Post by Loki on May 22, 2015 21:20:13 GMT -5
Brandon sat alone in the corner of the locker room. Not that the locker room was empty. In fact it was bustling as the faces of PCW were going about their business; some getting ready for matches and others recovering from matches. No, Brandon sat alone because he had been marked. The Black Hand had just started to gain strength the last time he’d had been a part of PCW, and time had done nothing to diminish the hold they had.
Word of Grimm’s unprovoked attack had spread like wildfire through the back. Even before he’d made it inside people gave him side-long glances, and they all but scurried out of the way when he walked into a room. The message was clear, The Black Hand had laid claim.
So Brandon sat alone in his little corner of the room, a bag of ice rested along the back of his head. The impact of Rhodes’ Fractured Minds certainly hadn’t done any favors to the large knot that had already been forming from his altercation with Grimm in the parking lot.
Brandon couldn’t help but snort derisively at himself. Altercation. He needed to call it what it was. It had been a beat down, plain and simple. Grimm’s way of welcoming him back to PCW, his way of showing how much he’d appreciated being knocked out of the tournament. The message had been received, the real altercation would come later. Brandon hadn’t even made it back to the locker room after losing to Rhodes when he’d been informed that he had a match at the Pay-Per-View. Against Grimm.
Brandon shuddered involuntarily. Grimm. The name itself was enough to conjure fear in all but those who had nothing left to fear. Grimm, the name had power. Say a person’s name and you open the connection you have with them, a personal link. But a person is always changing, whether through mood or some kind of life altering event. The Demon of Hangtown didn’t seem to have that problem. One of the side effects of being soulless, Brandon supposed, you didn’t have to worry about the silly notions of right and wrong. Now, next week, or a thousand years from now, a demon called would do the same thing no matter what, so it was with Grimm.
He shivered as the melting ice dripped down neck, at least that’s what he was going to tell anyone who asked. But he knew no one would, they didn’t want to get involved with a dead man. Grimm and Sadistic had been bad enough when they were the Hangtown Horrors. With the addition of Michael Wryght they were more than a team, they were a force of nature.
Brandon tossed the ice pack away and started to change. Marked man or not, he had several things to take care of before his execution. The Demon of Hangtown would just have to wait. He grabbed his bag and headed towards the exit. No one got in his way, no one spoke to him, and no one so much as looked at him. The writing was on the walls: Dead man walking.
It was well after midnight by the time Brandon returned to what passed as his home for the time being. A live in motel, rooms by the week, with free HBO. It was a far cry from what he was used to but it would suffice for now. Brandon grabbed a quick bite to eat before getting ready for bed. It was going to be a long day.
Sleep did not come easy. It was punctuated by dreams. Dreams of fire, of fear, of laughter. Brandon jolted awake, soaked in a cold sweat. The sun was just starting to peak through the drawn shades. He drew his legs to his chest and rested his head on his knees, focusing on breathing and hoping that his heart wouldn’t chose the next few beats to explode from his chest.
When his heart finally dropped out of coked up hummingbird range and back into something more human he started to pull himself together for the day. Finishing that, he walked to his car, stopping briefly to examine the dent Grimm had left in it. It was a perfect match for the back of his head. Brandon sighed, it was just one more thing to get done.
He pulled out of the extended stay motel and started driving. An hour of procrastination later he pulled up in front of a well maintained house in one of the nicer neighborhoods of Greenville. He’d only been there once before. It hadn’t gone very well the first time, and he certainly didn’t expect it to go any better this time. Brandon walked to the door and knocked, his heart had resumed its coked out hummingbird pace. The door began to open, he looked up to see who was answering it.
It was a fist.
At least that’s all Brandon saw as it connected squarely with his jaw. The blow spun him to the ground. He didn’t have time to get up before an angry bellow sounded and more blows began to rain down on him. Brandon covered up as best he could.
“This is your fault!”
Brandon heard the words but couldn’t comprehend them fully.
“All. Your. Fault.” His attacker grunted between blows.
“Parker Dahlgren, you stop that this instant!” A woman shrieked from up on the steps.
As suddenly as they had come the rain of blows stopped. Brandon uncurled from the fetal position with a low groan and sat up. Staring down at him from the steps with naked hatred was Parker Dahlgren, father to his former protégé. He wasn’t surprised. The man had an explosive temper and had nearly decked Brandon the last time he was here; and that had been before he’d abandoned their daughter.
Melissa’s mother, Lucy, knelt down next to him, “Are you all right, Mr. Noble?”
Brandon took stock. His lip was bleeding and he’d have a few bruises later, if he didn’t already. But nothing permanent, nothing that would be there come time for ‘Living A Legacy’.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I guess I deserved that.”
Parker Dahlgren stabbed an angry finger towards him, “You’re god damn right you did.”
“Parker,” his wife said with an edge to her voice, “You need to go inside before someone see’s and calls the police.”
“Let them come. This son of a bitch deserved what he got.”
Brandon couldn’t meet the older man’s eyes, “It’s all right. I’m not going to call the police. You’ve both got every right to be pissed at me. As her father you’ve got every right to do what you did. I just came by to talk to Melissa, to talk to all of you. I just wanted to explain what happened, try to find a way to make it right.”
The flash of pain in both their eyes suddenly made Brandon extremely nervous. The last time he’d seen pain like that had been in Whisper’s eyes, at their daughter’s funeral.
“I think you had better come inside, Mr. Noble.”
A few minutes later Brandon sat inside the Dahlgren home with a towel pressed to his lip to stop the bleeding. Melissa’s parents sat across from him, the silence was deafening.
“So Melissa isn’t here right now?” Brandon asked, trying to spur the conversation.
Her mother started calmly, looking down at her hands folded neatly in her lap. “Mr. Noble, do you remember what I asked you when you first came to get our permission?”
He nodded. It had been one of the most uncomfortable conversations he’d ever had, it wasn’t one he was likely to forget.
“Yeah, I remember,” he said quietly, “you asked if I was an honorable man. I told you I was.”
“Yes. You did. And do you still think you’re an honorable man?”
Parker muttered something under his breath.
Brandon started to speak, “I, I don’t know anymore,” he stopped, “I’d like to think that I am. But I honestly don’t know.”
“I think you’re a liar and coward,” the elder Dahlgren interrupted, “She’d still be here if it wasn’t for you. I’d still have my little girl.”
Brandon’s heart skipped a beat or twelve and the room began to spin, “She’s-”
Lucy Dahlgren cowed her husband into silence once more, “Missing. Not dead. So you can rest a little easier there, Brandon. I’m not going to put the death of another daughter at your feet.”
Brandon slumped back, “I had no idea,” he pleaded, “If there’s anything I can do-”
“There isn’t,” she interrupted, “You made your choice and now the rest of us live with those consequences.”
The simple statement of truth rocked him harder than any of Parker’s punches, “You said she was missing? Do you have any ideas? Do the police have any leads?”
Lucy’s anger was a spiraling inferno in her eyes when she finally looked at Brandon, sending hot flashes up his neck, “She turned eighteen while you were still part of her life. She’s legally an adult. After you left, so did she. She said she was getting an apartment downtown with some friends we’d never heard of. That was eight months ago. We get a call ever now and then, but that’s it.”
Brandon shrank further into the couch, “I’m so sorry.”
“Yes, Mr. Noble, you are. You gave me your word that you were an honorable man, that you would never do anything untoward my daughter,” she said with a cold fury.
“I didn’t,” he stammered, “I never meant to-”
“No, Mr. Noble I doubt you meant a great many things. But the fact remains that you made a promise to me, to my family, and most importantly to my daughter. And then you abandoned her, you left her twisting in the wind with no one to guide her. We tried our best with her, but something inside of her broke when you left, something we couldn’t do anything for. I told you that we’d already lost one son. And thanks to you, we lost our daughter now too.”
Brandon could feel the cracks in his mind widening, he could feel that fragile mirror about to shatter once again. A loud whine filled his ears, blocking everything else out. As it got louder, it began to take the form of words.
‘And thanks to you, we lost our daughter now too.’
Brandon didn’t remember getting up, he didn’t remember leaving the Dahlgren’s home, and he certainly didn’t remember driving back. When reality began to settle back in he found himself sitting in the corner of the small shower stall in his room. Icy water struck him full blast, soaking him to the bone. As the frozen torrent struck him one line played over and over in his head.
‘We lost our daughter.’
Brandon’s scream shattered the peace and split the night.
Word of Grimm’s unprovoked attack had spread like wildfire through the back. Even before he’d made it inside people gave him side-long glances, and they all but scurried out of the way when he walked into a room. The message was clear, The Black Hand had laid claim.
So Brandon sat alone in his little corner of the room, a bag of ice rested along the back of his head. The impact of Rhodes’ Fractured Minds certainly hadn’t done any favors to the large knot that had already been forming from his altercation with Grimm in the parking lot.
Brandon couldn’t help but snort derisively at himself. Altercation. He needed to call it what it was. It had been a beat down, plain and simple. Grimm’s way of welcoming him back to PCW, his way of showing how much he’d appreciated being knocked out of the tournament. The message had been received, the real altercation would come later. Brandon hadn’t even made it back to the locker room after losing to Rhodes when he’d been informed that he had a match at the Pay-Per-View. Against Grimm.
Brandon shuddered involuntarily. Grimm. The name itself was enough to conjure fear in all but those who had nothing left to fear. Grimm, the name had power. Say a person’s name and you open the connection you have with them, a personal link. But a person is always changing, whether through mood or some kind of life altering event. The Demon of Hangtown didn’t seem to have that problem. One of the side effects of being soulless, Brandon supposed, you didn’t have to worry about the silly notions of right and wrong. Now, next week, or a thousand years from now, a demon called would do the same thing no matter what, so it was with Grimm.
He shivered as the melting ice dripped down neck, at least that’s what he was going to tell anyone who asked. But he knew no one would, they didn’t want to get involved with a dead man. Grimm and Sadistic had been bad enough when they were the Hangtown Horrors. With the addition of Michael Wryght they were more than a team, they were a force of nature.
Brandon tossed the ice pack away and started to change. Marked man or not, he had several things to take care of before his execution. The Demon of Hangtown would just have to wait. He grabbed his bag and headed towards the exit. No one got in his way, no one spoke to him, and no one so much as looked at him. The writing was on the walls: Dead man walking.
It was well after midnight by the time Brandon returned to what passed as his home for the time being. A live in motel, rooms by the week, with free HBO. It was a far cry from what he was used to but it would suffice for now. Brandon grabbed a quick bite to eat before getting ready for bed. It was going to be a long day.
Sleep did not come easy. It was punctuated by dreams. Dreams of fire, of fear, of laughter. Brandon jolted awake, soaked in a cold sweat. The sun was just starting to peak through the drawn shades. He drew his legs to his chest and rested his head on his knees, focusing on breathing and hoping that his heart wouldn’t chose the next few beats to explode from his chest.
When his heart finally dropped out of coked up hummingbird range and back into something more human he started to pull himself together for the day. Finishing that, he walked to his car, stopping briefly to examine the dent Grimm had left in it. It was a perfect match for the back of his head. Brandon sighed, it was just one more thing to get done.
He pulled out of the extended stay motel and started driving. An hour of procrastination later he pulled up in front of a well maintained house in one of the nicer neighborhoods of Greenville. He’d only been there once before. It hadn’t gone very well the first time, and he certainly didn’t expect it to go any better this time. Brandon walked to the door and knocked, his heart had resumed its coked out hummingbird pace. The door began to open, he looked up to see who was answering it.
It was a fist.
At least that’s all Brandon saw as it connected squarely with his jaw. The blow spun him to the ground. He didn’t have time to get up before an angry bellow sounded and more blows began to rain down on him. Brandon covered up as best he could.
“This is your fault!”
Brandon heard the words but couldn’t comprehend them fully.
“All. Your. Fault.” His attacker grunted between blows.
“Parker Dahlgren, you stop that this instant!” A woman shrieked from up on the steps.
As suddenly as they had come the rain of blows stopped. Brandon uncurled from the fetal position with a low groan and sat up. Staring down at him from the steps with naked hatred was Parker Dahlgren, father to his former protégé. He wasn’t surprised. The man had an explosive temper and had nearly decked Brandon the last time he was here; and that had been before he’d abandoned their daughter.
Melissa’s mother, Lucy, knelt down next to him, “Are you all right, Mr. Noble?”
Brandon took stock. His lip was bleeding and he’d have a few bruises later, if he didn’t already. But nothing permanent, nothing that would be there come time for ‘Living A Legacy’.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I guess I deserved that.”
Parker Dahlgren stabbed an angry finger towards him, “You’re god damn right you did.”
“Parker,” his wife said with an edge to her voice, “You need to go inside before someone see’s and calls the police.”
“Let them come. This son of a bitch deserved what he got.”
Brandon couldn’t meet the older man’s eyes, “It’s all right. I’m not going to call the police. You’ve both got every right to be pissed at me. As her father you’ve got every right to do what you did. I just came by to talk to Melissa, to talk to all of you. I just wanted to explain what happened, try to find a way to make it right.”
The flash of pain in both their eyes suddenly made Brandon extremely nervous. The last time he’d seen pain like that had been in Whisper’s eyes, at their daughter’s funeral.
“I think you had better come inside, Mr. Noble.”
A few minutes later Brandon sat inside the Dahlgren home with a towel pressed to his lip to stop the bleeding. Melissa’s parents sat across from him, the silence was deafening.
“So Melissa isn’t here right now?” Brandon asked, trying to spur the conversation.
Her mother started calmly, looking down at her hands folded neatly in her lap. “Mr. Noble, do you remember what I asked you when you first came to get our permission?”
He nodded. It had been one of the most uncomfortable conversations he’d ever had, it wasn’t one he was likely to forget.
“Yeah, I remember,” he said quietly, “you asked if I was an honorable man. I told you I was.”
“Yes. You did. And do you still think you’re an honorable man?”
Parker muttered something under his breath.
Brandon started to speak, “I, I don’t know anymore,” he stopped, “I’d like to think that I am. But I honestly don’t know.”
“I think you’re a liar and coward,” the elder Dahlgren interrupted, “She’d still be here if it wasn’t for you. I’d still have my little girl.”
Brandon’s heart skipped a beat or twelve and the room began to spin, “She’s-”
Lucy Dahlgren cowed her husband into silence once more, “Missing. Not dead. So you can rest a little easier there, Brandon. I’m not going to put the death of another daughter at your feet.”
Brandon slumped back, “I had no idea,” he pleaded, “If there’s anything I can do-”
“There isn’t,” she interrupted, “You made your choice and now the rest of us live with those consequences.”
The simple statement of truth rocked him harder than any of Parker’s punches, “You said she was missing? Do you have any ideas? Do the police have any leads?”
Lucy’s anger was a spiraling inferno in her eyes when she finally looked at Brandon, sending hot flashes up his neck, “She turned eighteen while you were still part of her life. She’s legally an adult. After you left, so did she. She said she was getting an apartment downtown with some friends we’d never heard of. That was eight months ago. We get a call ever now and then, but that’s it.”
Brandon shrank further into the couch, “I’m so sorry.”
“Yes, Mr. Noble, you are. You gave me your word that you were an honorable man, that you would never do anything untoward my daughter,” she said with a cold fury.
“I didn’t,” he stammered, “I never meant to-”
“No, Mr. Noble I doubt you meant a great many things. But the fact remains that you made a promise to me, to my family, and most importantly to my daughter. And then you abandoned her, you left her twisting in the wind with no one to guide her. We tried our best with her, but something inside of her broke when you left, something we couldn’t do anything for. I told you that we’d already lost one son. And thanks to you, we lost our daughter now too.”
Brandon could feel the cracks in his mind widening, he could feel that fragile mirror about to shatter once again. A loud whine filled his ears, blocking everything else out. As it got louder, it began to take the form of words.
‘And thanks to you, we lost our daughter now too.’
Brandon didn’t remember getting up, he didn’t remember leaving the Dahlgren’s home, and he certainly didn’t remember driving back. When reality began to settle back in he found himself sitting in the corner of the small shower stall in his room. Icy water struck him full blast, soaking him to the bone. As the frozen torrent struck him one line played over and over in his head.
‘We lost our daughter.’
Brandon’s scream shattered the peace and split the night.