Laconic » a.i

2.2

//ashton//

After shocked expressions, hugging, and tons of questioning, I was finally able to just sit Calum, Luke, and Jeremy down to explain the situation. They listened -- surprisingly without interrupting -- before Jeremy looked to his sister who sat on one of the two beds with me.

"And if you ever leave like that again-"

The glare she sent his way made Jeremy stop talking. I'd never seen Cooper be so hostile but I understood why she was acting that way; no one would listen to her. She was basically on her own between Luke being caught up with Emily, and Jeremy and Calum only caring about getting as far away from the hunters as possible. No one even stopped to consider how she was feeling.

"She asked if you were her mother." Luke snorted, but the grimace on Cooper's face didn't falter. She was still angry with Luke.

"So what do we do now?" Calum wondered, trying to steer the conversation in a different and more important direction than sibling rivalry.

Hey, we've come full circle.

"You're an idiot." Luke smiled at me, shaking his head.

"What?" Calum asked, looking between us.

"Nothing," I assured him. "Anyway, we need to get Michael out of there but I know he won't want to go without Annie. While she's safe there, he obviously doesn't trust the witches, so why would he want her there? But I don't know how we'd get either of them out of there."

"Your powers." Jeremy said in a "duh" tone.

I shook my head vigorously. I knew my powers still didn't affect anyone like Calum. I'd tried.

Calum gave an understanding nod, "We can figure something out; we're not leaving him behind."

"But are we still focusing on keeping Bridgette away from them?" I added in, trying to word it more like a question than a statement -- I didn't want to put thoughts and opinions and plans in their heads. I saw her look at me with a soft smile from the corner of my eye. "Besides being after me, they want her more than anyone here."

"They've been trying to find me for a while, though." Emily said.

"But I haven't heard any plans of them trying to erase you." I told her, trying not to sound like I was proud about shooting her down. After I've witnessed firsthand how Luke ignores his best friend over some girl, I've just grown to not like her despite the fact she's done nothing wrong.

"Let's just pack up and head somewhere else," Jeremy decided, standing up. "I hate this motel anyway."

I stood too, "Good, because I know the perfect place to go."

-

//cooper//

Luke didn't even apologize but he was acting like everything was okay and I'd never flipped out. Jeremy seemed to hate me again, and Calum was being neutral about everything like usual. Whatever, at least I had Ashton now.

We piled into the car, squeezing four in the back this time. Emily sat by the window, basically sitting on Luke's lap. Ashton was next to Luke with me squished in beside him. I gripped his large hand, our fingers tangled together as I laid my head on his shoulder. Ashton would direct Jeremy where to drive. It took a couple hours before Ashton finally said, "It's the blue house on the right". I sat up and saw our destination.

The house was small but had two floors. It was a dark pastel blue with white shutters and trim. It was actually really cute. Ashton didn't say who it belonged to, though, so I was curious to see who we'd be staying with.

"Whose place is this?" Jeremy asked as we all piled out of the car.

Ashton gave him an odd look as he tossed an arm around my shoulders. "Does it matter, though? We have a place to stay."

"Well it matters if we're staying in their house." he retorted.

Ashton walked passed him to the door, me walking beside him, "Not their's anymore."

The door was unlocked to my surprise. Looking around, it seemed empty. There were no sounds coming from anywhere in the house so I got kind of suspicious as to how Ashton "found" this house.

I turned to him and quietly asked, "What did you do?"

"Huh?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at me.

"How'd you get this house?"

He sucked in a breath through his teeth, scratching the back of his head, "Uh, considering I just found you and have you back, I'd rather not fuck it up by telling you how badly I fucked up."

I grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer to me, "I promised I wouldn't leave and I'm not breaking it again. Just tell me."

He stared down at his feet as he mumbled, "I had an episode and the family that lived here died."

I snorted a little, which made Ashton look at me in surprise. I just found it kind of ironic that every place I lived since we moved, someone had died inside. Jeremy committed suicide in mine, everyone in Luke's family died inside his, Emily died right outside her's, and now this place. We were just attracted to the murder houses.

"What?" he wondered as I laughed quietly.

I just shook my head since my brother had walked in with Calum right behind him. Luke and Emily strolled in together, their hands intertwined. I tried not to make a face at them even though I had subconsciously grabbed Ashton's hand too. Maybe I just hated couples that didn't involve me. Or maybe I just hated Emily because Luke was giving her all his attention. Either way, their hand holding made me angry.

"So who lives here?" Calum asked as he looked around.

"No one," Ashton shrugged. "They were old family friends who moved away and gave me the house because I said both of my parents were gone."

"Liar." Luke coughed.

Ashton rolled his eyes and laughed, "Forgot I need my sunglasses again since I'll be around all of you."

I tugged on Ashton's arm to get him to look at me. He met me with curious eyes as he awaited what I wanted. I glanced up to ask if we could go upstairs and get settled. I hadn't seen Ashton in forever and honestly just wanted to be alone with him to catch up more.

"Yeah," he nodded. I was kind of surprised he knew so easily what I was asking, but he had also had to find other ways to communicate for a long time. He turned back to the group. "I'll take Bridge upstairs to get settled. Would everyone mind meeting back in the living room in a few hours to discuss plans?"

"Sounds good." Calum nodded with a smile before Ashton led me down the hall and up the stairs.

There were three rooms upstairs and a bathroom -- that was going to be a pain in the ass to share. Ashton let me look in all of the rooms before I decided on the only one at the other end of the hall, and it was also closer to the bathroom. I made sure to leave the other two doors open so they'd know which one was occupied. I just didn't want any of them walking in on Ashton and I if we happened to be making out or something.

"I'm going to assume Jeremy and Calum will be taking the room with bunk beds." I chuckled as I sat down on the end of the bed.

"They had twin boys," Ashton said nonchalantly as he sat down beside me, his hand on my thigh. He let out a deep sigh. "Just like back home."

"Yeah." I nodded. Too bad it's not home.