“Mom!” Ashe yelled, running to her side, she was convulsing, and all color was draining from her face. “Hold on! I can help!”
She rolled her over and started chest compressions, desperately attempting to keep her mom alive. Her lips were turning purple, she was fading and there was—
“Move,” her mother said, shoving her aside. “Come on, Linda, you’re tougher than this.”
She pressed a nasal spray Ashe recognized as Narcan into her nose and injected, then began her own rescue breaths. Chest compressions soon followed. All Ashe could do was stand there and watch as her mother desperately attempted to bring her mom back, but Ashe knew it was too late, just like it had been too late for the man she—
“This is your fault!” her mother yelled, suddenly in her face. “You killed her! My love is dead because of you!”
“I didn’t— This wasn’t—” Ashe stammered, but words failed her.
“Ashe.”
Then, the barrel of a gun was in her face. “Murderer,” her mother said, then she saw the flash and the bullet struck her dead on.”
“Ashe!”
She sat up with a jolt, chest pounding, breath ragged, and drenched in sweat. The room was unfamiliar, she screwed her eyes shut, searching for what had happened, why she was somewhere else. The last thing she remembered…
Ashe leaned over, coughing as her stomach tried to empty itself, but nothing came up. She jumped at a warm pressure on her back, falling from the bed and dragging a tangled mess of blankets with her. Her back spasmed as she landed on something hard and she cried out sharply, then curled up, groaning.
Someone came over the bed, landing beside her, that same warmth now on her shoulder. “Shit, are you alright?”
Ashe looked up, finding Crystal’s green eyes looking back in the dim light. Her blue hair hung slightly over her face and her eyes were shimmering. Why was Crystal here? Where even was here? Ashe shifted, trying to find her bearings, but the object digging itself into her back reasserted itself with a sharp jab at her tender muscles.
Ashe fumbled, her hand grasping for whatever it was, finding it after a moment, she pulled it out with weak fingers. It was her phone, the screen thankfully intact, though it showed several messages waiting for her. The most recent of which was from her mom, which sent a pang of guilt through her, asking her to let them know when she was awake.
Okay, nothing pressing at least. She sighed heavily, moving to set her phone aside. When she shifted to get up, Crystal was right there helping her back to her feet.
“I am so lost right now,” Ashe muttered as she finally got upright. Looking around, the room wasn’t heavily furnished, a dresser was off to the side as was a desk with a chair. Was she in a hotel? Well, that was a prudent question if she ever thought of one. “Where the hell are we?”
Crystal sat down on the bed and leaned across, grabbing a bottle of water when she then shoved into Ashe’s hands. “My room. Keiko gave you a joint and some molly in her misguided attempt to calm you down. You’re probably still coming down from the molly.”
Ashe’s head snapped up, her eyes wide.
Shit, Keiko dosed her with fucking ecstasy? Was the woman— No, she was absolutely that insane. She would need to remember to punch the bitch for that, but at the moment she was more concerned with the flashes in her mind of her mom slowly dying of an overdose and her being powerless to stop it. Obviously her mom was fine, she wouldn’t have sent that text otherwise.
“Did you know about it?” Ashe asked, her throat dry.
Crystal shook her head. “No, but Robbie did. I kicked both of them out when I found out about it. Keiko doesn’t have the usual sense of what is socially acceptable, so she probably thought she was doing you a favor and Robbie just didn’t care.”
Ashe forced herself to relax. Crystal wasn’t someone who deserved to weather her ire. She’d take it out on Keiko later, looking at the clock on her tablet set beside the bed, it was barely four in the morning. Ashe could tell she hadn’t slept long, worse, she didn’t know if the nightmares would continue.
She’d killed a man, stood there and watched him die. There was no coming back from that, it would probably haunt her for the rest of her life.
“Here,” Crystal said with a weak smile on her lips. Her hand was held out and two small pills sat atop her palm. “Melatonin and Benadryl, nothing fancy, just something to help you sleep.”
Ashe eyed the two innocuous pills, a day ago she wouldn’t have even hesitated to accept them. Now was an entirely different matter, especially knowing she had been drugged once non-consensually under Crystal’s roof. Unfortunately, Ashe knew she wouldn’t get much, if any sleep, without them.
“You understand why I’m hesitant to accept,” Ashe said, looking up to meet Crystal’s eyes.
Crystal nodded. “I can hand you the bottles, and pull up each pill on drugs dot com to let you see they’re exactly what they say they are.”
She blinked, surprised to hear that site listed as it was used heavily by the police to identify pills on suspects during their bookings. Her moms insisted that she keep it bookmarked in the event she ever needed to identify something. Hesitantly, Ashe accepted the two pills, but continued to stare at them.
She was aware of Crystal moving, then two bottles were set down, each proclaiming to be exactly what she was handed. Crystal’s phone followed a moment later, the first page showing the same brand of melatonin, then she tabbed over to the page showing the generic benadryl.
“Does that help?” Crystal asked.
The tone she spoke with caught Ashe off guard, there was no exasperation or scorn, only patience to be heard in it. Taking a breath, Ashe popped the pills in her mouth then grabbed the now offered water bottle and chased them down with heavy gulps. She had woken up thirsty, and the water tasted divine.
Wiping the excess from her mouth, she turned back to Crystal. “Sorry to be paranoid.”
Crystal shook her head. “You have absolutely nothing to apologize for. Now, I’d suggest going to the bathroom then crawling back in bed before those have a chance to kick in.”
Ashe nodded, because while she didn’t have a pressing need to go, she knew it would come, especially after all the water she just drank and her own meds that she was on. Spiro was no joke when it came to the ‘make you piss’ department.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Her business concluded, she returned to the bedroom where Crystal had settled back in under the covers, her lamp on as she browsed something on her phone. Ashe was struck motionless at the casual intimacy of seeing the woman she was coming to care deeply for just being so open and vulnerable with her. She was even wearing glasses, which Ashe wasn’t aware she even needed.
She must have worn contacts each time she’d seen her before.
“You may want to lay down soon,” Crystal said, not looking up. She had a frown on her face as she read something. “Once those kick in you’re gonna struggle to even stand.”
Ashe shook herself out of the stupor she found herself in and walked across the spacious room and around the bed, crawling in after another moment of hesitation. The bed was still warm from when she had been in it earlier, but that wasn’t the warmth that was currently distracting her. Even with as big as the bed was, there was still limited space between her and her current crush.
“Comfortable?” Crystal asked.
Ashe nodded mutely, rolling onto her side to face away. The last thing she wanted was for something to come up between them in the dead of night. She heard the clink of something being set aside, likely her glasses and phone, then the light clicked off.
“Goodnight, Ashe,” Crystal whispered.
“Night,” she answered back.
Hopefully she wouldn’t have any more nightmares, or worse, dreams about being in bed with Crystal. With that mortifying thought now firmly entrenched in her mind, she pushed away the sight of gray skin and purple lips and shut her eyes, wishing Morpheus would hurry the hell up and give her some respite from the troubles of the waking world.
----------------------------------------
Ashe stirred from her slumber, awareness sluggish and heavy. Her skin was sticky and the sun was shining through the curtains and onto her face. She could easily have rolled over and gone back to sleep if not for one thing, there was a heavily tattooed arm draped over her that was holding her in place.
Right, she was in Crystal’s room, sleeping in her bed, with her… That alone would be enough to make her panic, but she was also experiencing the very reaction she had feared the night before. Ashe spotted her phone on the nearby night stand and carefully reached for it. She was thankful that someone had thought to plug it in for her.
It was almost nine in the morning, which wasn’t all that bad given everything that happened the night before. Vacant eyes looked back as the man convulsed. Ashe screwed her eyes shut, biting her lip to try and focus on anything else. Right, she had killed a man… She was a murderer at seventeen.
The worst part was, it was so damn easy to talk the man into essentially committing suicide via overdose. Hell, she could have told him the truth and he might have taken it anyway. That thought alone scared her, that someone could become so addicted to chasing their next high that they willingly took something that might kill them.
She’d heard her mom complain about that years prior when she still worked in the holding areas, that prisoners would smuggle in all sorts of illegal substances. People coding was common, with drugs being brought in through numerous ways, but most often through dirty staff. It was an unfortunate truth that people would risk their jobs to bring in a pack of chewing tobacco that sold for two hundred bucks to those in lockup where tobacco wasn’t on offer.
She couldn’t help but chuckle. Ashe was now far worse than those dirty officers, she had no moral high ground to stand upon. She helped distribute drugs, she knowingly killed a man using drugs. At least she wasn’t to the point of selling children to perverted old men. She still could hold that moral high ground at least.
“You think too loud,” Crystal muttered into her shoulder.
Ashe froze at the feeling of warm breath across her skin, chills running down her spine at the sensation. She needed to get out of bed, then see about a shower, a cold one. Crystal pulled away, both to her relief as well as dismay. The absence of the warmth of having another person holding her was felt acutely, and she wanted nothing more than to have it back.
Crystal had rolled over, checking her own phone while rubbing at her eyes. Ashe took the opportunity to get up, much as she didn’t want to. She spotted her bag, which held a change of clothes and grabbed it before she paused, because just assuming she could would be disrespectful to Crystal.
“Is it alright if I use your shower?” she asked.
The woman had just put her glasses on, her eyes half lidded underneath them. “Oh, uh, sure. Did you bring your toiletries or do you need to borrow mine?”
“I brought my own,” Ashe answered. “I’ll save you some hot water.”
“Appreciated,” Crystal said. “I’ll see about getting breakfast ready.”
Ashe paused, halfway to the door. “You don’t have to.”
“Shush,” Crystal said, waving her off. “Let me be domestic for once, alright? Besides, there’s a few things we should probably talk about from last night, and I’d rather do that on a full stomach.”
Ashe nodded slowly, not quite sure which things she would want to discuss, but she could imagine. Most of the prior night was fuzzy as hell, which was probably a good thing in retrospect. She wasn’t happy about having her mental state fucked with like that, especially without her express permission.
Crystal seemed content enough with that answer, and pulled herself out of bed and Ashe had to look away again. Her tank top didn’t leave much to the imagination, especially with how fit and muscular she was, and the tattoos certainly gave her an exotic flair that tickled Ashe in all the right ways. She now fully understood the appeal of the ‘bad girl’ look.
She didn’t even mind that half the tattoos concealed subtle gang symbology. Ashe was all but a member of the Viuda at this point, or at least someone they trusted to do jobs for them. Just one more thought to clutter her already over-taxed mind. Then again, maybe she should start thinking about getting some tattoos of her own. It wasn’t like the gang parlors would care about her not being of age, and she should be able to hide them from her parents if she keeps them in easily hidden areas.
Designs floated through her mind as she showered, washing the night’s funk off of her at long last. She hadn’t come to any decisions, and likely wouldn’t for some time, but it was a nice diversion at least. She toweled off, and swished a bit of mouthwash for good measure before joining Crystal back in the kitchen.
The first thing she smelled was the bacon, apparently being baked in the oven rather than fried. The second was the mess of veggies being fried in a skillet that included onions, peppers and mushrooms in addition to a small bit of sausage and garlic. The whole room smelled like heaven.
Crystal was currently whipping up a mixture of eggs, humming along to a tune Ashe couldn’t hear. The mixture was then added to the pan and Crystal began to whisk briskly as she reduced the heat of the stove. Watching her cook brought a smile to Ashe’s face and she couldn’t help but lean against the counter and admire the girl’s work.
The eggs ended up fluffy, with the veggies mixed. They were divided between the two plates and cheese was sprinkled over top. Crystal nodded, then turned to the stove, a slight rhythm to her steps that made Ashe’s smile grow. She wasn’t even sure if Crystal had noticed her yet, but she wasn’t about to ruin the moment.
The rack of bacon was brought out, looking crisp and delicious. Her mouth was already watering in anticipation. Crystal transferred the bacon to a paper towel, using it to soak most of the grease, then again divided it among the plates. Seeing that she was about to grab the plates, Ashe decided to make damn sure Crystal knew she was there before there was a tragic accident and they had to eat out.
“That smells heavenly,” she said a bit louder than normal.
Sure enough, Crystal jumped a bit, turning to face her. Some wireless earbuds were pulled from her ears and Crystal smiled sheepishly.
“I may have gone a bit overboard,” she admitted.
Ashe chuckled. “You won’t hear me complaining.”
The pair stood awkwardly for a moment, not quite looking at one another before a ding from the coffee pot saw Crystal back into motion. The plates were moved to the table, coffee was poured for each of them, and they settled in to enjoy the meal.
Ashe took her first bite of the scrambled eggs and almost groaned in pleasure.
“Guess I don’t need to ask if you like it,” Crystal said with some amusement.
Ashe looked away, but she was smiling as well. “It’s delicious.”
“Glad to hear it,” Crystal said, digging into her own meal.
Just because a heavy conversation was coming didn’t mean the current moment needed to be spoiled. She intended to savor what might be the best breakfast she had ever had the pleasure of eating.