Chapter 2
When Ambrose was finally able shut Reigns up long enough to tell him Seth was hurt, the two met with their beaten comrade in the trainer's room. "What happened?" Reigns asked, taking in the different cuts and bruises on Rollins, paying particular attention to Seth's now very black and swollen eye.
"I don't know. After you both left, I turned to go to the locker room, and then the lights went out. After that, all I felt were punches," Seth answered around a swollen lip.
"Any idea who it was?" Reigns asked, his mask of calm firmly in place, but struggling to contain his worry for his best friend.
"No," Seth said weakly, placing an icepack gingerly to his face, "I didn't see them before they started beating up on me."
"You said 'they.' How do you know it was more than one person?" Reigns asked.
"Well, unless the guy had more than two fists, the hits came too fast to be from just one person."
"I don't care if it was one guy or twenty, we're going to pay them back for this!" Ambrose vowed, adding a few swears under his breath in a passionate outburst for revenge.
"You guys can't go after them now," Seth said, barely able to conceal the edge of pleading from his voice.
Reigns looked confused as he asked, "And why not?"
"Yeah, why not?" Dean chimed in, "we can't let someone jump you and get away with it. One of us could be next if they think we're easy targets when we're by ourselves," Dean said, surprising even himself by how logical he sounded.
Reigns nodded his head, finally agreeing with Ambrose for the first time in over a month. Both men turned to leave, intent on stalking their prey, no matter where in the arena they were hiding.
"Please," Seth whispered weakly. Even after all their time together, neither Dean nor Roman had yet to build up an immunity to Seth's puppy dog eyes trick; it got them every time. Reigns and Ambrose's shoulders slumped in momentary defeat. However, they traded looks with one another, silently agreeing to wait until Seth was given some pain pills to knock him out before they went hunting.
The only problem was, Seth refused the pills, insisting that he was fine without them, even though the lines of pain on his face plainly signaled otherwise. Seth knew that Roman and Dean would go looking for a fight as soon as the pills kicked in and knocked him out. Therefore, he would have no part in them. Granted, if Roman and Dean would have known for sure that that was the reason Seth didn't want any pills, the medicine may very well have been shoved down Seth's throat by one of his friends anyway, whether he really wanted them or not. But without proof of Seth's motives, the other men could only hope that their friend would concede soon—for his own sake, if nothing else...Thus, annoyed and tired of arguing the pills' usefulness to Seth, all of the men in the room settled with Seth taking the pills home with him, to use when he felt they were necessary. Reigns accepted with pill bottle from the trainer. "Remember to stay close to him when he takes these, they're strong. You know what happens...," the trainer said quietly under his breath to Reigns. Reigns responded with a solemn nod before turning to help Ambrose assist Seth through the arena and to their car.