We Are Ash Read online

  Danny made as if he was going to say more, but Dolores cut him off. “I don't want to hear it, Danny, I'm not losing her again. I don't know why she chose me, and I don't know why I feel the way I do, but she's my responsibility, and she's the only chance we have of figuring any of this out. But she didn't do this. I know in my heart. Please forgive her for making you sick, Danny, please? We need to be in this together.”

  “What about for killing our mother? Huh? What about that, Lorri? You just going to give it a pass on that one too? Jesus, I'm the only family you have left and you're going to side with some alien-dust-monster that killed your mom?”

  “She didn't—”

  “We did.” Ash piped up. “But we did not know it was the Dolores's mother-thing. We did not know until we learned that it had the bad cells in its lungs. It was too late once we learned it was not a healthy squishy. Even we cannot fix something like that.”

  Brook cut in, “What do you mean, even you can't fix it? Could we fix some things? Like, can squishies fix other squishies if they aren't too bad?”

  Ash glanced at the Dolores. “Does it think we know anything about the You? Make it be quiet, we are trying to tell the Dolores that we must hurry, we must stay on the trail of the Other or it will unmake many, many squishies, whole colonies of squishies.”

  Ash continued to Dolores, “We may have to go again, not to lure it here, because it must not know about the Dolores, but we will always come back to the Dolores. But we also must say something that the Dolores will not want to hear.”

  “What? Did Ash mouth-smash Colt? Honestly, it’s—”

  “No, no, no, we did not mouth-smash or pelvis-smash any of the Dolores's squishies that it wishes to smash. We cannot abide by the Not Allowed. We will try not to do the Not Allowed things, but sometimes, if we are going to catch the Other, if we are going to help the Dolores stop the Other, we cannot follow squishy rules because the Other is no squishy. It is death. Does the Dolores understand? Does the Brook? Does the Danny? Because if the Other finds us, finds Ash, even if we are not close to the Brook, the Danny, or the Dolores, the Other finds them too. And we cannot save any of the squishies, not yet.”

  There was a long pause before Dolores nodded, almost imperceptibly, and she said, “Fine, okay, but I'll only Allow the breathing into, and the other weird shit, if Ash promises to be careful. No taking unnecessary risks. But before Ash goes vaporizing off again, we need a plan. Tell us about the Other.”

  So Ash told them all about the Other and what she had seen with Dolores chiming in with her description of how she felt in the wasted place, the animal massacre. The bad watched feeling.

  Suddenly Brook interrupted, though, as if something had just dawned on him. “Ash, why didn't Dolores get a nosebleed when she held your hands?”

  Ash and Dolores looked at one another. “We do not know exactly, but we...” Ash searched for words. “We shield the Dolores. But also, each of us has begun to know it, each of our multitudes.”

  “Multitudes?”

  “That is how we are different from the Other, even though we were once the same. We are many, more than even the squishies on this planet, but the Other… the Other murdered its own multitudes. Its multitudes are dead, yet it is alive, and that is what we do not understand. But it is also why we think we can defeat it, because we are many, we are Ash.”

  “We're in this together, Ash. We're all going to help you,” Dolores said. “And you… Ash… Ash is free. The Not Allowed list doesn't matter anymore. I, we, all of us, need your help too, so you have to be patient with us, help us understand, because I still don't understand what you are, why you make people sick. But I think we need to figure it out. I think we need to track this Other, but we also need to try to figure out what Ash is, how Ash was born. Can you help us? Can you let us help you?”

  “Will we still be the Dolores's only crazy bitch? Will the Dolores still be our crazy bitch? Even if these other crazy bitches are helping?”

  Dolores laughed. “Yeah, Ash. No one else could ever really be my crazy bitch. And of course I'll be yours. Always.”

  Dolores turned to Brook and then looked hard at Danny, “What do you guys say... Onward to Chicago and the Other?”

  Danny still looked ready to bail, but instead he said, “Fine. I'm in, but only if I get to sit shotgun. You can sit with your fur-growing friend.”

  Ash growled and made a screed of raccoon noise. “The You is not here! We are Ash!”

  “Brook?” Dolores asked.

  “Oh hell yeah.”

  Dolores climbed into the back and Danny ran around to the front of the vehicle.

  “Ready, gang?” Brook asked, looking to Dolores in the rearview for approval. Dolores nodded at him.

  “Come on Ash,” Dolores said. “Let’s save some squishies.”

  Thank you

  Thank you for reading We Are Ash! It took a lot of creativity and imagination to get to the end of this story. We hope you’ve enjoyed the final result.

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  We Are Ash is book 1 in the Chronicles of Ash Series. Keep an eye out for updates on more books from this series.

  Thank you for tagging along with Ash and Dolores!

  - The Team Behind Samara Stone

  About the Author

  Samara Stone is a collaboration of authors, dreamers, writers, and editors who love Fantasy. Look for Samara to give you fun twists on what you thought you knew about the Fantasy genre.

  This is the first book by Samara Stone.

  To learn more about Samara Stone visit SamaraStone.wpengine.com