CHBK: “I would stop right there Adam.”
Brock looks at Elijah as Elijah, at first, looks relieved, before then faking a confident smirk and backing up, into Lyman, who then holds him up as he nearly trips over his feet.
Sharper: “Finally, some order.”
Knots: “Or more questions. Is Selena taking the title shot?”
Sharper: “Stop it.”
Knots: “What? She’s a former Adrenaline Champion. Maybe wants to dip her toe back in!”
CHBK: “I can appreciate that you all have now gotten intertwined with this all, but Adam, you’re right. Simon Lyman had his shot and to reward him in this way would well…be a bad precedent to set. So here is what I will do.”
CHBK pauses for a moment.
CHBK: “At Retribution, we’re going to see two matches revolving around the Adrenaline Championship. The first…it will see Bree Lancaster defending her Adrenaline Championship against Autumn Valentine!”
The crowd roars.
CHBK: “And Simon, Adam, you’ll go at it one more time, this time in a ladder match to determine who will be the number one contender to the Adrenaline Championship!”
The crowd roars.
CHBK: “I think that settles it!”
The crowd cheers as “This is How a Heart Breaks” plays throughout the arena.
Sharper: “I think it does too! Autumn and Bree; Simon and Brock in a ladder match. Oh man!”
Knots: “And Simon does not look happy!”
Brock looks at Simon as Simon looks around, clearly upset. Bree focuses on Autumn as the scene cuts away.
[It’s funny how things work out sometimes... One man’s machinations get disrupted and the person who disrupted them gets rewarded with the potential for a bigger reward looming on the horizon. I’d almost call it irony, but it feels more like Karma than anything else, to be perfectly honest with you. Especially since the man who got interrupted is pure trash in every sense of the word! What’s that? You think I’m being too harsh? Not really. I mean... Saying he’s trash is me being nice if you know who I’m talking about. But since it seems like not everybody knows who I’m referring to, come with me and you’ll understand why I said that. Are you ready? Good. Let’s go.]
Oh, I was in a rare mood. I’d had time to think about what happened on Breakdown and to say my mood was foul would actually be a misnomer. I wasn’t totally pissed off, but I wasn’t over the moon with joy either. To say I wasn’t sure how I felt would be more accurate. I hadn’t felt this way in a long time and it was very unfamiliar to me, to say the very least. It took me until I reached the kitchen to figure out what I was feeling...
“Bloody hell. That’s what that is.”
Liam looked at me when I said that and he must have seen something in my eyes because he got up and got me a cup of coffee before I could do it myself.
“Here.”
“Thanks, Liam.”
“Now sit. It’s my turn to make breakfast.”
I knew better than to argue with him when he used that tone of voice. So I sat at the kitchen table. It didn’t take long for him to put a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon and hashbrowns on the table in front of me. The volume of eggs told me he’d already eaten.
“This looks good!”
He smiled and went to wash what he’d used while he cooked. I purposely took my time despite being ravenously hungry. The last time I wolfed down my food I wound up regretting it almost immediately, so I slowed down.
“Still wary about eating too fast, little brother?”
I covered my mouth with one hand to muffle the burp.
“Yes.”
“I think I figured out why that happened, by the way.”
“Do tell.”
Liam hung the dishtowel he was using off one shoulder and brought me a refill for my coffee.
“You got that stomach bug too.”
I sat there after taking a sip of coffee. “Well I’ll be damned. I did.”
“See? There’s an explanation for everything.”
And he went to put the carafe back on the warming plate of the coffeemaker. I laughed at myself and went back to eating. It didn’t hurt that Liam and Lauren were amazing cooks... Eating slowly allowed me to savor my food, which I never got the chance to do when it was my turn to cook. That reminded me.
“Don’t plan on me making breakfast any time soon.”
I sat back and rubbed my face, then put my glasses back on. So I missed Liam looking at me with surprise and concern.
“What’s wrong, little brother?”
“I never get a chance to eat when it’s my turn to cook.”
“I’ll ask Jimmy to step up for you.”
So he’d noticed. I sighed softly and abruptly realized I’d lost my appetite. I hadn’t even touched the bacon and I’d only eaten half the hashbrowns, but the eggs were all gone. Liam noticed and shook his head before taking the plate to the counter and putting the fork in the sink.
“I’ll wrap it up for later. I haven’t had to do this for you in a long time.”
But he didn’t sound upset. No, he actually sounded – He sounded happy! I couldn’t help chuckling a little as I stood up.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Liam grinned as he covered my plate with another one and wrapped both plates in plastic wrap then a small towel.
“That’s how life is, little brother. Now let’s go.”
I knew exactly where he was taking me and chuckled.
“How much you wanna bet they’re gonna think you’ve finally lost your mind at first?”
Liam laughed out loud as he made sure Mischief and the cats had enough food and water while we were gone.
“Nothing. Because you’d be right.”
I laughed too as we went to the front door. A surge of something had me leaning on the door for a minute.
“Adam! What’s wrong!?”
I shook my head and held up one hand. Liam watched me with quiet concern. Behind my eyelids snatches of what was yet to be played out and left me breathless. When I finally opened my eyes, I was gasping for breath. My hands were shaking as I tried to reach my communicator and I finally had to give up. Liam turned his left arm and tapped the button on his communicator. The sedate slab of blue was a focal point for me as he spoke to someone.
“It’s Liam in Philadelphia. Adam just had a really bad vision.”
Jericho’s voice came from the communicator he’d specially made for my older brother.
“I’ll be right there. Are you in the kitchen?”
“No. We’re at the front door. I was about to take him to an old hangout of ours.”
“All right.”
Liam closed the channel and Jericho appeared a second later.
“You weren’t kidding, Liam... He’s sweating!”
He put his hand on my head and copied my vision, then moved his hand to my shoulder as he watched what I’d just witnessed. When he was done watching, he shook his head.
“I’ve never seen anything like what you just did, Adam... I’ll have Michael on standby because I don’t know if we’ll be able to stop it from happening.”
I took a few deep breaths to steady myself before I said anything.
“Okay. You know I have to question the timing of this vision.”
“Coming less than a month after we find the jackass stealing variants of precognitive powers. Yeah, I’m questioning the timing myself.”
Liam hadn’t been to the Smelter since that day and I didn’t blame him. He’d made himself violently ill with what he’d had to do. It was never easy to kill someone, especially when the person doing the killing was a person who valued the sanctity of life whether that life was human or not. He didn’t have to be at the Smelter, he just went there to give himself something to do during the day. He put his hands in his pockets and leaned on the door beside me.
“I feel like I brought that on.”
Jericho knew what he meant.
“Don’t blame yourself for doing what had to be done, Liam. He got you too, so it was only fitting we gave him to you.”
“Oh don’t get me wrong. I was happy to do it. But I feel like it was the trigger for what Adam saw.”
I waved one hand in a dismissive manner.
“We don’t know that. And there is no way in hell I’m going to let you dwell on that any more. Trigger or not, you did the right thing. He would have hurt so many others if you hadn’t.”
Jericho spoke up before Liam could respond.
“He’s right, you know.”
Then he grinned.
“I don’t think he was expecting to have his lungs torn out with a length of barbed wire!”
Liam actually blushed as I finally stood up straight and put my hand on his shoulder.
“That’s my big brother!”
Liam finally laughed and shook his head.
“Okay, okay, I won’t feel guilty any more. Geez.”
Then he looked at me.
“Are you okay to go ahead with what we were going to do?”
I took a deep breath and held out one hand. It was shaking violently. I sighed.
“Guess not.”
Jericho gave me a good look then nodded to himself and pointed to the basement where I kept my video camera.
“Go. You won’t be able to do anything else until you get it out of your system and you know it.”
Liam and I looked at each other and we both nodded.
“Right.”
I went downstairs first, using the railing to keep myself on my feet. I could hear Liam and Jericho coming down the stairs behind me and smiled faintly as I made a beeline for my favorite recording chair. Liam grimaced and handed me a sticky roller.
“Cat hair.”
“Figures.”
I removed the used sheet on the roll and proceeded to remove all the cat hair. It took three sticky sheets to get it all and I grumbled loudly.
“Damn cats!”
I sat down to get comfy and promptly got one of the aforementioned felines in my lap.
“Oof! Dammit, Jinx!”
Jinx was the self-appointed lap cat of the two. Her sister Minx was more aloof and standoffish. And of course, since they were part Maine Coon, they were heavy! Jinx settled in and started to purr. She was getting awfully uppity these days! Her sister Minx came up, saw Jinx on my lap and solved the problem the way she always did... She got up on my lap behind Jinx and proceeded to push her off! Jinx fell with a loud meow of surprise and Minx jumped down to land beside her. MEOW! -You don’t curl up on Adam’s lap when he’s in his promo chair, you idiot!- Jericho bit back his laughter as Jinx chased Minx up the stairs. Liam and I didn’t bother holding back and we started laughing.
“Those two...”
Jericho gave in and laughed right along with us.
“Never a dull moment with cats around!”
The laughter died away and I recognized the feeling that was left. I sat up straight and they moved out of camera range. Liam tapped the camera and the familiar red light came on. I was raring to go.
“Simon Lyman, who the fuck do you think you are, trying to weasel your way into another title match!? You lost! The record books will show that you lost fair and square in the middle of the ring! And let’s not forget what almost happened to Elijah! He’s only standing because CHBK came out, so you owe him one. You call yourself the Savior, yet you use methods favored by traitors and backstabbers. You talk about bringing people salvation, but you have blood on your hands. You say you’re above me, but you had to handcuff me to an alcove in a locker room to get the upper hand! Yes, you got one over on me, Simon, but it took every dirty trick you had to do so!”
One hand balled into a fist and I was glad Minx had gotten Jinx to chase her back up the stairs.
“I’m more than you can handle, and you know it’ll take more than you’re capable of to put me down for good! You’ll have to kill me if you want to stop me and I know you won’t because you don’t have the guts to try!”
I sat back and took a long swallow out of the water bottle that had been tucked under my chair before resuming my soliloquy.
“CHBK actually did me a huge favor by saying it was a ladder match to determine the next number one contender for the Adrenaline Championship, Simon...”
The grin that crossed my face could only be described as sadistic.
“He gave me carte blanche to kick your ass!”
Carte blanche was French for “blank check”, and it gave me permission to do whatever I wanted to Simon Lyman’s pathetic ass.
“Now he may wind up regretting that, but I don’t think so. You see, Simon, he’s just as sick of your bullshit as I am. He’s just not able to come right out and say so. So he found a way to express his opinion without looking like he was playing favorites. A ladder match is right up my alley, Simon, and you won’t be walking out of Retribution!”
The sadistic smirk on my face traveled up into my eyes and I heard Jericho’s muffled inhalation of surprise. He hadn’t seen me like this in a very long time!
“I’ve been known to do some very creative things with ladders and the human anatomy if you get my drift, Simon... There’s only one number one contender for the SCW Adrenaline Championship and you’re looking at him! I’ve been gone from wrestling too long, Simon. When I get through with you, you’re going to wish you’d stayed retired! You, me and ladders equals only one thing, Simon... That adds up to pain and suffering for you! I’ve told this to everyone I’ve ever stood across from in a wrestling ring and you’re going to realize just how true it is after I mop the floor with you at Retribution, Simon. Fuck with a Wolf, you end up dead!”
The light on the camera went out and I sat back with a steady exhale. Liam looked at the viewfinder and nodded.
“Upload complete, clickable link is Terminus Operandi.”
Jericho laughed.
“Good. It did update its language database to include Latin.”
Then he looked at me.
“Now how do you feel?”
I lifted one hand and held it there. It was steady and unmoving.
“I’m perfect.”
“Good. Now you can go.”
And just like that, he was gone. Liam looked at me and waited. I grinned and stood up.
“You heard the man. Let’s go.”
Liam laughed as he followed me up the stairs to go do what we had originally planned to do. The door slammed behind us and he locked it. The security system was already armed. Simon was going to find out how badly he’d fucked up when he got in the ring with me at Retribution... I was going to give him a beating he’d never forget.