CHAPTER ONE
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NICK'S TERRIBLE MISTAKE
╭┈──── ◌ೄ◌ྀ ˊˎ "GOD, WHAT DO YOU WANT now?” Ashley asked, Nick’s head appearing from the hatch, his hand pushing up a tray filled with a burger and fries, the girl rolling her eyes. She didn’t think her brother understood that she had no way to exercise, so junk food was just gonna kill her quicker.
“I brought food,” Nick said, staring at his sister blankly. He pushed himself up, his police uniform adorned, badge glinting in the light from the lonely bulb hanging from the ceiling. He took the tray in his hands, putting it down on Ashley’s bed, the girl reluctantly eating quickly, her stomach having been rumbling for a couple hours now. Nick put his hands on his hips, looking over at the walls, seeing the new scratches over her bed. “You’ve been busy, I see.”
“Not a lot to do when you’re kidnapped,” Ashley explained, passive-aggressively, her mouth filled to the brim with fries.
“You’re mean today,” Nick frowned, stepping over to her bed and sitting down on the end of it, checking the room over to make sure she hadn’t done anything else. He had caught her going through the boxes on the other side of the room one time, but luckily for him, there was nothing in there that could actually help her. “What happened?”
“Did you not hear me before?” Ashley replied, raising an eyebrow at her brother. Most of his meetings were her violently explaining why she was so pissed off all the time. It was like Nick could not even feel empathy, but the idea wasn’t impossible. “I have been kidnapped. You kidnapped me. Jesus Christ…” She stuffed another fry in her mouth.
“You know I did that for your own good,” Nick sighed, stretching his legs out over the floor. “I’ve told you over and over–”
“Yeah, and I’ve told you over and over that I would rather be fucking dead!” Ashley shouted, glaring up at her brother. Every now and then, her anger that she barely kept back at her brother’s visits would overload and this was one of those moments. “Why don’t you just kill me, huh? Would it really be that hard? I mean, kidnapping me is, like, way worse. You get a constant reminder of it.”
“I’m not… I’m not killing you, Ash,” Nick responded, nervously, clenching his jaw. “You’re my sister, for God’s sake.”
“Didn’t stop you from kidnapping me,” Ashley rolled her eyes, throwing the burger back onto her plate and turning her back to her brother, clutching her pillow to her chest like she was sixteen again. “I lost my appetite.”
“I’m not letting you starve yourself,” Nick argued, pushing the tray closer to her, it tapping her side gently. “Seriously, Ash. Eat it. I’m not taking no for an answer.”
“Nick, I would rather die than be stuck here, what don’t you get about that?” Ashley muttered, holding her pillow up to her face, Nick taking it quickly and throwing it across the room. She groaned and pulled her knees up to her chest. “Goddamn it, what do you want from me?”
“Well, I wanted you to understand,” Nick retorted, getting up from bed and walking over to the pillow, picking it up from where he had thrown it. “But you couldn’t do that simple thing. If you understood, I could let you out. We could tell everyone what happened to you. You could be outside right now. Free.”
“Don’t lie to me, Nick,” Ashley clenched her jaw, sneering up at her brother. “Don’t do that. If I had understood – and that’s a big if – I wouldn’t be free. I would be stuck in the lie that you created, that you continued to spread over this family. That’s not freedom. That’s bullshit.”
“It’s not– It’s not bullshit, okay, Ash!?” Nick shouted, his voice raising and Ashley knew she’d done it. She’d made him snap, yet again. This was always the fun bit. “I would die if I didn’t keep this going! I would die! Do you hear me!? Me? Dead!”
“So?” Ashley questioned, shrugging.
“You don’t… care?” Nick asked, making her scoff. She couldn’t believe the self righteousness of this dickhead. “I am your brother, Ash. Does that mean nothing to you?”
“Great, you’re finally beginning to understand,” the girl smiled to herself, getting up from the bed herself, walking over to him. “You mean nothing to me, Nick. You’re not my brother, you’re not my friend, you’re barely even a person. You’re a fucking monster. I don’t care if you don’t want to kill me, I don’t care if that’s your excuse for yourself that you’re actually good, because head’s up! You’re not.”
“Ashley… Stop,” Nick warned, gripping his hands in fists by his sides.
“It has been eighteen fucking years, Nick!” Ashley yelled, her eyes glazing over with tears. She had never actually said it aloud. She didn’t want to say it aloud, because that would make it real. She had been stuck for eighteen years in God knows where and it was Nick’s fault. “Either kill me or let me out! I will die anyway… I will die up here, because you chose to keep me here. If I die, it will be your fault, whether directly or not. But at this point, I hope that death just comes soon, because I’m done. I’ve given up.” She threw her hands up, the tears trailing down her cheeks as she smiled, tight-lipped.
Nick tried to touch his hand to her shoulder, but she walked away, sitting down on her bed yet again, looking down at her lap. The man stared over at his sister, knowing his limited options here. “I can’t… let you go, Ash.”
“Then kill me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I just– I won’t, okay?” Nick shook his head, turning to face the opposite wall, taking a deep breath to hide the fact his eyes were swelling with tears. “I’m not killing my own sister.”
“Good to know you stop at your own family,” Ashley scoffed humorously, leaning her head back on the wall, rolling her eyes. “So many others have died because of you and you don’t care… obviously! I mean, Cindy, Alice, Arnie, Jeremy… All of those people were good people. Yeah, they lived in Shadyside, but what the fuck does that matter!? You killed them, not Tommy… You.”
“I didn’t kill them!” Nick finally snapped. Like, in half. He stormed forward, slapping the food tray upwards, the burger and fries scattering everywhere, diet coke spilling over her sheets. He grabbed Ashley by her collar, pulling her forwards and onto the floor, the girl’s head hitting the wood with a thump. “I saved you and you will be fucking grateful! I could kill you… but I won’t! Doesn’t that show you how I’m a good person, too!? I am saving this family, and you are a part of that!”
“I am not a part of this family!” Ashley yelled, throat burning with pain at the loud volume. “I will never be grateful for you ‘saving me’! And you…” She stood up from the floor, ignoring the agony that shot down from her head. “You are not a good person. You can think that you are, but you would be fucking wrong. You won’t kill me because you’re a coward, not because you’re a good person!”
“I am not a fucking coward!” Nick screeched, his voice breaking half way through, and he saw the smirk on Ashley’s face, it angering him even more. He wanted to kill her at that moment, and he knew he easily could, but that would be giving her what she wanted. “I will not allow you–”
“Goode, this is Kapinski, do you copy?” Kapinski’s voice rattled through Nick’s radio, and the man’s eyes widened in shock. Ashley saw an opportunity open for her and she opened her mouth, rushing forward, but Nick grabbed her. He covered her face with the pillow he had still in his hands, stopping her from talking and breathing all together. She could feel her tears of frustration soak into the fabric, her lungs pleading for air, but she couldn’t get any. Maybe this will turn out well and maybe… this was it. “Goode, you copy?”
“This is Goode. I copy. What’s the problem?” Nick spoke through his radio, holding the button down and managing to keep the pillow firmly to his sister’s face. His face contorted with irritation as Ashley stood still in his arms, because he knew what she was doing. She was doing what she had been asking for this whole time.
“There was a call, someone claiming they know you,” Kapinski replied, his voice bored and restless, Ashley guessing he hardly did any work anymore. He must be doing nothing otherwise he would easily be able to realize that Ashley Goode was still alive, being kidnapped by her own brother and the Chief of Police. “Something about needing a lighthouse in the ocean or some bullshit, it was pretty cryptic. They asked for you specifically, though. You wanna take this one, or should I look into it?”
“No… No, I’ll look into it,” Nick spoke quickly, not leaving a beat. “Leave it to me. Over and out.”
“All right, boss. Over and out.”
Nick pushed Ashley away, the pillow dropped to the ground with the rest of Ashley’s dinner, and Nick took a deep breath along with his sister. Ashley was gasping for air, her knees hitting the floor as she quickly wiped away the tears, cursing Kapinski for not taking longer on the call. Nick, on the other hand, was pacing around in a panic, combing his hands through his hair until his neatly placed curls were knotted upwards.
“Shit, shit, shit. Shit!” Nick yelled, Ashley staring up at him with a freaked out expression, chest heaving up and down. He looked down at her quickly, before hitting his head harshly, going back to pacing. “It’s her… It’s her… It’s her…”
“It’s who, Nick?” Ashley rasped, getting up from her knees slowly, using the bed to lean on.
“Just– Just shut up, okay!?” Nick shouted at her, waving her off with a brief glare, eyes just as mad as that first time he had visited her in her room. Thinking for a few more seconds with some quieter utters that Ashley couldn’t hear, Nick stepped back over to the hatch. “I’ve got to go… fix this. Fix it, yes. I’ll just fix it. Fix it.”
“Nick, what happen–” Ashley tried to ask yet again, following after him, but Nick had climbed back down, slamming it over his head. She stamped her foot against the floor with a groan, putting her hands behind her head, not believing that she had been so close to escaping, in both ways of the word.
As her foot hit the floor, something else happened, and she swore, it made her heart stop. The hatch door lifted up the slightest amount, the lock not having been put in place. Ashley let out a low scoff, just out of pure shock, and she fell to her knees, not caring about how much it hurt, and pried her fingertips between the floor and the trapdoor, scratching at it until she got a grip. From there, she waited a few seconds.
She knew she had a way out. Holy shit, she had a way out. Her heart started beating in her chest again, breathing growing rapid, and she could barely hold back her excitement. Her lips were wide in a smile, tears swelling in her eyes yet again, and she couldn’t keep her body still. Her foot tapped against the floor, hands making rhythmic tapping on the wood and she pressed her ears to the boards, trying to hear for some sign that Nick was gone.
Ashley realized that she didn’t even know where she was. For all she knew, she might not even be in Sunnyvale, not even in Shadyside. She might be halfway across the country. Actually, no, that couldn’t be possible. Nick made weekly visits to her room, but even then, she could hear him in the rooms below, and sometimes he came twice a week or every other day. She had to be somewhere close to his house, somewhere people wouldn’t expect. As long as she was in the relative area, and things hadn’t changed too much since she was sixteen years old, Ashley could find her way around.
But there was the issue of her actually getting out of here, who the hell would she go to? Everyone thought she was dead. Everyone thought she had died eighteen years ago in a massacre that had rocked the county once again. She was the infamous only Sunnyvaler victim, and none of that was even true. But who would care? They believed that a witch was the reason for Shadyside’s misfortune, they didn’t even question that Nick Goode or that the whole Goode family were always on the side of good luck.
Sure, all these ideas and thoughts were interesting and potentially devastating for Ashley, but she had already decided on the first person she was going to see. She had decided it long before, back when she was sixteen and she asked to borrow Sheila’s lighter at the Hanging Tree. She would go and find Ziggy, and she knew she was going to still be in Shadyside, because Ziggy didn’t believe she would ever make it out. Hopefully, Ziggy also stayed put because she didn’t want to leave without Ashley, but that was just wishful thinking.
Pressing her ear closer to the floor, she couldn’t hear any movement and without thinking, she pulled the hatch upwards, dust billowing out with an echoing thump as it hit the wooden boards. She let out another uncontrollable laugh, looking down to see some metal stairs up to the hatch, looking new and the room below was extremely familiar. Her breath got stuck in her throat and it made her wish Nick had just taken her out with that pillow.
While, yes, she was happy that Nick had made the horrible mistake of not locking the hatch after him, this one time in eighteen years, Ashley wanted to throw herself out of that small window for not realizing where she was this entire time. Because below her was her father’s old study, still the same from 1978, but now everything was covered in dust, not used in a long time.
Her legs were shaking beneath her, the anticipation and naive excitement building up brick by brick inside her. The one thing she had wished for for days on end was about to become a reality, yet her brain continued to haunt her with terrible thoughts. Like, what if this was all some elaborate trap by Nick? He just wanted to torture her, after all, she wouldn’t it past him if he set this up just for some sick fun. But Ashley knew she had to try. She owed it to her sixteen year old self who broke herself to get out before giving up completely.
She took the stairs step by step, lowering her down from her eighteen year old prison, finally reaching the freedom she had forever hoped for. But that freedom wouldn’t come for at least another forty-five minutes. She had to find Ziggy first. Ashley let go off the sides of the hatch, leaving it open just to remind Nick when he finally realized that she had escaped because of his idiotic mistake. Her bare feet touched the carpet, it feeling so nice compared to the wooden floorboards she had been used to for so long, and Ashley never really believed she would be so grateful to be walking on carpet.
Taking one step at a time, Ashley walked past the computer sitting on her father’s old desk, the leather chair sat behind it, a spider spinning a web between the monitor and the back of the seat, and Ashley smiled at the purely common sight. She hadn’t seen a spider in a while, cobwebs sure, but this was a moving creature, one that was not her brother, but she could hardly call him a creature. That was a compliment, really. She walked past it, dragging her hands over every surface, wanting to touch everything like it would give her value, give her some more hope that this was really her escape, her chance, her freedom.
She gently touched the cold, gold handle on the office door, briefly closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before opening it up. She walked out and opened her eyes again, looking around and finding her childhood home revealing itself around her. She looked to her left and she could see the door to the bathroom, her parents room, and Nick’s room, and to her right, she could see the window out to the front of the house and the doors to her and Will’s old rooms. She didn’t know if Nick lived here now, or if he only kept it to keep Ashley in it, but no one else seemed to be open. Everything was quiet, and Ashley sighed.
Ashley began running down the hall, heading to the stairs. She hesitated by the banister, having the thought of returning to her childhood bedroom, but she decided against it. She couldn’t waste any time, not even to reminisce a bit. She needed to go and find Ziggy, warn her about Nick, about everything. She had come to the conclusion that the ‘her’ Nick had been muttering about was Ziggy, because only she would get him that worked up about something. It had been the same way he had reacted when he accidentally let slip that she was okay from his first visit to her in the bland room.
She took off down the stairs, the marble freezing up her feet, goosebumps all over her pale skin, but she ignored it, finding herself now in the entrance hall of her old home. There was a sound from the front of the house, a small beep and Ashley’s body tensed, head turning to find anywhere to hide, but when she looked out the large window on one side of the front door, she found red and blue lights shining in from a police vehicle sitting in the driveway. She caught sight of Nick sitting in the driver’s seat, knuckles white as he clutched the steering wheel. He hit it once more before turning the keys in the ignition and the siren blared down the street, wheels shrieking as he turned off down the road.
Ashley sighed in relief, leaning herself against the wall, letting her body relax once again. This meant Nick did in fact live here, because she knew her brother was too paranoid to leave his car out in front of a house he was keeping his sister, who was supposed to be dead, locked up in. It would look way too suspicious to passer’s by if Nick continuously visited his family home over and over again in a police car, so conclusion: Nick still lived in the Goode Manor.
She supposed it was left to him by mom, the woman having died when Ashley was twenty-five, but she didn’t care. Didn’t even shed a tear. Nick had told her she was a monster and left, but that didn’t even matter to her either. Who was he – a real monster – to tell her she was a bad person? No one, really. So, she didn’t care.
Pushing herself away from the wall, Ashley got herself back on track, still sneaking as if someone would jump out at her, and hurried up to the front door. She found some pairs of shoes there and she quickly stuffed her bare feet into them, the feeling confusing after not wearing shoes for a bigger part of her life, and then it came for the time to actually go outside. She decided she could only call herself free if she managed to step outside the door, and that time was coming. She smiled.
She walked up to the door, and she leant her hand on the doorknob before twisting her wrist, but it didn’t turn. It was locked. “Oh, for fuck’s sake! Really!?” She groaned, hitting her fist against the stupid wood, and she leaned her back against it, having to think of a different plan.
It came easily. She would just climb out a window. She walked up to the archway that led into the front room, everything looking the same as she had left it. Above the fireplace sat the family tree, something she didn’t look at, because, well, she had never really cared, but now things started to fall into place. At the top was Solomon’s name. The man who began this mess, and the man who indirectly killed her. God, if she was going to kill anyone, it would be him, but she guessed she could settle for Nick.
She scoffed at the family tree and walked up to the front window with her new shoes on, they were slightly big for her, but after eighteen years she wasn’t complaining. Ashley leaned across the window seat, finding the latch on the window, and she flicked it open, pushing it outwards. Now, that was easy. This house really needed more security. Taking a deep breath, Ashley grabbed either side of the glass, pulling herself up to the window before jumping out, tumbling down onto the grass and flowers below. It seemed Nick had been doing some gardening.
Laughing to herself, somewhat manically, Ashley jumped up, feeling adrenaline pulsing through her like a drug. She was finally outside, free as a fucking bird. And she was ready to fly. To anyone else, this would look like an extremely unsettling sight. A girl, pale as a ghost, a scar across her throat, laughing to herself, having just climbed out the front window of the Goode’s Manor, before heading down the street like any other citizen. But Ashley had stopped giving a shit what anyone else thought a long time ago, before she had been shackled in her own attic.
“Now to figure out where Ziggy Berman lives…” Ashley thought aloud, tucking her hands in her sweatpant pockets, barely registering that she was outside in the cold, bone-chilling breeze, the world around her full of every opportunity she could ever need, but she was focusing her brain on finding Ziggy. She needed to see her. She had to see her.
She racked her brain, and the memory came back easily. Since it was one of the last moments she had ever cared about to remember, it was something she came back to often. Ziggy had told her her exact address that night in the tree, and Ashley could not thank her enough.
“I lived on 3267 Witcham Lane…”
“You fucking genius, Ziggy Berman,” Ashley muttered to herself and she started to sprint down the road. She was fucking sprinting. In Sunnyvale. Her childhood home. And she was going to see her again. Ziggy Berman. The love of her life, who had blessed her for one day and attached herself to every thought after.