Chapter Four: Someone By Your Side

"No, wait! Where are you going?!" I yelled to Ashe, panicking. I looked to Sarah. "Where is he going?"

"To where he was killed." She said, still looking toward the door.

I was still lost to where she was getting all of this. Killed? Shot? How can this all be possible? He was right in front of our eyes, alive. I don't get how he could be dead. Or, that he died and now is back...

"Come on, hurry!" she said, quickly.

-Ashe's POV-

This isn't real. It can't be. What was that woman talking about I couldn't have been alive.

...I was shot. And Danny... he was killed right in front of me. Those sick, thugs were the ones that killed us.

This couldn't be real....it couldn't be.

Please...please don't let it be real...

I was cold, everything was cold. Especially the atmosphere of the body shop as I walked through it. The air, it was dense. And it was too silent for comfort. It was empty and dead...everything was just gone.

I looked down and saw a piece of paper underneath my feet. It was dusty and had a foot print in the center of it. It was...Danny's painting. This... was real. I blew on it to clear it up. But now matter how much I cleaned it up, it would never be him. It was never be my son. I rose it up and down...up and down...it was all I had of him now.

Then, it all started coming to me. My faded memory started lighting up again. I began remembering it all.

Danny.

Myself.

Gunshots.

...Blood...

It invaded my mind. I couldn't stop it. I screamed, it was just just so painful to bare. There they were, those monsters inside my head. The memories of losing my only boy. And dying there with him. Their laughter. Their sick laughter piercing my ears. They showed no mercy toward us. They only destroyed us with those grins on their twisted faces.

-Maryse's POV-

Sarah and I travelled to Ashe's body shop. Screams of horror and pain echoed in the building and crept outside of it. We walked in and saw Ashe breaking down, emotionally, destroying the garage at the same time. He was angry, he was depressed and it was hurting me at the same time. What was causing him so much pain... I wanted to know...

He crouched down on the ground, clunching onto a piece of paper; looking to be a child's painting. Danny's painting. Sarah sat down on her knees in front of him. I did the same, but I say by his side. I placed my hand on his back. I felt him shaking. I felt the unbearable pain that he was feeling. Something had traumitized him. Pained him by something horrible. I wanted to know what it was so I could help him. So I could take away his pain. It killed me inside to see him like this.

"My Lord, what's happened to you?" I said to Ashe, scared out of my mind. I almost wanted to cry just seeing him in this state.

"Danny..." he said, as he handed Sarah the painting.

She put it aside and held him tightly. "He's not here anymore..."

But he soon pushed her away and fell back on the ground. I placed my hand on his face. I looked at him with great sympathy.

"You don't remember me, do you?" I asked him.

His gray, sad eyes flickered in my direction. "Maryse..."

Sarah then asked his name and he replied to her with, "Ashe."

"There's a reason why you've been broguht back, Ashe." she told him.

"To find who did this to us." he answered her. "To make them pay."

She then dipped her hands into a can of beige paint can and caked it onto his face, creating him a white mask. Next, she took the slender paintbrush from the can of black and drew lines down his face passed his eyes and then outlined his lips. I watched as she transformed him into this dark avenger.

"These were Danny's paints, weren't they...?" she asked him.

Ashe then put on a new shirt along with his leather jacket and picked up Danny's painting. He folded it up and put it inside of his pocket.

I approached him, looking into his eyes. "Ashe, let me go with you. I don't know what's happened, but whatever has caused you so much pain; whoever; let me help you get rid of it."

"No," he refused. "I can't do that. You can't lose your life over me. I have to do this alone. The ones who killed me and my son will die by my hand and you might die because of me."

"I won't die." I told him. "But you can't fight them by yourself. Let me be with you."

He looked at me, deeply; he didn't want to do it, but he eventually then gave in. "Just don't do anything I tell you not to."