Hidden Pain

Chapter 20: Never Ending Names

 *Luke's P.O.V.*

"Go away you want me to trust you when you won't trust me." She puts her hand in front of my face. I try the thing any wolf would do if their mate was having trust issues. I lean forward and nudge her hand to my cheek.

"I'm sorry. I do trust you." I nudge her hand silently with my cheek. She waits a moment debating what to do before she pulls away. She looks into my eyes and I hers.

"Okay." She mumbles under her breath. I reveal the doorway in my eyes as she stares into my soul with her violet orbs.

"Come here." I lift her up easily and more gentle knowing shes in some pain. Even if she won't admit it. She still whimpers, breaking my heart with each whimper. Just like earlier when she got in my car I pretend not to hear. I take her deeper into the forest walk to my tree house. I made it when I was a teen pup.

"Whoa." She stares up at my beautiful two story treehouse. It has a tree for main support, stilts for more support along with beams. The wood is painted like bark and is hidden in a forest of leaves. There are wooden steps that spiral around the tree. Around the area the trees are really thick so my tree house blends in well. It's more height than width.

"You like it?" I ask cockly and start up the spiral stairs. Once inside I set her on my couch and I run to the kitchen.

"Did you eat breakfast?" I ask. I've notice something different in her diet because since I've last seen her, she was already sickly skinny. Now though she pale and you can feel her rib cage even more.

"No." She whispers out of human earshot. "Yeah I ate before I left." She laughs.

"Do you want an apple with peanut butter?" I ask walking into the room with a warning look.

"I'll just have apple because I'm deadly allergic to peanut butter." Her voice holds truth, but I'm unsure. I bring in apple slices for her and I to share.

"Thank you." She says taking a slice.

"No problem, you promised me answers though." I say looking at her as she nibbles the apple lightly.

"What do you want to know?" She lets out a small sigh under her breath, but keeps a smile on her face.

"Why were you at John's?" I ask not wasting time.

"He demanded court the day we left you in my room. We had scheduled a week from that day, but he bribed the judge. Jenna lost custody of me on the week except Monday. Four days straight with John and three with Jenna." Ashley shivered when she said she has four days with John.

"Why was Jenna so mad at your notebook?" I ask as I keep digging.

"Where is it?" She frantically says.

"I got it." I get up and walk to my backpack and grab the notebook.

"Can I see it?" She asks.

"It's yours isn't it? I haven't looked threw it I swear." I say joking at the first sentence. I hand her the book and she smiles at me.

"Thanks. You see this picture?" She scoots closer to me with whimpering and opens the book to the third page.

"Wow its beautiful." I say and examine the drawing of a fiery rose in water with stem going up where the fire meets the water in the vase.

"My real mom drew it. I was five. She was teaching me." Her voice cracks a little but she tries to hide it. "Now see this?" she flips five pages showing a beautiful woman in her late thirties. She had black shiny hair her eyes were just like Ashley's. The woman was hugging a little girl with soft burgundy hair in pigtails. The girl was about twelve in the image. The girls had the same eyes. They were eating ice cream in a very detailed park. The woman was placing a soft kiss on the girls head.

"This what my mom saw in my future. She loved eating ice cream." Her voice was shaking and braking as she choked back a sob. "Now look at this page." She turned one last page. A woman with black hair, the same woman in the other pictures, lay on a bed. Fire ignited her room and body as it danced on her features.

"I ran to save her when lady told me, but I wasn't fast enough. I let my mommy go up in flames before my eyes. The lady told me death was yet to come for me. I relive that moment when I lost my world every second I close my eyes. There's no escaping. Music only helps with physical pain, but it has no effect on something that scarred me from the day I was nine. The day my house went in flames was on my ninth birthday. Then on my tenth birthday my orphage went in flames, along with a different orphanage when I was eleven. When I turned twelve I tried to stay away from people so they didn't get burned. That's when I met him. We didn't tell each other out real names, but we had nicknames. He called me Ivy Frost because he said that it meant faithfulness, beauty, and that it was associated with winter. I called him Jack Frost because he loved winter as much as I did. I called him Jack also because Jack was the name of my crush Jack Frost in an old movie. I think it was called The Guardians or something like that." Ashley sighs.

"What happened to him?" I ask my face a look of wonder

"He made be believe I wasn't cursed. He took my bad luck from me and it got him killed the night of my thirteenth birthday. He was trapped in his room when a fire started in the kitchen at night. I woke up when it was too late. His room was above the kitchen and mine the three halls down. He kept screaming my name. I was burned as I made it to his room when I got there though the screams were gone and so was he." Ashley sighs shaking.

"Then what's bad about the notebook?" I ask still wondering something.

"Here flip through these pages." She hands me the notebook and stands up. I look down at the notebook. I see a graveyard on the page. The names on the graves are truly heartbreaking. I flip through the pages and the names go on and on.

Addison Miller, Johnny Nathathal, Noeland Sam, Nevil Sam, Navada Sam, Cassadra Phillip, Katie Fisher, Cacey Fisher, Abigail Grace, Jackson Engle, Adalyn Turner, Jamie Smith, Jacob Robert, Kieth Huegh, Aquamarine James, Violet Rose, Darcie White, Damian White, Dylan White, Enzo Porter. The list is endless but one name in particular catches my eye. Jackie Frost. I flip to the last page she told me to look at.

I see a brown haired thirteen year old. He had vibrant green eyes, but they were filled with horror. His expression was covered in fear. I could see the flames he was looking at. The page had fire around the edges. The boy was standing in front of a door with a small hole. The hole had a crying small violet pair of eyes. The boy had tears streaked down his face as he tried getting through the door. His left arm was burned along with patches of his clothes.

"Thats Jack. He was so scared and all I could do was watch."