Chapter 5
The Unwelcoming Party

I continued down the hall and into their locker room, where I found all of them gathered together, in their usual pow-wow positions. I think I'd actually heard some crack about "Adam's Powerbars" from what I believed to be Mercy's voice, just before I headed in. Matt was falling asleep on a bench next to Mercy, Melanie was rubbing Jeff's back with her feet as he lay on his stomach, which was supposedly one of his favorite things. and there they were. The two long-haired Canadian's, just casually chatting it up across the room.

Damn it, I cursed.

I had to cross the sea of prying eyes to get to them. It didn't take long before these eyes came to look at where I was standing as I feared, and I gave a nervous smile and laughed as I waved and entered. It took everything I had to build up some nerve to cross this "sea" and made it just behind the two boys I was meant to talk to. "Adam? Jason? I just thought I'd stop by and check in with my new partners."

Adam turned and looked at me, easily swinging his arm around to pull me closer into a tight side-hug. "Hey there, Sunshine. We missed ya last night."

My nerves were starting to get the best of me, and Adam's remark regarding the evening before where I split from his party early – I simply laughed. "I know, and I wanted to say I'm sorry!"

Jason, however, was just standing there, blushing. "Hey…" he nervously fidgeted, and Adam nudged him a bit. "It's ok. We were wondering where you were...um...off to."

"Hey." I replied, with equal shyness. It was the first time I had actually looked at Jason, directly in his eyes. They actually caught me off-guard for a second, until I realized what I had come to tell them. "Well my dad and the others were just going through the angle tonight and I was just here to pick you guys up." I turned to Adam, who seemed to have all his attention on Jason, and nodded his head, trying to make me think he was eating up what I said.

Narrowing my eyes, I looked at both of them, and before I could say anything in regards to the googly-eyes, Mercy shouted: "Hey Jay--would you go to the car and get my bag?"

He gave a blank looking nod, "Oh yeah...sure Merce." Turning around, he tried to keep a bashful eye on me, nearly hitting the wall on his way out the door.

Adam was looking at me with a bright smile. Geez, his teeth were so white and there was such a devilish aspect about him right now.

"What do you have to say about this?" I arched an eyebrow, assuming he'd said something to Jason in the meantime.

"Nothing! I'm innocent! And I've sworn myself to secrecy!" He immediately put his hands up, trying to take cover behind Mercy who had just approached us. I saw her brush her hand by her pocket, biting her lip in embarrassment.

"Ohh--geez…I'm so dumb!! Here're the keys!" Mercy pulled the lanyard and keys from her pocket. "Hey Kaylin, would you catch up with Jay and give him these? I'd hate for him to make two trips on the account of me." It was the kindest tone I heard her speak to me since that night Amy hit her. Guess that's what a couple of cheap shots would do to ya. She was actually being sincere and wanted to help her brother, so I couldn't resist.

Taking the keys she was swinging in front of me, I accepted the mission. "Sure! No problem."

I turned and headed out the door, nearly breaking into a sprint to catch Jay in the parking lot. I saw him heading back towards me, so I knew he had already realized he'd forgotten the important part: the keys.

"Oh…Jay—" I called to him, using the newly acquired nickname, "Mercy sent me with these…I think they'll help you!"

He puckered his lips and nodded, realizing what a complete idiot he was for forgetting the keys on his way out to the car. He chuckled, "Yeah, I didn't realize it until I couldn't open the door!"

Silence.

"Well, I guess could go with you and help you out -- I mean.." I coughed, "I'm already half-way here, so why not?"

He nodded, in complete compliance of my suggestion. "Uh—sure."

"Cool..." I linked my arm in his, and started to walk down to the lot with him until I realized that he seemed to be a bit uncomfortable. "Is this--" I gestured to my arm around his.

"Hmm? Oh--no!" he chuckled. "It's..it's fine.."

He was just too cute. We walked in a bit of silence, obviously thinking about what to say to each other until we finally reached the car, which was neatly parked in the space. Pressing the alarm button, he opened the door and we both jumped into the middle seat of the suburban, searching the entire car for her bag, but it was nowhere to be found.

"Where's her stuff?" I asked curiously, furiously continuing on with my search, pushing back seats, looking under and around and what not. I saw him freeze in his own quest to find the bag. "Hey--I'm out here to help you, remember?"

He laughed, shaking his head. "Wait -- I know this."

I pushed the seat back into its original position and took a seat. "Come again?"

"It's a joke...Mercy, Matt and I played it on Alanah and Adam when they got into a fight." He twirled the key ring on his forefinger, smiling as he did. "It was a pretty nasty fight, too…and a pretty nasty joke to play."

I paused, quite taken aback that the gang I had barely gotten to know was already playing tricks on me! "Ok are you saying we're fighting, cause I must have missed it?" Playing the fool, I arched an eyebrow at the stunned Reso brother.

"It was to trick Adam and Mercy must've devised to –" he paused. "To get us together.."

Giving in to the fact that I'd known it was a complete sham the second I took the keys, I put my hand to my chest with a sarcastic gasp. "Naw! You really think so?!" Nudging him over, I couldn't help but laugh.

Moments flew by as we started up conversation like nothing. As we kept talking, what must have seemed like a good short while had passed and we both realized it was a good time to return. They'd probably send out search if we didn't head back in time, anyway. He helped me out of the SUV and we continued our conversation on our way back to the locker room, when we bumped into a rather surprised --

"Daddy!" I jumped.

"Oh. Hey Glen." Jay casually reached out to shake his hand, trying to fight the nerves that swept over him on sight.

My father took the handshake and growled a bit at me, quite irritated I hadn't returned like I promised. "Where have you guys been? It's been about a half an hour already!" His tone was firm, but nothing to be scared of…at least, not for me.

"Well that's my bad. See – Mercy gave me the keys to give to Jason so I could help him get her bag and we were out there searching for a while." I tried to explain.

Raising a brow, my dad looked on either side of us, and realized our hands were empty. "..and where exactly is this bag of hers?"

I gulped. What to do, what to say? Quick! Run for cover! "Well, let's not worry about it. I'll let Mercy know her bag wasn't in the car, later. We better get going for this match anyway."

"Actually I was really trying to find you guys to tell Jay about his sister. The show's started, and her match was up. She took a hard blow, so you should go check on her." He explained, as I tried to push him away from Jay.

Jay and I exchanged looks of surprise and the two of us worriedly ran just behind Gorilla position where Adam was found pacing. Jay ran to his side, where they were quickly joined by Matt and Jeff who were rushing Mercy backstage.

"What the hell happened out there?!" Jay shouted, clearly upset that he'd missed what had happened.

Mercy winced, groaned and held her back in pain, holding onto Matt as a crutch. "I have no idea. I guess David just got a little zealous."

"A little?" I scoffed and shook my head. I looked at my dad to get a reaction out of him and he just nodded. That David guy must have taken a cheap shot out on Mercy too. My god, what the hell was it about her that brought on these types of things?

Right on cue, David pushed through the curtain and made it to the Backstage area, where we were all gathered. I was a little stunned to see that he had blood running all over the place, and Jay immediately threw Mercy into the arms of his best friend Adam for protection. This was going to get ugly…and fast!

"What the hell do you think you were doing?!" Matt took the initiative and shoved David. Onlookers (referee's, agents and other stage crew) stopped to see what all the commotion was about. "You don't shove people from the top rope without it being scripted, ASSHOLE!"

"You don't count people out when that's not scripted either!" David shot back.

Matt got in his face. It was a lot like a match was about to start, you know? The staredown before the lock-up…but it was much more scarier. "Are you a moron or a no talent moron as well? The ref called it a quit for you and you have an obligation to go by what he says!"

"Fuck the ref!" David shouted, as some of the backstage enforcers started to inch closer and interrogate those around the situation to figure out what was going on. We said nothing. We were simply stunned. "I was told by the Man to beat your two asses and hand it over to Essa and me personally, that was my job!"

"Well you screwed up then," Matt shoved him again.

"Hey, Matt – let's calm down!" An agent stepped in. I'd seen him get in the middle of these things before. He was such a brave one.

As I looked over at David, I clung to my dad. I noticed those eyes that I'd seen before, the ones with such familiarity in their presence. These eyes were burning, so full of hate. "You want to get something started with me? Go ahead."

"Nothing's going down, you two. Go to your locker rooms and calm down!" The enforcer shouted.

Silence. Mostly, heavy breathing – the huffing and puffing of the riled up wolves that were turned sour at the event of this newcomer shoving Mercy around. A chill danced on my spine. It was too eerie.

Like a stray dog wandering into the wrong parts at the wrong time, Jerry the King came backstage through the curtain. "We took a commercial break. Here Mercy, you forgot to pick this back up," he handed over her engagement ring.

Mercy pulled away from Adam, with her hand still on her back, she took the ring from King. I had a glance at it, a beautiful white gold ring with sapphire jewels and two hearts entwined. I quickly envied that!

"Thanks King," She smiled almost boastfully to spite David who was standing there with a glare on his mutt-like face. Revelation! I was putting it all together: they must've been romantically linked at some point?

"Well, I know from experience you girls can't stand to be away from their jewelry for too long. Especially, engagement rings am I right?" he gave a nervous laugh, and quickly departed, seeing that he'd made a large hole where some canvas of closure should've been.

David quickly scoffed with his eyes full of surprise. "Engagement ring? Who you getting married to Merce?"

"Me!" Matt quickly responded, before she even had a chance to gloat. Good.

The newbie didn't look so happy about this, much to our content. "What a sweet deal. So Jay boy gets you into the best school and the best federation and leaves me to get screwed…Then you easily forget about me and move on to this guy?!" David's disbelieving voice soon escalated, "I see how it goes with you. You glory hounding gold digger!"

"Oh yes, let's play that game David. While you're bringing up my past, let's do talk about us!" Mercy started to get riled up, but Jay held her back.

My dad started to pull me away from the whole mess, but I tugged him back. Not that I was a pair of unwanted, prying eyes or anything…I wanted to know what was going down, especially if I was going to be working with them for a while. He nodded and took off to his locker room for the time being, to get ready for the match we were all going to be in, very soon. The boys had to end this…and fast. If word hit Vince, as fast as news travels around here, we would all be in trouble.

"Not now, not here, go to the E-meds and get your back checked out," he said calmly.

Mercy's eyes were pent up with rage. She shook her head and then spoke in a heavy tone: "No, I think we should talk since he's so eager,"

"Just go. It's not the time or the place," Jay insisted.

A beat.

"Fine," Mercy limped away with Matt, leaving the remaining boys (Jeff, Jay and Adam) stepped forward to serve as a curtain of steel for David.

"What the fuck are you trying to pull?!" Jay shoved him as Jeff and Adam restrained him from attempting any damage.

David brushed off his clothes with a chuckle. "Jay--calm down, I'm just paying your sister for what that bitch has done to me."

"Listen here, jackass---" Adam stepped forward, almost challenging the newbie like they were in character in the ring. "Mercy never did shit to you! You were a god damned jerk to her and as long as we're here---we sure as hell know you won't lay a lousy finger on her!"

David scoffed, almost insulted at the number of men challenging him. "You three? Huh. Bring it on!"

"Guys!" I exclaimed. Then, it hit me. Time froze and something gave me the urge to step up to the plate. When I'd come to, I was standing in the middle of the guys, right in front of David. What the hell was I doing? God only knew...my only motivation at the moment was to protect Adam and Jay's careers by holding them back from throwing a punch. The onlookers agreed with my actions, backing off in realization that I was doing their job for them, so I tried to cease the entire throw down…to no avail.

"Well well, looky-here...fresh meat!" David sneered, eyes widened at my bold move.

Jay was first to act, coming to my defense like the white knight he truly was. "Don't you fucking touch her!"

No. He wasn't going to touch me, but I was going to have my way before this was over. Turning my head away from Adam, I looked over at the newbie with such fire in my eyes. Not only did his expression just scream asshole, it made me twitch that he would think to tease and threaten me. I shook my head, and commenced my speech. "David, was it? Man, I knew you were a dickhead when I saw you. You may have hurt Mercy--but if you know what's good for you—if you want to hold on to the job that you say that you've worked so hard to achieve? Then you best out of the way."

There was a silence, a tense moment of a stare down as David and I locked gazes. His eyes gave me such an eerie chill, intensified by the faint wail of cheers coming from beyond the curtain. I exhaled.

He smiled. "Aw Jay...this another little bitch to stand up for you? She's cute." Raising his hand to touch my face, I backed away – that is, until he pulled my face towards his and tried to kiss me. Taking my right hand, I swung as hard as I could and gave a good old-fashioned open-palmed slap to the face. Sure, it was a little bitch move to slap rather than punch, but he wasn't going to touch me like that and get away with it, write up, or not. Everyone was witness to the event, and he sure as hell deserved it so I was going to fight my way out of it, regardless.

Jeff and Adam who were restraining Jay suddenly released him and he caught me as I stumbled backwards.

David just laughed, catching the side of his face with his own open palm. He looked at me with a grin swept across his dark face and shook his head. "Hm. You know, I like you...Kay was it?"

"Get the hell out of here. You're done here anyways!" Jeff spat.

The newbie just nodded and kept his eyes on me, regardless of the evil glances and shoo-ing expressions he was getting from us and those around us. "You just wait. You'll get yours. You take from me and I take from you!"

We all watched as the Fed's new-age Bonnie and Clyde disappeared into the hallway. It was such a comfort when they left the premises, since we knew they wouldn't come back around any time soon to fuck anything else up. I was actually amused that Amy had kept her mouth shut the whole time, instead of going off on her incessant babbling of incoherent proportions – or stumbling away to the locker room like a loner to get dressed. Ugh. She just made me sick.

"Are you okay, kid?" Adam asked me, all playfulness intended when using his newly obtained term of endearment.

I nodded. "No one calls me bitch and gets away with it."

The guys laughed in chorus.

"I'll be fine for now, though. Come on, boys, we got a match to get to." I smiled, motioning for the two boys to get ready for the match we were all a part of. It was so much for having a great first night with this guy, that pig. The unwelcoming party was adjourned.