Ticking clock
"Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real."
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
Chapter 2 – Nobody's Fault
The following morning came in a heartbeat, leaving the excruciating tension hurt Ashley's open wounds and determined them to bleed even harder. Her night had been completely dreamless and sleepless, so at the crack of dawn, her face was wrinkled and was purely damasking her throbbing anxiety. She stepped quickly in the principal room, silently praying not to leave any trace of her fathomed existence.
Ashley nervously started to scratch her tiny and fragile nails. "8 a.m." She thought before feeling her heart thumping loudly in her chest. One hour left until the grand happening would occur. Her whole body was trembling and she flinched considerably when a cold, hard slap crossed her shoulders.
"You are up early," the hoarse voice said as she removed her gripping fingers.
"I had a nightmare," Ashley responded coldly, still staring blankly at the window.
"And are you calm now?" the voice inquired and the young girl quickly realized with a pang of fear that maybe the destiny didn't want her to encounter her long-forgotten roots.
"Yes" she replied almost mechanical. Deep-inside her mind, she hope time will be her confederate. Maybe her mother would be on a long and exhausting shift that particular warm afternoon.
Time flew by, and Ashley kept her eyes wide-open. She truly felt the dryness overwhelming her retina. She kept doing the same toxic habit. Her eyes were filled until saturation with powerful anxiety and intense wait. Ashley allowed herself to sink completely in the wonderful illusion where she was surrounded by a paternal figure who she could draw semblance from. She was fully-dressed in a monotone, grey-shaded shirt and simple, skinny jeans. She was still staring numbly at the surroundings, especially at the corroded fire-stairs, which she was going to use as a vital part of the well-composed and secret plan.
"So, I am scheduled to take this night's shift. You okay with it? I can send you to your uncle's, if you want," Cameron said, as she tried to over-saturate her bag with thick medical files, all covered in a layer of maroon pelt.
"I'll be fine, mom, don't worry about me. I'll be sinking in the math course, trust me, I won't even notice the hours. Tough case?" Ashley continued to speak the uncovered truth, making the discussion look much less vivid.
"Only a valetudinarian came into the E.R. last night, professing she had a chronic illness, that was needed to be treated with hydrocodone. I quickly figured out she was a drug abuser and dealer. But it looks like she is making the hell out of the nurses. My turn to be annoyed," Cameron finished, letting out like a sudden burst a soft chuckle.
Ashley plastered a broad smile, too and turned gracefully like a ballerina only to witness the horrifying scene that showed Stefan and Adrian -her fellow maleficent intruders- desperately trying to burglary break into her condo. They looked on the verge of free-falling in the street. Adrian looked at Ashley with wide, pleading eyes and the young girl was dramatically motioning towards them to keep quiet.
"Anything special to bring you for lunch?" the on-rush doctor inquired. Her primal, maternal instincts gently guided her to establish a better approach. She faithfully ignored the tiny voice of warning from the apex of her skull. Things were going to improve considerably.
"Not really. I have some frosted grilled cheese. I will just heat it," Ashley said on a breathless and pitch tone. She unwillingly tumbled and supported the window frame in order to show in a non-obvious way that everything was going steady and normal. She was silently praying for being ignored or -in the worst scenario- to be forgiven and not obliged to confess.
"Well, if everything is set, then I'm going to head in. See you tonight, darling," Cameron said as she carefully approached her daughter in order to leave a sweet, mother-like kiss on the crown of her daughter's head.
"I'll walk you to the door," Ashley offered and traversed the narrow hallway in order to exchange the formal goodbye with her mother. They have gazed into each other's sea-blue colored iris and the mature lady quickly turned away and left wordlessly.
Ashley firmly locked the door with her burning fear and anger chasing down her spine. She inflicted the frame at full speed and artlessly tried to enlarge the width of the window so that her teammates would easily enter the condo. The boys ungracefully collapsed onto the floor with a loud and searing bang.
"Are you completely insane? Every time I ask you to come early to take the bus to school, you pretend to be deaf. Now you come 10 minutes before the set time and the target is still here," Ashley exclaimed on a harsh, cutting tone before stepping back and leaving the exhausted bodies of the boys resting peacefully on the hard, cold, wooden floor. Adrian and Stefan were drained over the allowed limit to even to let out a musical snort.
"It's not our fault that we arrived rather soon. I thought we needed to wrestle with the cat on the third floor," Stefan said, trying to enlighten the atmosphere. Obviously, his excuse was more than unbelievable. It looked like a foolish group of words being said out-loud.
Ashley didn't even dare to giggle loudly. The distress which was rushing through her system was an immense power that was truly impossible to defeat. "Here I am, dying of anxiety and you have the taste of jokes," she snapped back, ignoring her harsh tone.
"Looks like someone is pissed today, maybe we should get to work. And just calm down, I'm afraid your nerves will explode" Adrian said with a overwhelmingly peaceful voice, while his second finger was pointed towards Ashley like a gun ready to fire towards a target.
"Hey, keep positive, we'll dig into all the information and we'll totally find him," Stefan like he was echoing the encouragement like a deaf noise. "So, where do we start from?" he added rapidly and walked in direction of the middle-sized living room. His fingers itched to touch the computer's keyboard; he wanted to end this complicated situation. The truth needed to be revealed.
"We should start safely with some basic information," Stefan took a long, meditative pause and then continued with phrase said a quick, unsteady pace, "Google is the international server. We should start with checkable data," he concluded as the idea struck his mind like the point of a sword pointed sharply at the apex of his skull.
"Or we stop wasting our time and get straight to the action," Ashley suggested on a tone that was filled by actual malice and contemptuous amusement. Her long nails scarped a black-colored data cable like she was unwarily attempting to destroy the sensible, protective fibers of its surface.
"And what is that supposed to be?" Stefan asked on a quiet, whispered tone like he was forced to rest in utter silence.
"This, my friend, is one wonder of the modern technology," Ashley explained on a mocking, stereotypical tone. " And it will help us break into the national archive of the American citizens," she affirmed on feather-like voice, like the situation seemed to be only an ordinary one, deprived of any logical sense, almost childish.
"Are completely nuts? This might be illegal! And where the hell did you get this device from?" Stefan inquired on an alarming pace, guilt and vengeance rushing through his blood system. He left the comfortable, leather chair like he was suddenly set on fire.
"Calm down, tiger, this will only show us the major information about that person, not something too intimate. I got this from the older nerd that always gives us the answers at the literature exam. One flirty comment and he bent over everything I dared to say," Ashley concluded and her partner shot her a penetrating gaze of pure admiration and jealousy. "Don't underestimate my willpower ever again!" she joked, as she watched his childhood friend hiding in the farthest corner of the room. She laughed at the image of his new-arisen goose bumps that were visible even if they were covered by a thick, dark shadow.
"Make yourself comfortable because this magic will take some time," Ashley carefully petted the wooden desk in order to convince her friend to regain his composure and to help her discover some past details she wished weren't gruesome.
Stefan walked on shaky legs until he reached the operating place and stood frozen in front of the magnificent power of hacking. He knew deep-inside his heart that he wasn't a delinquent, so his anxiety and overwhelming fear were only about to get even worse.
The unimaginable amount of information determined the two absorbed colleagues to ignore the fact that Adrian was absent-mindedly wandering around the place with no specific target. His attention was caught by safe-secured white box that was placed on the highest drawer, far-away preserved from the perfectly-perceptive eyes. He put all his physical power to grab that tank; his intuition was clearly telling him that a mystery was mutually sleeping in its narrow dimensions. His muscles were agonizingly aching and were completely sore, but his determination wasn't going to leave his body anytime soon. He kept trying because he knew he wasn't fated to fail.
"This is a full server. I think we need much more proof than a simple last name," Stefan stated as his fingers angrily levitated over purposefully-prepared, half-dusted keys.
"It's worth a shot," Ashley continued with a slight emphasize on the last vowel. Her heart was thumping so loud that she swore it was echoing off the walls. Her veins were filled by pure adrenaline and unbearable tension.
Stefan quickly introduced the letters in the browsing mane and pressed the option 'file' with an uncharacteristic digit power. They stared blankly at the monitor in dumbstruck silence, desperately looking for an incredulous miracle. The 'loading' logo proved to seem endless and hypnotizing spinning at full speed. The long-awaited results finally showed up with a searing noise.
"700 results?! You've got to be kidding me!" Ashley yelled at the top of her lungs. "How can be 700 Chases in the whole USA?" she incoherently shouted again before moving to the first result in the alphabetical list. "I'm not going to give up on this. We've risked too much!" she sobbed violently and her blue nuance of her iris turned into a crystal-clear mixture of utter darkness and disappointment. She was completely pressurized by the mirage of a positive future.
"Hey, we're going to figure this out. It just requires time," Stefan reassured her with a hint of a smile. He gently moved his ghostly, wandering hand over the sensitive, covered skin of her shoulder in a lousy attempt to comfort her.
Their embrace was brutally interrupted by an apocalyptical blatancy. Both of their bodies experienced the same electrified wave of shock before reacting properly and getting on their respective feet. They needed to find the source of the ado that rose to a deafening pitch. They instantly looked for their missing friend that was desperately trying to retrieve all the spilled contents of the ghastly that proved to be an impossible task of retrieving from its set place.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to invade your privacy. I just thought something important might be hidden in there because it was postern in the back corner," Adrian tried to apologize clumsily before rising breathlessly from the cold, hard linoleum. Ashley examined the box carefully; her pupils revealed the ugly and unsettled truth. She had never seen that item before. A new clue was going to be finally found.
"I've never seen this in my entire life!" Ashley exclaimed loudly, an avalanche of anger and hidden betrayal enveloping her completely.
"All those are your mother's stuff. Since she worked at some kind of hospital," Stefan clarified as his mind vividly tried to process the new amount of information. He inspected the old license with a critical eye before moving further in his inquisition. "Look, there is a photo album, too! Ready to see your mother in her residential years?" Stefan half-joked and gently nudged Ashley in order to obtain her full and prompt attention. His fingers quickly worked their way down on the soft cover and opened the heavy book with a musical noise. They inhaled the soft scent of the fabric, experiencing, for a hazy second, the possible warmth of the early-career bliss radiating from the album. "Oh my God, this is a wedding album," Stefan added before masking his wide-open mouth with the back of his palm. He has clung to the numbness and continuous madness.
Adrian stood obdurate, clearly squashing the scattered memories like they were minuscule units of disposable dust. He barely had the necessary vocal intension in order to make his presence known. "I think we should pay attention to this paper. It seems much more important than marital picture," he finally spoke after long, painful moments of neutrality. His hand was trembling obviously and was making a great effort not to drop the essential piece of paper. Ashley took the document with a fiery force and scanned its information in heartbeat before rushing to the side of the browsing software.
Stefan caught sight of the written lines and gasped profoundly. He witnessed the discovery of the long-awaited divorce paper. They easily taped her father's name which was ungracefully scribbled on the caption of the wrinkled page.
The machine rapidly revealed all the vital knowledge about her biological father who was supposed to be the head of the Diagnostic Department at the local teaching hospital, Princeton Plainsboro. His facial features –showed in the picture- undeniably indicated the fact that he had a high possibility rate of having transmitted her appearance some dominant genes. Ashley plastered a broad, hopeful grin that matched the nakedness of her fresh tears that were completely prepared to escape the narrow corners of her eyes that were effortlessly defended by carefully-arranged lashes she possessed.
"How I'm going to prove that he is my father?" Ashley inquired with a remarkably acoustic sigh before turning around and offering Stefan the opportunity to enlarge his width of knowledge and to fulfill his greedy desire of deepening the search.
"This file dates from the 14th of November and it was signed at a hospital from Princeton," Adrian said and took a long pause that marked the beginning of a new round of a deafening and absorptive silence. "Princeton is long 20 minutes away from this neighborhood. It's really easy to go there by bus," he continued with a faultless spoken phrase that made completely no sense.
"Don't you get it?" Stefan realized with a pang of pure thrill that the significance of this date might be even bigger and imaginable.
Ashley frowned visibly and turned her attention to the puzzle that looked tricky and unsolvable at that moment. Sometimes, numbers look illogical and impossible to decode.
"Think when your birthday is," Stefan added purposefully, mentally crossing his fingers in a special attempt to prove his point.
"My birthday is on the 14th of August. Yesterday was it! Get straight to the idea! I'm too distracted right now," Ashley quickly cut off, sensing the game her friend was trying to obsessively play.
"A simple calculus would show you an exact period of 40 weeks, if you understand," Stefan said jubilantly, tilting his head to one side to increase the drama effect.
Ashley froze instantly and tried to comprehend that last faint spark of hope that glitter in her stressed mind.
"How are we going to prove that…you know, happened there?" Adrian asked quickly, blushing deeply before moving to unbend his neck towards the direction of the floor.
Stefan shrugged, frustratingly sighed and crossed his arms powerfully until they were completely reddened. "Maybe if we discover something interesting about that particular day, we'll make a deduction," Stefan stated before violently typing the key words which were vital for their final conclusion.
Ashley was trapped in her own world, silently praying for the forgiveness of all her sins and she boiled internally as she stared at the brightly-colored desktop that had yet to show the joyful news or the absolute vengeance towards the expectations that were still growing.
"Yep, I was right! It looks like there was a major lockdown on that day! It was the perfect place to make babies. You know, a dim-lighted exam room sounds pretty passionate," Stefan added as his eyebrows rose seductively. "Go and find this Robert Chase! Go and meet your father," he insisted on a poetic, repetitive tone before handing the thick stack of papers that would serve as evidence. "And don't say anything stupid," he advised on a mocking tone, his eyes totally sparkling with hope and faith, revealing the exhausting working which proved to be helpful.
Author's Note: Read and Review? :*