Ash's Darling | ✔

Chapter 20

~Ashton~

Esther was awake only long enough to see the floating lantern scene. She fell asleep again after the scene was over and I turned off the movie and carried her upstairs into my bed, tucking her under the covers.

Turning around, I left her sleeping in my room while I went back downstairs to grab my phone from the couch and call the chief of police without waking Esther. I don't want anyone letting Matthew Aldine go before we can lock him up for good.

When Esther first told me everything that had happened to her I wanted to go back to the station and do every single thing that she described, to Aldine. He deserves to die a slow and fucking painful death for hurting her.

Picking up my phone, I scrolled through the contacts until I found 'George Blayney'. I dialed the number and waited for him to pick up. After a few rings, his gravelly voice came from the other end. "Dalloway. How's she doing?"

"She's better. She's sleeping right now, but I need to talk to you."

"Go ahead."

"Matthew Aldine is much worse than we all thought." I was going to keep talking but before I could, George's voice cut me off.

"What are you talking about, Dalloway? We've already found out he stalked a few other teenage girls too so what else is there?"

"How many of the girls he stalked went missing?"

George paused before answering. "I don't know, that's not something we looked into. At least not yet. Why?"

"Aldine stalked Esther for weeks and then kidnapped her and tortured her in an abandoned warehouse for 4 days. Apparently when she was found, he and his friends were long gone and they were never caught. I want to know how many other girls he tortured after stalking them."

"So you're telling me he had others in on this too?"

"From what Esther told me, yes. I don't know their names nor do I have a description but I know there were at least two friends that helped Aldine torture her." I knew I needed to get more details out of her if the police were going to catch his friends but I didn't want to make her relive those memories anymore than she already had.

I heard a muffled voice talking to George but I couldn't hear what they were saying. "Alright I'll be there in a second." He responded to them before addressing me again. "I have to go, call me if she gives you any other information." Before I could respond he hung up to go do whatever he needed to.

I slipped my phone into my pocket and walked upstairs to my room so I could check on Mae. Opening my door, I found her sleeping soundly still tucked under my grey comforter. She was laying on her side, facing the door I had just walked through. I laid my phone on my dresser as I walked to the other side of the room and slipped into bed behind Mae. Pulling her closer to me, I instantly relaxed. Somehow whenever she's around me all of my problems disappear. She's an angel. An angel who didn't deserve anything that happened to her. It kills me that someone like Matthew Aldine would choose someone so innocent to ruin.

She never did anything to deserve all that yet it still happened to her. A gut feeling I had was telling me that that wasn't all that's happened in her life. After all, she currently has a black eye and a bruised stomach. I'm not going to quit asking about it until she tells me who decided to lay their damn hand on her and then I'm going to do to them what they did to her.

I was thrown out of my thoughts as Mae stirred in her sleep and turned around to me, grabbing my shirt and hiding her face in my chest. I kissed the top of her head and ran my fingers soothingly through her soft brown hair. Her breathing started to come out in short labored breaths and I could tell she was starting to have a nightmare. "Darling, it's okay." I quietly reassured her. "I'm right here, you're safe." I hugged her tighter to my chest hoping it would somehow calm her down. "You're okay, I've got you, darling. It's just a dream, it's not real."