Later that night...
"Glad to be away from the city, even for just a few hours." Carly says as she and Johnny finally reached North Chumash, unaware of the black Hexer stopped nearby and Ashley watching them out of curiosity.
'It couldn't be.' Ashley thought.
"The thing about being out here is the quietness." Johnny says after setting up the bonfire and sitting next to Carly, putting his arm around her. Ashley jumped as her phone buzzed but answered it.
"Lex, what now?!" Ashley hissed.
"Who pissed you off this time?" Lex asks.
"I found my little cousin… who's not so childlike anymore." Ashley says.
"Seriously?" Lex asks.
"Deadly." Ashley says.
"Well are you going to say hello to her?" Lex asks.
"The second I approach, I might get my ass shot off!" Ashley says, taking a picture of Carly and Johnny and sending it to Lex.
"Oh yeah, I would get out of there and fast." Lex says.
Both hung up and Ashley sped off, heading to Tommy's apartment, Tommy letting her in.
"I know that look, what did you find out?" Tommy asks after closing the door.
"It's not what I found it's who." Ashley says.
"Old man, Uncle M, Uncle B or the kid cousin?" Tommy asks, Ashley showing him the picture. "Is that Johnny K with her?!" He asks.
"Yeah it is." Ashley says, her phone chiming and she looked seeing a email from Brad.
"Hey, I miss you, Ash. Anything new going on?"
"I found Carly again… but with an older guy, I suspect something beyond friendship is happening." Ashley replies.
"You think she's fucking Klebitz?" Tommy asks.
"What the fuck did it look like in that picture?" Ashley asks.
"Hey, Lex always has his arm around you when you're both drunk." Tommy says, Ashley's phone chiming again.
"How much older, 5 years? 10?"
"Try twice her age." Ashley replies.
"Ash, is that you?" Lexi asks from upstairs.
"Yeah I'm gonna go out back to Sandy Shores have a few drinks and then go back to place in the mountains." Ashley says.
"Okay, just don't kill yourself on the drive back." Lexi says, Tommy looking at Ashley.
"You're gonna go track them down again, aren't ya?" Tommy whispers.
"Maybe... depends on my mood." Ashley says before leaving.
Back on the Great Ocean Highway, Ashley stopped by North Chumash and heard drunken laughing.
"Wait, how did she break into the clubhouse?" Carly asks.
"I honestly don't know. All I know was I heard a noise and grabbed a hunting rifle." Johnny says, Carly leaning against him.
"And she shot you in the foot?" Carly asks.
"Hurt like hell… but she didn't intentionally do it." Johnny says, Ashley shutting the engine off.
Ashley stood up and crept closer to the two… but stopped when she heard the engine of Clint's Impala.
"What are you doing all the way out here?" Clint asks after Ashley ran over and got in the car.
"Just making sure that my kid cousin isn't doing something she's gonna regret." Ashley says.
"From what I can see, nothing bad seems to be happening. She's not pushing him away and he's not hurting her." Clint says after watching Carly and Johnny.
"Not yet." Ashley says.
"Well, that's not the first time Ash has done something similar. Remember when I told you what happened when I was a kid?" Carly says, Johnny nodding. "Ashley went and beat all kinds of hell out of Amanda." She says, Ashley laughing slightly as she remembered that day.
Sometime later, Ashley and Clint fell asleep. When they woke up at 5 in the morning, they saw Carly and Johnny asleep near the dying out fire. Ashley sighed in relief as both still had their clothes on.
"Well, now what do we do? Grab them and take them to the clubhouse?" Clint asks, rubbing his eyes.
"As much as I want to do that, I gotta get Black Betty. I'm stuck on a moonshine run around Sandy Shores today." Ashley says.
Clint drove Ashley to where Scott was as Scott was keeping an eye on Black Betty, Ashley getting out after kissing Clint and walked into the farmhouse. Scott snored away on the couch, Ashley grabbing an airhorn and blowing it.
"Surprise motherfucker!" Ashley yells, Scott waking up and screaming.
"Ash, you're gonna give me a heart-why do you look like hell? Where were you last night?" Scott says after calming down.
"Well you're stupid to ask why I look like hell. You know that I'm basically hell walking on Earth." Ashley says. "As for last night I was on a stake-out." She says.
"Bootleg DVDs going around or did you catch an affair?" Scott asks.
"Haha very funny. Now just the usual route with the moonshine?" Ashley says.
"Sort of. You've got add a new person to the list. A guy named Ron, he wanted a crate." Scott says, handing Ashley a bit of paper. "Here's the address. Now can I go back to sleep?" He says.
"Yeah but look up this name first." Ashley says, writing a name down before grabbing the keys to Black Betty. When Scott saw the paper, he texted Jake.
'Research: Carly Jade, born January 25th 1997, current whereabouts after leaving Ludendorff in 2004.'
Jake shook his head and typed in the name, Lex handing him a cup of coffee.
"Ashley got you tracking down her cousin?" Lex asks.
"Yeah she has." Jake says.
"Find the cousin, find the uncle, then the dad… what a twisted bunch." Lex says, Jake finding a hospital record from 2012.
"Appendicitis, admitted for two days… 1407 Eclipse Drive listed as the home address." Jake says.
"Marcus, get your ass up! We're going hunting!" Lex yells, Marcus falling off the bar.
A few hours later…
"You sure this is the right place?" Marcus asks in a bored tone as he, Lex and Jake were outside the De Santa house in Lex's Rebel truck.
"Yep this is it." Lex says.
"We're in snob neighborhood. Where everyone's fake and plastic and when they die, they'll be thrown in the recycle bin." Jake says.
"Duck!" Marcus growls, all three ducking as Johnny's Lost MC van pulled up into the driveway. When the three looked up, Johnny and Carly were out of the van.
"I can't believe we fell asleep on the beach… but at least we didn't fall asleep under the highway." Johnny says.
"How in hell's name did you, Clay, Midnight and Terry fall asleep under a highway?" Carly asks after a small laugh.
"We'll wait until they go inside and sneak through that open window up there." Marcus says, pointing to an window that was upstairs.
"Good idea. I just hope tiny isn't armed." Lex says before hearing the doors close. The three snuck out and into the yard, jumping up onto the roof of the garage and climbing in through the window.
"We should steal a couple things from here before we leave the house." Jake whispers.
When they crept into the house and towards Carly's room, they heard the shower running.
"Keep lookout." Lex whispers, him and Jake sneaking downstairs. Marcus snuck into Carly's room at the same time Lex and Jake were in the kitchen.
"Jake, look-" Lex shouts after being hit with a bat.
Jake screamed as Johnny swung at him, Jake running to a cupboard, opening it and hiding in it. Marcus heard the yell from downstairs and hid in Carly's closet.
As Carly was shutting the water off and wrapping a towel around her, she heard the door open and stepped out of the shower, seeing Johnny.
"Someone tried to break in?" Carly asks after drying her arms and legs off with another towel.
"Yes, there's another one of them hiding. Don't know where yet." Johnny says while tying Lex to a chair.
"Get off me, man! I ain't gonna hurt her!" Lex yells, Carly putting her hair up in the second towel… before seeing the closet door cracked open and whispered to Johnny before going to put on some pajamas.
Marcus's P.O.V
"Ashley, I need your help!" I whisper into my phone after calling Ashley.
"On my way, hang tight." Ashley says before hanging up.
I shove my phone back into my jeans before screaming out as I'm yanked out of the closet, thrown against it and I see…
"Oh… hey, Johnny." I say.
"Why did you three break into my friend's house?!" Johnny demands, Carly emerging from the bathroom dressed in fuzzy pajama pants and a tank top.
"Who the hell are you guys and where's your friend hiding?!" Carly asks after punching Lex.
Oh, fuck… we're screwed.
Ashley's P.O.V
"Marcus?!" I yell after running into the house.
"Ash, they're upstairs!" I hear from the kitchen cupboard… typical Jake.
"You hang tight J. I'll go and deal with this." I say before walking up the stairs. Kicking the third door open, I hear Carly scream and see her jump back.
"They broke in, we're just detaining them!" Carly yells, me seeing Marcus tied up as well.
"Ash?!" Johnny says.
"No I'm your fairy godmother." I say sarcastically.
"Look… we made a mistake-" Lex starts to say, Carly punching him.
"Yeah, you broke into the wrong house, fucker!" Carly says. What in hell's name happened to her in 9 years? "Ash, who are these fucking clowns?" She asks.
"They're my friends and members of my gang." I say.
"They broke in here, Marcus was hiding in her closet while Carly was getting cleaned off!" Johnny says… wait, what the fuck?!
"Is that part true, Marcus?!" I ask after walking over to him.
"Ash, it ain't what you're thinking." Marcus says.
"Oh really?! Then explain yourself!" I demand.
"Lex told me to keep lookout!" Marcus says.
"Keep lookout didn't mean hide in the kid's closet!" Lex yells.
Where did I go wrong with these screwballs?