Her Absolution

Chapter 13

“She f*****g said what?”

    Ashton does not look calm or relax or happy. He is piss off, for whatever reason. Marcus was pretty angry too but not like Ashton. Ashton was on another level all together. Ashton took one more look at me and said:

“You don’t have to worry about anything. I’ll take care of it.”

    After that he left the room inside the locker room with Marcus after him. Take care of what? I look at Sarah with panic in my eyes. I stood up and went after them, wanting to stop Ashton for doing anything stupid. Why would he take care of anything for me? He turned around stopping me in my tracks. His blue eyes are looking at me, with an emotion I can’t figure out.

“Stay here in the locker room. Don’t you dare go outside Autumn. Grandad is on his way.”

“Okay.” 

    My voice came out as a whisper, surprising myself and Ashton. He touch my left hand with his right one, holding it. He wasn't letting go.

“Good. I’ll make sure she doesn't bother you again. She messed with the wrong person.”

    Letting go of my hand he moves to the door once again and leaves, I presume going back to the field. Sarah comes next to me, and I help her to the bed thing. We stay there for 30 minutes when we heard the door open. I got up to check who it was since we are in the boys locker room. It was an old man in a police uniform. He was 5'7", with blonde hair but you can see that some of it is white, a muscular body and blue eyes. Those eyes remind me of someone else eyes. This must be Ashton's grandfather. 

    He sees us and walks to us with two other police officers. He smiles at us and introduce himself and the other officers. The officers look young but not fresh out of the academy young. Their names are Isabella Reuther and Jimmy Bardolino. From her last name I know she must be coach’s daughter or at least a family member. We introduced ourselves to them, but Captain Mercer hold his hand up, stopping us from talking.

“It’s okay girls, Ashton explain everything. And I know who you are Autumn. Don’t worry about the situation, me and my officers will handle it. You girls stay here until Ashton comes back.”

“Where is he?”

“Taking care of business.” 

It was officer Bardolino who spoke this time. Business? What is this some kind of mafia thing or something? Where was Ashton? And what is he doing?

“Don’t worry girls. Mercer will crush them.” 

This time it was the officer related to coach who spoke.

“Them?” 

Sarah had the same question as me.

“Yeah. Ashton is giving the other team hell. They mess with you and the team. Someone has to put them in place. Ashton is the one to do it.”

    What is going on here? I’m getting a headache from all this thinking. Maybe the brunette hit my face more than I thought. Captain Mercer leaves the locker room and the officers stayed with us. 50 minutes later Marcus and the rest of the team enter the locker room. Where is Ashton?

“Marcus. Where's Ashton?”

“Dealing with prick Martin.”

“What? Why? He did nothing. It was the brunette girl.”

“Nope. The prick is getting what he deserves. Apparently it was a plan by Martin. He told the brunette girl, who by the way is his punt bunny, to find you and start a fight with you.”

“I f*****g knew it. You can tell by the way she dressed herself.” 

    Sarah and her opinions and her mouth. But she was sitting behind us. How could she know who I was or were I was going to be? I got there after her.

“What do you mean she was to find me and fight with me? And how does she knew it was me?”

“That I don’t know. That’s all he told us Autumn. We kick there butts out in the field. We won.”

    I went straight to the entrance not even bother by the boys showering and changing their clothes. I’m going to find Ashton. It does not matter if his grandfather is the police captain he could kill someone. Ashton is the kind of guy that looses his temper rather easily. I exited the locker room and the halls from where we came from almost 3 hours ago. I hear some grunts and something hitting something. That doesn't sound good. I went in the direction of the noises and find myself a few feet away from Martin and Ashton, fighting. Well more Ashton beating him to a pulp. 

    Martin was on the floor and Ashton was kicking him in the stomach, hard. Then he went to crunch in front of Martin and started to punch his face repeatedly. If he doesn’t stop he will put him in a coma or kill him. And neither is good for him, I'm refering to Ashton. If what Marcus told me is truth then Martin deserves it. 

“Ashton! STOP IT.”

    He doesn't stop. He keeps hitting Martin in the face. I don't know if he isn't hearing me or is just ignoring me or tunning me out.

“LET HIM GO.”

    Still the same. Ashton keeps hitting Martin, moving from the face to his upper body. This time with my voice lower not even bother to scream anymore I told him stop.

“Please.”

    He heard that. He stops punching Martin and stands up turning to me. He sees the plead in my eyes and heard it in my voice. His hands were red and bleeding. His face is also bruised, it’s blue and there is dried blood in the right corner of his mouth. Oh my goddess. His eyes are the same color but darker, how is that possible? I walk towards him, and he steps back. I stop not expecting him to move away from me. Martin rolls on the ground and starts to stand up.

“Get out of here Martin. Before I let him beat you again. This time to a comma.”

    Martin finally stands up and looks at us one more time and then runs, more like wooble, out of the field. Ashton stares at me. Is that fright I see in his eyes? I started walking again to him but he again steps back. It’s like he wants to keep me away.

“Ashton it’s okay. I know you are not going to hurt me. I want to see your injuries. Your knuckles are bleeding.”

    He looks at his hands seeing them with all kind of colors and bleeding. This time he comes to me, stopping a feet away from me. I take his left arm with my right hand standing beside him. We started walking back to the boys locker room when Captain Mercer appears in front of us. He sees Ashton hurt, knowing he was in a fight.

“Don't worry about the chick pressing charges, I talk her out of it. Boy what happened? Where is the Martin kid?”

“ She's not going to press charges against Sarah and Autumn because it was her fault. He wanted to hurt Autumn to stop the game. Because he knew that they would not have won.”

“Boy what does the game have to do with Autumn?”

“Exactly, what’s going on?”

“Last night I was at a party. In the party I heard someone speaking about Autumn and how she has been cozying up to me after school. I didn’t pay attention to it because I though it was gossip. After Marcus and I left you girls in the locker room and went to the field, Kenneth stop and told me something. He said that the girl that was fighting with you and Sarah he heard her last night at the party talking with Martin. That Martin ask her to find you and to hurt you.”

“Why would he do that? And why me? I mean I haven’t done anything to him or her. This is bullshit. I apologize for my language Captain.”

“It’s okay child. You can cuss all you want. So he did this to stop the game. He must have a lot of pressure from his school.”

“I don't care. That doesn't give him the right to do this.”

Ashton looks at me. He is giving me a smirk, so hot. I guess his impressed with my mini outburst.

“Autumn does Martin goes to the kids school by any chance?” 

Why would he asked me that? But now that I think about it I guess he does. 

“Boy why are you asking her that? And what kids, the triplets?”

“Grandad, Ruby is Autumn’s sister.”

“Oh, I get it. Sorry, go on.”

“Yes he goes by there. He has to pass it to get to his house from his current school, Brinch. Why?”

“Because I think that is how everything is put together. He must have seen us this week talking while picking the kids.”

“And since you haven’t been to practice to pick the triplets he must have thought that Autumn is a distraction to you from your responsabilities and that she must be important to you. If seeing her fighting some other girl, you will go instantly to the rescue, make a fuss out of it and make it, so the game is forfeit. Clever boy, but not that clever not to a Mercer. Good job boy. I’m proud of you.”

    When the Captain congratulated Ashton for doing good and he saw the proudness in his grandfather's eyes Ashton smiled at him. It was a genuine smile not the ones he give to others, this one reach his eyes. But I guess the Captain was right, Ashton made a little bit of a fuss and came to my rescue but it didn't got to forfeit the game. That's something Martin didn't see coming. 

“Thanks grandad. Only doing what is right.”

    I didn’t say anything to them. I let them talk about it more, tuning them out. I was hurt that Martin would do something like this to someone he knows just because of a game, he knew that with Ashton on the team he would not win. Where did the Martin that me and my brother knew went? What happened to him? My brother even if he always came second to Ashton he never ever colluded to do something like this, he gave his best and if he lost he did it with dignity. I think it’s the first time that I am glad that Asher is not here. To see how a friend became, how that friend treated his friend sister, and what he resorted to for a game.

“Can we go inside? You weigh a ton. And you need to get those bruises clean.”

    Captain Mercer moves to the side letting us pass. I hold Ashton by the arm, and he walks sometimes looking at me. I never should have come to this game. I should have stay home and watch movies on Netflix. I think I just dug myself more into his life and him to mine.