Succession at Seventeen

Chapter 6

Ashley

That week had been especially rough for Ashley. It started out the same as any other but when she got to school on Monday morning both Diana and Jeremy were absent. She wondered where they had gone with her car but she didn’t worry about it yet, Jeremy did promise he’d have it back to her. She went on with her day until Math. Collegiate Algebra is hard enough to learn when you have the time and concentration but five minutes in she got an alarming text from her mother. It said simply "Call me baby. It's important."

When she did end up calling after class she got a shock. Ashley's only older sister, Mara, had moved out to Blackhawk almost a decade ago leaving Ashley as the acting eldest. Mara had been only as abusive as any other elder sibling but she'd run away leaving her with all the responsibility and hadn't stuck around for any resolution. As a result Ashley wasn't exactly sure how to feel about her. So when her mother broke down over the phone about Mara's miscarriage she was too shocked to feel anything about it. She hadn’t even Known that she was pregnant. It was a good thing she couldn’t feel anything because her entire family was devastated. Ashley spent the rest of the day numb.

When she got home she heard, between sobs, that the situation had gotten worse. The family had only gotten the call from her idiot of a husband Keith after he'd brought her home and, needing some support after losing his child, he'd left to the bar. He'd also left a postpartum depressive woman alone. When he came back she was gone.

Ashley was the only one who was level headed enough to call the police, in Blackhawk, to find her sister and the only one numb enough to take care of her distraught family. When the emotion found her that night staring out her window at the stars she'd cried so hard she felt she would die of it. Only sleep stopped her sobbing.

The next day she really, desperately, needed a good friend to talk to, but again both of her best friends were missing. She tried but she couldn't bring herself to talk about anything so serious with the airheaded boys more interested in banging her than in hanging with her. Later that day the police called her about her car left in the parking lot at the Rec Center. Thankfully she had a spare set of keys. It was a long, lonely series of bus rides going to get it.

Wednesday morning broke with her father waking her a few minutes early to tell her that Mara had been found passed out in the casino she worked at as a waitress. When they got her to the hospital it was determined to be an overdose and she was in a coma. The chemical she'd used put her into a reversible coma, that was the good news. The bad news was that it would be a week before they could start the treatment for depression she so desperately needed. Worse still they weren’t sure they could afford it.

Then it was Thursday morning and both Diana and Jeremy were still gone and after a call from Diana's terrified mother and Jeremy's cool-but-concerned father the possibility that they were both gone for good became real. She'd never felt so alone. She needed someone, something.

She decided she was going to get alcohol. Maybe one of the horndogs would do it for her if she let them think they would score.

Diana

Diana heard a heavy thunk of something sticking in wood. She opened her eyes slowly, cautiously. The thing was gone.

In a panic she looked around to find it stuck to the tree beside her with a knife so big it could have been a short sword still vibrating from the impact in it. She snapped her head back the way the blade came from and there was Markus. He was on his side head propped up on one hand while his other lowered from throwing position. And he was smiling. He was smiling the most frustrating, irritating, and smug little smirk.

"Would you look at that, I missed the rat." He said

"What?" Diana asked, mind addled by spent Adrenalin