To everyone who has read and favorited and reviewed - THANK YOU. It is so amazing to have people that actually want more. And of course, more is coming. I may take breaks here and there, but this story is far from over (and even when it's over, there's a sequel in my head so Hellcat will be around for a long time).
Aristocat: Part I
First thing the morning after Heidi's dramatic escapade with Alberto del Rio found the Hellcat suiting up for a run, bundling herself as if she were going to spend her vacation with the Inuit. Four pairs of socks, a pair of tights, insulated underpants, three long-sleeved shirts, a coat, and a pair of gloves later and she could hardly bend enough to tie her running sneakers.
Before she left she stuffed her cell phone into her pocket and then was out the door, well before the sun or Lily had risen.
The morning air was biting, a most unwelcome frost had set last night, turning all melted puddles into frozen lakes and rendering all the work the sun had done ultimately useless.
The warm breath that blew from Heidi's covered mouth was white as smoke in the moist, cold air, but she would suffer no rivals, particularly not ones she had no control over.
As the sun started to rise, Heidi was growing tired and she checked her phone as she ran around a patch of sidewalk that had yet to be shovelled. Whether or not there was ice underneath was anyone's guess and the spunky girl was not about to start her morning by face-planting in the snow.
It was getting close to 7... more than enough time for her to catch her mother before work.
Slowing to a walk, Heidi pressed and held the #2 button on her phone until the picture of her mother with the family dog came up and indicated it was dialing.
After a moment, she heard the phone clattering on the other end and then the groggy, muffled voice of her mother.
"Hello?" she asked tiredly.
Heidi stammered for a moment and then cleared her throat.
"Hi mom," she answered, walking slowly now up an alleyway and around a dumpster full of reeking, frozen refuse.
The other end of the line was silent but Heidi could hear the even breaths of her mother.
"I've seen you on TV, Heidi. Is that why you left?" her mother asked. It was a simple question, one free of harsh implications but Heidi couldn't help but feel guilty. It was bad enough her mother had lost a son to the sport, but with Heidi's disappearance it probably felt like she had lost her too.
"No, I left to get Husky to pull his head outta his,"
"Heidi," her mother warned; a preemptive strike on her daughter's somewhat foul mouth.
"Sorry," Heidi mumbled as she looked up to a street sign and saw that she was at least on a road with a name she remembered. "Look, mom, I just wanted to call and tell you that I'm all right. I've actually made friends here!"
From the other end, Heidi could hear the soft shuffling that suggested her mother was putting on a gown and leaving the room so she wouldn't wake Heidi's father.
"I'm happy to hear that, sweetheart. When are you coming home?"
It was the question Heidi had dreaded and she took her time thinking up an answer before finally admitting, "I don't know."
"You don't know?" her mother repeated, somewhat less gently. "You leave without a word and you don't know when you're coming back?"
Heidi sighed in frustration. Her mother was always thinking of the details that Heidi improvised her way through, like what her plans were for money and shelter.
She didn't understand the singularity of her daughter's purpose.
"Mom, I'm not leaving without Husky," she said firmly, turning down the main drag and bracing herself against the cold wind that blew in her face and into the phone.
Her mother sighed.
"Heidi, you know how your brother gets. You're both too stubborn for your own good! He's never going to come back if you give him ultimatums, or challenge him outright, you know that!"
Heidi shook her head.
"I'm sick of tip-toeing around him! You've seen the crowd he runs with, those guys are a bunch of punks and I'm done with the way they treat everyone, including Husky!" Heidi countered, her voice rising as evidence of conviction, not as obstinance to her mother.
Her mother snorted with laughter, the sound of a coffee pot being turned on in the background.
"You were never good at tip-toeing, Heidi."
The both of them shared a laugh.
"Well if you're not coming home then could you promise to call more often?" her mother asked in a tone that was too sweet to say no to.
Rolling her eyes as if the task were truly taxing, Heidi sighed.
"Oh I suppose," she jested.
After a few more minutes of idle chit-chat, Heidi hung up, feeling considerably better about her situation. There was nothing quite like a pep-talk from mom to light the fires underneath her bum. Feeling so inspired, she decided to run a bit further now that the sun was beginning to peak over the snowy Connecticut horizon.
She stepped out into the street to run around an especially large pile of snow when she heard a pair of car brakes apply hard, shrieking a long, white, sparkling car to a sudden halt, mere feet from where Heidi was watching, too stunned to move.
Knowing full well that it was her fault, Heidi walked around to the passenger's side but couldn't see inside the pitch black windows so she merely made a guilty face at the window and said, "I'M SORRY!" to whoever was inside. She tapped the tinted widow with her fingertip, wanting the driver to roll it down so that she could deliver a proper apology.
When the passenger's side back door opened, Heidi straightened and looked over, her arm outstretched in a display of apology.
"I'm really sorry, I hope your car is all right," she said as a tall Hispanic man stood from the cab of the car, with with gloves and a white tie standing out against the snappy black suit he wore, one decorated with a thin white pinstripe.
"Lociento," she began, just in case the man didn't speak English, but before she could get another word out he lurched forward and grabbed her arm in his big hand, pulling her towards him. With the extra padding Heidi had worn, no amount of struggling could wrest herself away from his grip on her coat and three undershirts, and he effortlessly dragged her into the car.
"LET ME GO OR I'LL KICK ALL YOUR TEETH OUT!" she threatened with vitriol as his hands stuffed her into the backseat with much toil as the Hellcat fought every inch of the way. She squirmed, thrashed, threw her weight around as if she were a pissed off pinball but the man had a hold of her clothing so all she managed to do was ruffle her own feathers.
Her many layers of insulation proved Heidi's downfall and she was effectively chucked into the car with the kidnapper behind her, closing the door.
Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness that the black tinted windows provided, she saw before her a sight she never would have imagined: The back seat was like a limo, with two long seats that faced each other with fancy screens and gadgets about. Sitting alone in his seat was Alberto del Rio, with his arm along the empty seat next to him, dressed in a white suit with a classy gold tie, one that matched the 24 carat cufflinks that glittered by his wrists. In a free hand, he had a glass of orange juice.
"Hellcat," he greeted, his condescending smile in place. "How nice of you to join us."
"It's not joining if it's forced, del Rio!" It was never too early to mouth off.
He painted on a fake look of hurt as Heidi slapped the unknown Hispanic man's hands away from her as he tried to buckle her seatbelt.
"What is this? You were so concerned about my car a moment ago and now you have no regrets?" he asked, pressing a hand to his chest.
"No," she snapped. "I don't care if you and Tonto drive over a cliff!" She leaned back in her chair and tried to fold her arms over her chest but couldn't quite manage to tuck them over one another thanks to her Michelin-Man padding and opted to rest her hands on her knees, where they flexed and unflexed in her growing anger.
Much to Heidi's dismay, while she had been bickering with Alberto, the white Rolls Royce had begun moving, easing forward into the minimal early morning traffic until they were on a freeway.
She pressed her face against the window and looked out, shocked.
"Where are you going?" she asked, looking back to her cocky captor, who had finished his orange juice and had handed the glass back to the Hispanic man who'd done his dirty work for him, who was now polishing the glass back to its original luster.
Alberto del Rio simply chuckled and touched the cream, tasselled scarf he couldn't be parted from.
"You mean where are we going, Hellcat."
It was Heidi's turn to laugh now.
"Yeah, well I've already run all over this town," she said confidently, wiggling into the soft leather seat. "And wherever you take me, I'm pretty sure I can find my way back." As she finished, she stuck her nose in the air and faced the window, secretly hoping that her bluff was right since there had been no freeway in her jog with Swagger the day prior.
At this, the silent Hispanic man and Alberto del Rio shared big laughs, and del Rio shook his head.
"Oh Hellcat, you won't be running back from where I take you," he assured, leaning forward to pat her patronizingly on the knee.
Just as smoothly as the car had rolled into traffic, it took a turn and started down a long, narrow runway near the edge of town, having made remarkable time considering the early hour. The analog clock on the side panel said it to be just 7:15 AM, meaning that Heidi had only squeezed in an 45 minute run before she'd called her mom and been shanghai'd.
"You never answered my question, del Rio," Heidi urged again, watching with growing dread as the white and lustrous Rolls Royce pulled up to a hangar where several private planes were seen. One spot on the end was unoccupied, however, and Heidi gulped hard as she saw the plane come into view.
It was bright gold.
The engines were running.
The propellers where spinning.
"If you think I'm getting on that plane then you're out of your mind!" she roared. Quickly, she thrust her elbow out to knock the Hispanic man next to her in the mouth, but with her layers and layers of clothing she may as well have instigated a pillow fight.
Alberto del Rio simply laughed as his chauffeur got out of the front and opened his door for him, letting in cold blasts of wind from the loud runway.
"See to it that she gets on the plane," Alberto instructed as he stood from the car, pointing to Heidi on his way out like she were just another bit of luggage.
Tonto nodded and soon had Heidi in a bear hug.
She made a mental note to never, ever go somewhere so cold that she needed more than two shirts again.
Her humiliation was solidified as the tall Hispanic man scooted out of the car and then stood, a crunch of ice salt underneath his shining spats. With Heidi in a bear hug she couldn't wriggle herself out of, her feet dangled off the ground as the man walked her towards the airplane, negotiating the steps to the aircraft as easily as a man toting a grown woman could.
Once her feet touched the plush carpet, the man shoved her roughly and then backed away and shut the door behind her. Heidi spun around and started pushing against the large, circular door hand but was horrified to discover that the sign went from "Unlocked" to a bright red death sentence as he turned the wheel and looked at her indifferently from the round window.
"Locked."
Heidi roared. This was exactly why she didn't call her mother more often. She could just imagine how that conversation would go: "Hi mom! Everything is great. I'm being shipped like cargo to an unknown location by a man I pissed off in the wrestling ring, but other than that there's nothing at all new to report!"
She drummed her fists on the door in rapid succession, and tried turning the wheel from the inside but it would not budge.
"Hellcat, come on, show some class," Alberto teased.
Heidi looked over her shoulders, glaring at him deeply, her lip already starting to curl.
"Where are you taking me?" she asked again, marching around the coffee table laden with a champagne bottle sitting in a golden bucket filled with ice, to stand in front of him, hand on her hips.
"Where else would I take my private jet? Home," he answered calmly, reaching around Heidi to pour himself a glass of champagne.
Heidi's jaw dropped, lost momentarily in unadulterated shock. Alberto del Rio simply laughed at her expression and touched his index to her chin, shutting her mouth for her.
"You will learn some manners, Hellcat. I won't allow you to be so crass at my home. There, you will be expected to be a lady," he said, looking up at her without his smile this time, his dark eyes very serious.
"You're taking me to MEXICO?" she asked, falling back onto the leather couch that faced the one del Rio was sitting at.
Alberto nodded, his smile returned.
"That's right."
"BUT WHY? You know this is kidnapping, right? I don't even have my passport with me, and whatever strange ideas you have cooking in your head about what's going to happen in Mexico, you can forget them! Let me off of this plane now!" she demanded, her voice rising so that it filled the whole cabin and echoed a few times over.
Alberto simply took a polite sip of his champagne and arranged himself comfortably on his white leather couch.
"Don't you remember? You asked for this, Hellcat. Last night, when you called me a royal joke in front of thousands of people. You accused me of being a liar and insulted my heritage. I am going to make you eat your words, niña," he explained. "When we get to Mexico, I am going to show you everything, from my mansion to my family to the royal ground where my ancestors have called home for centuries. You'll see just how out of my league you and your little friends are," he promised gravely, though when he was finished, he did so with a condescending smile and a lift of his champagne glass.
Heidi listened and unravelled herself from the many layers of clothes she no longer had a need for now that she was imprisoned on a warm jet. She threw her coat onto the floor and delighted in the frown she received from del Rio so much so that she chucked two of her three long-sleeved shirts onto the pile as well and kicked off her shoes, creating quite a pile on the otherwise flawless surface of his jet's floor.
"So you're taking me to Mexico without a passport or any luggage? Some gentleman you are," she huffed, sitting cross-legged on his white couch since she knew he probably did not allow feet on his impeccable leather.
At this mention, Alberto snapped his fingers in the air, looking down the hallway to the back of the plane, which led to a bedroom and a row of comfortable looking plane seats arranged around a square table.
From the darkened hallway, a stewardess appeared, decked in a short, tight, white uniform with her long black hair pulled up into a fashionable ponytail, her pin-straight hair falling all the way to her back even as it was held up. Her eyes smiled just as brightly as her mouth, which pulled back to reveal dazzlingly white teeth behind lurid red lipstick. In one hand was a white garment bag, in the other was a pair of flip-flops adorned with glittering jewels and crafted from fine leather.
Heidi looked to the stewardess and then to Alberto del Rio, who was grinning from ear-to-ear.
"I will make you a lady, Hellcat. Go, put it on. Angela will help you," he said, gesturing to the bathroom down the hall.
Heidi took another appraising look at Angela, who looked like anything but a lady and then turned her scrutinous eyes back to del Rio.
"You're serious? You parade Cancun Barbie here in that and then expect me to wear whatever you give me? To es loco," she said, sitting back on the couch and folding her arms over her chest.
Alberto and Angela exchanged amused looks, and he nodded to her, giving her some sort of sign with the wagging of his fingers. Angela then unzipped the garment bag to reveal a lovely white dress, typical of the traditional Mexican style with a shoulder hugging neckline and a neatly embroidered hanging flap over the bosom for added modesty.
Alberto looked to Heidi and smiled, clearly very happy with himself.
"I said I will make you a lady, not a woman. Now put it on!"
A few moments later, after some harried Spanish words to keep Angela from trying too hard to enter the bathroom and help Heidi into possibly the simplest dress ever created, she emerged to find Angela holding a pair of dangling wooden earrings and a white hat with a wide and puckered brim. She simply looked at them but the stewardess would not take no for an answer, so by the time Heidi emerged into the main cabin, she was dressed in everything that Alberto del Rio had set out for her, earrings, hat, and bedazzled flip-flops and all.
Alberto stood up when Heidi entered, beaming at her, and gestured for her to take a seat.
"Ah, Miss Hellcat. You look lovely," he teased, sitting only after Heidi had.
Folding her legs at the knee, Heidi sat down and looked around for the pile of clothes, which had been moved somewhere out of sight.
"All right del Rio, I have a proposition for you," she said, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially one who could help her attack the Nexus and take Wade Barrett out.
Alberto lifted a brow but settled into his seat silently, waiting to hear it.
"If you do in fact change my mind about you, then I..." here she seemed to struggle with her words, as if they were sticking in her craw and refused to spill out without great force. "I will give you a formal apology in the ring. BUT," she interjected, leaning forward and pointing to keep Alberto from grinning too widely. "if you don't change my mind then you have to help me take out Wade Barrett and the Nexus," she finished smugly, folding her fingers and then neatly placing them in her lap, looking the part of a lady to the tee.
Alberto stroked his clean shaven chin, looking to the ceiling as he mulled the thoughts over.
"All right, you have a deal. But you have to go along with what I say - wear what I tell you, accompany me places, and act like a real lady." He stuck out his hand across the polished marble coffee table. "Do we have a deal, Hellcat?"
Heidi eyed him for a moment, and then took his hand and shook it.
"Deal."
"Oh good," Alberto said, leaning back and mockingly wiping sweat from his brow. "Because we're already in the air."
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