Great view numbers on this last chapter. Review, you little turds.
Chapter 9: Dance, Dance, Dance.
Friday night brought a challenge more immediate than anything else going on in Dean Ambrose's life; figuring out how to survive his current predicament. The Lakeview Lancers, to be exact. The opening drive for Lakeview's offense reminded Dean and every player and fan wearing Blue River colors what exactly they were up against. The Lancers dissected Blue River as though they were frogs in Sophomore biology, marching 80 yards in just over four minutes of game time to take a 7-0 lead.
"What the fuck?" Ambrose muttered to himself as he jogged off the field, marvelling at how skilled Lakeview appeared on offense.
"Right?" Roman retorted, snickering wryly.
"It's like playin' a fuckin' college team," Ambrose returned. "Jeezus."
Dean wasn't wrong. The Lancers were unbelievably talented, They were well coached, physical, fast, and most of their team had been playing together since they were Pop Warner age. All of that added up to a brutally tough matchup for Blue River, and the overwhelming firepower of their team had completely stunned the Raiders.
That wouldn't last, however. The Raiders, clad in all blue "Raging River" uniforms, kicked a field goal after holding the ball for nearly eight minutes, then, in a stunning turn of events, surprised the Lancers with an "onside kick" that they recovered.
Alexa cheered loudly when her friend Zack Ryder came out of the pile of humanity with the football, holding over his head as though it were a mythical sword he'd pulled from a stone. She stole a glance back at Dana, who was screaming her head off in the student section.
An unbelievable sequence of events followed. Christian Cage, who'd been the backup quarterback for two years, threw the most perfect pass Dean Ambrose had ever seen in a game he was playing in. Ryder, who'd already made one notable play in the game, ran underneath the arcing pigskin, plucking it from the air and running into the endzone in stride.
The partisan Blue River crowd rose to their feet again, in complete awe of the way their boys had taken the fight right to the superior Lakeview squad.
As Alexa's eyes scanned the crowd, taking in the joyful scene around her, a grim, somewhat unsettling notion occurred to her; a very large portion of the crowd were sporting black hooded sweatshirts. Most of them were adorned with a giant blue "BR" in interlocking letters, or "Blue River" in cursive script across the front. As Alexa remembered the events of the previous week, however, that thought brought her no joy.
For Alexa, and for the entire Blue River crowd, what was easy to see was the increased police presence around the stadium. There were at least four squad cars around the facility, highly visible, so as to deter crime, and another six to eight officers patrolling the sidelines. The tiny blonde could see Deputy Breeze just on the other side of the chain link fence that separated the playing field from the track, intently watching the game. Upon seeing her, the young officer gave her a small nod, as if to assure her that he was there, and that nothing was going to happen at that night's game.
By halftime, most Blue River fans would've been satisfied with not being embarrassingly behind. To their great surprise, Blue River trailed by only three, 27-24, and most had reason to be hopeful for a win. What concerned Alexa Bliss the most, however, was the sea of people she now found herself in, what with the fans milling around the area between the concession stand and the bleachers. Despite the thousands of nondescript attendees all around her, Alexa couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched.
Taking a quick look around, Alexa tried not to let her heart race as she searched for a familiar face. Before she could fully process her surroundings, however, she heard an easily recognizable voice call her name.
"Lexah," came the now easily detectable Scottish lilt of Nikki Cross.
"Nikki, hi!" Came Alexa's answer, reaching out for her new friend. The pair wrapped each other in a tight embrace, both to ward off the encroaching cold and to express their growing friendly affections.
"They're playin' great, ain't they?" Nikki asked her friend, allowing Alexa to link their arms together at the elbow as they walked toward the concession stand.
"They are," the smaller of the two girls agreed, as they traipsed toward the brick structure. "Can I tell you something?"
"Aye, o' course," Nikki agreed, all at once ecstatic that she had a friend willing to share secrets with her.
"It feels like someone's watching me," Alexa confided, her voice shaken with fear.
"How long ya felt this way?" Cross asked, now being infiltrated by her own sense of dread.
"Since the beginning of the game when Christian threw that deep pass. I glanced over my shoulder and it looked like someone was staring at me from the crowd while everyone else was watching the ball. There was like, one hooded head still turned toward me. I'm sure it's nothing, but it shook me up."
Nikki nodded. "After wha' happened Monday, I bet you're a bit jumpy," she replied, doing her best to comfort her friend.
"Maybe," Lex conceded, shrugging her concerns away temporarily.
The pair of friends arrived at their destination, noting the insane length of the line for refreshments. Sighing heavily, Alexa came to a decision.
"Wait here," she told Nikki. "I'm gonna run into the cheerleader locker room. Sometimes Coach has coffee brewing in her office. You want one?"
Nikki grinned and nodded. "Aye. Light and sweet," she confirmed.
"Get me a hot pretzel?" Alexa asked her companion, handing her a twenty dollar bill. "And whatever you want. My treat."
"Okay," Nikki blurted gleefully. "You gonna be okay by yourself?"
Alexa waved her hand dismissively. "It'll be fine. It's the locker room. What could go wrong?"
…
At first, Dean Ambrose wasn't sure what he was hearing. To his indiscriminate ear, it could've been a group of fans screaming or any number of other things. It took a few seconds of processing before Dean realized that he was hearing a blood-curdling shriek, and that it sounded an awful lot like the scream he'd heard from Alexa when she'd seen her "peeping Tom" on Monday. It didn't matter to the young man that his coach was mid-sentence, or that everyone was watching him. Upon the second yelp of terror from the cheerleading locker room, Ambrose sprang from his locker like an ejector seat and bolted from the cavernous football locker room.
"...the fuck?" Roman Reigns mumbled to himself, watching his childhood friend dart across the cinder-block room.
"Goddammit," Seth Rollins muttered under his breath. Whenever Dean was nowhere to be found, and that was frequently the case, Roman and Seth bore the brunt of the anger of whatever authority figure wanted to yell at Dean.
"Go get him!" Coach Booker Huffman barked from the back of the room, perched on a folding chair surrounded by his running backs.
Without another word, Roman, Seth, Zack Ryder, and the Usos popped up from their seats, hurriedly storming out of the confines of their locker room and out into the hallway.
By the time the small troop arrived at where they believed the shriek originated, it was clear to Roman and Seth what had happened. Alexa was sniffling loudly, and it was obvious that someone or something scared the life nearly out of the poor young woman.
The tiny blonde's back was flat against the far wall, her knees hugged to her chest, and Dean knelt next to her, his jersey and shoulder pads pulled off and thrown askew on the ground around them.
"...I heard a strange noise coming from around the corner while I was getting coffee for me and Nikki," Alexa was reciting quietly. "I thought it was crying at first, like some little girl was trapped in here or something, but I turn the corner and the room is empty."
"Which room?" Dean pressed, gently. As he kindly but firmly squeezed his hand on Alexa's shoulder, he could feel the intense trembling emanating from his girlfriend's petite form.
"The showers," Alexa continued, her voice still thin with terror. "I thought someone had gotten lost or was in there hiding. But there was no one to be found."
"And that's when he attacked you?"
Alexa nodded. "Yep. He was in all black, and he swung some kind of object at me. Like a baseball bat or nightstick or something." As she finished this sentence, Deputies John Cena and Tyler Breeze burst through the double doors leading into the athletic locker rooms, their uniformed presences instantly casting relief over the gathered huddle of high schoolers.
"Check the room," Cena barked to Breeze, who nodded and turned briskly to his right, entering the vacant women's locker room. "Hey Lex," he continued softly, switching gears.
"Uncle John," Alexa gasped between quiet sobs, throwing her arms around the huge man. Unsure of what to say, the shift captain slid one massive arm of his own around her waifish ribcage, giving his best attempt at comfort. He also briefly made eye contact with Alexa's boyfriend, returning Dean's look of concern with one of his own.
"Continue. You were saying you got attacked in the shower?"
Alexa nodded, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. "Yeah. I ducked and waited for the attack to keep coming, but by the time I opened my eyes he was gone."
"He only swung the one time?"
Alexa nodded again, more enthusiastically this time. "Yeah. I guess he heard you guys stomping into the locker room and thought better of trying to kill me."
As she finished her sentence, Tyler Breeze emerged from the doorway he'd disappeared into just a few moments before.
"You should see this, John."
Cena nodded stoically. "You gonna be okay?" He asked his niece, no hint of sternness in his voice. Seeing Alexa's nod, John followed the rookie deputy back into the locker room.
The scene that awaited the pair of deputies was not something John Cena was ready for. Dozens of photographs, some pristine and some charred to varying degrees, splayed out in a crude semicircle around Alexa's locker.
"The hell?" Deputy Breeze wondered to himself aloud.
"Beats me," Cena countered, crouching over the photos. Every one of them featured either Alexa, a member of her family, or both. John immediately recognized his smiling sister in law, and the rest of the Bliss family was easily recognizable. What John couldn't figure out was where these pictures were taken, where Alexa's stalker was getting them, and why they all semed to be taken during a very specific period in Alexa's life.
"Bag them all up," Cena instructed his junior officer. "All the photos. Get them to the lab tonight and have them all fingerprinted."
"You got it, boss," Deputy Breeze barked in return, reaching into a back pocket and removing plastic evidence bags.
The massive shift commander nodded, gesturing dismissively before lightly thumbing at the walkie talkie receiver pinned to the front of his shirt.
"Dispatch, this is Ten-David. All available personnel at Blue River Stadium make their way to the women's locker room post-haste. We have a possible Ten-Seventy on the premises. BOLO for a suspect between five foot three and five foot eight, black hooded sweatshirt, black pants, black work boots or combat boots. Possibly carrying a blunt instrument. Over."
"Copy you," came the calming voice of Lance Storm. "Thirty David headed to you now."
Cena took a deep, calming exhale. "Copy, over."
As Cena watched Breeze collect the old photographs, the stress of his adopted daughter being stalked by someone who apparently had access to large volumes of information regarding her past. As it often did, John's brain began working overtime, weighing and surveying all possible angles as he saw them.
Sauntering back out the double doors toward his niece, Cena composed himself, needing to convey strength and experience while still maintaining his newly forged paternal bond with Alexa. What immediately struck the beleaguered deputy was how much the crowd around Alexa had changed just in the few minutes he'd been in the locker room. His wife, Alexa's aunt and caretaker, had emerged from the home stands to comfort her forlorn ward, and the gang of football players, including Dean Ambrose, had returned to their team to prepare for the second half.
"Hey, Mickie," John greeted his wife, before kneeling beside the two women. Cena slid his massive hand over Alexa's lithe shoulder, trying again to comfort the adolescent girl living in his home.
"I think she's okay, John," Mickie chirped softly in response. Nodding curtly, Cena turned to rejoin Deputy Breeze, the implication being that his wife had Alexa's consolation handled on her own. Before he could re-enter the locker room, however, Breeze bounded through the large wooden doors, hands full of evidence bags and his brow thoroughly soaked with perspiration.
"Got 'em all, sir," Tyler almost wheezed, having clearly exerted himself collecting the items left behind by whoever attacked Alexa Bliss.
"Good, good," Cena replied. As he drew his breath to speak again, Deputy Lance Storm shuffled into the long nondescript hallway, hands in his pockets and grim look on his face.
"Lance, tell me something good," Cena quipped, half joking. Dismissing Breeze with a simple wave, John gave his longtime colleague a tight-lipped half smile and a nod.
Storm snickered in response. "No sign of forced entry or any damage to the property. Whoever it was, they didn't look out of place. No one around saw anything out of the ordinary. Not that there is an ordinary right now."
Cena chuckled, though there was no whimsy or joy in it. "Great. So a phantom attacked my niece. Wonderful…" The shift leader's words trailed off as Storm shook his head slowly.
"Walk with me, John," the steadfast Canadian beckoned softly to his friend. Nodding, Cena motioned toward the double doors and the pair strode out into the night, sights and sounds of the hustle and bustle of high school football all around them…
….
"Any ideas?" John Cena asked his fellow deputy. The broad shouldered peace officer was beginning to feel the stress of the accumulating murders, and that was before figuring in this latest rash of incidents involving his niece.
Lance ran a hand over what was left of his hair, furrowing his brow and pondering this for a moment. "Well, you're technically my boss now, since you got promoted to shift Sargeant, and I don't want to upset you, but-"
"Speak!' Cena admonished his friend, though there was no malice in his intent.
"Is there any chance Alexa is faking these attacks?" Storm proposed this idea, but if John were being honest with himself, he'd at least considered it.
"I mean, it would be in direct contrast to everything I know about her and her character, but I suppose…"
Storm continued his audible train of thought. "I mean, no one has really seen the attacker either time, really, and these pictures aren't something just anyone would have. If they aren't missing from her stuff or your stuff then one of two things is happening."
"What's the other thing?" Cena inquired, understanding that Alexa staging these assaults was the first possibility.
"That there's some whole other angle to this shitshow that we aren't considering."
"What do you mean?" Cena asked, raising his eyebrow in curiosity.
"Well, look at the pictures we collected. Even without knowing the details of what's on them, we have a general idea where they came from. If they didn't come from your house, then they came from Alexa's family home in Ohio, right?"
Cena nodded. "Sure."
"So that would mean that either Alexa is doing this herself or someone or more than one someone has followed her here for reasons that remain unclear."
Cena let this rationale rattle around his cerebrum for a moment or two. "So what's our next move? Do we think the attacks on Alexa are related to the killings?"
Storm shrugged, clearly willing to consider any angle at this moment. "Only that there was a picture of Alexa left at the Ellsworth/Valkyrie killings. I guess figure out if any students have shown up since the school year started that might've come from around that area of Ohio. Young adults, too. Chances are if all this shit is connected, the culprit or culprits is around Alexa's age."
Cena nodded again, following that logic. "I'll try to bring it up with Mickie and Lexi. I don't think there's any way she's doing this herself, but if she is I'll find out."
Storm gave Cena a halfhearted thumbs up, anxious to get back to his investigation.
….
Deputy Tyler Breeze was more nervous than he could remember. His arms were loaded down with his first ever bags of evidence as a real mandated law enforcement officer. As professionally and as composed as he could muster, Breeze gaited briskly to his patrol car, toting the carefully marked ziploc baggies until he reached his vehicle, before unceremoniously letting them fall onto the trunk.
"Well shit," he muttered to himself.
"Having trouble?" A sultry female voice called out to him. Already exasperated, Breeze turned around slowly, his eyes not fully believing what they took in when they arrived on their target.
"I'm Shelly," the attractive and not completely clothed latina continued, a bright grin on her face.
"Breeze. Tyler Breeze," the deputy returned, distracted by his task.
"I haven't seen you around before. Are you new?"
Breeze nodded, now setting his task aside so as to make a better impression on the enticing young woman. "Yeah. Just started last week. I'm just temporary, until they get a handle on these murders."
Shelly motioned toward the mounting pile of pictures. "Is that stuff part of the murder case?"
Breeze glanced back, sliding his hands into his pockets and bouncing lightly on his toes. "We're not sure yet. All we know is that this evidence was found where it's not supposed to be and right now that's all that matters."
Shelly nodded, though her interest in this conversation was already waning. "Still," she reminded herself, "this cop is cute and you don't have a date this weekend."
Rerouting the dialogue, Martinez exhaled deeply. "So, you're new around here, yah?"
Breeze nodded, only half paying attention to the young woman. "That's right. Moved from outside Louisville a few months ago."
"Why don't you let me take you on a tour of Blue River? Show you all the good spots. Maybe we can get a drink or five and see what happens."
Tyler Breeze's first reaction was to check over both shoulders to make sure this smoldering Chicana was actually talking to him.
"Uh, okay. Am I being pranked or something?"
Shelly chuckled at the awkward and self-deprecating nature of Tyler's repartee. "Nope. I just like getting to know the really cute single guys my age in this town." As she spoke, she slinked toward him, slowly, purposefully, like a lioness approaching a gazelle. "You interested?"
Breeze considered this a moment, trying to recollect his schedule for the weekend. "I could do tomorrow night if no more kids get murdered between now and then."
"Shelly snickered playfully. "You're funny. Okay. I live in The Lake Estates. You know where that is?"
Tyler nodded, having patrolled there a few times. "Yeah."
"Give me your number and I'll text you the address."
The two exchanged pleasantries another minute, each bidding the other a pleasant goodnight and trading phone numbers. Tyler Breeze was still overwhelmed by the brazen nature by which Shelly Martinez had come on to him, but he was a single man in his early twenties, and so any reservation he might've had was overcome by some primitive urges he'd neglected since moving to the Atlanta area.
What Tyler could not have known, in that particular moment, was that a pair of eyes was peering at him from way across the parking lot, watching with a mixture of disgust and rage as the rookie deputy filed the evidence from the locker room into his trunk. Alexa's assailant, who'd observed all of Tyler Breeze's exchange with Shelly Martinez, narrowed his or her eyes, a new energy of focus and bloodlust teeming through their veins.
….
Alexa never made it back to the Blue River sideline. Her coach, who'd been informed of the attack just a few minutes before the second half of the game was to start, made sure the tiny blonde knew her standing wouldn't be affected by this particular absence.
Bliss didn't leave the game, however. Instead, she sat in the passenger's seat of her uncle's patrol car, parked high on an elevated clearing overlooking the far end zone from the entry gate. It might not have been the smartest decision in the world to remain on the premises after some unknown assailant tried to remove her head with a baseball bat, but Alexa couldn't bear to not watch Dean and her friends play as well as they currently were.
And they were playing well. That was certain. Lakeview was bigger, faster, and stronger, but as the second half unfolded it was becoming apparent to the Blue River Raiders that no one on Lakeview's team had really ever been hit square in the mouth. Not recently, anyway. And so the rugged, disciplined Raider defense did just that.
Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose were right in the thick of all the trouble, as they often were. Reigns demolished the Lakeview quarterback on the half's third play, and Blue River scored on their ensuing possession with a play that would now be called the "Philly Special," but at the time was simply known as a "double reverse pass." Christian handed the ball to Xavier Woods, who ran to the wide side of the field, then handed the ball to Cedric Alexander from the "slot" position in an "end around" motion, who ran as though it would be a normal reverse play, before putting on the brakes and throwing a gorgeous pass to back to Christian Cage, who was now streaking uncovered down the field and toward the end zone. Catching the ball in stride, Cage scored without being touched by a Lakeview defender.
This play seemed to rattle the visiting Lancers. Every player on that team was used to having things go their way, and Blue River coming out of the locker room and immediately taking the fight to them seemed to completely throw Lakeview off their game. This was even more evident on the ensuing kickoff, when a costly mistake meant Lakeview would have to start deep in their own territory. As is often the case, this mistake quickly snowballed into a disastrous turn of events for Lakeview.
Taking the snap, the Lakeview quarterback dropped back to pass, though his gaze quickly jumped from trying to find an open receiver to suddenly realizing that Keith Lee had soundly defeated his blocker and was now bearing down upon him.
Not wanting to be tackled in his own end zone, the Lancer QB desperately tossed the ball in what could only be considered the direction of a receiver by the loosest definitions of the word "direction." Brock Lesnar, who'd also beaten his blocker, got his hands in the air and tipped the pigskin off it's trajectory, before Dean Ambrose plucked the spinning orb from its wobbly parabola and easily crossed the goal line, scoring a rare defensive touchdown and giving Blue River the most improbable lead of the season.
"Yes!" Alexa hissed, overjoyed at this turn of events but not wanting to disturb the unspoken serenity of the inside of her uncle's police cruiser.
Cena chuckled amiably, remembering a time not so very long ago when he could hear Mickie scream euphorically from the student section at the University of Georgia, where the two originally met, when John made a play that changed the course of any of the dozens of the games he played in.
"Pretty great play there, Lex," John asserted, a friendly tone in his voice.
"Yeah," Alexa sighed, her earlier troubles momentarily dissipating.
"You still think you're gonna go to the Ambrose house after the game?" John inquired, hoping to keep an open line of communication with his ward.
Alexa shrugged, then further considered the question. Sighing deeply, she finally spoke. "I probably shouldn't. I think at this point it's clear that something is going on that I don't understand, but I also promised my friends I'd be there, and Dean's dad's house is like the safest place in Blue River."
Captain Cena couldn't deny that. In addition to a state of the art alarm system, a long driveway and property perimeter security measures, and a guard station at the home's only entrance, Mr. Ambrose boasted the town's most impressive collection of firearms. It was, to the eye of anyone educated in such matters who'd been there, a monument to the Second Amendment and well-meant but misplaced paranoia.
"That's true. Any 'friend' in particular?" Cena shot back, with the word "friend" accented in such a way that it was perfectly clear to whom John was referring.
"Well, Dean," Alexa began, trying not to blush, "but there's also this girl Sasha who's experienced a loss recently. She doesn't really have a lot of friends and I told her she could come to the after-party if she wanted to."
"I'm sorry to hear about her loss," Alexa's uncle returned. "Is it okay if I ask you who died?"
Alexa nodded, glancing down to the floor of the squad car. "You know that kid they found in his garage with the car running? Adam Page? I guess they were dating pretty seriously."
Now John's curiosity was a bit peaked.
"Really?"
"Yeah," the tiny blonde continued. "I guess she was with him earlier that day and then later that evening he killed himself."
John pondered this a moment. He had no jurisdiction in the matter, and it was entirely possible, given what little he knew about teenagers, that Adam Page had decided on a whim to end his own life in what had to be considered a fairly painless fashion. On the other hand, there was something about that theory that rubbed John the wrong way.
Before Cena could follow up with any further questions, both of the car's occupants had their focus pulled back to the field by another raucous cheer from the home crowd, indicating that someone wearing Raider blue had made another big play. Try as he might, however, Shift Captain John Cena couldn't free himself from the idea that there was more to the Adam Cole "suicide" than anyone investigating the death had yet uncovered.
…
44-41. It was one of the highest scoring games in the history of Blue River Raider football, and the highest combined score of any high school game in Georgia up to that point in the season, and the joyous atmosphere at Dean Ambrose's father's house made it perfectly clear as to which team came down on the winning side.
As "California Love" by TUPAC SHAKUR ft. DR. DRE bellowed rhythmically through the Ambrose mansion, close to eighty high schoolers danced, drank, and revelled in their upset victory over their longtime nemesis. Brock Lesnar had somehow misplaced most of his clothing, and was uncharacteristically dancing on top of Dean's pool table, clad in only his boxer shorts and the wide brimmed black cowboy hat he was so fond of, pitcher of beer in each hand. Charlotte Flair, his apparent new love interest, walked a fine line between mortified and exuberant that Brock was getting to cut loose. Keith Lee was holding court on the back deck, a large, extravagant wooden affair that jutted out of the third floor of the residence. Slouched comfortably on an outdoor couch, Lee had his arm slung around Mia Yim, who had her feet up on an ottoman and a cold domestic in her chalky hands. The sticky talcum-based powder some of the cheerleaders used to better perform various stunts often didn't come off until the following day, and Mia was no exception.
Zelina Vega had managed to sneak away from closing her parents restaurant, as she often had to do on fridays after cheering at the football games, long enough to come spend some quality time with Roman Reigns, and the pair took up the space next to Keith and Mia, quietly talking with Zelina giggling intermittently at whatever Roman was saying. Seth Rollins, along with Roman's cousins Jimmy and Jey Uso, were scanning the crowd looking for single girls, and Seth also spotted for the first time the girl he assumed to be Colin Cassady's girlfriend. He assumed this because not only did the athletic looking girl dance obscenely close to "Big Cass" the whole night, but she wore a backwards Yankee hat and designer Knicks jersey despite being in a sea of Atlanta area natives.
"There's no single chicks at this party, man," Jey lamented. "This shit is whack."
"Liv and Mandy are here," Seth retorted, motioning toward the pair of shapely blondes.
"Oh shit, they are," Jimmy observed, raised onto his tiptoes. Before any of the trio could manage another sentence, they all met each other's gaze, trying to decide which of them would move toward the blondes first. The music, up to this point all current-ish rap, switched to a tune that no one would be caught dead listening to in any other situation but the current one. "Apache" by SUGAR HILL GANG began barking through the expensive, overworked speakers, and a celebratory cheer echoed through the house.
"Good thing Dean's folks are gone this weekend… and that Shelly's a degenerate who got us all this alcohol in exchange for a hundred bucks cash and whatever vodka we don't drink," Seth quipped.
Both Uso brothers chuckled, before joining in with the dancers around them.
(Author's note; there is a specific dance for this song, and the best way for you to see it is to get on the YouTube and search "Fresh Prince Apache dance." We all did this at parties and it was fairly popular for a time.)
"I'm not dancing with two ugly Samoans when I could… not be," Seth continued, before making his way over to Liv Morgan, cutting his way through a thick sea of humanity.
"Hey Liv," Seth called over the music, as amicably as he could possibly sound.
"Get lost, Seth," Liv spat back, rolling her eyes at his approach.
"What'd I do?" Rollins asked, somewhat incredulously. All around him, lithe teenage bodies gyrated in time with the pulsing music, yelling "Jump On It!"
Liv shook her head, again rolling her eyes at his assertion. "Because, motherfucker, you had your chance when I gave you my number on the last day of school last year and told you to call me over the summer." The irritated Morgan sprang from her perch on what had to be a three thousand dollar piece of furniture. "I moved on."
Seth threw his hands up at his sides, shaking his head in disbelief. As he wallowed in his rejection, Enzo Amore squeezed through the cloud of humanity, a beer in each hand.
"Here ya go, Liv."
Without taking her eyes off of Seth, who was now mortified by having been bested by a flashy schmuck like Enzo, Liv Morgan took a giant drink of whatever light beer the closest keg was offering.
"Thank you, 'Zo," she cooed while lightly pecking the wild-eyed newcomer on the cheek. "Give me a minute to drink this beer and we can go dance, okay?" The sinewed blonde drew her squinted gaze back at Seth. "Rollins here was just leaving."
Rolling his brown eyes a final time, Seth Rollins turned from the dead end conversation he was currently trapped in, taking a long swig from his red Solo cup, before noticing that Jimmy and Jey had struck out as well.
"I tried to ask Mandy," Jimmy lamented, "but she said she was here with Otis." Jimmy shook his head in disbelief, his inky black hair swaying on his shoulders. "Fuckin' Otis, man. How did this happen?"
Seth snickered wryly. Otis was a great dude and someone the whole football team enjoyed being around, but at just five foot nine and well over three hundred pounds, he was not the most aesthetically pleasing young man in the world.
"There are single girls at this party," Seth stated firmly. "I think. We just gotta find 'em."
The trio scanned the room from one end to the other. Seth's inner targeting alarm went off upon spotting AJ Lee, before remembering that she was dating Baron Corbin, who already wanted to harm Rollins over an unpaid billiards wager. Sarah Logan was drinking and loudly carousing with Dakota Kai, Raquel Gonzalez, and Shayna Baszler, but there was more than one scandalous rumor involving their sexual orientation circling Blue River High, and Seth wasn't in the mood for another public rejection.
Then there was the pair of young women to either side of Alexa Bliss. It had, at this point, been widely circulated through the walls and halls of "Raider Country" that Alexa and Dean were now officially an item, but Seth didn't know much about the enigmatic Nikki Cross. Sasha Banks, however, seemed out of place at such a joyful and jovial event, having lost her boyfriend under mysterious and tragic circumstances just a few days prior.
As the music changed from the well loved dance tune everyone had been shaking their asses to to CRAZY TOWN's "Butterfly," Seth decided now was as good a time as any to get a few words with Sasha Banks. Meandering towards her, while stopping once to do victory Jagermeister shots with Roman, "Big E" and Matt Riddle, Seth honed in on the purple haired mocha-toned beauty.
"Hey," Rollins began, still unsure of his purpose in speaking with the mourning flower.
"Hi," Sasha returned, a hint of curiosity in her own timbre.
"Pretty brave of you being out tonight, considering," Seth asserted, trying to sound both complimentary and compassionate.
"Considering that my boyfriend killed himself like five days ago?" Sasha fired back, a hint of sarcasm in her voice, though she knew Seth had meant no ill in his previous statement. Seeing Rollins' grimace, Banks snickered sadly. "I'm sorry. I deal with grief through humor."
Seth nodded, as sympathetically as he could muster. "I get it. I mean, I don't get it, but I understand."
Sasha grinned, though her air of sadness didn't completely dissipate. "Truth is, Adam and I had broken up earlier that day, and…" She trailed off, closing her eyes momentarily to find her composure. "I would hate to think that our fight had something to do with what he did."
Rollins felt his heart shatter in his chest for his new friend. As mean as Sasha could be, and she could be absolutely hateful, absolutely no one deserved to believe that they were responsible for someone else's suicide.
Sensing that Sasha wanted Seth to say something to assuage her guilt. Inhaling deeply, the young man searched his consciousness for words he knew he didn't have. "Sasha, I think what goes on in the human mind is incredibly complex. There's no way you could anticipate what Adam was gonna do. No matter what happened before. You can't kick your own ass over it."
Sasha snickered again, bringing her hanging head to eye level with Seth. She pulled her purple hair from in front of her face, threading the stray strand behind her left ear.
"Thank you for saying that, Seth. That honestly really does help."
Seth snickered again, wry half-smile parting his face.
"I find that beer helps quite a bit when I'm sad, too."
Sasha, for the first time that night, let her lips curl into a genuine grin. "A beer sounds really good, actually. Walk with me?"
Seth shook his head in the affirmative. "Sure." Allowing Sasha to hop down from her perch, he made a big show of pointing the way toward the keg, which was nestled safely in an ice bath directly outside on the patio.
….
The party reached critical mass just as Sasha and Seth made their way out to procure fresh beers. From across the room, Dean Ambrose watched with great interest as his childhood friend escorted his most recent ex out through the open double doors.
"Hmmm," he muttered, deep in thought.
"What?" Alexa inquired, genuinely curious as to Dean's thought process.
"I dunno," the shaggy haired linebacker continued, trying to collect his thoughts. "Sasha just doesn't seem very sad for having lost her boyfriend to suicide a few days ago."
The tiny blonde pixie shrugged, pondering Dean's insinuation for a moment. "People grieve in different ways," she finally offered. "Right after the fire, I spent the first two weeks I was in the hospital listening to nothing but NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK and eating Airheads candy. I regressed mentally to an elementary schooler. It was like my cerebral cortex broke completely and rebooted back to the last time everything was okay. What would worry me is if she were acting completely normally, whatever that is."
Ambrose snickered, before nodding thoughtfully. "I get that."
Alexa exhaled deeply, levelling her gaze on Sasha again. "Yeah. There's no easy remedy for what she's going through, but I'm making it. I bet she will too."
Dean shrugged. "And if she learns to be a little nicer, all the better."
The waifish cheerleader suppressed a giggle. "That isn't nice." The music changed again, blaring "Barbie Girl" by AQUA, causing several female attendees to squeal in delight, and even prompting a huge grin on the face of Alexa Bliss.
"I love this song!" She took Dean's massive hands in her own. "Come dance with me. I want all of Blue River to see we're together."
Ambrose fought with every fiber of his being against rolling his eyes. "Fine." Pretending he was super irritated, Dean allowed his new girlfriend to lead him out onto the dance floor. As the song wound into the verse, it didn't escape the young man that Alexa was giving him the most intense look he'd ever gotten from her, even as she mouthed the words "you can brush my hair, undress me anywhere" with a naughty grin.
"See? My emotions are killing me. Part of me wants to curl up into the fetal position and bawl my eyes out." She slid her lithe arms around Dean's neck, causing the much taller linebacker to lean down slightly toward her.
"And the other part of you?" Dean asked, playfully.
Instead of responding right away, Alexa pulled Dean's head to her, kissing him sweetly, letting their tongues mingle for the first time that day. "The other part of me wants to do something I've never done before with the very sweet man who came to my aid today."
"Skydive?" Dean asked, smirking.
"Ha ha," Alexa retorted, rolling her eyes and playfully punching Dean in the chest. "You know we have to start rehearsing from Harvest Festival, right?"
"Yeah," Dean shook his head slowly. "We'll get everyone together this week." Remembering a thought he'd had earlier in the day, the young man's eyebrows raised with excitement. "I was thinking we could audition a couple of drummers. That way Seth could play fiddle the whole night, especially if we're gonna be playing country."
"That's a really good idea, Dean," Alexa offered, the grin growing even wider on her porcelain face. "Why don't we see if he knows anyone?"
Dean chuckled, thinking about how that conversation would play out. Seth could be sensitive, and Ambrose sincerely doubted Seth would take that inquiry in stride.
"I think we should hold off on telling Seth until we have a fill-in picked out. Now, that's enough business. I believe I was promised a dance."
With that being said, Dean led Alexa out onto the makeshift dance floor, with the pair catching eyes across the room. The pair of eyes most interested, however, were peering through binoculars, having traipsed through the thick woods between the palatial Ambrose family home and Lake Lanier. Smirking, our hooded figure gleefully anticipated the next step of their plan, and the escalation in violence that would come with it…
…
Dean and Alexa weren't the only couple at Casa de Ambrose looking to spend a little time getting to know one another. Dana Brooke and Zack Ryder, mutual crushes for some time, were finally inebriated enough to have a face to face conversation without exterior intervention. All it took was a handful of beers and several shots of brown liquor each. By the time the party reached critical mass, Dana and Zack were dancing as though they'd been dating for months, before Dana finally crossed the last hurdle by pulling Zack's face to hers and kissing him like they were both Spring Breakers in a "Girls Gone Wild" video.
"That was really fantastic," Dana cooed, her words slurring slightly with intoxication.
Zack nodded, the fogginess of his conscience now becoming oppressive. "Yeah. Why did we wait so long to do that?"
Dana giggled, blushing slightly at the affectionate manner of Zack's gaze. She shrugged, before darting her eyes at the ground shyly. "You tell me."
Zack glanced from one side of the room to the other. There were so many revelers currently occupying Dean's pool room that no one was paying them any attention, but that didn't mean Zack didn't desire privacy for what he had in mind next.
"You wanna walk down to the dock, get away from this insanity?"
Dana grinned, understanding Zack's meaning. "Why Mr. Ryder, do you think you can just get me all alone and then try to take advantage of me?"
Zack snickered, briefly wondering if he should feel guilty, before Dana slipped both her hands into his, squeezing them gently.
"Because I would love to walk down to the lake with you," she continued, noting joyfully the relief that seemed to wash over Zack.
Slipping away as quietly as possible, the pair made their way down the finely varnished exterior stairs leading from the third floor balcony to the ground level, then meandered down the long, gently sloping stairway trail that led down to the Ambrose's boathouse.
Calling the wooden structure bordering the lake a "dock" was doing it a great dis-service. There was a crudely elegant wooden platform by which the Ambrose family had a pontoon boat, then a wooden walkway and several small slips that accommodated several jetskis. On the far end of the walkway, across from a small maintenance shed, stood John Ambrose Sr's prize watercraft; a twenty two foot, state of the art speedboat, appropriately named Tax Refund.
"Holy shit," Dana muttered, taking in the small but expensive looking family regatta.
Zack snickered. "What, your family doesn't have two boats and six jetskis?"
"We have an above-ground pool the dogs swim in with us."
Zack chuckled again, reminding himself that not everyone was as wealthy as Dean's and his families.
"Do you guys have a boat?" Dana asked, her eyes still glued to the many watercraft gently rocking on the water.
Zack nodded. "Just one, though."
Dana chortled, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. "Just one, huh?"
Zack grinned, sensing that Dana was as fond of him as he was of her.
"Yeah, I guess that means we're losers." His smile grew wider and more mischievous as he traipsed slowly toward the shapely blonde, who responded by taking several steps towards him, her own smile expanding rapidly on her face. As the couple drew together, Dana gazed up into Zack's eyes, lazily hooking her arms around his neck.
"I'm really glad we came down here, Zack. Why has it taken so long for us to start talking?"
Zack did his best to break eye contact with Dana, though he found himself unable to stop looking at her. Even in her black "Blue River" hoodie, light makeup and ponytail, Zack found her absolutely breathtaking.
"I dunno," Zack murmured, taking Dana's lush beauty in. "I guess I was with Taya for a while and we didn't really hang out with the same people until recently and-"
Dana cut him off, pressing her index finger to his lips. "I'm sorry I asked," she chided playfully. The comely blonde breathed in deeply, as though she couldn't believe this was finally happening. "I'm just really glad we finally broke the ice."
Zack nodded, now completely under Dana's spell. "Me too."
Dana giggled again, then kissed Zack the way she had inside, sending Zack into a state of lightheaded euphoria. As she broke the kiss, she slid her hands from his, before reaching for the waistline of her hoodie, pulling the baggy garment off and revealing the form-fitting white halter top she'd elected under her sweatshirt.
Finally breaking eye contact, Zack took in Dana's nearly perfect form, feeling a stirring within him (and just below his beltline) that he hadn't in some time. Maybe not even since the first time Taya Valkyrie invited him into her home and did things with and to him that he thought were reserved only for the pages of Penthouse Forum.
"Aww," Dana whispered sweetly. "You're so tense. Is that my fault?"
Zack chuckled. "I'm just really glad Dean made me talk to you the other night. I'm not sure I would've ever worked up the guts otherwise."
Dana drew up to kiss Zack again, but a faint, unintelligible sound emanating from the woods around them gave her pause.
"You hear that?" She softly implored her companion, who felt his situational awareness tick up, too.
"Yeah. It's probably just a squirrel or something."
"I bet Nattie thought that, too," Dana mused. "C'mon. Let's find somewhere a little safer. And more comfortable."
"Fine by me. Lead the way, gorgeous," Zack returned, scanning the trees around them for movement or threatening presences. Seeing none, Ryder allowed the voluptuous athlete he was with to take him by the hand and lead him on to the aforementioned speedboat, which was also equipped with state of the art accommodations below deck.
"Holy shit," Dana exclaimed, allowing her voice to raise slightly as the duo descended the set of three stairs that led to the tiny sitting room under the bow of the small vessel.
"Yeah, this is even nicer than ours," Zack agreed, suitably impressed with the state of the Ambrose boat.
"This will do nicely," the well-endowed junior observed, before pulling Zack by the arm onto a vinyl bench. Smiling wickedly at her Homecoming date, Dana continued where she'd left off in the Ambrose house, aggressively kissing Zack. To his credit, the young man simply rested his calloused hands on her hips, unwilling to cross any lines before his date was ready.
"You can touch them if you want," Dana invited, her voice husky and breathy with growing lust.
"Are you sure?" Ryder fired back, insisting inwardly that he wouldn't violate Dana's supple body until he was explicitly permitted.
Dana scoffed, shaking her head and clicking her tongue against her lips. "Zack, you're very sweet, and respectful, but I'm drunk and turned on and I really, really want you to just manhandle me a little, okay?" As she spoke, she slid her hands over Zack's, guiding them along her ribcage before bringing them to rest in exactly the location Ryder was hoping they'd find themselves. After a moment or two of heavy kissing, Dana took Zack's right hand away from its new favorite landing spot in the entire world, and moaned her satisfaction as the aforementioned appendage slid into the back pocket of her extremely well-fitting khaki shorts.
Rising from her seat next to her date, Dana lifted a leg over Zack, coming to a straddle over his waist. "Have you ever...you know?" She asked, biting her lip in embarrassment at the frank nature of the question. Zack just nodded, his eyes now glued to the carpeting, almost ashamed of the things he'd done with Taya in the previous year.
"With that blonde girl who got murdered a couple weeks ago?"
Zack nodded again. "Yeah."
Dana lifted his face gently with her hand, gently feathering the flats of her fingers to his chin, before she kissed him sweetly. "I made a mistake, too. I know you heard about David," she continued, the beginnings of a tear forming in her eye, before Zack thumbed it away.
"I did, but David's so full of shit about stuff like that I wasn't sure whether or not to believe him."
Dana chuckled, before wrapping her arms around Zack's neck affectionately, giving a satisfied hum as she hugged Zack to her. As the boat swayed gently with the lake, Zack and Dana spent a few moments cuddling, their hearts both completely content in that way that only young love can accommodate. Dana rested her chin on Zack's shoulder, before resuming her affection. She began where she left off, kissing and nibbling on his neck and earlobe, whispering all the while about how happy she was that they finally got together. Zack's head was swimming to such a degree that when he heard the faintest hint of what could've been someone moving around on the deck of the boat, the junior wide receiver dismissed it as the strong winds that often rushed through the woods.
Before long, both young adults were missing clothing, with a scantily clad Dana. now only covered by a thin lacy white bra, the aforementioned shorts, knee high royal blue "Spirit Socks" and white tennis shoes, was gyrating in Zack's lap as their kissing grew more heated. Dana's hands, having long been looped around Zack's sinewy neck, were now in the process of unfastening his belt, with the immediate goal of finding the stiff member that Dana could feel poking through the young man's jeans.
"Excited, are we?" The blonde tantalizingly inquired of the almost overwhelmed young man.
"You're… holy shit, Dana," Zack responded, before moaning in pleasure at what his paramour's hands were up to. Given the experience level of both participants, the encounter wasn't as awkward and shaky as it might have otherwise been.
Both young adults got the release they were looking for. Zack assured Dana he was okay with not having sex at such an early point in their relationship, but that didn't stop either party from using their hands on the other. Afterward, Zack lay stretched out on the vinyl bench, staring at the ceiling and contemplating how great his life was currently, and Dana splayed her soft form over his, her head resting on his chest as she ran fingers gently up and down his torso.
"It feels like we're moving, doesn't it?" Dana asked, assuming her current state was due to the dopamine she'd just experienced during her orgasm.
"It really does," Zack concurred, before planting a playful kiss on the top of Dana's head. The buxom woman raised her head away from her date's pectorals.
"No, I really think we're moving. What the fuck?" She continued, rapidly fastening the button on her shorts and slinking back into her hoodie.
"The hell is that smell?" Zack asked, gathering his own clothing. Most football players at Blue River wore the matching sweats they'd been issued in summertime after tough games, and Ryder was no different. His even had "Ryder 88" emblazoned on the front of his sweatshirt.
"Babe, that's smoke," Dana answered, no longer bothering to hide the alarming nature of her voice.
Now Zack's eyes were wide with panic. It seemed he was moving so fast that he threw his clothes on in one motion before crossing back over to the entrance to the little nook they'd commandeered.
"Uh, the door's locked," Zack observed, his own voice now teeming with horror.
"What?" Dana fired back incredulously.
"It won't fucking open. It's locked from the other side."
Even in the midst of her rising terror, Dana was certain she heard a pair of splashes from outside the vessel. Furrowing her brow in confusion, her mind quickly re-aligned with the problem at hand.
"The fuck do we do now?" She asked Zack, who was frantically searching for any object heavy enough to break the door down.
Fighting back tears, and doing everything she could not to consider that she could die, Dana took a deep breath, maybe her last deep breath, and pondered what to do about the grey, acrid smoke, which was now beginning to billow aggressively from under the door…
…..
Just a few dozen yards away, two unknown figures emerged from the shallow water at the lake's edge. Discarding their wet clothes and snatching new dark sweats from a pre-arranged black duffel bag, the pair of conspirators snickered, one and then the other, while they watched their handiwork.
The Tax Refund was ablaze. The fire hadn't yet pierced the hull, but it was just a matter of time before the two lovesick passengers succumbed to the raging inferno. Ten gallons of Gasoline poured all over the deck would see to that. The more impressive bit of arson was the Ambrose boat house. It had taken close to an hour, working in absolute silence, to untie the large boat without either of the two lovers hearing them, before almost imperceptibly nudging the craft away from the slip. The wooden equipment shed, called a boat house by the initiated, currently housed only a fire nearly ten feet high, a billowing cloud of smoke visible from miles away. As the duo made a daring yet silent retreat from the scene of the latest attack, they hoped the message they were sending was clear, either from the fire, or from the special photo they'd left for the police to find. That message was simple; "No one lives."
Sorry for the delay. Life with a newborn is insane. Just FYI, this chapter marks the 33% mark. We are a third of the way through the story. Review. I love the feedback.