her back, not wanting to get blood on her, but she was in my shirt. I’d throw the fuckin’ thing out.
“What the fuck are you two talkin’ about?” Stone demanded in a dark voice.
Ash leaned her head back, her eyes terrified as she looked up at me. I wanted to assure her I would make the two of them go away, but I couldn’t.
“I have to tell them.” She answered with a frantic shake of her head. “Ash, baby, they’re family. And I need their help.”
“Their help?”
“I’m going to hunt that fucker down. Jager can hack anything, Stone’s got connections. I need them and the brothers to find that fucker and make him pay.”
“No. You don’t have to. We can move on.”
I rested my forehead against hers. “I have to, Ash. If not for you, for me. I can’t let that asshole keep on living free with what he did.”
“One of the two of you needs to start talking,” Stone ordered.
“Give her a fucking minute,” I snapped.
Ash wanted to bolt, I could see it. She was scared and knew I was hurting. She couldn’t deal. Her eyes closed and her head tipped down.
“I can’t talk you out of it, can I?” she questioned, her voice barely audible.
“No, Firefly. Not on this. I swore to Indian I would protect you. I failed, but know I’m going to fuckin’ fix it.”
“You didn’t—”
I shushed her, then kissed the crown of her head. “You can’t change my mind on that, either. I have to do this.”
Her weight leaned more into me, and she muttered, “Okay.”
I hugged her to me, trying to be her strength as I looked to my brothers.
“After Ash left when we lost Indian, she went to stay with her cousin.” Stone’s eyes got darker at that. He knew Penelope was no fucking good. “The bitch was living with a guy at
the time.” I had to stop. I wasn’t even fucking sure I could say the words. I tried, repeatedly. My mouth opened, but I couldn’t make it come out.
“He raped me,” Ash finally said into the silence.
My arms tightened and I buried my face in her neck. I couldn’t fucking take it.
Stone started cursing. His voice was harsh and loud, and Ash flinched at the sound.
“Stone,” I warned.
He stopped and looked our way. Ash’s head turned toward him against my chest. “We’re going to find that motherfucker,” he promised. “We’re going to find him and we’re going to make him fucking pay.”
Ash nodded, and then her body jerked. I held on as the silent tremors became sobs. As I held her again while she cried, I swore I was going to make that bastard pay for every tear. Then, I was going to do everything in my fucking power to make sure she never shed another one.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped out.
There was a loud crack. Our heads swung to the left, where Jager was still seated in the chair. The arm was no longer attached, but held in his hand to the side. His muscles were tight and his face showed fury. He tossed the wood aside and stood.
“You are not sorry,” he told Ash. His voice was hard, but it was clearly not at her. “You don’t take this on.”
Still shaking, she nodded at him.
Jager’s angry eyes looked to me. “The cunt Penelope’s last name?”
“Jenson.”
“We got a name on the asshole?”
“Jackson,” I answered. I’d never forget that fucking name.
“Any more info?”
“They were living in Seattle. Ash said it might have been his place.” I looked down at her, and asked, “Do you remember anything else? Anything you can give us might help.”
