Author's Note: Thanks to gtea-angel, AniLuLu, huntersgirl and Latisha C for the reviews. I hope you guys like this chapter! Please review!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the story itself! Well…and Mina, Tracy and Connie.

Everything you say to me

Takes me one step closer to the edge

And I'm about to break

I need a little room to breathe

'Cause I'm one step closer to the edge

And I'm about to break

I find the answers aren't so clear

Wish I could find a way to disappear

All these thoughts they make no sense

I find bliss in ignorance

Nothing seems to go away

Over and over again

-One Step Closer by Linkin Park

Inside of Me

Chapter 12

Mina clasped her hands in her lap in the overwhelming silence. She was sitting in the passenger seat of Randy Orton's car, getting a ride back to the hotel after she showered from her match. Since she'd clambered into the car fifteen minutes ago, Randy hadn't said a word to her. Mina looked at him through the corner of her eye, shrinking in her seat. She could tell he was angry. His eyes were a hard, dark blue, never once straying from the road ahead. His jaw was clenched tight; his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel. Mina sighed, turning her head and looking out of the window at the city on the other side.

"Say what you want to say," she told Randy, not moving her eyes to look at him.

Randy glanced over at Mina for a moment before rotating his eyes back to the road. "What the hell were you doing out there, Mina?" he asked.

Mina sighed once more, letting her forehead rest against the cool glass of the window. His tone wasn't aggressive it was…disappointed. She hated that. It was so much easier to deal with anger—something you could battle back with; fight fire with fire. "I did what I had to do," she whispered softly.

Randy could sense that even she didn't believe the words. He shook his head, "You didn't have to clobber Gail with a steel chair."

"He told me to, you know…" Mina murmured quietly, her voice hollow.

"You don't have to do everything that he tells you to do," Randy told her sternly.

"I know," Mina whispered, her eyes hollow. "But…I almost feel…" she shook her head. "It's stupid, okay? I feel like I owe it to him. And yeah," she said, cutting Randy off, "I don't owe anything to him. But you just…you don't understand, Randy…"

"Then help me understand," he said pleadingly, glancing over at her quickly.

"All the friends I had stabbed me in the back one way or another," Mina told him, her voice devoid of sadness. It had come to be a fact that she simply accepted it. She wasn't meant to have friendships. "The two people I trusted most in my life couldn't trust me back. They never did trust me, even before now." Randy sighed softly, but she ignored it. "You don't know what it's like, to have no one. To be so broken down inside, to be so hurt…and having only your own backbone to hold you up," she turned, staring ahead numbly. "All I have left now are you and Kane," she looked over at Randy. He frowned inwardly when he met her gaze, his heart churning.

"Mina…" he started, shaping his thoughts into words. "It doesn't have to be that way. You have a chance to change that now," he told her, "Making new friends is tough, but you can do it. Most of the Divas aren't like Gail, and most of the wrestlers are pretty cool. I don't want you to be alone when you're older and I don't want your life to seem like it's been a little too short; a little too cold. I don't want you to—"

"End up like you?" Mina asked softly, her innocuous words sealing Randy silent. She had stolen the words from his heart; not his tongue.

"Yeah," he said after a couple moments, "Like me." He shook his head, "This has nothing to do with it, anyway," he dismissed the topic awkward to him. "Do you really believe you were right tonight?"

"No," Mina said easily, her eyes steady on the road ahead of her.

"Then why didn't you say anything?"

"Kane understands me more than anyone else ever will," she told him, "All of the things that I have been through, so has he."

"If he understands you so much, why did he tell you to do something you believe is wrong?" Randy countered.

"It's a small sacrifice to make," Mina replied quietly.

"You shouldn't have to make a sacrifice," he responded, shaking his head.

"Life is about sacrifices," Mina said, her voice ruthless, "Sacrifices for the greater good of your own life. That's what everyone is about."

"Choices are what make people," Randy stated. "There's always a way around a sacrifice."

"Not in my world," Mina replied, looking out the window once more. "The choices I have to make are about what to sacrifice," she told him. "One day I'll have to choose between you and Kane," she spoke quietly, with the tone of submission.

"What?" Randy asked, bewildered, "I would never make you choose between us."

Mina looked at him, her eyes void. "You sit here and you speak to me about how I could have more friends and better people by my side than Kane," she reminded him, and turned her head once more. "You two are too different to coincide remotely close to each other. One day it'll come down to a choice between the two people that I have left in the world."

"And who would you choose?" Randy asked, his voice empty.

"Myself," Mina said. Randy looked over at her and she met his gaze. "I'll choose whatever is best for me. In the end…it is all any of us can do."

The rest of the car ride to the hotel was silent. Randy rubbed the back of his neck as he drove. All in all…Mina was right. Eventually, she would have to choose between him and Kane. Randy couldn't stand and watch by as Kane slowly poisoned her mind, changing her beliefs and her view on what was right and wrong. He would not watch this young woman fall into Kane's trap. She deserved so much better.

After they had pulled into the parking lot, Randy and Mina got out of the car and headed to the back to unload their bags. As they did so, Randy met her gaze and spoke. "You told me one day that you valued bravery," he stated and she stared at him, wondering where he was going with this. "Standing up for your beliefs? That's bravery that few have ever been truly tested with." With that cloaked statement, Randy shut the trunk door and headed toward the lobby.

Mina stayed behind for a moment, deciphering the true meaning in his words. She had been wrong. There would be no future battle between Randy and Kane.

It had already started.

Shouldering her bag and heading toward the lobby, she could not know that the choice between her biological father and the father she had known for nearly all of her life was the one choice that was looming closer among the rest.