“Pain is strange. A cat killing a bird, a car accident, a fire.... Pain arrives, BANG, and there it is, it sits on you. It's real. And to anybody watching, you look foolish. Like you've suddenly become an idiot. There's no cure for it unless you know somebody who understands how you feel, and knows how to help.”
― Charles Bukowski
Undisclosed Warehouse
Somewhere In New York
20.12.2009
9:04pm
Winter in New York never quite looked like the movies.
Far from the crystalline, glistening snow laden trees masterfully decorated and lit up the point that the night sky above cowered in shame of its overwhelming brilliance, Amber kicked a chuck of murky brown ‘snow’ off the pavement and into the gutter where the frigid slush seemed to carry it out of sight.
Where she was tonight- there were no shop windows embellished with seasonal regalia, the towering displays of seasonality back where the tourists might gasp and awe at their magnificence. Nevermind the waste and ruin that might be left behind once the lights shuddered out and the finery was shuffled back into a warehouse just like one of these till Thanksgiving fell into the rearview once more.
Places like this didn’t celebrate frivolities, they celebrated survival. They celebrated the ability to outlast the gentrification that seemed to run unchecked, the underlying toxicity of places that didn’t want to change. Industry had tainted this place and abandoned much of it in favour of the bigger and bolder, the remnants of what was reflected in every broken window.
Pulling the edges of her jacket in tighter, as though it did little more than draw the ire of the breeze that nipped at the edges of exposed skin, it didn’t take long to figure which one of these building Alistair McCrae had set up temporary shop in- which one had been touched by a higher power, if only in his own head.
It was the only one with the lights on.
Smarter women would never have come here. Braver women wouldn’t have cared, charging in with demands on why they were being ‘summoned’. Prettier women would have done themselves up for the occasion in hopes that their physical attributes and an eyelash flutter might go away towards world peace.
Amber wasn’t really much of any of those- or she’d been continually told. Too much nothing, not enough of anything else. 21 years old with a big gold target, ten foot tall and emotionally too immature to be bulletproof.
Ducking through a fence topped with barbed wire always gave her a certain untold amusement, as though somehow skirting an unseen system. Restricted and out of bounds, like she didn’t belong- mostly for the fact she didn’t. No one saw though, and fewer people would’ve cared. Footsteps in grimy snow betrayed presences long given away by lights, the voices beyond the door muted behind brick and metal yet still reverberated in her soul.
That's what should have driven her away… instead, stubborn and prideful to a fault, it's the same thing that forced her through the door.
“I was worried, Miss Ryan…”
Cavernous spaces always reminded Amber of churches, although given the way the pious spoke of sacrifice and charity- she expected far more of them to resemble places like this instead of the resplendent castles they worshipped. Open concrete dampened in places where the weather seeped through, those dark patches sucking in what little light they might from the faulty fluorescent tubes dangling from wires overhead.
“For a moment there I thought you might not show. I’m glad to admit now that I was mistaken, considering you’ve only ever lived up to expectations to date.”
Alistair McCrae wasn’t a physically intimidating man, though even in his simple clergyman basics he still commanded a room. Being flanked by three others far more… stereotypically… masculine figures though, that gave Amber a certain pause for thought until the last figure turned to catch her gaze.
Swarthy. Dark hair and a smile that used to make the butterflies dance instead of writhe as they seemed to now…
“You didn’t tell me we were coming here to dump our garbage, McCrae. If I’d have known, I’d have brought a shovel…”
Dominic Del Gado frowned disappointedly as her stare moved from his, she wasn’t going to test fate knowing the way his abrasive charm had kept her at his beck and call for far too long. She’d sworn she was done with his shit… McCrae had gone a good way towards making that happen, so why reunite?
“Seeing you both before me, such young and virulent children of the Lord- it brings forth a verse that I think you’ll both find poignant…”
Amber kept her distance, beyond reach of Dominic. Within sightline of McCrae- although he closed the distance and laid a firm hand on her leather clad shoulder as he preached resonantly.
“Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience… Ephesians 5:6.”
McCrae’s hand clamped a little harder as he gave Amber an sad smile, the kind a parent might before telling them they weren’t mad, just…
“I’m disappointed, Miss Ryan. I thought you and I had an understanding… and appreciation that while the Lord might be forgiving, he might be understanding… he is also vengeful and unwilling to accept that his children might become traitorous to his wills.”
Tapping her gently on the shoulder, almost patronisingly, Alistair shook his head sadly and stepped back from the redhead, her confused glances less subtle than she intended as Dominic shrugged nervously at the corner of her periphery. Mournfully yet matter of factly, his tone carried as though pronouncing the eulogy for a long lost friend- enunciating to a crowd when less than a handful hung upon his words.
“I gave you every opportunity Miss Ryan, you showed me something I thought I could invest in. That I could trust. That is what successful partnerships are built on- an ability to share honesty, respect and a common decency that our word is truly our bond.
I hope perhaps one day, you might find yourself happily married so that those words along with the idea of eternal partnership take on a new meaning… Perhaps I’ve been overly brash, expecting too much from an otherwise blossoming young mind. Perhaps it is my fault in some way that we find ourselves at an impasse…”
Clicking his tongue, Alistair buried his hands into unseen pockets at his side. Still the expression bordered on parental disappointment underlined with pretentious religious arrogance. Those otherwise nameless figures stepped forward as Alistair seemed to melt between them, a short wall of humanity that spanned the space between Amber and Dominic.
“Consequence has its place, even in the Lord’s heart. Regardless of whom or what you might think you are… Consider this a lesson, children. Disobedience is a sin, after all and such transgressions cannot go unpunished.”
Everyone seemed to move all at once, the slow motion capture of a movie as every sense heightened at the expense of lateral movement and rational thought. A small snick of metal releasing from a mechanism echoed as footfalls thundered on the cement floor, no one said much of anything as bodies seemed to writhe and contort in an effort to be the first to make a connection.
Amber could only silently muse as Dominic’s hand firmly gripped her wrist, violently yanking her towards where he had previously stood while stepping back as she fought to find her balance. A little redhead meat shield in the face of an impending wall of musculature and godly intention- she couldn’t even breathe a word of protest before Dominic’s hand left her wrist and nestled in the centre of her back.
A gentle shove into oncoming oblivion.
Hands grasped and pushed as Amber found herself briefly albeit forcefully jostled aside, Dominic’s expensively bound footsteps pattering wildly back towards the door as Amber’s frame seemed to thunder into the concrete amidst a stampede of feet and frustrated murmurs about cowardly rats and judgement being served. Everything seemed over in less than a second- shooting pain remembering what flesh and bone against concrete was supposed to feel like now racing through every available synapse in a sensory overload that left her shockingly, blissfully numb.
Even McCrae seemed to have dissipated among the scuffle, his waning interest perhaps sated enough with sermonizing or the further disappointment of his prevailing justice not being fulfilled that he’d taken a silent leave. Amber groped around the floor for a moment, in hopes she might find where she left her bearings in all of this- shock settling in as the haze of disorientation took hold of her senses.
Searing pains radiated from places she couldn’t pinpoint- the inside edge of a forearm maybe, somewhere just below the ribs just above where the edge of her hip started to curve…
… why was the ground wet?
Dark. Viscose, the way it seemed to cling to her skin… trailing down the inside of her arm… pooling at the front of her…
Oh…
Oh shit.
Scrambling with as much coordination as her form might have allowed her, Amber rolled onto her back prodding through the thickly dampened edge of her torso where the beginning curve of her hip seemed to jut out, where the fabric of her t-shirt parted unexpectedly… and the soft flesh beneath it.
Oh shit indeed.
Amber swore at Dominic’s name between panicked breaths.
… She was supposed to be defending her title in two days.
******
“I remember once, as a young girl… I got a nosebleed.
That in itself Johanna, isn’t the most interesting thing. Probably not even the most exciting thing you’ll hear within the hour. It's not revolutionary or groundbreaking, but sometimes it's easy for people like us to forget that not everything has to be.
Sometimes a nosebleed is just exactly that…
Was it because I got into a fight or did I, in infinite child like wisdom, go and do something stupid like I’m so prone to bringing upon myself. Of course, it has to be something I did, right?
That's just how the universe works- cause and effect. Rhyme and reason can’t occur without reason and rhyme, Newton's third law dictating that every action causes an equal and opposite reaction…
Really though?
I was just a young girl in a pretty new summer dress.
That’s it. There was no rhyme, no reason in sight cause sometimes shitty fucking things happen to people simply for the fact that they exist. Cause we subconsciously keep breathing and blinking, the universe takes it upon itself to take a steaming shit in our laps and expect us to appreciate it cause we’re still alive and that's worth celebrating.
Shitty things happen because we keep living, we keep breathing and speaking through our asshoels like consequences don’t occur until we incur them. It's never anyone's fault- it just happens
Really though… we look to blame. We put it down to coincidence and bad luck, trying to justify an unjust world around us.
Shitty things happen to good people every fucking day, except most of those good people are never nearly as good as they make themselves out to be. You though Johanna, you absolutely pride yourself on being the shitty thing that happens to good people. You take honor and privilege in acting as an unspoken consequence in this industry- cause everyones elses dreams have to be shattered and stomped into dust cause yours have drifted just a little further beyond your reach.
You’ve taken it upon yourself to be justice and judgement around here- making statements at the expense of anyone thrown into your path just to satiate the blood lust so that no more crew members mysteriously vanish in blood sacrifice circles.
You and I, Johanna, we aren't good people. We’re the terrible things… We’re the monsters calling the shots cause everyone keeps forgetting to bring their silver bullets on the night of a full moon. We walk around here like there isn’t a middle ground - but heres the difference between us and the one I have no doubt you’ll tell me I’m wrong for despite the fact I’m the bitch carrying the fucking belt.
Not everyone is a victim. Not everyone is prey cause you’re having a bad day. You keep going out there grinding rookies into the dirt like they don’t belong cause they didn’t come up bleeding for every dollar they earned, like they aren’t the same reason that this industry keeps getting better and that we are precisely where we are now.
You take them, threaten to tear their fingernails off, kick them in the ass and expect to be thanked for the opportunity… at least I pick them up and dust them off a little after I’ve put my boot through their face.
It's hard not to see the similarities - I might be a monster, I might be a manifestation of everything people think is wrong with this industry. Too much of something, not enough of anything worth having. I’m a lot of things and most aren’t flattering- but I’m not an asshole for the sake of being an asshole. I don’t springboard off others' backs just to land back in the same puddle of mediocrity and I have treated every opponent the same despite the threat I might believe they pose.
You, Johanna darling, you treat everyone like scum then wonder why they’ll smile so wide when I beat you. You walk around looking at everyone who isn’t Wolfslair like they’re afterbirth splattered on your shoe, when you’ve barely earned the right to do more than show up and glare in catering.
I don’t need to rattle off everything I’ve done, I trust you’ll do enough of that for me.
My reputation precedes any cheap insult and every small-minded observation you’re claiming is groundbreaking, kinda like the shovel it sounds like you got hit with one too many times based on the originality of what you’ve got to spew.
Everything I’ve done to build this division- the Agent of Mayhem, the German Wrecking Machine comes knocking to tear it down brick by bloody brick cause really… What else have you really got going for you? Mindless destruction anywhere else might make you a badass, around here though? It just makes you fucking ungrateful for the roof I’ve maintained over your head.
They’ve called this ‘new blood rising’ and that's precisely what you’re coming for, gotta make sure I’m dead and gone by throwing my head at the feet of the hierarchy. Of course, if it were ever that easy, it would never have gotten around to you having your shot…
By all means though, tell the world it's my blood that's getting spilled and that I haven’t faced anyone like you cause really- I haven’t… not honestly. Have you started to consider why that might be?
Maybe, although the truth is always far harder to swallow than a chunk of your own tongue I suppose… I haven’t faced anyone like you, cause I’ve always been the predator. I’m the one tearing out throats and leaving you to scrounge my carcasses like a hyena following a lionesses trail of destruction.
I haven’t faced anyone like you, cause I’ve always been you… except better.
Not that it needs saying, not that there isn’t enough proof to quantify that you’re the dime store angel of death trying to carve a niche when I’ve already taken a pound of flesh. New blood rising isn’t about death to the old, it's not about triumph for the new- it's about a clash between unstoppable and immovable and the cost of the clean up efforts when it's all over.
By all means Johanna, I welcome you to come and spill my blood… go out there and remind everyone that I still bleed just as red as any Bombshell that graces this roster just be prepared to do the same, to leave the very best you have as a sacrifice at my altar. I beg and plead for you to do as you promise instead of threatening me with the good time I’ve been promised by so many…
After all, 300 days is a long time to accrue bodies, Johanna, and it's a long time to sit upon a throne of dreams and decay.
I’ve earned every single minute I’ve stood atop that mountain- so by all means you keep baying at the moon until it pays attention to your cries for something better, you keep trying to convince the world that you aren’t smacking around pretty girls cause you realize you dug yourself into an unavoidable ‘triggered sociopath’ niche that's grown a little too comfortable to step out from. Keep telling everyone that Johanna Krieger really is still an ‘agent of chaos’ instead of a middling bull searching for red flags and china shops if only so you feel important for a little while.
See, Inception isn’t about changing the SCW bubble. It's not about finding method in madness or righting what you might deem to be the greatest wrong- the fact that I still have a stupid smile on my face, a head on my neck and a World title on my shoulder.
No, it's about taking all that ‘new blood’ that's bubbling under the surface and proving that putting mentos into your veins isn’t a long term solution to what might ail this division. Let's be honest, you aren’t the solution… hell, you aren’t even the problem.
You’re another terrible thing trying to masquerade as a ‘good person’, a nosebleed on a girl's summer dress. A happening that perhaps cannot be explained away, but doesn’t pose a question that needs to be answered either.
Like a nosebleed- you aren’t exciting, you barely qualify as interesting and there's nothing that you’ve achieved that I’d consider more groundbreaking than the fact you’re still actively employed.
I don’t need to justify my existence, I don’t need to explain the reason that I'm still the Bombshells World Champion and why I’ll continue to be as long as my body holds enough breath to last a three count. You’ve seen it, you’ve watched it on tapes and yet I’m still a fucking riddle that has you absolutely stumped.
Of course you’ll tell me you have me all figured out- I mean, everyone else did and look just how far it got them… You’re different though, cause you have to be.
I don’t need to be figured out, I don’t need rhyme or reason to continue to be the most dominant World Bombshells champion in this company's predicated history- I function beyond justification, there's no method that can explain away the utter madness of why what I do seems to just work…
What you need to understand before you come stalking into Inception like you aren’t just another deer stepping onto the train tracks, is that monsters don’t have a reason to fear other monsters, darling.
… they fear the nosebleeds they can’t explain.”
******
Amber’s Apartment
Atlantic City, NJ
03.01.2022
06:18am
Amber swore that the World Bombshells title didn’t own her…
That was impossible right, an inanimate object couldn’t claim possession in the same way that Hayley Halsey couldn’t walk past a mirror without talking shit cause she didn’t understand what reflections were. No, Amber was most certainly in control of this relationship- symbiotic and mutually serving. Each side bettering the other simply by proximity.
She’d said it a thousand times by now, akin to a classy mantra from an overpriced meditative mountain retreat- it was just pride, that was all.
A proud champion who had dutifully earned and sacrificed for everything she still had the honour of carrying- records falling like dominoes as the accolades started piling higher than the trail of challengers she’d left in her wake just to get to this point.
Leaning back into the rickety plastic chair on her balcony, the one she’d constantly berated and threatened to throw off the fucking balcony if she nearly fell off the side of the busted arm once more, Amber pulled her knees in closer to her chest. Morning sun captured the distinct scarlet glow of her tangled mess of hair, and the glint of gold and glory that sat at her side, in typical pride of place right beside the steaming cup of coffee resembling an interstellar void and the ashtray she’d periodically threatened to catapult off the edge after the chair.
Neither of which ever seemed to happen.
There was nothing wrong with being proud, Amber mused as the bitterness of the coffee wrinkled her nose slightly. A little self-gratification in the face of achievement was healthy- although if she were to say such a thing aloud, she might have been labelled as conceited and egocentric and to say nothing made her seem ungrateful for the opportunity.
It was hers, that had become her right to claim, and there would be no one else on this roster who would ever want it more…not in the same way she needed it, like a sane person might need air.
It wasn’t beyond her comprehension though, as her reflection seemed to disfigure and distort among the ridges tracing the belts main plate, to realize that it wouldn’t last forever. Inevitability would eventually come calling, but she could revel for now. She wasn’t dumb, but she wasn’t going to give up in the face of eventuality simply because it came begging.
In almost every defense- she’d come closer than anyone realized to losing it all, scrambling and scraping with all her might to claw back enough ground that she might stand victorious once more. A split second, that's all it had taken… all it would take…
A stumble. A mistime. A distraction. A moment that might cost her three wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, that alone had been proven each and every time she laced up her Converses.
That's where Masque had come in. Amber couldn’t quantify their relationship, if it could be labelled as anything more than violent gratuities disguised as life lessons, and even now the redhead cringed deeply at the thought of admitting that maybe… Masque had been right all along.
Drinking deeply, Amber allowed the bitterness to disguise the disdain she tasted like the aftertaste of an insufferable thought. They’d met in Boardwalk under violent circumstances- an old… *acquaintance* had ended up in Masques firing line with the promise of betterment. Nothing had come of it but radio silence and the first night Amber had met Masque was the last time she’d seen the Man in the Hat…
Shaking her head as though trying to dislodge something that lingered far too long, another draw of coffee soothed wounds that peeked open at their edges. Lessons in cruelty, after all, were the ones that stuck in the most meaningful way.
One could have compared it to the way Johanna Kreiger hustled rookies, using them like stepping stones to bolster a flagging reputation of half-hearted violence and flailing dream pursuits leading to a constant nowhere in particular. Far too busy trying to prop up what remained of a ‘dangerous’ reputation with bodies still trying to figure the most effective way to lace their boots, to remember that a far greater and hard won prize had viability if only she just gave a fuck…
A gentle breeze tickled at the little exposed skin she allowed, the fingertips peeking from a hoodie she’d stolen from Mac and the sliver between the edge of her pants and the top of her socks slightly dampened from the slickened balcony surface below. A small sigh escaped as the coffee cup was abandoned once more, the golden mirror further fracturing an image she force fed the wrestling world into believing was still virulent and whole.
Mac didn’t believe it for a second, nor should he have. Although between his continued absences overlapping with her avoidances, they’d barely spent more than a few hours at a time trying to ignore the lingering elephants in the room. Like a consummate professional, he was out forging relationships and networking with his hard won World title while in the background Amber was fighting to keep hers by trying to sever all ties that might turn to anchors if she blinked too many times.
It would just be for a little while… Liar.
Just until she could clear her head… Liar.
Level herself out and find some solid ground that didn’t feel as though gravity had it in for her.
Hell, even the gold seemed to be calling her on her bullshit now- ridges creating a strangely distorted web like the lies she’d been feeding in order to keep the desperation at bay. Fingertips curled at the edges of the belt as Amber gently pulled it into her lap- like a child to be cradled and nurtured, to be told that the cruelties of the world around them would only serve to make them better in the end.
That everything would be better in the end. Softly, as though wiping away an unseen smudge, Amber crossed the edge of her thumb over the name plate bearing the name of the woman whose reflection no longer resembled that of the one who’d won the belt back in March last year.
Fondly, Amber caressed the cruel ridges that left her visage fragmented, knowing that there would come a day that she'd wake up and not see herself reflected back in gold. That on that fateful day, she would still continue to breathe and function as she had done a year prior… that she’d be fine if the unthinkable were to occur.
It wouldn’t though, Amber quickly reminded herself as an involuntary shudder raced through her body, it just couldn’t be.
Not this time.
Not yet.
That was the desperation talking now, the voice that told her anything was within reason if only to stay champion for a little longer. That action could be justified and that undeniable cruelty and violence were viable options for a woman growing more and more desperate to hold something that her broken fingers were fast losing their grip on.
Whether that was her sense of self or the World Bombshells title was yet to be seen, however.
No, being champion wasn’t without sacrifice. She’d given everything she had till now, for those precious 300 days and for just a few more… she’d willingly thrown to the wolves whatever else she had left. That's what champions did after all, that was the reason she’d stayed atop the mountain for so long.
She had given more than anyone else was willing to, and would continue to do so until the shambling remains of a woman with too many pieces lost to everyone demanding their share would fall… disgracefully and alone from her mountain perch.
Nothing else mattered in quite the same way these days, as hard a truth as it might have been to swallow.
… and besides, who the fuck would she even be now without it?
******
"Have you ever thought too much about where your tongue is in your mouth?
Maybe you are now, subconscious becoming critically forward. An automatic aspect suddenly disturbingly manual- I mean, imagine if you had to think about breathing or the rate at which your heart thumped in your chest. A moment left lingering too long elsewhere and you flatline out of ignorance, a second distracted by something minor and distinctly unimportant and you’re face has gone blue and your gasping trying to force that next breath through your gullet.
Hell, if we weren’t already out of our goddamn fucking minds, one might go insane from the thought of it all… Overthinking to death, huh. How startlingly ordinary in a world full of the extraordinary and extravagant.
Seems almost ludicrous really, cause after all- no one looks that far into things and makes a lick of progress… Yet, every single person who has stepped up thinking that they are the one to slay the princess and rescue the dragon from it's hoard has done precisely that.
Overthought themselves to certain demise. Trying to pick apart something on a molecular level that has it's riddles answer written all across it's surface. Fission and fusion on a personality level, dividing the little red atom as though the incurred explosion is worth the radiating fallout.
Tell me Johanna, am I really such a paradox?
A puzzle to be solved, with the key in such plain sight it almost seems a little too good to be true, maybe that's why no one seizes on it… like a spring loaded trap when really, I just like to see everyone fucking sweat.
I’m not that complex, I’m not trying to feign being an enigma to be interesting. I’m the fucking World Champion so it's not as though I can simply be ignored, as hard as many might try. I’d like to think if you thought laterally enough that you might just solve this little red riddle that plagues the Sin City- however that’s just not you, and be damned if I ask you to be anything other than what you’ve pigeonholed yourself into.
Stick with the tried and true Johanna, what brought you to this precious dance, Brute force your way to a solution like it owed you something, keep hitting it till you get the outcome you desire like a pinata begging to be brought down from a tree cause the candy is just really bees…
Problem is though, you can't possibly hit me harder than I already have or do anything that hasn’t already been done- your advantage is that you’ve seen almost everyone else step up and fail doing the same fucking thing every time, following like sheep in hopes that luck might somehow shine brighter than the lack of originality and slippery slope of redemptive vengeance.
Dare to be different Johanna, that's what they should have told you, dare to be different just like everyone else said they were…
That's the beautiful thing with you I suppose, theres no pretentious bullshit… no pretending that you’re anything except what's presented. No flash and fancy, no bells and whistles- you step in the ring with Johanna Kreiger and you know you’re getting punched in the face. No need for 16 backflips to get there first, no need for pyrotechnics spelling out names and an accolades list to be read out in honour of your presence… you come out, you fight and in this case you tumble straight back from where I dragged you up from with a story to tell and a reason to grind.
Predictable, definable. Get what you’re fucking given or go without. Smash mouth smashing mouths- it's just a shame that you’ve had no reason before now to get any better- and now with the chance to seize, it's too late and you’re already thinking of ways to turn this opportunity into an excuse.
I’m not unstoppable. I’m not God just in the same way I’m not Satan nor would I be egocentric enough to claim it. I tend not to consider myself with such levels of grandeur considering how dirty my hands still get. No, you see I’m the Ferryman of this division coming to claim my fucking toll from all those who dare stand and shout for paradise from the shore.
See, this title has become pay to play and I’m not accepting IOU’s for the effort anymore. No, you want your shot, I want something from you in return… Exposure doesn’t defend this title and money doesn't buy me days on the clock.
I want a reason to care, I want to see this fucking division improve instead of rest on the gilded laurels that others before me laid and proceeded to defile. I’m not coming for souls, but maybe I should cause there are those out there who still think I’m fucking around.
No, these 300+ days hasn’t come without cost. I can’t stand here and act as though the Bombshells World title isn’t intrinsically linked into my anatomy by now. I've given more than anyone and far beyond what I’ll ever get back. Hell, it could be argued that really.. I’ve got nowhere left to go but down…
You won’t be the one to put me there though, as much as you’ll claim to defy the trend. Keep in mind Johanna, that I’m the reason that you have this belief that you can do better, that you deserve better. I’m the reason for this ‘new blood rising’- the same that continually threaten to tear the title from my stony grasp.
Different doesn’t make you better. Talking louder doesn’t make me notice you.
Show me something I’ve been missing, something I’ve been looking for… give me a reason to fear for my reign. Tell me something about myself that I haven’t already heard… I don’t want the tough talk generic bad bitch 2.0 seminar, I want Johanna Kreiger to come and tell me all the ways she’s gonna leave me a bloody wreck…
… before she too, overthinks paying my fucking toll.”
******
Oblivion Garage
Las Vegas, ND
08.01.2022
9:03pm
No one ever said love was easy.
No one especially had ever claimed Amber was easy to love, and yet it was a choice that Mac continued to make in spite of the redhead giving him every reason to otherwise. Maybe that's why the lies and the secrets she held so tightly seemed to scratch and claw at the insides of her throat as she swallowed another bitter truth in favour of shielding from something far more unpleasant… realization that she couldn’t just be changed, that forcing the sharpened edges of her being back together would only leave them both bloodstained.
Lies. Secrets. Amber forced herself to believe she was doing the right thing… For them. Although a sideways glance at the World Title sitting on the edge of the desk continued to suggest otherwise, a constant reminder and validation to everything she’d built.
Just like all the paperwork and invoices strewn across the surface, at various points of being filed and filled out accordingly, were a constant reminder that being a World Champion did little to shirk responsibility.
After all, they’d bought this place together… built a selective client base and allowed their mutual appreciation of mechanics and severe anti-social skills shine in a way that didn’t leave them so lopsided.
Another argument with Mac had driven her here under the guise of paperwork, the Bombshells world title like a security blanket that couldn’t tell her that she was simply being irrational. Of course she was fucking irrational, that came with the territory.
Between the lingering doubt about her ability to continually outperform and remain flawless under mounting pressure, the ever-present ‘lessons’ from Masque talking about creating a ‘hurricane resplendent’ once more as though Amber had really lost her edge and the general background paranoia that she’d inherited… Yeah, Amber Bane-Ryan could have been considered a little flaky.
Trying to focus back in on the papers, Amber roughly leaned back in the office’s swivel chair. That crush of leather combined with the faint waft of Mac’s cologne, yeah that wasn't helping much with the focus problem as the pang of guilt ricocheted.
Too much stimuli, too much going on- this was supposed to help her focus and put things back into perspective, instead it felt as though she’d fallen into a blur of meaningless words and smudged ink.
All she wanted to do was disconnect… cut away all the ties that bound her to this reality and drift mindlessly for a while on an unconscious river of emptiness. Scrape out all the toxic build up she’d allowed to accrue. Easier said than done, Amber contemplated as she rolled her tongue through her cheek.
“... telling you man, it’ll be fine.”
Hushed voices just beyond the window pricked Amber’s attention, nerves set on edge as though firing on hair triggers. Male, probably two unless they were hyping themselves, attempting nuance and forgetting the way sound carried in the stillness of the night air.
Fight or flight. Neither seemed like a reasonable option- besides, there was nothing of value to steal, they’d deliberately not taken on clients over the holidays due to their schedules and anything remotely useful or of intrinsic value had already been secured.
Amber emerged from the office to find the door already swung open, the movement at her periphery stumbling with surprise while the two from beyond the window lazily strolled into the space as though expected.
It was the fourth figure though that made Amber wish she had snatched up a crowbar, just in case.
“Ah, Bambi… You’ll have to forgive my intrusion at this hour, but you’re a difficult woman to pin down.”
Dominic Del Gado peacocked before the nameless entourage for a moment whilst reveling in his own perceived grandeur, the flourish seemingly enough of a signal for the men to examine the ‘finer’ details of Amber and Mac’s proposed ‘exit strategy’. That was always the plan, on the day they’d disappear into an outlaw's sunset, Oblivion Garage would be their way out… the gateway drug to a new life, a better life. A less violent life.
“You don’t answer my calls, you don’t respond to my emails. I just wanted to say…”
Dominic stepped closer as a metallic clang against the concrete floor cut him off, the contents of something viscose seeping out across the floor. Another clang elsewhere triggered Amber’s heart rate to spike again… this time bottle of turpentine, the acrid sterile fumes quickly spreading like a fog. Another can, automotive paint… some left over brake fluid… spilled across the floor, the combination of noxious vapors leaving Amber furiously lightheaded.
“I forgive you Bambi. Granted you acted immaturely and humiliated me in such a way…”
Dominic trailed off as he drew a handkerchief to cough into, clasping it over his face although unable to mask the growing distant smile. All too quickly, the intent was becoming clear and all too slowly Amber’s body finally started to react. Boots sloshing through a shallow puddle of something clear, Amber whipped around to pull the closest man from some metal shelving that he skewed like a pretentious cat on a countertop. With the jerking of his body, the shelving came crashing towards them both, sending them stumbling and creating far more liquid debris than intended.
Another tried to grasp at her wrist as Amber tried to straighten, her efforts growing more and more desperate as Dominic continued to chastise as he backed towards the door.
“... that has yet to cease causing me difficulties. See, no one trusts a man who cannot hold his own, who allows himself to be treated as though lesser without consequence. I’ve made it clear in the past, but perhaps you’ve grown careless and forgotten…”
Within a fraction of a second Amber realized the intent, the rigid plastic of a cable tie looped and biting at her skin. A voice far less subtle than that of the Del Gado prodigy leaned in, as she tried to leverage her other wrist out of reach, gravelly and husky between wretched gasps.
“It's for your own good, sweetheart.”
To hell it was, as Amber wriggled free just far enough to almost explode into the one stretched into her direct path. Fumbling fingers did their best to tighten the draw as her own sunk in at her own throat, knocking the crusted scabs of a prior wound free as the seep of red dribbled, scrambling to leave some slack while she tried to shift her body in hopes of twisting an arm uncomfortably out of joint.
Precious seconds passed far too slowly as the tussle raged, more liquids sloshing across the floor… across every surface that might have happily fed a flame… Dominic silhouetted himself in the doorway proudly as Amber staggered and leveraged the would-be assailant over her shoulder with a heavy thud into mercifully dry concrete. Benches soaked in the myriad of solvents, the wooden beams splashed with paint and polish alike…
“You always knew there would be consequences cause there always are, I’m a believer of karma… of being true to your word. Time after time, my darling, you turned on me and I forgave you. I forgive you and I built you up into what you’ve become… Perhaps that was my mistake, perhaps I was wrong to believe beauty might overcome the beast.
You don’t get to decide how this ends, there is no walking away from what you’re wrought… You had an opportunity to be done, to leave when you said you would, still you pursued cause you justified yourself in a new reality. In truth, I never wanted things to be this way Bambi… but now I can’t picture a more fitting tribute.”
He was right, like a figure of martyrdom glowing in the doorway. Amber hadn’t even noticed the minions slip by until the first wave of heat swept through, the fumes leaving her woozy to the point that the blood trying to get back to her brain couldn’t figure which way was up.
Mac. He’d never forgive her… for the raze and ruin she’d so carelessly brought down on them, for the secrets and destruction. Of course this was never going to end peacefully, she swore internally, furious for ever believing such a futile dream.
Everything they’d built, the structural paradigm of their relationship… She’d gotten so caught up with her World title that she’d blissfully overlooked Dominic’s spite and determination to be considered ‘worthy’ of his supposed empire title.
An epitome of their marriage it seemed… quickly going up in flames.
Flames.
Fire.
… Oh god.
… her Bombshells World Title was still in the office.
