"TOWANDA!" a booming voice rang out over top the blaring tones of Stitched Up Hearts’ “Monster” as we notice Malachi O’Connell walking up slowly with the ever faithful Luka next to him. Luka stops dead in her tracks when she hears the voice of Bella ring out. Like she knows her momma is not in the best of moods and that scares her.
Mal looks down at her for a moment, with a tint of humor in his voice, “You can't seriously tell me you are scared of that? You bark if you hear an ant stomping down the street!”
When a loud crash comes from inside the building, it causes Mal to jump a bit, dropping the leash and Luka takes this chance barking loudly, she takes off running towards the building, army crawling her way thru the garage door that was left open just enough to let fresh air in and the dust from whatever was going on out.
“SHIT! GET BACK HERE YOU DEMON!” Mal manages to make it through the door and takes off down towards where he knows Luka is heading. The music just getting louder and louder as time as it switches to Green Day’s “American Idiot” stopping him for a moment. “Woman has more musical taste than shoes.”
“LUKA! NO! STAY!” Bella screams as Mal enters into the room and quickly grabs up the leash as he glances at his wife, who is head to toe covered in plaster dust, wearing a pair of construction goggles, sports bra, jeans with her long hair pulled up. “Someone get away from ya?”
“WHAT?!” Mal yells over the music as she just glares at him and walks over and turns it down. “Gotta tell you, construction destruction looks good on you.”
She smirks and looks around at the damage she’s done so far with a satisfied look on her face, “Yeah well I gotta say this is perhaps the best idea you’ve had.”
Mal hooks the pup up to a nail that is hanging off the wall and walks over to her almost learning in a way, “Well I figured after what happened this week with Demon’s Run you could go with some gratuitous destruction of property that could potentially save us a couple thousand dollars.”
“Thrifty and therapeutic.” she says giving him a quick peck on the cheek before turning and picking up the sledgehammer, “If you take her upstairs, you can join me, ya know?”
“And get in the way of your hard work?”
“Is it that or are you afraid you’ll get hit?” Bella says with a smirk before swinging at the next wall.
Mal stands there silent for a moment before he says, “I’m gonna plead the fifth.”
She shoves him away a bit, bringing the hammer up on her shoulder, “Go change. OH and did we decide if we were keeping that window to what was an office?”
“Ummm, yeah we decided and no we weren’t.”
Before he finishes the sentence, we hear a grunt and a shattering of glass as the sledgehammer gets tossed through. Her eyes go bright as she laughs, “Ya know, I really like this. I should do it more often.”
“We’ll have to talk to the construction crew and see if they can use you on the demolition team because after this floor, I think that’s it. Unless you can talk Mattie or Alanah into letting you destroy their place.”
“It’s either that or open up one of those destruction rooms that have become popular lately. OOOH Maybe we can put in an axe throwing range!”
“....Oh yeah, let’s put sharp throwable objects nearby...that’ll make me feel real safe.”
“And the knives that are upstairs?”
Mal steps over and jacks the sound up to the tune of In This Moment’s “Sex Metal Barbie”, “WHAT?!?! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”
“GET OUT, YOU TROLL!” she yells sticking her tongue out at him before blowing him a kiss and picking up the hammer to continue her work.
Mal turns and looks down at Luka, “Here’s hoping that that is all she needs.”
Viva Las What the Fuck?!?
Few days later, the destruction was finished and Bella’s shoulders were still tight. She was willing to put what happened back on the East Coast behind her...except it was still there. “Don’t mind me, guys. I’ve just had a really rough week.”
In the chair in her room, she slumps back, letting her long hair just hang over the back of the chair and looks up at the ceiling, “I can throw myself into this world so easily and be so massively disappointed in myself so quickly. It’s not the wins and loses for me, it's the fact that after it’s all said and done I can go back in my head and realize where I messed up.” she says running her hands in circles before the flop to the side.
“And bless my husband for trying to keep me from getting into my proverbial ‘Woah is me’ schtick. I took out and gutted an entire floor in a former industrial warehouse where we live this week, trying to take out all these frustrations I have. By the way, it turns out we did have enough square footage for that axe throwing range...” she holds her hand up, “Don’t get excited, I’m still being told ‘No’. I figure if I wear him down enough, eventually I can just secretly start buying all the items and just make it happen myself.”
Sitting up and shrugging, “It’s a trick my mom taught me, trust me, it works. My dad has things he swore he’d never need and suddenly, boom the garage is full weight room.”
Leaning forward she smiles, “ANYWAYS, Sin City! It’s been a couple of weeks. I got my return match out of the way with Blast From the Past, and while it didn’t go my way, it was great to be back after so many months away. I know I said I have a lot of unfinished business and it’s true. It’s not just the business it’s the aspirations I need to fulfill. Sometimes I really feel that weight on my shoulders and I know I shouldn’t.”
And with that she stands and pulls a box up from behind her and sits it on a table, opening it up to reveal her shiny new throwing axe. “I’m just really beginning, I’ve been going for a couple years now but I shouldn’t feel that weight like that. Yes, the 6-sided ring called me home, but at the same time my small book is just beginning a new chapter. JET CITY’S COURTNEY PIERCE! Wow, girl you have quite the amazing resume. Hell, you’ve done the one thing I haven’t and that is win that damn Blast from the Past Tourney....I don’t even begin to understand how the hell that can be a thing since I’ve tried and failed. But I’m not going to fail here.”
Turning it in her hands she shrugs, “Seems weird to me too, and after a week of fuck ups and failures, I’m not even sure I believe it myself...but here we are. I’m going to do whatever it takes to get my business going and do what I’ve set out to do.”
“And what is that? That’s the big question on everyone’s mind it seems....well it’s simple boys and girls...” and with that she turns on her heels, and tosses the axe as it lands solid on a poster that simply says....
Win
The
Whole
Fucking
Thing.
