Chapter 21 – Attacked
A/N: Heh, new chappy. XD
"This game isn't as fun with just two people." Jericho sighed.
Sam lowered the cards from her eyesight and yawned. She whole-heartedly agreed. The fact that they had been playing it for two hours hadn't helped its case. She dropped them all finally on the bed, then rubbed her eyes. Jericho took the hint and gathered them up as she plopped down on one of the pillows on the bed.
"What do you want to do now?" Sam asked, tilting her head up to look toward the blonde Canadian. He shrugged.
"Dunno." He replied. He put the deck into its holder and tossed them onto the nearby bedside drawer. He plopped down next to her in the same lying position.
They both went silent again, lying side by side in of course the most platonically of ways. She wondered what Raven was doing just then, not even having the luxury of a best friend to be able to just stare at the ceiling with. She glanced over toward him again, rolling his eyes as she heard the faint humming of a tune emitting from his lips. She didn't know what it was, but knowing Chris, it was a hard rock or metal song.
"Chris?"
"Yeah?"
"…Do you think it's okay?"
Chris rolled over, his blue eyes clouded over with obvious confusion.
"What do you mean?"
"Me and Raven." She answered, staring at the ceiling still. "You think it's okay?"
"Well, I would think so." He answered. "After all, in this country, you can basically date anyone you want, I've learned. In the middle states it'd even be legal to date Kurt if you wanted."
"…That's just disturbing. Please don't ever plant that mental picture in my head ever again." She shuddered. Chris laughed.
"Sorry." He apologized. "Why are you asking me this, anyway?"
"Well, since I know Kurt will never be okay with this, I need someone to say that it's okay that I'm with him."
"…You're asking me for my blessing?" he asked, sound surprised.
She finally rolled over and faced him. "And what if I was?"
"Well, then I would have to feel a bit honored to take the family place in this." He offered. She shrugged.
"Well?"
"…If he makes you happy, Sam, it wouldn't be right for me to say I don't condone it."
"So you don't like me going out with him?" she asked, raising a brow. He shook his head.
"I never said that. I just said, as long as you're happy, then I'm fine with it. If it wasn't for him, you would still be locked away in your hotel room, never to speak to anyone again." He pointed out. "And you can't find anyone more loyal then him if you ask me."
She knew he had added the last line to compare him to Rob. Sam shook her head. "…I'm over that, you know."
"I know." He answered, understanding instantly what she meant. "If you weren't, you would have broken Rob in half last night."
"If Rob had been unfaithful, I don't think I'd had stayed mad at him forever." She explained.
"If?"
"Chris, what did you see that night?" she suddenly asked. "When I ran off, what did you see?"
"Rob kissing Stacy, why?"
"Are you sure it was like that? Exactly?"
"…What are you getting at?"
"Think, Chris."
He seemed to think about it for a moment. "Well, actually, Rob didn't seem…into the kiss, from the beginning. But maybe it was because he knew you were there?"
She went back to lying on her back, looking upward. Jericho seemed puzzled at her questions.
"Why?"
"Because that's why I didn't hit him. I was thinking about it."
"About what?"
"About how this all happened. Stephanie was detaining him – and I know that's true, because Raven had seen her basically drag him off the minute he took a breath. And then suddenly, for no reason at all, he decides to go bad guy on me. Did you ever think he'd do that?"
"No." Chris admitted. "…If he was gonna do that, I'd think he'd at least dump you."
"Exactly." She sat up, looking over toward him. "Now that I'm clear-headed really, out of all the rage for now…"
"You don't think he really kissed her?" Chris guessed. She nodded affirmatively.
"Yeah."
Chris sat up too, crossing his legs in an Indian-style way. "…So what does that mean?"
"That he didn't cheat on me, if you can't figure out my stating of the obvious."
"I know that, but what does that mean? Are you going to go back to him?" Chris asked curiously.
She didn't answer for a long time. Sort of stared past Chris out toward the moonlit sky seen from the window. It was a good question. Would she? If she ever found out for sure, what would she do? Raven loved her as much as Rob ever did, and it would kill her to leave him. She couldn't bare to see him heart-broken. He had walked her through the stuff Rob wasn't there for, and it had to have been ten times harder to deal with then anything she had put Rob through. She was insane for a while there. Probably legally, even. But he never once gave up on her…
"I don't know." She finally said. "I guess I'd have to wait…for that moment. Decide then. Because I don't know; I don't even want to think about it."
Chris frowned a bit, but nodded. "I see."
The subject was dropped instantly after the awkward silence passed.
~~
Raven didn't know why he felt uneasy. He had come back from one of those fun-filled Alliance meetings where he couldn't help but feel like Stephanie was looking at him with an angry stare every time he got up. He figured it to be just his imagination though. His nerves and his guilty conscious making him see things. She kept talking about the 'mole', or something, and how he or she had to be stopped. He didn't really enjoy hearing that, considering the fact that he was the guilty party. Just him. Rob really wasn't apart of it anymore.
He hadn't worn the bracelet there, instead placing it in his pocket during the ordeal. He kept absent-mindedly touching it, as if he was afraid it would fall out or something. He knew if he wasn't worried about what they were planning against Sam or even the WWF, he would have already left the company and tried to get back into the good graces of Vince. He'd do it if it meant he could freely be with Sam, with no repercussions. But he had to keep himself in the company. He had to make sure they weren't up to something.
He had to protect her.
It felt like the moments that transpired suddenly were in slow motion. Suddenly a loud crashing sound invaded his ears, and he only had seconds to sit up to see two people had entered his room. Before he realized it, the two went after him, and he scrambled off the bed, falling hard on the ground. They had missed him that time, but with him prone on the ground, it didn't make it hard to stop him from escaping. Raven, still semi-shocked, cringed the minute he felt his attacked grab a handful of his braids, pulling him up forcibly.
His neck was forced to crane as he felt the one who had a hold of him trap him completely in his grasp. The other attacker went into view and Raven, through pain and all, still glared toward him.
"Shawn." He hissed, and the talking caused the one behind him to crane his neck even more. He cried out in pain.
"Looks like we have a traitor on our hands." Shawn sneered.
"Come on, man, he's strong."
Raven knew the voice. Hugh Morris. He should have figured.
"Give me a second. I've been waiting to do this to you a very long time."
He wound up suddenly and smashed his fist into Raven's midsection. He let out a yell of pain, twitching, trying to bed down as much as possible. He took a breath just before he was punched again. Sagging, his breath ragged from the force of just the two blows, Shawn took a break.
"Now, we can make this easy or we can make this hard. You tell us where Sam is, and I'll make this quick." Shawn spoke simply. Raven looked up at him, knowing it wasn't even worth feigning innocence. Instead, he tried to get out of Hugh's grasp, and when that didn't work, he stopped and looked Shawn straight in the eyes.
"Go to hell." He boldly spoke, and literally spat in his face, showing the same stubbornness Sam had showed the night before.
"You're just as stupid as I thought."
Shawn produced a bat he must had been holding, and before Raven could even ready himself for the hit Shawn slammed it into him. Raven clenched his teeth, tears forming at the corner of his eyes, but he didn't allow them the pleasure of hearing him scream out in pain.
"Now, I'm going to repeatedly hit you with this until you tell me. Enough incentive yet?" Shawn asked.
"I like pain." Raven managed to spit out, a strange smile forming on his face. It was enough to freak Shawn out a little, but didn't deter him from hitting him again. Raven sharply let out a gasp of pain, but the smile remained unwavered.
"You're a joke, Shawn. A screw up. You can't even hit me with all your force." He challenged. Shawn looked furious.
And Shawn did exactly what he knew he would. By that time, Hugh had moved his hand from his hair to his arms, and so when Shawn went to smack Raven over the head with the bat, he used his weight to propel himself downward and Hugh upward. The bat actually smashed into Hugh's back, and in that instant he was freed.
It was a short lived victory. The pain shot up through his body instantly, and he doubled over and clutched his midsection in an attempt to stop the pain before it was too late. He managed to dodge an attempted hit, but it just hurt him further. He knew he had to get out of there, there was no way he could fight Shawn off when he had a bat, never mind when he probably had broken ribs.
He staggered toward the door, but Shawn had caught up and smashed the bat so hard into his back the bat shattered and Raven was sure one of his bones did too. He fell forward, falling onto his equally sore ribs. Curling in a fetal position, he felt blood came up and he spit it out, shuddering from the pain racking through him. Shawn stood over him, smirking.
"In pain now?" he asked, almost innocently. Raven stared up at him, his mouth bloody from the stuff coming up. It wasn't a good sign. Still, he breathed deep, managing to speak again.
"I've been beaten bloodied, destroyed, torn apart all my life…and you're the biggest kiss ass I've ever had the unfortunate luck to be hit by." He insulted, too stubborn to even wince as the pain continued to run through him. That did it.
Shawn started really hitting him, beating him and making him bleed from other sources. He was picked up and slammed into the nightstand. By the time he was done, Raven was fighting for consciousness, as all he saw was red. It stopped, because he heard faintly Hugh telling Shawn to stop, that he was going to kill him.
Raven guessed Shawn hadn't even realized how far he was going.
"Shit." Shawn spoke. "Shit!"
"…Let's get out of here, Shawn." Hugh pleaded.
And they did, leaving Raven lying there, completely immobile. A fucking hit and run. Raven knew the pain wasn't a good sign. He knew all the blood was a bad sign. He knew his short of breath was a bad sign. He knew the fact no one knew he was there was a REALLY bad sign.
And he quietly hoped he wasn't going to die without seeing Sam one more time.