Jericho Central University, located barely twenty minutes from her parent’s apartment, on foot. The campus was expansive and well cared for, with a great many old trees offering shade in the summer months. It was barely ten minutes from Old Main Street, which made it a well appreciated location.
It was also publicly funded, which meant that those who attended Halsey High rarely went on to attend the school. Despite numerous attempts to privatize JCU, it had fallen through each and every time. A handful of private universities existed, but none were really worth a mention if your education was actually important, especially given one of them was an online service currently facing criminal investigations for being a scam.
All of that combined to make it Ashe’s first choice for staying somewhat local. Sure, she could go to college in Tampa, or the greater Orlando area, but she wanted something close to home to be her first option. She wasn’t terribly far from their apartments, or from Crystal’s home, both of which were swiftly starting to feel more like home than her parents’ place.
Her mother was walking alongside her, taking in the sights as the small group was given a campus tour. There were three boys about her age, and another girl. She recognized none of them, but from what she had overheard, only the girl and one boy were from Florida. Ashe wasn’t too concerned by that, watching the two non-native boys, one with black hair, the other a sandy blonde, as they pointed out the small artificial pond surrounded by shade trees.
They were asking why no benches were present surrounding it.
Ashe didn’t even need to ask when the last time a gator had to be fished out of the shallow display piece, she could guess that it would be measured in weeks, not months. Shaking those thoughts off, she glanced aside, taking in her mother’s expression. Originally she had planned for Mom to be with her, but she was still recovering. The hit to her leg wasn’t much worse than the one Ashe had taken in truth, but she was actually following doctor’s orders to stay off of it.
“Doesn’t seem too bad,” Ashe said, testing the waters.
They were barely talking, even almost two weeks later, but Ashe could understand why. She’d been barred from attending Kendall’s funeral, for the obvious reason. That revelation had been the most damning of them all, and Ashe was almost certain Mother was ready to turn her in despite insisting otherwise.
No more secrets rang heavy when they realized just how far she was willing to go to keep those secrets, and people, safe. Ashe had crossed too many lines, yet her parents still loved her. They understood how she arrived at the end of that journey, and they promptly set down ground rules that would remove her from that life.
Her visit to the apartments hadn’t been part of that agreement, but she had to establish those rules with her people, and make some moves to ensure their stability going forward. Getting them to agree to integrate into the Viuda hadn’t been easy, but she managed it. The few holdouts among the girls had voiced their concerns, which required some reassurances. With Keiko backing up what Mercedes told them, and Ashe promising that she would always have her people’s back, they accepted the merger, consequences be damned.
“The campus is indeed pleasant,” Mother said.
That was probably going to be all that she said on the subject. All because she was still upset that Ashe wasn’t going to move out of state and put distance between the gang she had created and herself. The news that she was folding them into the Viuda as one of her last acts as their leader had been taken well, right up until she announced her application to JCU was accepted.
That just led to another tedious fight that Ashe really didn’t have the energy for. Crystal still couldn’t move, not without getting her father on their asses about running away from their home state. She would ironically have less attention on her if she stayed in Jericho. Getting that point across had been an uphill battle, but the police records from when Crystal first ran away at fifteen were still on her file.
She’d ended up on the streets, working openly with the Viuda less than a year later.
“It is, isn’t it?”
Mother and daughter turned to the new speaker, one of the young men that had been hanging away from the main group. Ashe tilted her head, taking in his appearance. He was sandy blonde, with his hair cut in an early tens pop singer style that oddly worked for him. His jaw was also quite punchable, but his looks weren’t matching his attitude so Ashe would roll with it. He was dressed in a band shirt from the same era and loose shorts. Ashe would put good money on him being from somewhere in Florida.
He smiled, then winced, offering his hand. “Oh, apologies for my manners, I’m Corey, Corey Hartley.”
“Ashe Hamilton,” she said, reaching out to shake his hand.
His smile widened, and she had to admit, if she were straight that she would probably have swooned. Hell, she had little doubt he was taking a shot at flirting with her, but that didn’t mean she needed to be rude about shooting him down.
“So, what brought you to JCU?” Corey asked, stepping back. He made a show of looking around the green campus and old stone buildings. “Besides the whole old world vibes this place has.”
“Which is funny, since this place is only eighty years old,” Ashe said. “I’m a Jericho native and wanted to stay close to home.”
Corey frowned, looking her baggy outfit over, obviously expecting something else from a native. Out of the corner of her eye, Ashe caught how her mother’s lips thinned. She was then approached by another parent and drawn into a conversation with an older woman. The entire exercise was proving to be more tedious than expected, but Ashe was keeping to their deal. Inferno was retired and Ashe was staying away from gang violence.
It would take time for their relationship to recover, but Ashe was willing to put the work in. She would take responsibility for her actions, and had intended to cut all ties and become a full time criminal if necessary, but she was saving that for a last resort. She hated that her parents were willing to sacrifice their own morality just to keep her safe, and she loved them for it.
A short term strain was well worth it in her books, because it was proof that they loved her unconditionally.
“Nice, I’m from Miami myself,” he said. “Wanted to get away from home, this was the farthest place they would pay for, so I figured I’d go for it.”
“My parents wanted me on the west coast,” Ashe admitted. “Far away as possible. It’s been a source of friction for us.”
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Corey winced in sympathy. “Two sides of a coin then. Kindred spirits, if you will.”
“Spirits would be nice,” she said, rolling up her sleeve and the man winced. “Motorcycle accident. Can’t drink with the meds I’m on.”
“Aren’t you eighteen?” Corey asked.
“Will be in two days,” Ashe said. “The accident allowed me to test out early, and I got accepted based on my records.”
In truth, one of the board members was with the Viuda, and had helped get her acceptance pushed along, but her parents didn’t need to know that. It was one of the smallest acts of corruption the board member had done, and Ashe’s admittance was framed as a diversity pick to balance out other people, which should cover her well enough if an investigation were to ever hit the university.
“That’s pretty awesome,” he said, then his eyes widened. “Shit, I meant the testing, not the accident, fuck, I am so sorry.”
Ashe laughed, waving him off. “It’s cool, don’t worry. Assholes that ran me off the road ran into karma a few short minutes later.”
Karma in the form of Robbie and an LMG. Ashe had gotten to read that report a few days ago, and the scene hadn’t been pretty. The only reason that her parents weren’t losing their shit over knowing the identity of the person that left twelve bodies in the rubble was because the entire situation was an assassination attempt on Ashe. Robbie was still in the hospital, though there was talk of moving him before the month was out. They would free him then.
“Good to hear,” he said, though a bit awkwardly. “So, think you’re going to enroll?”
“Probably,” Ashe said. “I’ve got friends here that I don’t want to abandon, which makes JCU my most likely choice.”
“Well, I hope to one day be counted among those friends,” Corey said, running a hand through his hair.
“More friends are always welcome,” Ashe said. “Maybe you’ll get your wish come the fall term.”
She wasn’t going to hold her breath, but she would give him a chance to surprise her. She had no intentions of hiding who she was, or that she was trans and a lesbian on top of that. Some of her tattoo ideas would even reflect that, though finding someone willing to do a trans pride flower arrangement on her arm might be tricky. Thankfully, the Viuda employed several skilled artists, and she was hopeful that one of them would agree to work on her when she returned from New York.
Hopefully by then, she would have fully regained the goodwill of the Viuda, but at the moment she wouldn’t risk it. She’d earned their ire, and wasn’t keen to test her position so soon. Hard work and cooperation were the only salves that would help those wounds. That, and Yessina’s continued recovery.
From what Keiko had passed along, the Viuda matron was quite taken with Mom and how she had heroically put herself at risk to save the life of her charge. Linda Hamilton was unofficially a Viuda by her order, afforded all the respect that came with it. Needless to say, her parents hadn’t been amused when Ashe forwarded that one along.
Corey stepped away, moving off to talk to one of the tour guides about something. A few moments later, one of the other girls closed the distance, still watching where Corey had walked off to. Ashe sighed internally, almost tempted to switch off her hearing aid and play deaf. Hell, she could always play that it had died and she couldn’t hear without it, which was actually true.
“You know he was flirting with you,” the girl said.
Ashe returned a deadpan stare. “No shit. I’m deaf, not blind.”
The girl blinked at her, only seeming to notice the bandage still over her right ear. Ashe then turned, pointing to the device currently in her left ear.
“Huh, how the hell did that happen?”
“Motorcycle accident,” Ashe said, the excuse already growing tedious. “So, what brought you over here, aside from telling me some guy I just met was flirting?”
She looked back towards him for a moment. “He looked like a creep, okay? Figured I’d warn a girl before they ended up hurt.”
“I appreciate the sentiment,” Ashe said, her words as hollow as the sentiment offered. “No need to worry, though.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You sure? He looks like the pushy type.”
“I tend to leave those broken on the pavement,” Ashe said. “Have for the last…” She mimed off, counting fingers. “Three attempts? I kinda stopped counting at this point. Comes with being a lesbian in Jericho.”
Given that all of them were in some way linked to Gray, she expected them to trail off in the wake of his death. She usually didn’t let herself feel satisfaction when she killed someone, but that little prick was a rare exception to the rule.
“You don’t look gay,” the girl said, looking her over once again.
Ashe rolled her eyes. “I’ll be sure to brand a pride flag on my forehead for you by the start of term.”
The girl snorted. “Alissa.”
“Ashe,” she answered. “So, am I looking at another potential friend, or maybe something more? Because, I’ll be honest, my girlfriend can be a bit protective of me after everything I’ve been through.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Alissa said with a wink before turning introspective. “Never really considered girls, but never wrote the option off either. They say college is for experimenting, so if you know someone down for that, send them my way.”
Ashe grinned. “I think I can manage that, Alissa.”
The woman pulled out her phone, and spent a few minutes tapping away as they swapped numbers. Ashe reveled in the afternoon breeze, the wind blowing through the trees, and the smell of the sea. Ashe was glad she wasn’t leaving that behind, because for all the shit that came with Jericho, the weather truly was lovely.
Alissa glanced up after a moment with a frown. “Are you not on Social Media?”
“Nope,” Ashe said. “Had too many dumbasses stalking me to keep them. Just put your number in my phone, or add me on Harmony, I go by Crimson_Flame.”
“Harmony?” Alissa asked.
Ashe huffed, pulling out her own phone and opening the app. “It’s a gaming thing, used for voice chat and messaging. I prefer it to most social media platforms.”
“Oh, that’s neat,” Alissa said, adding her number to Ashe’s phone. “I’ll give it a download and see if I like it.”
“It gets better the more group servers you join and participate in,” Ashe admitted. “So it might take a bit to grow on you. I lucked into it being the biggest communication tool in a game I used to play.”
“Used to?” Alissa asked.
Ashe held up her right hand, showing off the twisted scar from that fateful day that changed her life forever. “Knife wound from one of the attacks, three of my fingers never worked quite right after that, and no, I don’t want to hear any platitudes, I’ve heard enough.”
Alissa’s jaw snapped shut, and she gave a half hearted chuckle as she rubbed the back of her head. “Damn, this is not how I saw this all playing out in my head.”
“Good friendships rarely do,” Ashe said. “I’ll see you around.”
Alissa waved, and once again the group shifted. Ashe was just fine with that, because it was starting to look a lot like her troubles in Halsey High weren’t going to follow her into college, not that she was going to let them. Ashe planned to carve out a reputation as someone who put up with no shit, and goes out of her way to help and protect others.
Just as she did for her people, she would do for the school. She couldn’t abide suffering, not when it was right in front of her, and she would do everything in her power to make sure nobody else suffered like she did. Looking up to the sky, watching the white clouds blow across the blue skies, she knew that was one thing that she could swear.
Inferno might be resting, but Ashe Hamilton would still be there.