Ashley's Asylum (3)

02| Ashleys Asylum

The sun was setting, the surface of the world gradually going cold. People were going about their business doing ordinary things; arriving home, cooking dinner and bathing children. Normal things. From the back seat of a car on a random road a young, tired-eyed girl sat watching the world fly by. Every passing minute felt like a grain of sand falling in an hourglass to her and at any moment her time could be up.

This girl had a name, it was Ashley.

A short while ago she was doing something normal too, she was among friends at a party; it had been her leaving party.

Ashley had tried to cut herself loose from a job that was slowly devouring her soul, a job that involved working with serious criminals who were mentally unsafe to carry out their prison sentences in an ordinary prison environment. Her job had involved many things; none of which had been real in the end. Ashley had blindly enjoyed her work at first until bad things seemed to happen one after another, people got hurt and she felt by leaving bad things would stop happening. She had been wrong. Through trying to leave the worst thing of all had happened. People were dead now and in an indirect way, she'd killed them. The bad times didn't stop there, people were dead and more people were going to die, girls mainly, and she still didn't even know why.

Ashley rubbed her tired eyes. She was the worst psychologist in the world. There was a reason youths couldn't work in Asylum's and high security institutes, a reason why years of study and experience was required before you could jump into a pool with the big fish. She'd been swimming with sharks this entire time and now she was ensnared within the jaws of two very dangerous ones.

Michael Wilton and Samuel Hanz, two infamous serial killers who laid waste to the police department for a few years. They killed dozens of young girls and a few who had clearly been in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were sat in the two front seats of the car; Michael was driving and Sam was taking a rest. There was nothing normal about this moment. Ashley doubted she'd ever truly experience a normal moment ever again.

Remaining silent had been the safest thing to do and so she'd barely uttered a word and neither had they. In the time since they'd continued on their journey, Ashley had surveyed the car and thought deeply about the events that had recently passed.

A discarded briefcase on the floor in the back revealed to her this was David's car which explained why the keys were left ready in the ignition making the grand escape so smooth and ultimately possible. It confirmed to her that it had all been planned. Michael had confessed to the conspiracy involving her employment because he predicted she'd leave because of it. Ashley made herself into the perfect shield. It was almost laughable how clear it all was. Almost.

With friends and family present the security and emergency police backup couldn't just shoot Ashley when Michael and Sam used her as a shield. Taking out a hostage on purpose would have caused havoc for the police department. A single shot to make a flesh wound would have sufficed but there had been a moment of indecision amongst the first responders, she understood that, they realised they couldn't shoot and stopped to think. Hesitation had been all Michael and Sam had needed. The ordeal was over in seconds.

What Ashley couldn't work out was how her patients escaped from the secure basement where all inmates were locked up. No matter how she visualised the moment neither Michael or Sam had the means to escape. The security on site couldn't have been available for David to bribe otherwise no alarms would have been set off, the security team wouldn't be dead and the boys could have made a sneaky exit without anyone knowing till it was too late. Even if Sam or Micheal managed to grab a hold of one guard for his keys all guards were armed with taser guns and other equipment. Her mind couldn't comprehend how they had managed to escape.