Chapter 76: The Hunter
There’s a point where fear stops feeling like survival and starts feeling like stagnation. It doesn’t happen loudly. There’s no dramatic crack in the air, no sudden surge of bravery, no cinematic breaking point where the music swells and the heroine stands taller. It’s quieter than that. It happens when you realize you are more tired of waiting than you are afraid of knowing. I didn’t sleep after I found the note. Not really. My body lay still beside Finn, my breathing rising and falling in a poor imitation of rest while my mind stayed wide awake, circling the words like a wound I couldn’t stop touching. Spring always comes back around. The words weren’t threatening. They weren’t violent. They weren’t cruel.
They were intimate. That was worse. Finn’s arm was draped loosely across my waist, warm and heavy, grounding in a way that almost hurt. He slept so peacefully it felt unfair. His breathing was slow, steady, like the kind of man who believed his world made sense. I watched the ceiling while he dreamed.. I counted the seconds between the tick of the clock and the whisper of the rain against the glass. And somewhere in the endless quiet, the fear burned itself out. What was left wasn’t panic. It wasn’t dread. It was clarity. Cold, sharp, merciless clarity. By the time the sun crept through the curtains, I was no longer hiding.
I was hunting.
Finn left early that morning. He always did when he could sense the storm building in me. He never said it out loud, but I felt it in the way his kiss lingered a second too long against my cheek, the way his hand brushed my shoulder like he was trying to leave something behind.
“Text me if you need anything,” he said.
“I will,” I lied. I watched him from the window until his car disappeared around the corner, until the house felt hollow and mine again. Then I went to work. I started with the box. Not the pretty parts. Not the petal-soft lies of symbolism and memory. I tore it apart.
I lifted the lining, peeled back the glued seams, scraped my fingernail along the corners where the cardboard met itself. The poppy lay beside me on the counter, untouched, watching with its perfect, mocking petals. The cardboard was cheap. Generic. The kind of thing you could buy in bulk without raising questions. But the tape was wrong. Too thick. Too clean. Not torn…….cut. Someone careful had done this. Someone methodical. Someone who planned. I moved on to the cameras. Laptop open. Curtains shut. Coffee forgotten and cold beside me. I pulled footage from the past two weeks and didn’t just watch it, I dissected it. I slowed frames. Increased contrast. Adjusted brightness until grain became shape and shadow became form. The figure never appeared clearly. That wasn’t an accident. A hoodie. A baseball cap. Hands buried deep in pockets. Always at the edges.
Never charging. Never rushing. Never threatening. Just existing. Waiting. Watching. I moved to the postmark next. The thing I hadn’t wanted to look at before. The thing fear had convinced me would break me if I stared too long. I drove. The post office smelled like old carpets and tired lives. A bell chimed when I opened the door, and a bored fluorescent flicker buzzed above my head like something trapped. I slid the receipt across the counter. “Where was this sent from?” I asked. My fingertips pointing at the postmark on the original envelope. An international postmark that had disappeared from the recent ones.
The woman adjusted her glasses, her gaze lazy until it wasn’t. She typed. Paused. Looked at me again, this time more carefully. “Are you sure you want to know that, hon?”
“Yes.” She turned the screen toward me. And suddenly I was eight years old again. Three townships over from our home in Norwich England. The same township my mother drove to when she said she needed “air.” The same park I remembered in nightmares and half-memories. The same field where red flowers bent like silent witnesses. The poppies. My stomach didn’t flip. It dropped. Straight through the floor. By the time I got back into my car, my hands were shaking. Not with fear.
With rage.
You don’t get to touch my memories. You don’t get to package my pain and send it back to me dressed up as poetry. That night, I stopped hiding. I made the house look careless. Curtains slightly open Lights off. My reflection in the black of the television screen positioned just right so it could be mistaken for sleep. I placed myself on the couch. And I waited. Two hours passed. Three. The silence pressed in like a living thing. Then…..headlights. The slow, deliberate slide of light across the walls. I rose quietly, barefoot on cold tile, and moved to the curtain just enough to see without being seen. The black sedan rolled to a soft stop across the street. Not aggressive. Not rushed. The driver’s door opened. And he stepped out. He wasn’t what I remembered. Not really.
He wasn’t the storm in my childhood. He wasn’t the shaking hands and broken bottles and slurred promises. He was… smaller. Older. Worn down at the edges. Baseball cap pulled low. Dark jacket hanging off shoulders that had lost their bulk. Slower steps. Careful ones. Like he was approaching something fragile. Like he was approaching me. He walked to the mailbox. I opened the front door. The sound cracked through the night like a gunshot. He froze. Turned. And time did a strange thing. Older. Lined. Eyes tired but clear. No glaze. No sway. No stink of bitterness and rot. But the same face. The same bones. The same mouth that used to shout my name like a weapon. My father. “Kayla…” he whispered.
It was almost reverent. Like he was saying something sacred. I stepped into the hallway. Didn’t run. Didn’t scream. Didn’t break. Just looked at him. “You’re not dead,” I said.
He swallowed. “I wanted you to think I was.”
A sound escaped me that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You don’t get to decide what I get to believe.”
He nodded, like he deserved to be carved open by the words. “I know.”
Silence sat between us, heavy and old and soaked through with everything that had happened before the world split open. “You sent the poppies,” I said.
“Yes.”
“The notes?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He flinched. Not dramatically. Just a quiet tremor in his jaw. “Your mother told you I died because she thought it was the only way to keep you safe from me.”
My arms folded across my chest, bones tight. “She wasn’t wrong.”
“No,” he said. “She wasn’t.” He stared at the ground. “I’ve been clean for fifteen years.” The words should’ve been heavier. They should’ve crushed something. They just… landed. “I didn’t come back to hurt you,” he added. “Didn’t even know where you were for years. I saw your name. I saw… what you’d become.” His voice cracked. “And I thought… maybe I could leave you something that wasn’t poison.”
I stepped closer. Every step felt like walking over broken glass in bare feet. “You don’t get to rewrite yourself inside my life.”
“I’m not trying to,” he whispered. “I just wanted you to know I’m sorry.”
Sorry. It was a small word. Pathetic in its shape. Not because it wasn’t real.Because it couldn’t possibly be enough. The streetlight flickered above us. The sedan sat behind him, humming like a held breath. I studied his face. Not the monster. Not the ghost my mother built. Just a man who had outlived his own worst parts. “Spring always comes back around,” I said.
He gave a weak, broken huff of air. “That was stupid, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” Then, softer: “But I understood it.”
His eyes went wet in a way he clearly hated. “I’m not here to stay,” he said. “I won’t come back unless… unless you want me to.”
Of course he wouldn’t stay. Men like him never do. They get cleaner, quieter, but their fear remains intact. I turned back toward the door. Then stopped. Looked over my shoulder. “You don’t get to be my father,” I said “You don’t get forgiveness. You don’t get my life.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“But,” I said, steadier now, colder, “You don’t get to watch me from the dark either.”
Silence.
“I decide if you exist in my world.” He understood that too. I could see it. I went inside. Locked the door. Pulled the curtain shut. Held the poppy in my palm. And for the first time since the box arrived The house didn’t feel quiet. It felt alive. Awake. And as I turned the flower between my fingers, I finally understood the truth. I was never being hunted. I was never being stalked. I wasn’t prey. I was a memory being reached for. I was a ghost being called home.I was being found.
War
”This is a declaration of war.”
Kayla chuckles and laughs to herself. Her bright green eyes shining.
”War on this company. War on this division. Something that I am incredibly sick of is watching people think that one match or one win is going to cement their legacy. Watching the pure laziness as they win one big match and then think they are on easy street. Frankie Holiday beat me, took my championship, and then believed that she had a shot at just being the best. At being able to live up to that legacy that she thought she was creating. A stolen legacy because she happens to be best friends with Amber fucking Ryan. Well, no matter how much you crawl up someone’s arse, it doesn’t mean you get their wrestling ability”
“Frankie thought beating me meant that she could claim herself to be the best of the best. But her first hurdle, her first speed bump, her first challenger beat her. And not only was it her first challenger, it was from a woman who hasn’t had a sniff of the world championship in half a decade. Crystal beat her. Crystal beat her one on one and took that championship. Congratulations Frankie, all of your talk about being the next big thing and being a rookie who is going to shock the world, and all you did was hand the championship back to somebody who hasn’t been able to get close to it since before you started your professional wrestling journey.”
“Good job”
“And suck shit.”
“Same to you, Victoria. You see, Victoria and Frankie both got wins over me, and I’ve tried to tell you people that a win over me is as good as a championship. The kind of win/loss record I have and the kind of past I have in this company. Three-time Internet champion, three-time Bombshells champion. Two-time and longest reigning mixed tag team champion, and the only reason those championships got taken from myself and Finn is because they couldn’t find anyone with the balls to come after us and then Finn got hurt. That is the kind of legacy I have in this company, that is the kind of legacy that I leave in every company. And all of you people want to stand there and think that I was done and give all this credit to Frankie and Victoria? They beat me and they did nothing. Frankie lost that championship and Victoria lost the opportunity to even fight for the championship.”
Kayla pauses for a moment and throws her hands in the air. You can see the frustration etched on her face and in her body language. In fact, you might say that she’s not mad. Just very, very, very disappointed.
”And now what? I came back and I beat the shit out of Candy. I destroyed her in a match that should never have happened because she did not deserve to be in the same ring as me. And I told each and every one of you that putting her in the ring against me was a miscarriage of justice, not only for myself and my career but also for Candy. Candy was a warning shot to all of you. And now I’m facing… Zenna Zdunich….”
Kayla shakes her head, trying to hold back a frustrated chuckle.
”Zenna. Someone who is clearly a member of a family that has become a running joke in this company. Even if she is tied to our current Bombshells world champion, helping Crystal overcome issues and problems. But anyone with your last name that is involved in that shit show is instantly not going to be taken seriously. The whole overdramatic bullshit between Crystal and Seleana just makes our entire business look bad. And you? You are just some nobody who is popped in with that last name slapped onto the end and you have done nothing to earn this match against me.”
“Legitimately, think about it. What exactly have you done to earn a match against me? Everything that I’ve accomplished and everything that I have done, I should be facing the best of the best, but instead I’m facing a nobody whose greatest accomplishment is being a rhythm guitarist in a shitty band no one cares about. I am going to be the champion again. I am going to snap Crystal like a fucking twig and take my championship back. And you are just going to be another name on my win record, and not even one that matters. Candy, as much as I was giving her shit, has at least won a championship in this company and isn’t as big of a raging joke as you.”
“This kind of booking pisses me off. It’s almost like the general manager and Christian got together and just threw darts at a fucking board to come up with who I was going to face. I want my matches to matter, I want what I do in that ring to matter. And beating you? What does that get me? Beating Candy? What did that get me? Nothing. It gets me nothing, it gets me nowhere, and it doesn’t help me do anything that I need to do.”
“I could have had a rematch against Victoria Lions to try and get my win back after losing in the semi-finals of the tournament. I could face Frankie Holiday again just to kick the stupid little bitch while she was down and make sure she realises that her true position is not as a world champion. It’s at the bottom of my goddamn heel. I could have faced Bella Madison, a legacy in this company who knows me as well as I know her. There’s 1,000,001 other matches they could’ve made, including putting me against Mercedes Varga so I could beat the shit out of her while Crystal or Christina watches on. Hell, they could’ve put me in the ring with Christina and if I beat her, I get a title shot. That would’ve solved a hell of a lot of problems. But no, I’m facing you, some no-name nobody who can’t even lace my fucking boots”
Her voice raises as she stands up. Her long hair tied back in a bun and a black leather biker jacket over a black shirt with the almost unreadable logo of the deathcore band Whitechapel printed onto it. A tight pair of black jeans with tears on the knees and upper thighs looks like they are painted onto her body with how tight they are. Her nostrils flare as her eyes turn to pure raging fire.
”Now, since I can’t do anything to management over the bullshit booking, then I’m going to have to take out all of my anger and all of my frustration on you. And maybe you don’t deserve that, Zenna. I mean, think about it. All you are doing is turning up to work. All you are doing is taking an opportunity. And what an opportunity it is. In your young SCW career, you are going to be facing me one on one. I’ve already told you what I have accomplished in my time here. And that’s just here in this company. We’re not including everything I’ve done outside of SCW.”
“This is your golden ticket. You could beat me and use this win to catapult your career. You could break through the glass ceiling that people like Bella Madison keep on whacking their head on. You could do so much with a win over me. Or, you could be like Frankie Holiday and you could be like Victoria Lions. People who beat me and then do nothing with it because they simply aren’t good enough and nine times out of ten, I wiped the goddamn floor with them. Or, you could be like the others who have beaten me like Andrea Hernandez or Aleesha Jones. One woman beat me and then disappeared, coming back for one match and then walking out of the company. And the other? The other one was so terrified at the thought of having a match with me for the world championship after I had just taken it back off of her that she walked out of the company with her tail between her legs. And yes, I’m talking to you Andrea, so if you’re sitting at home, thank you, fuck you, goodbye”
“But you, Zenna… you have a chance at making your career with a win over me..”
“But what I’m going to do is go out into that ring and use you to make a statement. I’m going to use you as the first shot in a war that I’m starting against the entire division. I don’t care who it is, I don’t care how old they are, how young they are. I don’t care if they are a seasoned veteran, a former world champion, or a wet-behind-the-ears rookie who is fresh out of the gym or whatever other bullshit place they think they want to come from. I will jump into that ring and I will do everything I can to destroy the person on the other side of it. And that’s something that all of you should be terrified of. Everything up until now has been just business, and means to an end for me to show you all how much better I am than you. A way for me to add to my legacy. But now, well… this is war.”
“And war….war never changes…”
