Disclaimer: I have been blessed in many ways, owning Ash isn't one of them. The nightworld and all of it's people belong to L.J. Smith. I only hve dibbs on my new characters, which I can't trade up for. Dang. I would have settled for money too. Me= extremely poor college student with no job or prospects, or a car or working computer, sueing me would be a waste of effort.
Notes: Yes, Mary-Lynnette had issues. Ash has issues. The whole cast of the N.W. have personal issues. Deal with the angst. On ward.
~ The rest of Chapter 9 (b)
"A part of her was shredding while another said 'See? This is why I told you he had to leave; he was going to betray us. Of course he's kissing her, she's pretty just like all the others here, pretty and not going to mess with his world view.' But it didn't help with the pain.
Why had he even bothered with the whole Valentines Day thing? Or made the effort to act like he cared for her? Because he felt guilty, that he was going to leave her? Or had he had anything to do with it at all? It had been an extremely romantic thing, and guys of course couldn't have thought of things like that. They didn't. He'd forgotten her just like her father had forgotten her mom as soon as she died and gone after the closest lady to be his. At that moment of epiphany, Ash bothered to open his eyes and see her, and dared to look shocked and angry. Yeah Ash? She thought. So, I'm here at your stupid club, bet you weren't expecting to see me. Go on don't let me stop you. She fled towards Kestrel.
Sylvia finally let go of Ash.
" That's for ignoring me," She said coyly taking his anger for something else. "Don't worry in a few minutes the REAL fun will begin."
He pushed her away.
Ash wished he didn't know what she meant. Of all places for his Mare to be! She was going to get herself killed! And lets not add the look on her face when she saw him, not; I'm soo glad to see you, no with his bad karma. No. She'd seen him in what looked like he was kissing Sylvia. I mean sure his lips had touched hers, but it wasn't as if he had started it. Couldn't she see that it was the other way around? Wasn't it obvious that the little whore had been pushing herself on him? He was the victim here!
He fled to protect his soulmate from this place with only a " DON'T you Dare EVER try that again." Complete with death glare at Sylvia. He leaked rage.
Laurel covered for him " He really doesn't like girls who take the initiative with him. It's a guy thing." She explained as if seeing this one coming. Which she hadn't. Thank goodness for acting classes.
Sylvia gaped but recovered. "Where is he going?"
"Didn't you notice?" Laurel pointed at Kestrel. "That's his sister Kestrel, she's grounded to a hick town and is going against him. He's very controlling of all of his sisters you see."
Laurel said trying to distract her in a tone of semi-bored chitchat. She personally suspected that there was also someone besides Kestrel around of concern to Ash. Of all the bad timing.
"Controlling?" Sylvia said outraged, after all she was a witch.
"I know I know, don't look now but he's going to teach her a lesson."
Sylvia watched. Wasn't that the same Kestrel Redfern she'd met earlier that day? With the human?
Ash grabbed Mare by the arm and dragged her to one of the 'quiet' rooms glaring at Kestrel before he did so. Sylvia looked back at her for a commentary.
"What do you know, he's taking the one human Kestrels been using as cover at school, well, cover and lunch." At Sylvia's upset look, the one she had been expecting she finished.
"What? She erases the girls memories every time."
Sylvia made a humphing sound.
"Don't count on Ash eating now, I think he's 'sharing' Kestrels' which should make her mad, hey look there she goes to follow him." Laurel suddenly had a plan blossom. "In fact I don't think we'll be able to attend the bloodletting before you ship the slaves now, duty calling and all." A few C.D. agents would try to follow Sylvia from the club tonight when she left, but with the slave trade on the east coast being larger it might take months before they had enough manpower to shut this place down. It would be too suspicious for them if it stopped tonight anyhow.
Greatly relieved Laurel began the ending of their dealings with Sylvia that night.
When Ash grabbed Mare the pink haze only made his anger more potent for her getting herself in harms way. What had she been thinking?
Kestrel didn't walk away unscathed from the affair either, his glare at her on the way promised more when he was done.
~OUTSIDE KESTRAL NOW~ Kestrel looked shocked and winced at his telepathy.
Once they were both inside the private soundproof and camera proof room reserved for the elite well known, He let his anger be known.
"What in hell are you doing here?"
She grabbed her arm from him and glared.
"If I'd known you'd have been here with her I wouldn't have bothered!"
Mary-Lynnette need not have said who her was, he knew, he'd seen her look at him. He blushed.
"I didn't! She was the one, do you really think I kissed her?"
Her face said she did. "It sure would go with your shining reputation now wouldn't it?"
"I'm trying!" He said with a desperate undertone.
There was a loud bang against on of the walls as if a lot if people like lemmings had run into it.
Ash shook his head and attempted to grab her again. "There's no time for this. Don't you know what's going on here? It's dangerous for you! Do you think I want to see you dead?"
There was something about the serious almost worried look in his eyes made her feel that there was real danger.
"What do you mean?" Ash looked a bit relieved, she was being reasonable for once!
"I'm here to try and stop-Mare they're gathering humans to be slaves for an enclave, daily drugged food for a mass of nightworlders, killed on a whim. You've got to get out of here!"
" What? Can't I defend myself? I did pretty well against Jeremy." She argued pride wounded. But the flyers were making more sense now.
"I am not going to let you kill yourself." He looked dead serious, a new look for him.
"I'm not incompetent-" He grabbed her and shook her, looking angry.
"You're outnumbered. You have no idea how many they've already taken."
There was certain logic to his words. But she was feeling too betrayed to simply let it stop there. His hands were still tight on her forearms, although he seemed a bit ashamed that he had to do so.
Someone knocked three times before coming in followed directly by Kestrel.
"Leave her alone." Kestrel said to her brother who looked like he might be ready to throttle Mare.
Ash rounded on his sister. " What were you thinking bringing her here? What are you doing out of Briar Creek anyway?"
"Senior trip." Laurel responded, who had been questioning Kestrel before entering the room. It was a good thing too because Kestrel did not appear to be in any mood to answer questions coming from her brother. She was too busy glaring at the far wall, arms folded.
"It seems they were lured her with flyers about a free party, I wonder how many of these they're been passing around, maybe we should start looking for high school seniors on our list and see how many there were?"
Mary-Lynnette seemed to be processing this information differently. If this girl was acting as if Ash's story were true then it was less likely to be a cover story for Ash's partying. Maybe he had been here for a legitimate reason. But still another voice reminded her, that gave him no right to be kissing someone else! How could he have said that he wasn't kissing that girl, she'd seen him do it and he had seen her see him do it!
Ash nodded but in the sort of way that made Mary-Lynnette feel like this project wasn't the top priority on his list at the present.
"We've got to get them out of here." He said addressing his partner.
"We could
fake dinner."
"Which reminds me, what are we going to
do about the blood feast?"
"Don't worry I already got us out of that one." Laurel said pleased with herself.
"Why do we have to 'get out of here'? Things are starting to get exciting." Kestrel complained.
"Would you rather that she get sent to an enclave as a slave? Hmm?" Ash said pointing to his soulmate. He didn't dare say her name aloud around everyone else, too much emotions there.
He knew that all of his sisters had always had issues with the human slaves at home.
A few things were starting to click for Kestrel. "They're capturing slaves here. That's what this whole party was about?"
"Give her a prize, took you long enough, yes Kestrel." Ash said annoyed.
He kept on feeling that at any moment someone would rush in and find them all there. He had a terrible image of his soulmate being dragged away by a bunch of shifters, those whom she feared most, never to lay eyes on her again. It was making him very agitated. He was facing what must be the outside wall. Now if he'd listened to Jessica talk about this particular club, there were supposed to be exits from this room used to dispose of the 'accidental' deaths without disturbing the rest of the nightclub. All her bragging- he wished he'd paid more attention to it now. Voice activated? No. A human could seemingly escape that way. His eyes showed him what a human couldn't see, fine lines in what appeared to be a solid metal wall. A dent at the right angle. He put his fingers in the right spot and pulled. A doorknob appeared behind it.
"This way."
They followed to find an alleyway generally filled with nightworlders.
"Excuse me." Ash said passing them, his macho attitude back, dragging Mare behind him, who was surrounded by Kestrel and Laurel. Mare remained silent. She wasn't stupid. She'd wanted out of that club five minutes after she got in. But if he thought that she'd forgiven him, she'd show him later just, how much of a fool she was not.
No one stopped them. They didn't look easy to fight and dragging humans to a second location was common. A few minutes later, they had gotten far enough away that the street seems normal. Ash felt free to glare daggers at Kestrel. Mary-Lynnette backed away from him. Laurel kept looking behind them, making sure no one got too curious about their activities. They had to return to Sylvia, look over the slaves as if they were interested as soon as the violence was over. They couldn't be found out here. She used her cell phone to call one of the C.D. friendly taxi drivers to come and pick up Kestrel and Ash's soulmate and take them back to a safe house until it ok for them to return to their hotel. She tried her hardest to get kestrel to come a ways off with her to give the soulmates some privacy. From the girl's reaction to Ash, she must have seen Sylvia and him.
Ash and Mare looked at each other in an uncomfortable silence. Both seemed to be emotionally drained.
"Yes, we need you to take two contacts to a safe location for a while, no we can't do it, or we would have." Laurel said rolling her eyes.
Mare glanced at Laurel and then rounded on Ash finding an excuse to say something.
"You're sending us off then? Not even asking if I want to go?"
" Mare." He said tried. Right now, anger gone and immediate fear subsided he wanted nothing more than to embrace her, kiss her and personally see to her safety and never leave her side again. But duty called. He couldn't go yet, and she wouldn't let him.
"No, no more lies, you know what? I'm glad we're leaving, I don't want to be around you again." Mary-Lynnette tried to make it vicious just to make him hurt like she was, but it ended up sounding frustrated.
Ash looked like a kicked puppy. Mary-Lynette immediately regretted her words. Surely this was just another one of Ash's manipulative strategies so that he could hurt her more, the voice in her head justified.
Ash noticed that she was wearing the necklace he'd had Blaise make for her. Where had things gone wrong? What did the universe have against him being happy?
The taxi driver chose that moment to pull up leaving issues very unresolved.
He couldn't think of a come back. He watched his sister and Mare enter the taxi as if it had been their idea all along.
He watched them go and then turned to go back inside, duty kept him from turning around.
Sylvia ran up to him.
" Kestrel isn't old enough to be participating in this sort of thing, Bloodfests are meant for the men in the family anyway. How dare she try. How dare she defy me!" Ash said loudly to Laurel who nodded.
Mare turns around in the taxi to see Sylvia running up to Ash. Her heart sank. He doesn't love you!
Kestrel looked at her. "If Ash and Laurel are really part of Circle Daybreak they'll find some way to save our naïve stupid classmates." Kestrel gave every impression that she thought it was a waste of time. Mary-Lynnette was human, she had to keep reminding herself that, and so she probably was worried about her own.
" I want to go back."
"Honestly you couldn't help them, you're only human, and you'd end up becoming a burden." Kestrel said firmly.
"What about Ash?"
Kes grins with family pride. "My brother is a lot of things, but he can more than take care of himself in a fight. I'd feel more sorry for anyone who gets in his way."
Mare was a bit disbelieving since she saved his neck last summer not the other way around.
There had to be some truth to it though, after all he was the head of his family who weren't known for being subservient. He had to be ok. Ash was clever. According to his sisters, he was feared, respected and fairly well known, he had to be feared for something besides the dark things she'd seen in his mind last year.
Sylvia was starting to lead them back, saying things were almost ready.
The C.D. partners looked at each other, both knowing that they weren't going to be able to get all of the humans out, had they been able to find all of them. It became apparent that the humans had been scattered and isolated.
"Oh too bad, most of them are already drugged, bad blood. So sorry." Sylvia said not acting the least bit sorry. She still wasn't over the perceived insult from Ash.
"None of them looked really worth my time." Ash said negligently playing the Elite Redfern leader.
Sylvia stiffened, offended. He made it sound like she was incapable of finding anything worth his attention. How typical. Like so often she wished that her mother had not been a witch, then she could have least claimed the Red fern name. But Hunter could change that. She would not be overlooked.
Ash looked around deliberately dismissive as he followed Sylvia to look at the vans where about twenty humans lay in a heap. Laurel snuck away to find another group of humans that she could help liberate. Now what kind of spell were the humans under? She hoped that she'd brought the right stuff to break the effect. She was lucky enough to find a few that were still just strewn on a few boxes. They looked sorta purple in the face. No doubt, Sylvia's friends expected that they were so drugged that they'd be asleep for days. The blood loss didn't help much. Stupid humans. Just a little bit of this on the tongue mixed with iron. Iron loss was a large factor in what made blood loss cause weakness. Push that bone down, make them breath in that.
One of her 'patients' started to move.
"Go home." She said dismissively as if to a stupid kid who's been burned after not listening to reason.
The girl blinked in fear and confusion.
Laurel continued with a few more idiots, ready at any moment to dash off if anyone came back.
Meanwhile Ash was deliberately getting into a fight with the werewolf who was in charge of the new slaves and enjoying it.
" Did you hear this one wolfy boy?
Why was the werewolf arrested in the butchers shop?
He was chop-lifting."
The werewolf glared at him.
"No? No sense of humor huh? Do you know how to stop a werewolf from attacking you? Throw a stick and shout fetch!" He seemed to be telling the joke to Sylvia now.
The werewolf growled.
"What? Do you have something to say?" Ash said in challenge.
The two boys went at it. Sylvia threw up her arms at them.
Ash deliberately got in her way so that wolfy ended up hitting her in the face. Now this was fun. The wolf was so upset that he was laughingly careless. It was a sort of therapy. Beating a wolf up was a nice way to take out his frustrations. By the time Ash was done the wolf a bloody pulp on the ground and Sylvia was knocked out. Ash 'accidentally' spilled Sylvia's pouch from her pocket that she'd been bragging about and dumped it on her. That should do the trick. Now, to make off with the van or just drag the humans out of there? Oh, what the hell, he could always claim that he was simply confiscating evidence, since Sylvia hadn't delivered a meal. Easier that way. He grinned. No point in working harder than he had to.
Laurel appeared, and apparently didn't agree.
"ASH! We were supposed to have people follow her, and find the rest of them! They can't do that with her dead unconscious!"
Ash shrugged as if the big plan didn't matter anymore. "Heat of the moment. She deserved it!" He wiped his lips trying to get them clean.
"You big… big ego-freak!" She raged, hating change.
"The situation changed, deal with it. Yeesh you're soo inflexible." He complained. He was not in the mood to deal with her. He had his own concerns. As if seeing that in his face she dropped the subject.
Later that night, Ash stood on his balcony looking up at the sky. Mare must hate me now. There is no doubt now. She probably thinks I was trying to buy her affection to use her. She's seen what I've done before. She hates me trying to 'control' her. But I just want her alive. The few stars peeking out provided no answers or comfort.
~I don't want to be around you again, She'd said~ And he didn't doubt that she probably had been tempted to add 'ever'. He closed his eyes trying to block the image of her angry and rejecting him.
Mare was leaving the safehouse. She found that some wind had blown away more of the clouds. She looked at the stars in a sort of longing.
. A star- no probably Venus peeked out. Did Ash see it? Was he looking at the sky too?
Ash had betrayed her. When she'd seen him kissing that girl he heart had just shredded, it hurt. When he'd first left, she'd had little doubt that he cared about her, but she'd never had the courage to give him the hope that she had fallen for him. She'd feared him getting tired of her. It had all happened so fast! It was emotional overload, the whole deal. Had he replaced her?
It reminded her of all the times she'd gone out late at night with her telescope to feel that happiness to feel the happy tears fall down her face. She'd done it to try to replace all the uncomfortable thoughts, to replace her loneliness. If she could become one with the darkness, the void then she wouldn't have to think about it or really feel.
This time the silent tears were bitter and unfulfilling. The stars blinked down at her merely little lights, a void that couldn't hide her from it.
She would always love the night.
But she would always long for something more.
will she go back? or go to the hotel like a nice little human? Will Ash and Mare meet again? Where? When? Read the next chapter to find out!
stupidity or reason?
cliffhanger for chapter 10 J
please please review! I only update with reviews.
Thanks you PLum BloSsOm ! This chapter is for you J
