chapter four

January 16, 2012 (off camera)

Being the erstwhile and somewhat unwilling shareholder/owner of a wrestling school came in handy, at least when a place to train in private was needed. After her crushing defeat against Lumina Ferrari, despite the fact that many people including her own talent agent had told her that she wrestled her butt off, she'd retreated here, seeking solitude. It was peaceful to be here after hours, smelling the familiar scents of old sweat and the ancient canvas that covered the two wrestling rings that sat in the middle of the floor. She figured she was alone, since Layla had left an hour before after giving her a hug and lecturing her on the proper cool-down routine she should use after each workout.

She was alone, so she thought; the only sounds echoing in the empty weight room were Summer's grunts and breathing, the sound of her fists hitting the large bag and the iPod in its dock, playing music as she concentrated on the task at hand. She knew that her opponent was going to come at her with everything in her arsenal, hungry to get another shot at the current television champion. There was bad blood there, and while Summer might have been a bit naïve about things, she wasn't plain-out stupid. She knew she was walking blindly into the middle of a war between two VERY determined women— Sophie Black and the fierce Crystal Hate. If the words that Crystal had been saying on Twitter were any indication, Summer was going to be in for a tough match. Maybe even the toughest since she'd come back.

Try as she might, she couldn't quite banish the thoughts of the last few weeks and everything she'd written about in her online journal only to lock the post so nobody else could read it. She'd been doing this for over an hour, and yet she was still stuck on her thoughts. She needed to focus or she was going to lose and she knew it. She wasn't ready to give up on the dream of her first title shot in FFW, at least not yet. She grunted as she punched the bag, bouncing back immediately and laying a kick into it, before whipping around and catching it with her forearm.

Blowing out a breath as she bounced around the bag, she gave it one last hard punch before she backed off. Sweating hard and breathing even harder, she lifted her tank top and wiped it over her forehead before wandering towards her water bottle. Sitting on the edge of the weight bench, she listened to the music she had playing, almost choking on the water as she gulped it greedily.

Between songs, it got quiet, and her ears perked a little, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. Was that the scrape of a shoe on the hardwood? She squinted into the shadows, looking behind her as the next song started, but she saw nothing. Breathing in deeply, she let it slowly while allowing her head to hang. She was already feeling tension again, even with her muscles all tingling from the intense workout. "I'm never gonna be ready for this," she groaned, feeling completely and utterly defeated.

For a second she contemplated crawling back to that other place just so she had an accomplishment that she could pretend mattered. Standing up slowly, she picked up her towel and grabbed her iPod off the dock. Stuffing it into the pocket of her cutoff sweats, she turned around and saw someone watching her from the shadows. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of him. It was Lex, better known as "Fearless" Lex Collins, the former EWC superstar, and the man she still believed had killed her uncle, although the police hadn't been able to pin the crime on him.

Like some parlor trick borne in hell, he moved towards her without making a sound. Suddenly he was just there, right in front of her. The expression on his face left nothing to the imagination. He looked almost angry. She could tell by the thinning of his lips, and the narrowed eyes as he stared at her, almost as though trying to intimidate her with his arrival. After a silence that felt like an eternity, he spoke to her in that strangely accented, quiet voice that she'd always found kinda unsettling. "I hear you got yourself a big event comin' up."

She flinched and backed away from him. "Y-you're not supposed to be here." Her fingers gripped the bottle in her hands hard enough to make the plastic crackle. Instead of answering his statement, she asked, "how'd you get in here?" She knew the front doors were locked, she had the keys, and no one would have been able to get in at this time of night.

"Been here for a while," he said with a small shrug, "you should know by now that I can be invisible when I wanna."

She chewed on the inside of her cheek; the last place she wanted to be was in a locked building by herself with him. Pointing towards the door, she told him, "you need to leave. Now before I call the cops or something."

He cocked his head, laughing softly. "Yeah? Do I?" He cocked his head and studied her, chewing on his bottom lip as he looked at her. "Who's gonna make me leave? Ain't nobody here but you an' me."

She squared her shoulders, "if I have to, I will." Her hands curved into fists, "don't make me do something I don't wanna do, Lex."

He said nothing for a long moment, simply staring at her as though he was weighing the options, and calculating the odds of her actually attacking him without backup. Finally he unfolded his arms, and reached up to drag one hand through his hair, digging at the scalp on the back of his head. "I'm not here to hurt ya." He said softly, shaking his head. "As far as that goes, I got me some new opportunities brewin'… an' I was kinda gettin' the itch, y'know? Thinkin' I might wanna wrestle again and wonderin' if you could put in a word for me with these people."

"Go away," she whispered, stepping away from him, "if you were the last person on Earth, I wouldn't help you." Her hand moved to her hip and she gripped her side, feeling a cramp starting to form.

He recoiled as though she'd just decked him and sighed, looking away from the accusations in her eyes. "You really hate me, dontcha?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?" She shrugged and turned her back on him, "you're a scumbag, Lex and a pyromaniac and a psycho and if you don't leave right now, I swear to God I WILL call the cops."

"Yeah, I want you to answer..." he moved closer to her, taking deliberate steps that she could hear, watching her flinching with each one.

"I do. God, I hate you so much." She said, closing her eyes as she felt the tears threaten. "Why are you here right now? Why now when I've got all this stuff on my mind?"

"Yeah, lotsa stuff, like how you're two-timin' good ol' boyfriend Adam, huh?"

She froze, her eyes snapping open, "what?"

"Why do you think I'm here, Kase? I seen an opportunity an' I was not about to sit around an' watch that pass me by. Don't lie to me. I saw you an' him eating dinner in that fancy place."

Stiffening, she told him again, "you need to get out of here. I don't want to see you; I don't want anything to do with you. You've got nothing on me because I haven't done a damn thing!"

He grabbed her by the shoulder, his next words coming out all wrong. "No, no, you ain't hearin' me. If you just... just let me talk to you an' I'm sure we can-"

She yanked away from him, turning back with fire and daggers in her eyes, "GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME YOU GODDAMN PSYCHO!" She screamed right in his face, guilt written all over her stricken features.

"Don't," he broke off, stepping towards her. She turned to run and her feet tangled. She fell. Hard. Face smacking loudly off the floor. "KASEY!" He dropped to his knees beside her, trying to help her up but she flailed, catching him the face with her elbow. He didn't think, just reacted, backhanding her right back. 

She couldn't believe he'd hit her, her eyes were wide as her fingers felt her lip. It stung like nothing else and when she pulled her fingers back, she saw the blood, then felt it dripping down her chin. Tears blurred her vision and she scrabbled away from him, her lip already feeling like it was swelling up on her. He probably expected her to back down and give in, come crawling back, however, when she felt like the distance was enough, she shot out, "I don't belong to you!"

He saw the blood on her lip, and something broke inside him. He hadn't even meant to rough her up, but the unchecked urge to make her hurt as much as he did was undeniable. "Ain't the first time you said that to me," he snapped, "an' it's funny, y'know? How you an' me were never actually a thing at all an' you went 'round talkin' all this shit. After EWC, I was gonna go someplace else an' I find out there's all this horseshit floatin' round an' like that," he snapped his fingers, "suddenly I'm blackballed or some shit like nobody'll touch me - I know that was you, Kase. Ain't nobody else I know with all these little spiderweb connections an' it's fuckin'... it ain't right. 'Cause I didn't do nothin' to you or your damn family. You know what I had to do? Where I had to go?" 

"I don't fucking care!" She screamed, shaking her head violently. "I don't want to see you! EVER!" 

He exhaled sharply, "I shoulda known..." He fell silent again, chest tight as he tried not to scream and rage at her for being so stupid. "You're a real piece of work, y'know that?"

She couldn't stop licking her lip, it felt weird and she knew it would be impossible to hide for a few days.

"So whaddya say? You gonna do me a solid, or am I gonna tell that dumb bunny that you're ridin' that spray-tan asshole's pogo stick like all the rest of them whores in his harem?"

She gasped at the audacity, blushing red. "I haven't even touched him!"

He could tell this was a losing battle, both against her obvious hatred and the anger that he couldn't push back. "Aw, to hell with it! We ain't done with this, Kase," he snarled, turning away from her and storming away, vanishing into the shadows. A moment later she heard a crash of breaking glass, followed by a heavy silence.

Summer stayed still for a little while, shaking slightly and touching her fat lip. Closing her eyes, she took in a deep breath that turned into an exasperated sigh as she headed towards the front of the facility. Her cold water bottle pressed against her lip as she got closer to the outside. She saw the doors looming in front of her, but she stopped when glass crunched under her feet.

"Great," she muttered, realizing that he'd broken one of the small windows that peeked into the other weight room. Shaking her head, she looked around; she figured he was gone, vanished just like he'd appeared.

On top of everything else she had to worry about that weekend, this was NOT what she needed. Not by a long shot.