Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2017 21:28:48 GMT -5
Lincolnshire, Illinois
Thursday, Morning
Thursday, Morning
A cold, tense day had passed. From checking out of the hotel to returning the rental to the flight home, Madison and Braxton had hardly looked at one another, let alone spoken more than was absolutely necessary. The only indication that things weren't completely beyond hope was that Brax hadn't insisted one of them sleep on the couch.
She'd even expected to wake up alone, but she felt the weight on the bed beside her. When she glanced over to see him sitting there, staring at her, she wondered if waking up alone might have been better. “Brax—”
“We need to talk.” Wasn't that what she was trying to do? “You need to really talk to me. Don't dodge me, don't lie to me, don't conjure up a few tears and try to manipulate me.” She scowled at that, but he silenced her with a gesture. “You have to tell me what the hell is going on. Everything.”
Arguments and lies flocked to the front of her mind, but her throat was dry and she could only nod. “Alright.”
Before she could say anything else, he rose from the bed and stepped out of the room, leaving her with the silence of her own guilt... and the flashing of messages on her phone. She snatched it up off the bedside table and tapped on the screen.
JuneBug: Girl,you better tell me what the hell is up.
TattooedTempest: Nothing, I'm fine.
JuneBug: Please, I know you better than that. Two days of silence from you? I don't think so.
TattooedTempest: Brax and I had a fight. It's alright now.
JuneBug: I thought maybe you went off the deep end after they gave Logan that title match.
TattooedTempest: Fuck him. Fuck his fucking smug face and his fucking smug bitch too. I've had Zahra fucking Phoenix on my heels for the last month and a half. Logan? He's had one trash pile after the next. He's going up against Elena and that illusion of grandeur is gonna come crashing right down on him when she hands him his ass. I should have had that match, and he stole it from me. At least I can watch the smugness get kicked right off his face when he fails.
JuneBug: ...Right, touchy subject. ...At least you don't have to face Zahra again... right?
TattooedTempest: No, this time I get Tanja and Damon, the sort of hot garbage Logan's been slogging through and thinking it makes him something.
JuneBug: Come on, Maddie.
TattooedTempest: I know. It's going to be a different animal with both of them. I'm going to have to have eyes in the back of my head.
JuneBug: But so will they.
TattooedTempest: Exactly, but they know that too. They're both very aware of their surroundings in the ring. Tanja kept track of Sadie pretty well in her match at World War. Way back at Baptized in Blood when Aliyah Turner first tried to eliminate Damon, he knew to land on the apron, then to block that kick.
JuneBug: But then she did eliminate him. He was the first one knocked out of that match.
TattooedTempest: I know. Then he lost to Paige, to Frost, to Elena...
JuneBug: Then to Frost again, I got it.
TattooedTempest: And do you know why? Because he doesn't have my conditioning, my pain threshold, or my ability to bounce back. Neither of them do. Damon burns out early his matches. He fought off Aliyah once and the moment she came at him again, she eliminated him. He had Paige on the ropes for what, a third of their match? Then she laid on the big hits and took him down. Frost literally knocked him unconscious with that superkick in both of their matches.
As much as she hated thinking about Logan, she'd seen the match and the highs and lows of it came rushing back.
TattooedTempest: Tanja is the same way. She started out furious against Logan, but as soon as he caught her with that knee smash she couldn't get back in control of the match. She was winded and she'd taken too many hard hits to come back from.
JuneBug: You're not wrong.
TattooedTempest: On the other hand, I can outlast them both and use their inability to recover with some carefully placed strikes. Tiffany hit me with that scissor kick, the double stomp from the apron, and a dropkick into the stairs, and I turned around and almost pinned her. Even Zahra Phoenix couldn't choke me out completely at World War—you saw how I started moving again after just a few seconds—and neither of the two of them have the skill she does.
Madison looked up from her phone as a sun-bronzed silhouette filled the doorway. For just a few moments they stared at each other. He had her favorite cup filled with iced coffee in one hand and the TV remote for Netflix in the other. She tossed her phone onto the nightstand without another thought and threw back the covers to make room.