Déjà Voodoo That You Do So Well [Trinity 2.0 #4]

From Lincoln, Nebraska on Tuesday to Portland, Oregon for Friday, everything had become a blur. Kitty had insisted on driving and Hunter hadn't denied her. He could tell she wasn't in any condition to be cooped up in a metal box at 30,000 feet for any length of time. It had been fun, felt almost like they were twenty years younger, free and blasting down the road with the music too loud and the wind in their hair – careless and carefree. It had all come crashing down, of course, when they'd arrived in Portland and they had to be adults again.

A toilet lid slammed down, followed by the white noise of running water in a shower. Typical early morning sounds – six-thirty to be exact – and the heat of the day was already pushing against the windows, forcing the air conditioning to kick back on. That unfamiliar sound filtered through the last of her fuzzy dreams and Kitty rolled over in the bed, groaning as her eyes opened, and immediately slammed shut again. It was already too goddamn bright. Last night had been one hell of a bender, if the pounding in her head was any indication. As wakefulness crept in, she realized it was the residual aches from the ladder match, a match which she'd won simply by letting the others tear each other apart and reaping the rewards at the last moment.

A smile curved her lips as she stretched languidly, rolling over into a solid mass of warmth. She buried her head against it, burrowing in against the pillow. She heard him growl low in his throat – a sound of contentment she knew all too well. Soft lips pressed against his shoulder, and Hunter lifted his arm, wrapping it around his wife as she cuddled against him. He rolled onto his side, his hands sliding down her back.

"Mmmmhey," she almost purred as his fingers found the knots below her shoulder blades, gently rubbing in circles until they loosened. "Do we have to get up?"

"Not yet... got about six more hours." His voice was barely above a sleepy whisper, a balm that washed over her with its calm assurance. "Close your eyes."

She did as she was told, a shiver crawling down her spine. Those expert fingers kept kneading, kept finding all the spots she carried the tension until she was a warm puddle of flesh melting into the mattress. "I missed this," the words just slipped out, the filters stripped away and she didn't feel raw for the first time in months. She didn't feel that itchy-twitchy feeling in the pit of her stomach – she'd felt like the other shoe was about to drop for weeks now, cringing every time she saw something move in her peripheral vision.

"Missed what?"

"The calm before the storm. It's been so long since I've felt..." she fell silent with a little grunt, burrowing deeper into the pillow, hiding her face against his shoulder as the room seemed to grow brighter. "Am I allowed to call it 'happy'? I don't know. It still feels like I'm supposed to be on that time-out, in the corner for some imagined crime." The words were muffled, uttered in that faraway and half-sleepy tone and then she stopped, wrinkling her nose. "Ew. Do you smell that?"

Hunter said nothing and as she pulled away slightly, she realized the room was darker than before, feeling much colder. His arms around her felt clammy now, a strange sort of dead-weight and she laughed, thinking they'd both overslept past checkout time – it had to be past noon now. The stench was unbelievable and it made her almost gag as she lifted her head, expecting to see her husband's blond hair. Instead she found herself looking into the blue-black bloated and distorted face of a corpse. There were flies covering the features, maggots squirming in the holes where the eyes and mouth should be and she recoiled in horror, flailing against that dead man's embrace that held her captive. She pulled back so quickly that she went right over the side of the bed to the floor. She hit with a thump and a yelp, panic making the scream that would have spilled from her lips turn into a strangled moan.

She scrambled back from the bed, ignoring the flare of pain from her tailbone and didn't stop until she was under the desk, shivering as the tears spilled down her cheeks. "I didn't mean to... I didn't. I didn't." She was rocking and muttering to herself, eyes squeezed shut.

"Kitty."

She shook her head, hair whipping and sticking to her wet cheeks. "No. Nononononono.........."

"...come back to me." The voice sounded distorted, wrong and then strong fingers closed over her upper arms, squeezing hard enough to pull a gasp from her lips. Screaming, she flailed, nails out and kicking in a blind fury. Her eyes flew open when the back of a hand hit her face, fresh tears stinging and she realized Hunter was straddling her, pinning her arms over her head. There were fresh gouges on his chest, already leaking blood. She felt his grip relax, realizing they were still on the bed and the blankets were twisted all around her. His blue eyes searched her and he obviously found what he was looking for as he sat back, releasing her the rest of the way.

"Shit," her voice came out small as she lifted one trembling hand to touch his chest, "I hurt you."

"It's fine," he muttered, swatting her hand away. "You didn't mean to."

The words struck a chord and she froze, eyes wide as she stared at him, a horrible feeling of déjà vu washing over her. Something horrible was about to happen. She could feel it down to her bones, knowing she'd be powerless to stop it when it did.



The wrestling business is full of reptiles. Some are snakes who want nothing more than to slither past your defenses, winnow their way into your good graces and lull you into submission. When you're under their thrall, that's when they strike.

Others are lizards, operating on the basest of impulses – truly cold-blooded. They all have singular goals. Some hide it well, camouflage like chameleons. They pretend they're good guys, wannabe superheroes who just want to have a nice clean match. They're the ones who are truly dangerous. They're the ones who get eliminated from a tournament and find a loophole, find a way to slip back in and then the innocent colours are back on display. They'll claim they were in the right place, at the right time. The stars aligned. The universe rewarded their behavior – it's always bullshit, but the stupid idiots in the seats, the ones who makes the lists and buy the merchandise, they eat it up like candy. The trusting souls like Pasha bend over backwards, smile and applaud. They don't see those deadly claws that catch or the jaws that bite. They just see the teeth bared in that so-called 'friendly' smile.

Thomas Snow wants you to believe he's a good guy. He wants you to believe that he's got the best interests of Trinity in mind. I find it hard to believe when he's still working for the enemy, when he's still lacing up his boots to get into the Action Wrestling ring – he's got our best interests at heart when he's collecting a cheque from the company that was happy to dissolve Trinity?

I suppose I'm being naïve in assuming the Trinity fanbase don't already know this. You've followed his career. You've watched him tag with Sierra Silver, I'm sure. Guys like Thomas Snow are the ones you need to watch out for. They're insidious – passive aggressively lackadaisical, almost. Make no mistake, though. He'll try to undermine and destroy you any way he can.

I suppose I should be grateful. I could be staring down a rematch with Pasha. I could be on the other side of the brackets, facing Princess Dipshit the red-eyed . At least with Snow I know what I'm getting. I know we're gonna play the mental long game here. He'll call me a coward because I couldn't hack it in Action. I'll roll my eyes because it doesn't matter. We both want the same thing. He wants to wrap that belt around his waist and pretend he never had that hiccup, that little lapse that led to it ever leaving his grasp.

I want to rewind a little further. I want to erase him ever winning in the first place. It should have been me.

You knew that, though, didn't you? You knew this was meant to distract from my true agenda. Oh, that's right. This? This right here? It's a house of cards. It's a sticky trap full of peanut butter, meant to be enticing. I want you drawn in. I want you engaged… maybe a little bit ENRAGED by the time you finish. I want you to want to see me fail. I want you to be dreaming of the ways you're going to slap the smugness off my face.

If you're doing that, if you're all up in your hot little feels, you're not thinking. You're not using your little bitty lizard brain for anything more than that RAGE KILL impulse.

Admit it, Snow. You've done a little digging. Maybe you paid attention when I dipped my toes into the Cruiserweight Division in the place that I'm not going to namedrop again. I'm sure you think you know me. I'm sure you watched your bestie Pasha take me down and now think you know exactly how I can be defeated. Just another wannabe crazy chick with a chip on my shoulder, and a big ol' blog full of angst. Yeah, or not.

Ironically, I am made of tempered steel wrapped in scar tissue. Don't mistake my words, though. I don't think I'm a superhero – I'll leave that shtick to you and your little gal pal. I can't melt steel beams with my vision. I can fly, sure. I've done it a time or two. I don't have that magical weakness. I don't have kryptonite that will strip me of my drive and ambition, as much as you wish that were the case. You'd love a clear walk to the finish line, to take on the winner between Chase and Lacklan and prove that losing to Pasha was just a fluke. Prove you haven't missed a step. Shit, we've more things in common after all, don't we?

Aw, hell. Just admitting that sickens me.

This is an honest living for me, sweetheart. I think that's the part that you don't really understand. This isn't about being a cornerstone or some bullshit role model.

Desperation keeps me honest. So does the pursuit of the championship gold – we both have our mistake to undo from that first version of the company, don't we? That's why I'm here. Why I pulled myself back from the brink and fought my way back to the starting point. We have a rare opportunity here. We can recreate the timeline, undo the thing that unravelled our world as we know it. My world hasn't been the same since.

Can you really look me in the eye and claim you came back here because you care about Trinity and not because you find yourself stifled and buried in the 200-deep roster in that other place? Is it really about making Trinity great again? Is that why you finagled a way back into this tournament?

Don't answer. It's rhetorical. We're the same, remember? I know you. Years ago, I was just like you: idealistic and foolish. Now I just wanna trip the void. Walk the chasm. Break, burn and bleed – thwart inevitability one last time.

--K.