Chapter Four

Next Week at the Garden...

Cassie was glad to have some time to herself at her hotel room on Monday night. It had been a crazy week. With WWE promoting a huge upcoming tour of Europe, including stops in England and Finland, they had started putting Cassie through the promotional ringer. All last week, she had spent her days honing her wrestling skills and doing media interviews and photo-shoots. Now, mentally and physically exhausted, Cassie was happy to collapse on her bed with the green-colored covers and catch the first showing of Monday Night Raw.

Cassie usually was competing at house shows during Monday Night Raw, but since WrestleMania 21, she had started going out of her way to watch the show. She found herself becoming more addicted to the conflict and the competition...well, she found herself quickly becoming enamored with a six-foot-five-inch man who was currently World Heavyweight Champion, but she wasn't quite prepared to admit that to herself just yet.

Life on SmackDown was starting to veer off the rails. Kurt Angle had lost his mind and had become compulsively obsessed with Booker T's new wife, Sharmell. He was saying all sorts of vulgar things about her, and hinting at doing things to Sharmell that Cassie never wanted to hear about Kurt doing. The tag team champions, Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio, were falling apart at the seams. Eddie's competitiveness was starting to drive a wedge between the two of them, and the debuting tag team of Joey Mercury, Johnny Nitro and Melina were ready to rip them apart and take the tag team championship. And of course, there was Carlito, who just enjoyed being an instigator and was exacerbating the problems among everybody. He was doing more harm than good, and Cassie was unsure if it was intentional.

She curled up under the baby pink fleece blanket she had brought with her. She was dressed in baby blue Hello Kitty pajama pants and a white tank top, her hair in a high, messy ponytail. She had a bowl of vanilla ice cream in her hands. At the end of the show, Cassie was horrified to learn that the following week, when WWE set up shop at the greatest arena of all time in New York City - Madison Square Garden - Triple H would be taking on Raw's greatest commentator, Jim Ross. When the camera did an extreme close-up on Dave, she could see the rage in his eyes. He seethed. She could read his lips, all the four and five letter obscenities falling from his lips. "You son of a bitch," she read clearly. She was concerned. Triple H was known by many as one of the most violent, manipulative and sadistic WWE Superstars to ever step foot in the ring. His track of battered bodies spoke like a who's who of professional wrestling: Shawn Michaels, Bill Goldberg, Randy Orton, The Rock, the Undertaker. Jim Ross was nothing more than a play-by-play man. Triple H had nothing to prove by doing this. He was just being a jerk.

Shutting off the TV, Cassie tried to stifle the nausea that bubbled in the pit of her stomach. Some nights when she watched Raw, she found she really hated Triple H. It frightened her that he was married to Vince McMahon's only daughter, Stephanie. It meant there was a very good chance that Triple H would be taking over when Vince decided to retire. He had put in a lot of time with WWE, walking through its doors in 1995, and people viewed him as this generation's Ric Flair, but most of the time, Cassie just wanted to strangle him and watch him get his comeuppance. This was one of those nights.

She got up and placed her bowl of ice cream in the kitchenette sink. Walking back to the bed, she got under the pink fleecy blanket and set the alarm clock on her cell phone. After SmackDown, she had two more days of appearances and shows before she could get a day off. With every intention of getting some sleep, she turned off the light on the nightstand and lay her head against the pillow...

...RING!...RING!...

"Oh, that is so not cool," she murmured, her eyes snapping open like a horror movie killer coming back for that one last scare. She sat up and answered her cell phone. She turned on the lamp. "Hello?"

"Hey, Cassie? It's Dave Batista..."

"Dave?" She felt herself sit up a little straighter. Her face darkened. "How did you get my number?"

"I got it from John Cena. I hope you don't mind. I wanted to ask you if you saw what just happened on Raw."

"I did," she confirmed, completely forgetting the conflicting emotions she felt about John giving out her number. On the one hand, she was glad he gave it to Dave; on the other, she wanted to shoot him for giving her number to Dave without talking to her first. "Dave, you have to promise me that you're going to help J.R."

"I'm trying to figure something out. Right now I'm trying to get Bischoff to drop the match, Cassie, but he's not budging. He thinks this is great. I don't want to see J.R. get hurt any more than you do. I can't guarantee he won't get hurt, but I can guarantee you I will do everything in my power to try and stop this madness."

"Okay. That's all I wanted to hear." Her voice was calm, but he could hear the fear she felt for Jim Ross on the edge of her tone. He smiled; he admired her compassion for others. Sometimes the professional wrestling business had a way of skewering people's views on things. Cassie exhaled, incredulous. "I really can't believe Eric is going to let this stand. I guess if he'll let Randy Orton RKO Moolah, he'll let anything slide."

Dave was impressed by her memory, especially considering that she hadn't started with WWE back then. She was still so very new. "You're a fan?"

"My whole life," she answered with a grin.

"How long have you been good with Cena for?"

"Just since last year. He came down to OVW to work out that knee injury he got at the Royal Rumble." Dave recalled what happened. John had tore his Posterior Cruciate Ligament after getting thrown over the top rope by the Big Show. John didn't miss any ring time, but he had to run around with an awkward brace on his knee for a few months. "We became good friends down there. He gave me a few pointers about my in-ring and mic work and so when I got called up to SmackDown, we connected. It felt nice to go backstage and know I have a friend there."

"How is life treating you on SmackDown?"

"You don't watch?"

"I try to, but I miss it all the time," he lied. The truth was, he didn't care for the SmackDown brand all that much. He had said something about it in an interview once and had invoked the ire of the entire locker room. He was relieved that Cassie hadn't read that interview, because after he got reamed out for it by the Undertaker, he was embarrassed it was floating out there.

"It's chaos with a capital C right now," she confessed. "Bradshaw's still pestering John, Angle is chasing down Booker's wife and saying just the most terrible things you can imagine about her, and Eddie has just about lost his mind. Carlito is making Big Show angry, and he's also making every situation worse across the board. I'd be more impressed if I weren't so gob-smacked by it all." He laughed. "Raw side?"

"Just as nuts. Michaels still wants a go at Angle. Orton wants to kick my ass and the Undertaker's, but I'm not sure who has priority. Now that I'm champion, I got Edge waiting in the wings with that stupid briefcase and I get to live with the knowledge that he could cash that sucker in on me any time he wanted. Then there's Triple H, J.R., all the Divas who suddenly think I'm interesting because I won the title...you know...Raw is pretty much...Raw."

She laughed. "It sounds like you're enjoying the idea of being a marked man," she teased.

"I'm not marked. I'm nobody's victim," he insisted.

"Great attitude to have in these parts."

"Hey, what are you doing for Backlash?"

"I don't think I'm scheduled to be there, so I'll probably just order it in at home."

"Why don't you come out to New Hampshire as my guest?"

"Oh, I don't know, Dave. A SmackDown Diva at a Raw pay-per-view? Eric would probably make me compete against Kane or something."

"You'll be my special guest and Eric doesn't like having to deal with me, so you'll be safe. Come on - what do you say?"

She thought about it. "I say it sounds like a plan." There was a pause on her end of the line. "Are you getting ready for Triple H-Batista II?" Dave snickered at the ominous tone that swept through her voice.

"Oh, I'm ready for it. I don't think Hunter and Ric are. The two of them still think I'm a fluke."

"I can't wait to see you prove them wrong, Dave."

"Thanks. That means a lot."

"Anyway, I hate to do this, but I have to let you go," Cassie said with a yawn. "It's SmackDown tapings tomorrow, and then two days of press before I can finally go home. John and I are teaming up to take on Bradshaw and Amy Weber." Amy was JBL's image consultant in his cabinet that consisted of himself, the former Diva Search contestant, United States Champion Orlando Jordan and Doug and Danny Basham.

"All right. Good luck with that tomorrow night. I'll talk to you later, Cassie."

"Goodbye, Dave. Sweet dreams," she cooed before hanging up the phone. It wasn't very long before she passed out.