This was short so I decided to add the thing after the flashback. Next chapter will be set in future, few months or so. Disclaimers, etc., etc., on Chapter 1
+++
"What the hell do you mean she's gone?!"
Jeff turned to see if Lita heard his outburst but thankfully she had fallen back asleep, exhausted by the events of the past few days and the medicine that the hospital so happily dolled out.
"I can't find her! I came in, the door was unlocked, went through the house but Trish and her car is gone. Along with some clothes. I went through some drawers and I can't find licenses or passports so she's probably got them too."
"Oh my god, she could be headed anywhere! We should call the police."
Bubba pulled his ear away from the cellphone and grimaced. Loud, nervous Jeff Hardy wasn't doing his ears a favor.
"Yeah but she's an adult and she's hasn't been missing for twenty fours hours, if she were a teen, they'd be on it but before twenty four hours, I'll figure out something, man?" Bubba rifled through the contents of a large oak desk, looking for anything that could tell him where she was going. "So, how's Lita?"
"She's fallen back asleep, I guess all the meds they fed her are starting to work."
"That's good, I guess, I don't want her doped up for a long time though." He deeply sighed as he slammed the final desk drawer shut. "I don't think I'll find anything here that'll help me. Just a bunch of broken stuff that she's seemed to have taken it out on."
"What should we do?"
"I know a few friends who work for the police departments in a few towns near the border, I could ask them to put out some kind of bulletin for her car and description."
"This is real, isn't it?" Jeff looked back at the sleeping form of Lita.
"Yeah, it is."
"Do you think Trish will try and... you know, again?"
Bubba could hear the apprehension in his voice. He remembered a pamphlet someone gave him after Ann's death. 10 times out of 15, a person who tries to commit suicide will try so again.
"I don't think so." He lied. "Maybe she just needed to get away? Maybe that whole Chris Jericho thing just pushed her over the edge. She hasn't seemed like herself, I don't hang out with Lita and Trish so I can only tell what I saw from the outside."
"Well, the only thing Lita's told me about Trish was that she seemed to be growing distant, that's all." Jeff leaned against the wall in the hospital.
"Look, I'll figure something out, maybe I will call the police, they may do in that whole twenty four hour thing since she's a special circumstance. You guys were there only a few hours ago, she couldn't have gotten that far."
"Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm just worried."
"So am I, Jeff. So am I."
+++
Jeff closed the cell phone and slipped it into his jean pocket. She was gone and there were no clues where she could be.
There wasn't a message from Shane that could help or a hospital calling for info on her blood type. She just vanished. Jeff knew that she wasn't kidnapped and that she had left willingly but somehow it didn't make him feel better. She was running away from her friends and family and running away never solved any problems.
He grew deeper into thought and didn't hear the soft whispers coming from Lita's room but finally turned and ran back into the room as he heard Lita scream.
"Lita!?" He shook her shoulders gently, her eyes fluttered open and she looked up.
"Jeff?" She asked, unsure if he was part of her dream.
"Yeah, Li?" He gently grabbed her hand as she pushed herself into a sitting position.
"I had a bad dream." She rubbed her eyes with her free hand and yawned.
"What happened?" Jeff turned and pulled a folding chair close to her bed, still keeping a gentle hold on her hand.
"I found Trish with Ann. God, there was so much blood and..." Lita pulled away from his hand, burying her head in her hands. Jeff stroked the back of her hand, smoothing down her silky strands.
"What happened with Ann? Who was she?"
"Ann was my best friend, for years. She was everything to. When I wanted to go to punk shows, she was there in the mosh pit, beating up boys with me. Whenever I became a stripper, she didn't call me horrible names and treat me like garbage. She loved me. And I loved her."
Lita rubbed her nose with the back of her hand.
"She started to get upset after the death of her mother and then her brother had a job that kept him away from the family, she told me I didn't understand because none of my family members had died. She just pushed me away like Trish. I tried to, I don't know, be friends, joke with her about the first time she tried to hurt herself but after that, she just kept spiraling out of control. Slowly but surely, she kept trying little things, pills, whatever, her dad just thought it was a cry for attention until one night..."
Lita thought her head would explode as images of that night passed through her head, she felt the bile rise in her throat as the image of Ann tangled in a bloody mess of sheets fell into her head once again.
+++
Lita skipped through the halls of another dimly light Motel 6 room, it was like all other nights except for one thing. Ann was there! Finally after months of begging and pleading, Ann had finally caved. And she was asleep in their king size bed in room 203.
She smiled as she headed for the ice machine with two bags filled with cans of soda and all assorted munchies. This was going to be awesome, a night filled with pay per view movies, paid fully by ECW. Which was incredibly shocking but since they had made a good profit on two huge shows the previous night before, Paul seemed to be in a giving mood and she wasn't going to pass it up.
As Lita filled her bucket, she hoped that this would be the beginning to the end of what Ann was doing. Lita knew all about feeling hopeless and angry but she couldn't feel exactly what Ann was going through but she would try her best now, try to keep her friend intact.
Lita smiled and held the bucket near her side, she would make the greatest night ever. Something that could never be forgotten! She traveled back further down the hallway, she hoped that she hadn't be gone too long and that Ann had fallen asleep or too sleepy to rejoice in free pay per view.
She unlocked the door and dropped the bags down onto the carpet, by her side.
"Ann, sleepy head. I knew I shouldn't have left you here alone, you could have came with me the guy from 7-11 was flirting with me."
Lita clicked her tongue as she got no response from her friend. "Fine, be that way, I'll get all the ice then, no, that's too cruel. C'mon!"
The fiery red head pounced onto the bed, still holding the ice bucket. She tried moving the bed up and down by shifting slightly from side to the side, then she moved closer and pulled out an ice cube. She rubbed the wet cube along her friend's neck, knowing that it was her most ticklish spot.
Lita pouted when she still got no response.
"Fine, be that way. I'll just have to tickle you!"
Her hands moved in to her friend's neck but she pulled back in horror to discover the cold skin of her friend.
"Ann?" Lita asked as she reached over her friend's body and tried shaking the mattress, only to encounter something sticky.
"What the..."
Lita grabbed her friend and turned her towards her, she reached for the light switch. Light flooded the room and Lita finally got a glimpse of her friend. The blood seemed to cover everything, the headboard, the sheets, Ann.
"Oh my god." Lita fell off the bed in her haste to get away. "Wake up, Ann." Lita turned her eyes to her friend, who only stared back at her with dead eyes.
"No..." Lita looked down and finally noticed her hands. The dark blood coated her hands and she screamed in horror as she finally knew what happened.
"No, no, no, no. Nooooo!!" She let out a blood curdling scream that seemed to arouse the whole building.
Bubba dropped the magazine he was reading as soon as he heard the scream, it was Lita. He just had a bad feeling about letting her go out alone to that stupid convenience store in the middle of the night.
He burst through their door with D'Von and Spike on his tail but they stopped as they saw their fellow wrestler, on the floor, covered in blood, screaming screams that didn't seem to end or begin.
Bubba looked up at the girl in the bed, he walked closer to be sure and dropped to his knees when he realized who it was. He wrapped his arms around Lita, trying to do something to comfort her, but kept his eyes on the corpse in the bed.
As the screams from Lita and the Oh my god's coming from Spike and D'Von faded in the background, he could only focus on the dead, lifeless eyes of his sister. Ones that used to hold light and happiness but now would never hold anything of such beauty anymore.
+++
"So that's why you called him..." Jeff trailed off as he finally put two and two together. No wonder why she needed him.
"Yeah. I just thought, I don't know, he could help me. Talk to her a little but I guess I fucked up again."
"No, c'mon. Lita, you can't control how people will feel or think or what they'll do. Trish is just angry and upset, she needs to calm down. You guys will work it out and if we need to, we'll tie her down to the bed and make her listen."
Lita laughed as she gently patted his cheek. "Thanks for saying things like that. You never let me get too down. So, where did Bubba go? You told me that he'd be gone for only a little while."
Crap. "He said something about needing some air." He glanced to the side before looking back at Lita.
"Jeffrey, you're lying to me. I've always been able to tell. What's wrong?" Lita cocked her head to the side and studied her best friend. She knew when he lied, he could never look her directly in the eye and he seemed to play with his hands more than usual.
Jeff breathed in, he opened his mouth but quickly closed it as Bubba walked into the small room.
"Hey!" Lita said, brightly, giving him a smile.
He returned the smile, half heartedly and settled by her side. "Hey, kid. How are you?"
"Well, what do you think?" She lifted up her arm to show off her IVs.
"Looks good." Bubba smiled nervously at her, knowing what was coming.
"What happened, Bubba?"
"Lita, I don't think..."
Lita pursed her lips as she turned up to look at him. She didn't want this to turn into 'treat Lita like a piece of fine china' night. She wanted it straight, she needed it straight.
"Don't lie to me, okay? Don't protect me. Don't treat me like I'm five years old, please." She pleaded. "Tell me the truth."
He bit his lip as he watched the features on her face turn deadly serious.
"She's not at the house, some clothes are missing, her car is too. She's gone."
"Gone?" Lita asked, feeling as if everything was falling from beneath her.
Bubba nodded solemnly. "I didn't find a note or anything saying that she was leaving."
"No..." She whispered, shaking her head back and forth. "No, it can't be. She's... you looked everywhere right?"
Before he could answer she let out a heart wrenching cry.
"No! No, no. She's there. She was just upset or..." She cried, her hands covering her face. It couldn't be, she had just seen Trish hours ago, she wasn't gone, there had to be a reason she was gone.
As the sobs poured from her mouth, echoed in his head and hit his heart directly, he knew he had to help. They sounded eerily similar to the ones that came from the same mouth of the little red haired diva years ago. He watched as Jeff climbed into bed with her and she grabbed hold, clinging to him for dear life, crying out everything she had left. In that moment, with the memories of Ann still fresh in his mind, Bubba vowed to make sure Trish came back safely, even if it took him forever.
+++
"What the hell do you mean she's gone?!"
Jeff turned to see if Lita heard his outburst but thankfully she had fallen back asleep, exhausted by the events of the past few days and the medicine that the hospital so happily dolled out.
"I can't find her! I came in, the door was unlocked, went through the house but Trish and her car is gone. Along with some clothes. I went through some drawers and I can't find licenses or passports so she's probably got them too."
"Oh my god, she could be headed anywhere! We should call the police."
Bubba pulled his ear away from the cellphone and grimaced. Loud, nervous Jeff Hardy wasn't doing his ears a favor.
"Yeah but she's an adult and she's hasn't been missing for twenty fours hours, if she were a teen, they'd be on it but before twenty four hours, I'll figure out something, man?" Bubba rifled through the contents of a large oak desk, looking for anything that could tell him where she was going. "So, how's Lita?"
"She's fallen back asleep, I guess all the meds they fed her are starting to work."
"That's good, I guess, I don't want her doped up for a long time though." He deeply sighed as he slammed the final desk drawer shut. "I don't think I'll find anything here that'll help me. Just a bunch of broken stuff that she's seemed to have taken it out on."
"What should we do?"
"I know a few friends who work for the police departments in a few towns near the border, I could ask them to put out some kind of bulletin for her car and description."
"This is real, isn't it?" Jeff looked back at the sleeping form of Lita.
"Yeah, it is."
"Do you think Trish will try and... you know, again?"
Bubba could hear the apprehension in his voice. He remembered a pamphlet someone gave him after Ann's death. 10 times out of 15, a person who tries to commit suicide will try so again.
"I don't think so." He lied. "Maybe she just needed to get away? Maybe that whole Chris Jericho thing just pushed her over the edge. She hasn't seemed like herself, I don't hang out with Lita and Trish so I can only tell what I saw from the outside."
"Well, the only thing Lita's told me about Trish was that she seemed to be growing distant, that's all." Jeff leaned against the wall in the hospital.
"Look, I'll figure something out, maybe I will call the police, they may do in that whole twenty four hour thing since she's a special circumstance. You guys were there only a few hours ago, she couldn't have gotten that far."
"Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm just worried."
"So am I, Jeff. So am I."
+++
Jeff closed the cell phone and slipped it into his jean pocket. She was gone and there were no clues where she could be.
There wasn't a message from Shane that could help or a hospital calling for info on her blood type. She just vanished. Jeff knew that she wasn't kidnapped and that she had left willingly but somehow it didn't make him feel better. She was running away from her friends and family and running away never solved any problems.
He grew deeper into thought and didn't hear the soft whispers coming from Lita's room but finally turned and ran back into the room as he heard Lita scream.
"Lita!?" He shook her shoulders gently, her eyes fluttered open and she looked up.
"Jeff?" She asked, unsure if he was part of her dream.
"Yeah, Li?" He gently grabbed her hand as she pushed herself into a sitting position.
"I had a bad dream." She rubbed her eyes with her free hand and yawned.
"What happened?" Jeff turned and pulled a folding chair close to her bed, still keeping a gentle hold on her hand.
"I found Trish with Ann. God, there was so much blood and..." Lita pulled away from his hand, burying her head in her hands. Jeff stroked the back of her hand, smoothing down her silky strands.
"What happened with Ann? Who was she?"
"Ann was my best friend, for years. She was everything to. When I wanted to go to punk shows, she was there in the mosh pit, beating up boys with me. Whenever I became a stripper, she didn't call me horrible names and treat me like garbage. She loved me. And I loved her."
Lita rubbed her nose with the back of her hand.
"She started to get upset after the death of her mother and then her brother had a job that kept him away from the family, she told me I didn't understand because none of my family members had died. She just pushed me away like Trish. I tried to, I don't know, be friends, joke with her about the first time she tried to hurt herself but after that, she just kept spiraling out of control. Slowly but surely, she kept trying little things, pills, whatever, her dad just thought it was a cry for attention until one night..."
Lita thought her head would explode as images of that night passed through her head, she felt the bile rise in her throat as the image of Ann tangled in a bloody mess of sheets fell into her head once again.
+++
Lita skipped through the halls of another dimly light Motel 6 room, it was like all other nights except for one thing. Ann was there! Finally after months of begging and pleading, Ann had finally caved. And she was asleep in their king size bed in room 203.
She smiled as she headed for the ice machine with two bags filled with cans of soda and all assorted munchies. This was going to be awesome, a night filled with pay per view movies, paid fully by ECW. Which was incredibly shocking but since they had made a good profit on two huge shows the previous night before, Paul seemed to be in a giving mood and she wasn't going to pass it up.
As Lita filled her bucket, she hoped that this would be the beginning to the end of what Ann was doing. Lita knew all about feeling hopeless and angry but she couldn't feel exactly what Ann was going through but she would try her best now, try to keep her friend intact.
Lita smiled and held the bucket near her side, she would make the greatest night ever. Something that could never be forgotten! She traveled back further down the hallway, she hoped that she hadn't be gone too long and that Ann had fallen asleep or too sleepy to rejoice in free pay per view.
She unlocked the door and dropped the bags down onto the carpet, by her side.
"Ann, sleepy head. I knew I shouldn't have left you here alone, you could have came with me the guy from 7-11 was flirting with me."
Lita clicked her tongue as she got no response from her friend. "Fine, be that way, I'll get all the ice then, no, that's too cruel. C'mon!"
The fiery red head pounced onto the bed, still holding the ice bucket. She tried moving the bed up and down by shifting slightly from side to the side, then she moved closer and pulled out an ice cube. She rubbed the wet cube along her friend's neck, knowing that it was her most ticklish spot.
Lita pouted when she still got no response.
"Fine, be that way. I'll just have to tickle you!"
Her hands moved in to her friend's neck but she pulled back in horror to discover the cold skin of her friend.
"Ann?" Lita asked as she reached over her friend's body and tried shaking the mattress, only to encounter something sticky.
"What the..."
Lita grabbed her friend and turned her towards her, she reached for the light switch. Light flooded the room and Lita finally got a glimpse of her friend. The blood seemed to cover everything, the headboard, the sheets, Ann.
"Oh my god." Lita fell off the bed in her haste to get away. "Wake up, Ann." Lita turned her eyes to her friend, who only stared back at her with dead eyes.
"No..." Lita looked down and finally noticed her hands. The dark blood coated her hands and she screamed in horror as she finally knew what happened.
"No, no, no, no. Nooooo!!" She let out a blood curdling scream that seemed to arouse the whole building.
Bubba dropped the magazine he was reading as soon as he heard the scream, it was Lita. He just had a bad feeling about letting her go out alone to that stupid convenience store in the middle of the night.
He burst through their door with D'Von and Spike on his tail but they stopped as they saw their fellow wrestler, on the floor, covered in blood, screaming screams that didn't seem to end or begin.
Bubba looked up at the girl in the bed, he walked closer to be sure and dropped to his knees when he realized who it was. He wrapped his arms around Lita, trying to do something to comfort her, but kept his eyes on the corpse in the bed.
As the screams from Lita and the Oh my god's coming from Spike and D'Von faded in the background, he could only focus on the dead, lifeless eyes of his sister. Ones that used to hold light and happiness but now would never hold anything of such beauty anymore.
+++
"So that's why you called him..." Jeff trailed off as he finally put two and two together. No wonder why she needed him.
"Yeah. I just thought, I don't know, he could help me. Talk to her a little but I guess I fucked up again."
"No, c'mon. Lita, you can't control how people will feel or think or what they'll do. Trish is just angry and upset, she needs to calm down. You guys will work it out and if we need to, we'll tie her down to the bed and make her listen."
Lita laughed as she gently patted his cheek. "Thanks for saying things like that. You never let me get too down. So, where did Bubba go? You told me that he'd be gone for only a little while."
Crap. "He said something about needing some air." He glanced to the side before looking back at Lita.
"Jeffrey, you're lying to me. I've always been able to tell. What's wrong?" Lita cocked her head to the side and studied her best friend. She knew when he lied, he could never look her directly in the eye and he seemed to play with his hands more than usual.
Jeff breathed in, he opened his mouth but quickly closed it as Bubba walked into the small room.
"Hey!" Lita said, brightly, giving him a smile.
He returned the smile, half heartedly and settled by her side. "Hey, kid. How are you?"
"Well, what do you think?" She lifted up her arm to show off her IVs.
"Looks good." Bubba smiled nervously at her, knowing what was coming.
"What happened, Bubba?"
"Lita, I don't think..."
Lita pursed her lips as she turned up to look at him. She didn't want this to turn into 'treat Lita like a piece of fine china' night. She wanted it straight, she needed it straight.
"Don't lie to me, okay? Don't protect me. Don't treat me like I'm five years old, please." She pleaded. "Tell me the truth."
He bit his lip as he watched the features on her face turn deadly serious.
"She's not at the house, some clothes are missing, her car is too. She's gone."
"Gone?" Lita asked, feeling as if everything was falling from beneath her.
Bubba nodded solemnly. "I didn't find a note or anything saying that she was leaving."
"No..." She whispered, shaking her head back and forth. "No, it can't be. She's... you looked everywhere right?"
Before he could answer she let out a heart wrenching cry.
"No! No, no. She's there. She was just upset or..." She cried, her hands covering her face. It couldn't be, she had just seen Trish hours ago, she wasn't gone, there had to be a reason she was gone.
As the sobs poured from her mouth, echoed in his head and hit his heart directly, he knew he had to help. They sounded eerily similar to the ones that came from the same mouth of the little red haired diva years ago. He watched as Jeff climbed into bed with her and she grabbed hold, clinging to him for dear life, crying out everything she had left. In that moment, with the memories of Ann still fresh in his mind, Bubba vowed to make sure Trish came back safely, even if it took him forever.