With so many people watching over her, Ashley found herself with little to do but rest.
Now that her real family had co forward, Ace and the others went to the police station to formally report her identity, presenting the necessary docunts to support their claim.
Apollo personally handled the remaining procedures, ensuring everything was settled cleanly so the investigators would no longer need to question Ashley or press her about Clarissa’s disappearance.
Still, they gave their word that if Ashley rembered anything, they would inform the authorities imdiately.
In the end, the police didn’t make things difficult for them. Satisfied with the docuntation and their cooperation, they approved Ashley’s transfer and withdrew the officers stationed outside her ward.
With everything arranged, the atmosphere around her finally eased. And just like that, the three days the doctor had asked for passed more quickly than any of them expected.
"You don’t need to stand, just sit properly on the wheelchair," Gage said with a light chuckle as he draped a blanket over Ashley’s lap, tucking it in with gentleness that no one could have expected from him.
At the mont, only he and Aunt Lavinia were with her. Aunt Lavinia carried a small bag filled with the toiletries she had bought for Ashley during her stay, while the rest of her brothers were off handling other matters.
Still, they had all agreed to regroup at ten in the morning so they could leave together.
As the wheelchair rolled past the doorway and out into the corridor, a quiet nervousness crept into Ashley’s chest. She didn’t know what to expect next.
Over the past few days, she had learned many things about her brothers, but only on the surface. They rarely spoke about themselves in detail, always downplaying their roles whenever the topic ca up. It was sothing she had begun to notice.
Perhaps it was a habit ford from years of caution, from a ti when they had been forced to grow stronger while hiding in the shadows. So, instead of boasting or explaining themselves, they chose to act. They showed who they were through what they did, not what they said, and that, more than anything, made them harder to truly understand.
Unable to truly gauge her brothers because every careful probe was t with deflection, Ashley found herself stepping into the unknown.
But a quiet anticipation stirred within her, threaded with a flicker of excitent, as if she were slowly unwrapping a gift, and discovering them piece by piece. And yet, what she didn’t realize was that the mystery ran both ways.
To them, she was just as unreadable. Hiding behind the guise of amnesia, Ashley offered nothing of her past, nothing concrete they could hold onto. Whenever the conversation edged too close to sothing that might expose her, she skillfully diverted it, brushing aside questions with just enough plausibility to avoid suspicion.
Over the past three days, Apollo and the others had gained almost nothing. Every attempt to trace her history led nowhere.
It was as if Ashley had appeared out of thin air, no records, no traceable past, nothing to anchor her existence. And because she had lived her entire life within the hidden world of the supernatural beings, there was nothing in the human world for them to uncover.
The more they tried to piece her past together, the more elusive she beca, like sothing that had simply... sprung into existence overnight.
Daemon harbored his own suspicions about Ashley’s past, faint threads of doubt that refused to settle, but without proof, they remained nothing more than that. With her supposed amnesia, every question about her history led to a dead end, and no matter how he tried to approach it, Ashley had no answers to give.
More than that, none of them were willing to push her too far. The risk of triggering sothing harmful, of worsening her condition, outweighed whatever answers they might gain. So they held back, choosing caution over certainty.
Now, as Gage pushed her wheelchair down the corridor, a quiet tension began to coil in Ashley’s chest. The further they went, the more it built, until it settled into sothing she couldn’t ignore.
When they stepped into the elevator, the enclosed space only made it worse. She lowered her gaze, staring at her hands, and only then did she notice the faint tremble at her fingertips, betraying the unease she had been trying to suppress.
Ding.
The elevator doors slid open, and Ashley instinctively lifted her head, only to freeze. Instead of the hospital lobby, the open rooftop stretched before her. For a split second, her mind went blank. Then the noise hit.
A deafening roar of propellers swallowed everything, drowning out her thought itself. Her ears rang, her senses overwheld, and for a mont she couldn’t even process what she was seeing.
It didn’t feel real until Gage pushed her forward.
The next thing she knew, she was right in front of a helicopter. Before her thoughts could catch up, Gage had already moved. He lifted her effortlessly from the wheelchair and settled her into a seat inside, folding the wheelchair and securing it beneath with practiced ease.
Aunt Lavinia followed just as smoothly, climbing in as if it were second nature. She took her seat, slipped on a headset without hesitation, like soone who had done this countless tis.
Ashley could only stare, montarily dazed, as everything unfolded too quickly around her.
Noticing her frozen state, Gage leaned in and helped her put on her own headset, his movents efficient but careful. Only after making sure she was settled did he take his seat, fastening his belt and putting on his headset as well, as if all of this was nothing out of the ordinary.
The pilot glanced back, giving Gage a questioning look to confirm if everyone was ready. When Gage returned a clear signal, the pilot nodded and slowly pulled the lever.
The helicopter shuddered, then began to rise, higher and higher, until the ground fell away beneath them.
Ashley’s mind flooded with questions, one after another, but she didn’t even know where to begin.
’Maybe this was rented just for convenience,’ she told herself, sothing Apollo and the others had arranged so her transfer would be more comfortable.
And it made sense... it had to. So she pushed her thoughts aside and turned to the window instead, watching the world shrink below her.
The flight felt brief, too brief. Before she could fully process anything, they were already descending. The mont they landed, everything moved just as quickly as before. Gage was already helping her out, transferring her with practiced ease. But when she looked up... what she saw was a car.
No, this wasn’t just a car.
It was a Rolls-Royce Cullinan.
The sight alone made her breath hitch. She knew exactly how much it cost, because she had used one herself in the past for business. And now, staring at it, a flicker of panic crept in.
Were her brothers going this far just to make up for the years she had been gone? Had they pooled everything together for sothing like this? That thought alone felt too much.
But then again... who would even rent out a Rolls-Royce? That wasn’t sothing people simply put on the market. No one in their right mind would lease sothing like this out so casually.
A possibility began to take shape in her mind, one she wasn’t quite ready to accept. Maybe... they knew soone. Maybe they had borrowed it.
Yes. That had to be it.
She hadn’t even recovered from the shock of the car when it ca to a stop. Before she could gather her thoughts, Gage had already lifted her again, not even bothering with the wheelchair this ti.
Ashley’s breath caught, her jaw nearly dropping as she was carried forward, straight toward a private jet.
For a mont, she wondered if she was seeing things wrong, but the scene only grew clearer the closer they got.
Apollo, Ace, Archivalt, and Daemon were already waiting at the foot of the stairs, along with several crew mbers standing by. The jet had been pulled out of the hangar, positioned, and ready for departure.
The mont they saw Gage approaching with Ashley in his arms, everything shifted into motion. One by one, they began ascending the stairs, the pilot and a steward following suit as they prepared for takeoff.
Gage carried her up last, his steps steady, before gently settling her into a wide leather seat by the window. Ashley barely had ti to react before she was faced with yet another shock, the interior of the jet. It was spacious, refined, and impossibly comfortable, more like a private lounge in a five-star hotel than an aircraft cabin.
She sat there, montarily stunned. The Yorks and Nathan were wealthy, that much was certain, but even they had never flaunted their resources like this. Her brothers, on the other hand... this wasn’t just wealth. This was sothing else entirely.
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