Ashe sighed as she dismounted the bike. After a message that both her parents went in early and thus, the house was vacant, Crystal had insisted everything needed to be moved immediately, and they had done so.

Though, Jasper had extracted his due of scritches and belly rubs from Crystal the moment he determined that she wasn't a threat to their home. She fed the goofy dog and apologized for leaving again so soon.

The duffle loaded with cash was secured over her shoulder as she looked up at the small house along the northern edge of the city. Crystal's home wasn't the best of places, it was a humble lot in a suburb that had fallen on tough times.

Translation, the fascists pushed minorities into the area then made sure all the funding was cut and the jobs vanished, leaving the area to fall into poverty. An unfortunately common tactic, and one that was quite legal. There was a reason people anticipated Jericho overtaking St. Louis for the worst racial segregation in the country before long.

"It's not much, but it's home," Crystal said, stepping up onto the half rotted porch. "Mind the… Everything. It looks worse on the outside."

"I would hope so," Ashe said, wincing as one of the boards cracked under her weight. "Fuck. You sure this place shouldn't be condemned?"

"Probably," Crystal said, shrugging before she unlocked the door. "Welcome to Casa De Crystal."

Ashe smirked in bemusement as she stepped past the blue haired woman, who had bowed with arms sweeping. Inside, the house was warm and inviting. The walls were freshly painted a white with just a touch of blue. The floors were faux hardwood, and the furniture was all natural wood, even the couch was a deep brown that fit in with everything.

"Okay, this isn't bad," Ashe admitted. "I trust the kitchen isn't white cabinets?"

"God no," Crystal said. "I despise painted wood. Let the natural look shine, that's been my take ever since I first saw a house with proper sense. My donor loved to paint over the natural wood of everything. When my mom died, he covered all the wood up, either with paint or tile." She gestured across the room, her expression soft and wistful. "It reminds me of her."

The way Crystal's voice cracked, Ashe dropped the bag to the floor and turned back. Crystal let out a muted huff when Ashe pulled her into a crushing hug. They were both broken people, in different ways, but Crystal managed to carve herself a place that reminded her of home, of the good times.

Ashe wished she could say the same, but her mom never stayed still for long, they lived light and tended to move at least twice a year. Her birth mother was a single parent, one who didn't have much but still tried, right up until she was gunned down by some asshole who thought it was a good idea to shoot up a women's rights protest four years prior.

"Wanna tell me about her?" Ashe asked softly.

Crystal let out a muffled whimper. "Someday. Not today though…"

"Okay," Ashe said, pulling away before she retrieved the bag. "So, where do you want this?"

"My office," Crystal said, wiping her eyes. "The closet is a reinforced safe. It would take thermite to get inside without both the key and combination."

"Cool," Ashe said, following along.

Her hand was tingling, almost a phantom ache cutting through the numbness. It was annoying, but there wasn't much she could do about it, even pain meds didn't calm it when things flared up. All she could do was try to put it out of her mind by focusing on something else until the feeling passed.

Crystal entered the room ahead of her. It wasn't anything fancy, a desk with a workstation set up, some bookshelves and other assorted knickknacks lining the walls, and a bog standard closet door. Crystal opened it, a small closet was behind it, but Crystal stepped right in. She pulled something from her pocket and slotted it into a groove along a shelf. Then she turned a decorative knob on the shelf just so and the wall clunked.

Ashe watched on as Crystal pushed it open, and a bedroom sized room on the other side came into view. The walls were lined with deep shelves, cash, drugs and guns organized across the room. Ashe's eyes fell on one rifle in particular, an AK-47 sitting right next to a lever action rifle with a scope. She'd always wanted to shoot one, but they were so expensive.

"Welcome to my bolt hole," Crystal said. "Keiko, Robbie and I bought our places to serve as safehouses of sorts. We basically took adjoining bedrooms, reinforced the walls and made them into storage for whatever we take in a job."

"Very impressive," Ashe admitted. "Also, clever as hell to hide a room like this. I didn't even notice the missing door."

"Perk of renovating a fixer upper, you can do fun stuff like this if the resale value doesn't matter," Crystal said. "Most that do this sort of thing use it for meth labs or some shit and don't take nearly the effort to secure it."

She had to admit, it was well considered, and probably the safest place she could hide her illicit gains. The bag was deposited on a shelf, a small bit of worry that she wouldn't get it back crossed her mind but Ashe pushed it aside. When she turned back, Crystal was biting her lip, looking towards her but not quite making eye contact.

"Everything alright?" Ashe asked.

Crystal blinked, her eyes meeting Ashe's before she looked away. "Yeah, just thinking about stuff."

"Alright," Ashe said. "I'm here if you ever need someone to talk to, but I won't pry."

Crystal smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Thanks. I might take you up on that."

Ashe wished she could do more, to say something that would help her friend. Crystal was quickly becoming her best friend, someone she trusted. Ashe knew it was foolish, given the things she did to survive, yet…

She was falling for Crystal, and that scared the hell out of her.

Ashe knew she shouldn't voice it, at least not before her birthday, but she didn't want to wait that long. She suspected Crystal was starting to feel the same, those side long glances that happened when she wasn't quite looking, the aborted sentences. Ashe wanted to take the plunge, to see where things went between them.

Should she just speak and see what happened?

A shrill ring startled her, and Ashe realized she still had her personal phone on hand. She cursed her own lack of foresight as she pulled it from her belt, then cursed again when she saw the ID. Her mom.

Crystal must have caught her expression, a firm hand gripped her shoulder. Ashe looked up and Crystal nodded. Sighing, Ashe swiped the green icon and accepted the call.

"Hello?"

"Ashe, where the hell are you?"

"Crystal's," she answered without thinking.

There was a beat of silence as she further berated herself for the foolish mistake.

"And I'm sure you have a perfectly reasonable excuse for why you aren't at school," her mom said evenly. "So please, enlighten me."

Ashe winced, because her mom only got prim and proper when she was well and truly pissed. She had to think fast, and stay relatively close to the truth if she was going to avoid being grounded until she was of age.

"I ran into Rachel," Ashe said slowly. She'd already gotten all the information she could out of the people involved, so putting her parents on their trail probably wouldn't hurt. "Rachel was worried because Jessica was missing, but this other girl was damn near gloating about it. Jessica's boyfriend already moved on too, now dating the girl that was gloating about Jessica being taken. Might be worth looking into."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Mechanical keys typed for a moment. "Rachel filed a missing person's report, and claimed Jessica was taken, but we're being stonewalled on organizing a response. Even with everyone making a media field day out of it, we aren't being allowed to act on what is clearly a kidnapping case."

"Doesn't this qualify for an Amber Alert?" Crystal asked.

There was a moment's pause. "No, she's eighteen, if only by three days. Rachel's eye witness statement is being disregarded for deploying our full resources in finding her."

"The trail might have gone cold by then," Ashe said.

Her mom sighed. "I'm aware, but I have to act within the law. Now, if you learn anything else while skipping, because I don't doubt you and Crystal are out there digging where you shouldn't, text our group chat, nothing over official channels. And Crystal, I'm trusting you aren't going to get her involved in anything dangerous."

"Uh… I wasn't planning to," Crystal lied.

A partial truth then, to sate her curiosity rather than raise another warning sign. "We went to Heather's place based on something Rachel said, but she was already gone."

"I figured as much," her mom said. "I'd ground you but at this point you'd probably sneak out to try and learn more. Just keep me updated and don't blatantly break the law, that's all I'm going to ask, we can figure out potential punishments once this is all said and done."

"It's the first possible lead we've gotten," Ashe agreed, internally relieved that they were letting her act. She knew the only reason was because someone was tying their hands. "I'll keep you in the loop as best I can."

"You'd better," she said. "Alright, I've got to get back to work. Be safe Ashe, Crystal."

"Of course, Mrs. Hamilton," Crystal said.

"Love you, mom," Ashe said.

"I love you too," she answered, then the call ended.

Ashe let out a heavy sigh as she slumped to the floor. "Fuck. Why is lying so damn hard?"

"I thought you did a pretty good job of it," Crystal said. "I'm surprised she's letting you do things outside the law like this though."

"She doesn't think I'm breaking the law," Ashe said, that familiar guilt stabbing deep. "She probably suspects that you have some less than savory contacts that are doing the dirty work."

"She probably recognized some of my tattoos as Viuda symbols," Crystal said, glancing down at her arms.

Ashe hadn't gotten as good of a look as she would have liked before, but now she could see the large web on her shoulder. The branches it was set within twisted along her arm, growing from a human skull. Several flowers in different shades of red, pink, and purple bloomed along the lengths. They were beautiful in the way they came together to form a complex mosaic all set in the colors of the lesbian pride flag. Near her wrist, a single black widow hung from a thread of silk.

Ashe was a touch jealous, and wanted some of her own.

"Probably," Ashe said. "I'm surprised she lets me associate with you in that case."

"Half the cops probably have swastikas or iron cross tattoos," Crystal said with a shrug. "Plus, she knows exactly who my family is. I'm not someone completely unknown to her."

"You know she's probably run every background check she can on you," Ashe said with a wet chuckle. "Fuck, today's hit me harder than I expected."

"Wanna just take the rest of the day to decompress?" Crystal asked. "I can order some pizza and wings and we can watch some crappy movie or something."

"That sounds amazing," Ashe admitted. "I… I threatened one of my bullies today. I promised myself I would be better than them, to not stoop to their level, and yet I jumped at the chance to do so behind a mask."

"I did offer to do it for you," Crystal said.

Ashe shook her head. "I needed to do this myself. I'm committed and need to get over my hang ups. At some point, I'm going to start hurting people. I'll probably end up killing someone. All that scares me, because despite knowing all of this, I don't want to back down. I don't want to go back to being a victim."

"And you never will," Crystal agreed, bumping Ashe with her shoulder. "Now come on, I'll get the food ordered and we can settle in. Robbie and Keiko can handle the leg work for a few hours."

"I'll need Robbie to get in touch with Alejandro," Ashe said softly, her gut twisting at the thought. "He apparently liked the impression I left on him. That's a starting point and I'm sure he has some work I could do to build a reputation."

"Ashe," Crystal said sharply. "You can't be serious. The man doesn't have marbles, he's got caltrops, and they tend to spill."

Ashe couldn't help but snort. "Oh god, that's a new one. No, I have no doubts he's nuts, but you said it yourself, he might be insane, but he's loyal to those that matter."

"That's true, but he has his own code that few come to understand," Crystal pleaded. "Come on, you don't have to go to him, we can find someone else to arrange jobs."

"How many would point me towards the fascists?" Ashe asked. "They were the ones to attack me. We still have a name on the list to scratch off first, but we need contacts that might lead us to clues and aren't part of the problem. I think I can talk him into giving me jobs that focus on them, because you can bet he's selling the drugs we lifted right back to the fascists without telling them they're laced."

"Damn you, using logic to suggest the batshit insane," Crystal muttered. "Okay, you know what, I'll get in touch, see what comes of it. Happy?"

"Not at all," Ashe admitted, getting back up with Crystal's help. "But, sometimes we have to do things that make us uncomfortable to get ahead in life."

"Or to jump into an early grave," Crystal said with a weary sigh. "I'll also have to talk Robbie and Keiko into this, you realize."

"Yeah…"

"They won't be happy."

"I know."

Ashe shrunk back in on herself with each statement, but didn't back down. She almost wished she would just get thrown in a situation that would rip the bandaid off all of her fears just so she could put them behind her. It wasn't healthy, but what else could she do about it?

Well, she could just find a random fascist and gun them down…

There was a reason most gang initiations were handled in that way. It kept the hesitation down and the peer pressure up, then they were committed. Oh goodie, there was that particular fear rising up again, her mother's lectures on gang recruitment practices coming back to mind with a vengeance.

And Ashe was going to do it willingly, knowing full well the dangers.

It wasn't like anyone else was going to step up and protect the vulnerable in the city. The resistance fighters in WW2 were considered criminals too, and when it came down to it, what Ashe was doing wasn't all that different.

She knew the logic was twisted, but it worked to keep her resolve from faltering.

Ashe just hoped that would continue to be the case.

"Alright, pizza's ordered," Crystal said with a wide smile. "Now, let's find something gay to stream."

Ashe returned the smile and gave an enthusiastic nod.

"Sounds good to me."