[ 45 ] 1963

-

"Take care of yourself, Ashton. Please." 

-

Ashton couldn't enjoy his meal after his friends left, though Claire seemed happy about them having left. They slid his plate of food in front of him and he just looked down at it, suddenly at a loss of his appetite. "Can I get this to go please?" He asked the waitress before she walked away. She nodded and took their plates with her.

"To go?" Claire eyed him. "We came to have a nice night."

"I'm not having such a great night, kitten." Ashton admitted to her. The last thing he wanted was to start an argument with her, but he also didn't want her to think the things she was doing were okay. Taking a breath to steel himself, he began, "I don't like the way you treat my friends, and I'm going to have to ask you to treat them better next time."

Claire gasped at his words. Never in their whole relationship had he said something like this to her. He was always letting her do whatever she wanted. "Are you trying to tell me you care more about your friends than me?"

He shook his head. "That's not it. They don't mistreat you, so why do you mistreat them?"

"Because I don't like them." She responded.

"Okay," He sighed, "I understand that you can't always like everyone. But there is a way to treat people, and I'm thinking maybe your parents didn't teach you  those ways."

"Watch the way you speak to me. I'm your wife." She warned him.

"I'm starting to think we may have rushed into this marriage, Claire." Ashton said sadly. He was in love with Claire, but he was coming to realize there were some things about her that he didn't like. He thought she could change and learn to accept his friends, or at least treat them right. But he had been wrong.

Her eyes narrowed into a glare. "Ashton, if you're thinking of leaving me, you'd better think again because I'm not letting you go." Or not letting go of his money, she thought to herself. The blonde found consolation in the fact that Con was planning something, and Ashton would probably not live to see another day.

The waitress soon returned with two paper bags, one with Ashton's food and the other with Claire's. Upset at their small argument, she said nothing and walked back to the waiting car outside the restaurant. Just as Bobby promised, there was a driver waiting to take them home. He took Claire home first and then Ashton, but as soon as they dropped Claire off, the hazel eyed boy asked the driver, "Can you take me to Con's house?"

He nodded and dropped Ashton off there. 

The walked back home wouldn't be too long anyway. He knocked on the front gates and a guard came to the door. "Good night Mr. Irwin," He greeted. "Are you here to see Mr. Hood?"

Ashton shook his head. "I'm here to see Ann."

Since Claire hadn't eaten her food, he hadn't either, and he knew Ann didn't go out much due to her delicate pregnancy, he thought he could have dinner with her and keep her company. He had heard from Ann that Con often arrived late at night and sometimes didn't even sleep in the same bed with her because he said he didn't want to hurt her, as though she needed all the space in their bed.

The guard let Ashton in the house and took him all the way up the drive way in one of their small security carts. 

There, he opened the front door and went to find Ann. She was in the master bedroom, laid in bed, and she smiled when she saw the door open. Her smile dropped a bit when she saw that it was Ashton. "Bonjour, Ashton." She said with a small wave of her hand.

"Hey Ann," He grinned. "How are you feeling?"

"Lonely." She admitted truthfully.

Raising both white paper bags in his hands, he said with a smile, trying to cheer her up, "Well, I've got dinner. And you know what they say: a full stomach leads to a happy heart." (A/N: turn up if you've heard the saying before. "barriga llena, corazon contento" ^.^)

She laughed slightly. "Where do you come up with these sayings?"

"Bobby told me this one." Ashton informed her. "It was in Spanish, but he translated it for me." He cut the distance between himself and her bed, and plopped himself down on it. "Sorry if I get crumbs all over your sheets, Annie."

He handed her one of the bags, while she shook her head. "Don't worry. Someone can clean them in the morning. Its just nice to have someone to talk to."

-

By the time they finished their food, it was a half hour before midnight and he knew he had to get home. Ann had offered to have one of the drivers take him, but he didn't want to bother anyone. It was late and the workers were probably asleep. He also thought a walk would help him think things over. 

Had he made the right decision when he chose to be with Claire?

As he walked the path that led to the front of the house, he thought there was something strange. And he was more on edge about what Ann said to him before he left.

"Take care of yourself, Ashton. Please." She told him. 

She didn't know of Con and Claire's plan, but she felt uneasy letting Ashton go home by himself. She would have gone with him, but she wasn't allowed to get out of bed, and so he left her house that night. 

When he reached the front of the house, he saw that all the lights were off. This was not unusual, since it was well past midnight now and his family was probably asleep now. What he noticed was different was that the porch lights were off. It was a small detail, but it was enough to let him know something was not right. His parents always left the porch light on when Ashton was out late. And he would always have to turn them off when he went in the house.

He made his way into the house slowly, carefully. If there was someone in the house, he wanted to get to the nearest phone to call the police. 

Ashton made his way up the stairs and saw that his parents' bedroom was open. Another thing he noticed was not right. They always closed their door at night. From the hallway, he could see two dining room chairs in the room, and his parents were in each of them. 

From the bottom of the stairs, he heard footsteps sneaking around and hushed voices, as well as noises of people grabbing things. 

He hurried to his parents' room to see them tied to the dining room chairs and their mouths were covered with a gag. Her mother's eyes widened in worry when she saw her oldest son. There was also a fear in her eyes as they darted under the bed. Harry and Lauren crawled from under there and hugged Ashton tight.

"Ashton, some men entered the house." Lauren cried. "They're looking for us."

Ashton pulled the gag away from his mother's mouth. Her voice came out in a hurried whisper as she gave him instructions. "Ashton, take your brother and sister, and get out of here right now."

"I can't leave without you." Ashton refused.

"There's no time." She told him. "Your father and I will stay here. But you three need to go."

It was a difficult decision to make. To leave his parents behind, but to save his siblings. In the end, he decided he would try to do as he was told. "I'll take my brother and sister to Claire's house. Then I'll call the police and we'll come save you." He promised, hugging his mother one last time. He then went to hug his dad.

With one last look at his parents, Ashton rushed his siblings out of the room. He knew they couldn't go downstairs. The robbers were there, ransacking the house.

Instead, he led them down the hall towards his bedroom. He had a plan. While the robbers were down stairs, he and his siblings could climb down from the balcony. 

When they entered his bedroom, he told them to hide behind the mirror in his room while he grabbed something from the closet. They were a bunch of sheets, which he tied together to form a makeshift rope. He would tie that to the rails on the balcony and then they could climb down. 

Just as he was about to head for the balcony, he heard footsteps climbing the stairs. In a hurry, he moved the mirror aside and hid with his siblings behind it. It was dark in the room, and they wouldn't be able to find the siblings hiding behind the mirror unless they turned a light on. The footsteps became faint as they headed for the master bedroom, where his parents were sitting.

Ashton reached into his pocked and grabbed a switch blade, pushing it open. He quickly began to carve his initials and the year. "If someone comes to help us, they'll know we were here." He said to Lauren and Harry.

Once the footsteps went silent, he emerged from behind the tall mirror and walked towards the balcony. As he was securing his rope made of bed sheets to the railing of the balcony, he heard footsteps close behind him. Before he even had time to respond, one of the robbers had hit him in the back of the head, knocking him unconscious.

It was something immediate, and Ashton fell to the ground, everything went black.

-

the next chapter will also be a flashback chapter. there are about seven more chapters for this book to end and i'm so happy you have all liked this book. thank you for getting phantasm to 304K reads. it means a lot!

question of the day: which is your favorite non-princess disney movie? ^.^ mine is wreck-it-ralph. its so funny and cute. and its just a good movie to watch. i had another one in mind, which is at a par with wreck-it-ralph, but i just can't remember which one it was. but yeah.

thank you all for reading and voting. i still owe some of you dedications. i know. and i'm working on getting a printed copy of MITM to raffle off. so stay tuned.

i love youuuuuu.

-clary xx