Betrayal

Chapter 9: Just relax Ashley

"She's in there." Stan pointed to a door with a vent on it, which could be opened so that the captor could look in but the hostage could not look out. Ashley, Jerrie and Stan stood in Sheridan's basement.

Suddenly yelling echoed through the door and reverberated in the ears of the group.
"I'm not telling you shit!"
"You'd better or we'll have to revert to something that will force it all out of you." Sheridan's booming voice shocked Ashley.
"I'm to take all the information to my grave. You're better off killing me." Jessica sounded calm and composed. A bang shook the basement and Stan looked through the vent. 

"Ashley you'd better get out. Like, completely out the house. Maybe go home? Just to be safe." he nodded toward the door. "I don't know whether Sheridan is able to hold her off or for how much longer. Jerrie, stay here."

Ashley nodded and bolted up the ladder, walking back to her apartment.

She barely made it in before she saw a flash of blonde hair and felt arms wrapped around her. Aubrey stepped back and composed herself before hitting Ashley on the arm several times, while yelling at her.
"You could have fucking told me." the blonde growled. "I thought you were dead or dying."
"I'm pretty sure I can handle myself." the brunette rolled her eyes and walked to her bedroom, collapsing on her bed and hissing at the wound on her stomach. "Fuck, I forgot that happened."
"What happened?" Aubrey leaned against the door frame, raising an eyebrow.
"Don't worry about it." Ashley shook her head. "I don't particularly remember it anyway. Shouldn't you be with Stacie?"
"What?"
"You know, the person I keep coming home to you making out with?"
"And what's that got to do with anything?"
"She's in labor, probably already had the baby now?"
"She what?"
"She didn't tell you?"
"No!" Aubrey bolted out the front door of the apartment.

Ashley's jaw dropped.
"Wow." she quickly composed herself and sat on her bed.
Picking up her phone, the brunette quickly texted Jessica a couple times, pretending not to know she was kidnapped the day before, then laying back on the bed.
"So what do I do now?" Ashley spoke to no one in particular. "Hide? Forget Jessica exists? Ugh, I don't know."
She sighed and grabbed the photo of her and the blonde, hiding it completely. She grabbed the clothes that once were Jessica's and shoved them in with the photo.
"No more Jessica." she tried to convince herself, but the truth was, she couldn't get rid of the guilt that had built up inside her in the past few hours and was tempted to storm in and help Jessica escape and run away together. Go to California like they planned? Maybe. No wait, she had a boyfriend. Maybe just Ashley alone then. She couldn't win either way, so she accepted her defeat and groaned.

Why was life so unfair? 

She looked around as if the furniture was going to give her the answer.
"Well, I guess, time for paperwork for work." the brunette sat up, groaning and slumping into her desk chair. It was her least favourite part of her job, filling out paperwork all the time.
Eventually, she finished the papers and stared up at the ceiling.
"It's over." Ashley sighed. "I did it. Somehow."
She looked around the room, curious to find something that would pull her out the darkness of boredom. Her eyes fell on the unused keyboard and, trance-like, made her way towards it.

The brunette sat down and wiped the dust off the keys. Delicate fingers made their way up and down the octaves, her eyebrows furrowing as she tried to remember what she could play. Slowly a soft melody came from the keyboard as she began to press the keys in the rhythm that came to her head. She didn't know where it came from, it just appeared.
Ashley let out everything: the guilt, the stress, the horror, the pain. Ambiguous as the origin, she didn't care. She let herself melt into the music as every worry, every stress flew out of her mind.

A clashing melody came to Ashley's ears. What was it? She stopped playing and looked around. Oh right, her phone was ringing. She picked it up seeing a FaceTime request from Stacie.

"Hey." she saw the taller girl amongst crisp white sheets.
"Hey Ash." Stacie smiled and looked over to something behind her camera, frowned for a second but looked back at the phone, smiling.
"How're you feeling?"
"I'm high on painkillers, what'd ya think?" the younger woman giggled and Ashley chuckled and shook her head.
"So the obvious assumption is that you've given birth?"
"Absolutely correct."
"Congrats, what's the gender?"
"It's a girl." Stacie looked over at whatever she looked at before, probably being the baby and looked back. "I called her Bella because I can't choose a favourite out of all y'all."
"That's adorable to the highest percentage." Ashley giggled. "Since when did Stacie Conrad go soft?"
"Since this baby is one of the cutest things I've ever seen." the taller woman leaned back on the hospital bed. "And we both know my favourites are you, Aubrey and Emily. We just can't hurt the rest of the Bellas' feelings."
The tall brunette winked.
"Of course." Ashley shook her head laughing. "So when do I get to see 'one of the cutest things you've ever seen'?"
"You can come tomorrow morning." Stacie rolled her eyes playfully. "I don't think they want me to have any more visitors after Aubrey barged in here."
"I think you forgot to tell her about all this."
"I probably did, knowing me. Pregnancy brain Ashley, pregnancy brain."
"You're lucky I told her." Ashley chuckled and smiled at her best friend. The chat went on for about an hour before Ashley began to get tired. 

She changed into some different clothes rather than her normal nightwear of Jessica's old clothes. A black hoodie and white shorts.

The brunette went to the mirror and brushed her hair out, remembering that she had cut it the day before. Surprised that it was a pretty neat cut, she braided it as normal and slipped into bed.