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Asher
Years ago, I met a skittish, blonde haired girl who couldn't trust a single fact in life because she thought the world was destined to turn on her. A year later, I got to know and accept that girl, the one who was quietly breaking out of her shell and turning into a woman who looked at the world with a little more hope. The year after that, I fell in love with her. She was brave and bright and treated the people in her life like precious gems. She held onto them as if a thief was just around the corner, plotting to take them away.
There were times that I thought about why she acted that way. I knew she had her scars when she first arrived in Overton. I thought she had a typical highschool sweetheart story: she was in love with the football star and then college and adult life broke them apart. In the last several weeks, I've learned more and more about her past and felt stupid for downplaying what happened to her. She had shitty parents, shitty boyfriends—yes, boyfriends, as in plural—and a shitty life.
Now, I struggled to hold onto the Sang I knew. The one who lived life with a bright smile and the one that was my best friend and soulmate. This Sang, the one that was standing in front of me, hands firmly planted on her hips as she implored me with eyes the color of spring to believe her, was hard to understand. This Sang had a past that I couldn't understand.
After all her dirty laundry had been aired—the Academy, her old team, her past with Volto—I tried to concentrate on the way I felt about her last night, when her bare skin was beneath my fingertips and her soft lips and incredible tongue were tangled with mine.
I didn't know how to process everything she just spilled. She used to be in an organization called the Academy. They helped struggling people by recruiting kids from broken homes and adults with their own big issues, training them in specialized fields like hacking and combat. They disguised themselves by blending in with the public. They kept their day jobs. They had their own families. It sounded like a fictional story concocted by a crazy person.
Sang looked dejected when the only thing I could do was stare. "I know it's a lot to take in, but everything I've said is true. All of it's in my past, and I haven't been involved since the moment I stepped on the bus to come here," she said.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked roughly. Secrets, secrets, and more secrets. "What else aren't you telling me?"
"That's it, I swear," she said with an earnest expression. "I didn't say anything because no matter what, I took an oath to keep the Academy a secret. Even though I didn't wish to be involved with them anymore, I truly believed they were doing good. I didn't know about the sex trafficking."
Volto cleared his throat and gave her a look. Sang blew out a breath and hung her head. "Okay, I knew about the sex trafficking, I just didn't know the Academy was involved." Her lips pressed into a thin line. "I only found out something like that was happening in Overton right after the Blackbourne team showed up. I decided to do a little digging of my own. The police already know about it because they're the ones that called the Academy in."
