The Sanctuary✔️

11

The silence in the air was somewhat harsh as the two sat just two feet apart from each other in Gabriel's car, an extremely nice car at that.

"I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry Ashley, none of this was your fault." Gabriel's voice was calm, collected, and sweet even for himself.

"Yes it was. I made John mad. I made him mad and he gets like this, I-I shouldn't have let him leave the apartment. I-I could have stopped this-" Ashley says as she looks at the floor in defeat.

"-Ashley, if you were to let him stay in that apartment, who knows what he would have done to you. This is not your fault. None of this is, he decided to get intoxicated, he decided to hurt you, he decided to come here and do this. He put everything on himself, not you. You are not in control of him, and he is not in control of you."

But he is. He always has been.

"Don't worry about anything that happened at Sanctuary, insurance will pay for everything. I just want you to focus on yourself for a few days Ashley. None of this is your fault."

Looking out the window with tears threatening her for the millionth time tonight, Ashley refused to cry. Not here, not in front of her boss who is making sense and being extremely nice to her.

For the first time in five years, she was seeing clearly. She was starting to see how bad this really was, how bad John really is. And it was painful.

It broke her heart, having to know that this is what everything has come to. That for five years he has been using her for his own pleasure and ways. A pain in her chest was telling her that she still cares fo him, that he needs her, he needs help that only she could give, that she should care for him because he loves her.

But her mind says otherwise. Torn between each and every thought, she can't help but feel sorry, for everyone and everything. For herself and John, and though she wants to help him with everything to get better, she knows that she needs the help too.

And that was something John could and never did provide her. And in order to help him and others she needed help herself, she needed to fix her self.

And that was the one thing she saw so clearly tonight.

"Ashley, do not beat yourself up over this. Okay?" Looking over at her during a red light, Gabriels face is illuminated by other cars and the red lights around him, making Ashley get lost for a moment.

When she regained her thoughts as the light turns green, she smiled and attempted to think right. "I-I'll try."

And back to the silence. Back to her home where pretty much everyone was waiting outside by their cars, even Billy was there seeing as he refused to go home with Ashley like this.

Seeing as he was papa bear of the group, he needed to make sure she could handle herself with Danny for the few hours left in the night. Everyone was worried for her, not even thinking of themselves.

Marco and Billy has called their partners to tell them what was going on, vaguely at that. Danny was pacing in the parking lot as Jack sat on top of Billy's truck, swinging his legs in the air as they waited for Gabriel's car to pull into the lot.

"Do you think she'll talk about it? Like...to the cops?" Jack, curious and tired, asked in hopes to lift the veil of worry that was weighing them all down.

"I don't know. I hope she will."

"I highly doubt she will. John has threatened her for years now guys. He's threatened me for years just for being around Ashley." Turning to face the group, Danny stops pacing for a moment to talk. Watching how everyone shifts at the sound of his name. "He has her hooked onto him, she doesn't see how this relationship they have is so fucking wrong."