Chapter Six

New York: Murder Two

Todd Halphaway walked around the body, examining everything from every angle. "Who would want to kill Mr. McMahon?"

"Who wouldn't want to..." John almost snickered, but he remembered the situation and held it back.

"Who gives a shit why anyone would want to!" Peyton panicked, folding her arms around herself for comfort. Randy knew what she was doing. Whenever Peyton felt backed into a wall, she would curl up into a ball with her arms around herself. She said it reminded her that that was 'her space', and it just made her feel better. "I don't think you're all realizing that we're standing with the killer right now! One of us... is capable of taking a life."

Eyes immediately shot towards Mickie. She threw her hands up in the air and backed away, "What makes you think I could do something like that?!"

"Uhh...let's see. You almost killed Peyton tonight! She was standing right next to Vince. You could have just missed." Candice accused, but she couldn't manage to take her eyes off her dead boss. She felt herself close to feinting and looked for Todd's support to stand.

Trish nodded her head in agreement, "Not to mention that you're totally head over heels for Randy, but he doesn't want you. Not unless Peyton was out of the picture."

The fear in Mickie disappeared as she was standing alone, being convicted for murder. "What about Peyton, then?! She was mad at me for causing her the match..."

"You are seriously delusional..."Peyton scoffed, walking away so she wouldn't end up killing Mickie.

"She could have snapped when she heard that Vince let me down to the ring." Mickie finished. Her statements erupted a whole slew of foul language from Peyton, which made everyone burst into an uproar of anger.

Todd climbed up onto a storage box, looking over at all of the yelling. "HEY!" They all stopped to look up at him. "Fighting isn't going to bring Mr. McMahon back, nor is blaming someone without any evidence. I say we split up into teams of two and try to find a way out before we all wind up like our former boss."

"Split up? So whoever gets partnered with the physco gets the ax next. I don't think so." John sighed. "I thought you said we're all stuck in here anyway."

"That's what the head of security for the arena told me, but he also mentioned some old wooden doors in the basement. If we can find one, we can smash through it just like with the locker room door."

"So we just hope that we don't get paired with the crazy? Great plan." Randy mocked.

Candice placed her hands on her hips, not liking the tone her beau was getting. "It's better than waiting here and being killed off all at once. At least we'd be trying to save ourselves."

Peyton nodded, "It's may sound horrible, but sacrificing one person for the good of the group is really our only option. And you never know, maybe the killer won't get another chance to strike."

"Let's just hope the generators hold up." Todd sighed. "I'll go with Candice." Naturally.

"And I'm with Peyton." She half expected the words to come from Randy's mouth, but was pleasantly surprised to hear that it was John.

After that it was Maria with Melina and Victoria, and Torrie and Trish. Which left Randy with Mickie.

- - - - - - - -

Listening to the sound of their shoes crash against the metal staircase, Peyton couldn't help but cringe at the goose bumps covering her entire body. "Is it just me, or do you get the feeling we're just walking into a cheap horror film?" She shivered in the damp basement, still wary of the spooky green light showering over their silhouettes.

"Maybe, only ten times more crazy." He responded, craning his neck around in every direction. Almost like he was watching his back. And Peyton was behind him.

She stopped dead in her tracks. "You don't really think I did that, do you?"

"Would I have volunteered to go with you if I did?" His words seemed distant and cold.

"You can't be serious! You came with me because you think that I'm capable of murder. That way, you get to play the knight in shining armor."

She continued to ramble until John turned to her and gripped her shoulders firmly. It felt oddly similar to the day that Randy had stopped her in Philadelphia. In that moment, she knew it was because he cared. "Peyton! Would you listen to yourself?"

This was it. This was the moment when Peyton would know for sure if she had really moved on. This was the moment when Peyton would know if she was going to come out of this all right. She leaned in and kissed him, her upper lip falling between his. He held her shoulders tighter, pulling her into him. It was only a short kiss, but when Peyton pulled back she knew that she wasn't ready to give up all hope on Randy yet.

John had expected as much, "Well?"

Peyton licked her upper lip, feeling something of a tingling sensation running across her mouth. "I was just..."

"I know what you were doing."

"Then why did you kiss me back?"

He ran a calm hand over his face for a moment to think. When his hand returned to his side, he found his fingers twitching uncomfortably. "I know you need some sort of closure. And, as your friend, I was glad that I could help you with achieving it." She reached her hand out to him and he took it, careful to cup his hand instead of lacing fingers. "So? What's going on in that complicated head of yours?"

She sat on the step, covering her face in her hands and hiding her oncoming tears. "I hate him for what he did, but I can't help but miss him."

He knelt down next to her, reaching his arms out to hug her. He embraced her fort he better part of two minutes before he took hold of her shoulders and brought her to arm length. "You feel better now?" He waited for her to nod. "Good. Then what do you say we go find those goddam doors so we can get out of here. You know, just incase you don't want to die."

"Well... when you say it that way..."

- - - - - - - -

Mickie blindly followed Randy down a dark hallway, grabbing his arm and clinging to him for safety. Randy pulled his appendage back from her desperate grip, and she took the hint that he wasn't in any sort of mood. She kept her silence. "Do you really think that me and you would ever work out?" He seemed disgusted.

Mickie began to pout like a child, questions swirling around in her head in a dizzy confusion. That confusion turned to anger as she began stomping her feet behind him, purposely annoying him to the point of confronting her. "What?!"

Mickie crossed her arms, the pout on her face melting into the lines creasing her mouth. "You're obsessed with her. Face it, Randy. You're never going to get her back!"

"You don't know that. No one can know that." As soon as the words rumbled from his vocal chords and passed through his lips, Randy knew that they were as hollow as his delusion was. Peyton had made it clear several times that she wanted absolutely nothing to do with him anymore. Then there was John. As he thought more about it, Randy figured that one day, when he had finally let go, she would be able to forgive him. He only assumed that that feat would happen only after she had moved on. But he never thought she would find someone else so fast, and it made him unsettled to know that it was one of his good friends that got to comfort him instead of him. "You could never measure up to her. No matter how much you try."

They made it to the mouth of the hallway, a little more light flickering from the open spaces. The room was glowing in the pale lighting, shining off of the metal staircase and casting long shadows where large crates were propped up against walls. On the staircase, Randy observed Peyton crying, John's arms around her. It made his stomach knot and turn, but he held it down. Then he heard the words he's been longing to hear. "I can't help but miss him." It made his heart flutter with a joy that he had never felt. Well, maybe one time. When she said "yes".

Mickie heard it too, but the feeling in her was somewhat different. She wanted to puke. Peyton was no good for Randy. She was too untamed for him, and Mickie knew that she would give him nothing but heartbreak. Who cares if Peyton still loved him. Mickie had to make Randy see the light. Somehow.

Randy reveled himself from the hallway just as they were standing up. "Any luck?" he asked, a smile almost setting on his face. But he held that back too. He couldn't let things get out of perspective. Vince was dead, and one of them could be next. It was his own self preservation that made him stop from jumping for joy.

"Nope. Nothing yet." John sighed, meeting Randy at the bottom of the stairs. "There's a door over there, though. I think it goes to the boiler room, but I'm not sure."

Mickie nodded, hiding her malice very well. "We should go find Todd, then, and see what he says."

John and Randy turned to leave, and just as Peyton was about to follow, Mickie grabbed her arm and wrenched her around. "Don't do it, Mick." Peyton hissed, all hatred foaming at the surface.

"No, Peyton. Don't you dare give Randy any sort of hope. You and I both know that you can't take him back now."

"No. I didn't know that. All I knew is that I was extremely pissy. Now, not so much towards him but towards you. Keep your claws out of him, Mickie." As Peyton pivoted to continue after the boys, Mickie grabbed her arm again. Peyton wrenched around with such momentum then Mickie got knocked to the floor when her fist made contact with Mickie's nose.

The boys came running back after hearing the "thud" Mickie's bottom made when she hit the hard floor. "What happened?" John cautiously asked.

"She fell." Peyton retorted.

- - - - - - -

Trish and Torrie clung to each other, giving them both a false sense of security towards the dark and narrow hallways that entwined Madison Square Garden's inner workings. They were approaching the backup generator, then only sound cutting through the air was the loud humming.

Both of them stopped dead in their tracks when Peyton's piercing scream filled their eardrums and erupted with a final "OH GOD!"

They left the comfort of the other's arms and started running towards the whimpering noises that they were only assuming were still coming from Peyton. They ran until their legs burned, making it to a large metal staircase. Taking two, sometimes three, steps in a bound, Torrie and Trish fell on their knees when they finally found her.

Randy and Mickie were looking on with wide, scared eyes. Peyton was laying on the ground, covered in blood. John Cena's blood.

Who did it?! review please!

Ruby