If you want that drink recipe, just let me know.
/ / / /
She's not one for dreaming, but that's because it is usually easy for her to fall asleep.
Nothing used to haunt her, though.
Nothing used to get to her, not really.
And she didn't have to pick up a habit, too much alcohol or too much weed, in order to forget.
Fire will erase everything, you know.
It'll level a place and leave nothing more than a charred spot on the Earth.
And when the forest gets too cluttered, too overgrown, fire will make it all nice again.
That's a fact, you know.
It's not always a pair of jerk-off campers or some kind of media-seeking crazy person.
Could be a forest ranger. Could be a scientist.
If she hadn't been so ready for the wrong side of the tracks, it could have been her.
She could have been some girl, lighting up trees, all with the law smiling.
But roads fork. And lives alter.
And she did as she pleased, in the end.
She didn't have to pick up a habit.
She already had one.
Ashley's head falls down once more, back into a strange slumber in this chair, legs as free as her arms - but the chair is still better than the cold floor.
And that office with that nice leather couch is locked up tight - and Ashley knows better than to break in.
She's been spared for a little while.
Not that she is lying. Every word she spoke was the truth.
And she dreams in black and white, like an old movie, the kind her dad liked to watch as he propped his feet up, as her mother angrily washed the dishes and complained about bills that needed to paid.
Cowboys and Indians. Lovers in fedoras. Storming the beach on D-Day.
And she dreams in color, touching flames without melting and growing hot and shaking her head hard at the anguished screams, hoping they don't find her, hoping they don't kill her, too.
Ashley dreams and wakes up and does it all over again.
Her head hurts. And her body is a symphony of pops and cracks now.
It doesn't feel good to open her mouth at the moment - like it wants to freeze up, like it wants to stay shut.
This isn't the glory aspect, you know.
This is the trouble on the other side of paradise.
This is the risk of being a player. This is the price you pay when your number is called.
Still.
Ashley dreams and sharp nails dig into her skin and a moan escapes her lips.
No, she's no killer.
She's just a girl who likes to toy with dangerous things.
And Spencer Carlin is probably the most dangerous thing she could set her sights on.
Still.
Ashley dreams and her hair gets pulled and the world is falling apart as they fuck one another in some other place in Ashley's head.
And she's not lying. Every word she spoke was the truth.
Trick is, see, that the truth can be just as messed up as the lies.
/ / / /
"What the hell?"
"Something wrong, Ash?"
"Don't fucking call me that... Don't... I mean, someone was there, Aiden! Someone was there and they... they..."
"...Died?"
"Yes!"
He smiles at her. He just smiles that same ol' smile - carefree and arrogant - the smile she has seen a hundred times.
The smile of a womanizer. The smile of a rich man. The smile of a con artist.
"The house got taken care of?"
"What?"
"The house, Ashley... you are here and the house got burned down... right?"
"...Did you not hear what I said at all?"
"Of course I did."
He sighs and gets up from his chair, grabbing her arm with a mixture of authority and friendliness, moving her away from the VIP area of this club and into his private room.
"Look, Ash, this guy was nothing. He was a parasite, trying to feed off my animal - my club, my streets, my interests. You won't have to do this kind of job very often. Hell, this might be the only time you ever will... But it had to be done. And, well, I couldn't do it."
And he smiles that smile.
And he leans over, pressing his lips to her cheek.
"You smell like smoke. Why don't you go get cleaned up? Come back and we'll have that drink, okay?"
But she was in a million different places at once, stark still and air refusing to move from her lungs, looking at Aiden with a blank kind of horror.
"You knew?"
"Knew what?"
"That he was there... that I would start that blaze up and he'd be there, that he'd burn up and I'd be the one responsible... you knew this whole time?"
The smile is still there, but it is no longer smooth.
She's not seen it often, but she knows this smile as well.
It is usually followed by a warning of some kind, an one-time offer to stay in Aiden Dennison's good graces.
"Are you going to make an issue of this, Ashley? Because I would hate that for you."
"You had me kill someone. I don't do that." She hisses out and he grabs her arm again, this time it was with strength and with a darker purpose.
"You do what I tell you to do. You want a name around here? You want money and respect? You'll do whatever I want... got it?"
Oh, she got it.
She didn't agree, but she didn't reply either.
She left.
And then she ran.
/ / /
It's like a chain.
One that starts with her and then goes along, further and further, only reaching the end when you find whomever is the lowest of the low - the users or the junkies, the business men who get shafted, the places that get jacked, the kid who doesn't have a parent coming home that night.
Just depends on who pays the most. Just depends on who has the most anger.
The final link usually suffers more than anyone else.
But if something goes wrong in the middle, disrupts the connection or grows weak, then you've got to fix it. Take the blow-torch to that piece of rust and get rid of it.
And she thinks that might be a harder blow for someone to swallow.
If you are more important than the losers, then - inevitably - you have more to lose.
Spencer made calls the moment she stepped out of the warehouse.
She stayed up all night and didn't go home, checking emails coming into her Blackberry - because this is the day and age for technology.
There aren't kids you can slide quarters to on the sidewalk who will sneak around and get information for you.
It comes to you at the speed of light.
And she asked questions until she got some answers.
That's why she's here, right now, by the pier.
At four in the morning and the city across the bay still asleep, lights off and sirens cooled down, that's why she is here - staring at this man before her.
A glorified pencil-pusher, nice suit - bought with money she's paid him, and he stutters and he claims that he did his job well.
He pleads. He begs. He says a lot of things and Spencer gets tired of hiring it.
And it feels good to slam the back of her fist to his face.
She doesn't know if Aiden Dennison is just looking for a new conquest in Spencer's town.
She doesn't know if Aiden Dennison is just looking for revenge against Ashley Davies.
These are merely speculations and theories.
But she does know that Ashley's file was left incomplete.
And Spencer doesn't accept that kind of work ethic.
"Do it."
She gets in her car and backs up, no need for her headlights to show off her guards getting rid of Mr. Martin Kendrick, making him disappear into the dark water.
She's seen it all before anyway.
/ /
"Nothing irreparably damaged?"
Ashley's eyes lazily blink and then the head nods - well, more like raises a bit and then goes down again. But the eyes stay open. Tired, but open.
"So, you can speak then?"
Spencer sits down behind her desk and she watches as Ashley's body seems to sink into the couch. It's like watching muscles sigh with stiff contentment.
"Yea. Throat hurts... a bit."
"In the shit-house and still asking favors, Ashley?"
"Can't talk... if I can barely swallow."
Spencer gets back up again, turning towards the dark wood doors to the left, opening them and revealing a small bar.
There is bourbon and gin and vodka. There are mixers. All the makings for a one-woman party. But this isn't a party tonight.
It's a 'chat'.
Still, Spencer knows all the cures to all the ailments.
You have to have tricks up your sleeve in this line of work.
How to have false passports. How to cover your tracks. How to intimidate.
And you have to know how to take care of yourself, sometimes, if you get hurt along the way.
"Here. Drink this."
And Spencer hands over a glass, watching Ashley stare at the contents curiously.
"What is it?"
"A helper."
Ashley's distrust amuses her, causing an almost genuine smile to break out over her lips. The brunette shifts her gaze to Spencer then, the two of them steadily gazing at the other, as the mug lifts upwards and to Ashley's mouth.
"Don't worry. If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't poison you. This isn't Clue."
Ashley actually chuckles, which causes her to choke somewhat on the drink, and Spencer allows the woman to collect herself before return to the chair behind the desk.
"It's... uh, strong."
"It has to be."
"Okay."
Ashley continues to sip and Spencer leans back in the chair, crossing her legs and getting comfortable.
"So far, everything you've told me has come back clean. And while you didn't divulge these things up-front, I had no reason to suspect otherwise. And that is due to a problem in my department, which has been taken care of."
Ashley blinks again, this time more aware, and Spencer recognizes that look. It is the look of someone who knows what is being said in-between the lines.
And it freaks them out.
As it should.
"Now, the real question becomes, is Aiden Dennison trying to screw me over? Or is he trying to fuck up your life?"
Spencer wouldn't confess this any time soon, but the transition from a sleep-deprived Ashley Davies to a hardened Ashley Davies is quiet the sight to behold.
The girl is already lovely to look at. Pretty as a picture.
But anger makes the girl incredibly sexy. It brings out the claws and the teeth.
It reminds Spencer of things left waiting in the wings.
"I did a good job of disappearing." Ashley replies, voice a little more rough than usual, but cold as ice. Spencer nods imperceptibly.
"Settling scores seems to be his thing. Am I right?"
"Very."
"If he is after me, he'll regret it. And if he is after you..."
Spencer lets that thought hang there, in the air around them, resting like the gallows on Ashley's shoulders.
She'd not go silently, Spencer knows that. Ashley Davies would fight Aiden Dennison with everything she has.
Which isn't much. Just fire. Just the ability to duck and cover.
Neither of those things will keep a person alive for long.
And Spencer Carlin doesn't do unnecessary hassle.
But, then again, she doesn't like anyone messing with her people.
She's the only one allowed to do that.
And, right now, Ashley Davies belongs to Spencer Carlin.
"...then he'll regret that, too."
/
She ran.
And she hid.
And she stayed so far underground that even the mice didn't know where she was.
Once it seemed that things had settled down, she left that part of the state.
She drifted and kept her head down.
She wouldn't get a steady place. She stayed away from the subways.
And, in a new city, she tried to live a decidedly 'normal' life.
Shitty job mopping the floors of a gas station. Shitty squat for a home, no electricity.
She did this for year.
She gave it time.
But her fingers got itchy. And she'd walk around before night would fall, her eyes studying the buildings and she'd plan how to torch them - all in her head, all for fun.
She didn't do it. But she wanted to.
Finally, after another six months, Ashley started to stay out later.
And she learned the names around the city.
And she didn't give away much, but a few right words into the right ears, and she came up on the radar of one Spencer Carlin.
A new job. A new chance. A new life.
Ashley conveniently forgot that the past never stays dead.
TBC
