"Search again." Baron says, him, Sasha and Seth having been awake for an hour and searched the hotel.
"We've searched this entire hotel three times over, where the hell could she be?!" Seth asks as the trio got off of the elevator that once again took them to the fifth floor… and then it hit them and they ran down the hallway, banging their hands against a door.
Amanda and Finn opened their tired eyes… and Amanda's eyes widened when she realised it was nearly 11 in the morning and she had set her alarm for 9:30.
"Oh fuck!" Amanda says, Finn looking at the clock.
"Open this door, Balor! We know she's in there with you!" Seth yells as he and Baron continued pounding on the door.
"This fucking joker." Finn mutters, helping Amanda sit up and examining her bruised eye and split lip after lightly cupping her jaw with his left hand. "Yeah… definitely Seth. If it was Baron, you would've been waking up in the E.R." He says.
"How bad does it look?" Amanda asks, knowing that Hunter would lose it when he eventually finds out… and letting out a low growl when the incessant banging on the door continued, the small brunette standing up and flinging the door open, which made the three jump back and both saw her black eye and split lip.
"Damn..." Sasha says, examining Amanda's face carefully.
"Oh, damn… Mandy, how did that-" Seth starts to say, Amanda shoving his hand off of her shoulder.
"Don't touch me, you jackass! You two are idiots when drunk!" Amanda snapped at them. "You want to know what happened, Colby Daniel?! I went down there to try to save your ass when the bartender called and said you picked a fight with Thomas!" She yelled at Seth, Finn walking over and carefully pulling her away from them as she only called the others by their real names when she was truly infuriated and Sasha trying to calm Amanda down.
"Damn, you really are pissed… we'll give you some space." Baron says, him and Sasha dragging Seth away and Finn closed and locked the door.
"How bad does it look?" Amanda asks.
"I've seen the makeup artist cover up worse… it'll just take some effort. And an explanation to Hunter." Finn says.
"Should I go apologize to the guys for letting all hell out on them? They're not normally this crazy." Amanda says.
"Let them chill out. Travelling with each other 24/7 is gonna cause tempers to flare." Finn says, finding a small cut on the palm of Amanda's right hand.
"Ah, damn… I broke another fucking beer bottle, Hunter's gonna kill me!" Amanda says, Finn lightly rubbing her shoulders.
"He'll understand. Whatever you've done, he's done worse." Finn says, him and Amanda hugging.
At the same time, Seth and Baron reached the hotel bar and found a broken in half beer bottle with drops of dried blood on it.
"Son of a bitch… she was gonna fucking stab me with that!" Seth says, slamming his fist on the bar… and screaming in pain as the scattered shards embedded into his skin, Baron reaching over when the bartender ran over to them with a first aid kit.
"If anything, I don't think she would've… she most likely grabbed it to defend herself after getting punched." Sasha says, pulling the shards out of Seth's hand and spraying some antiseptic into the cuts before bandaging it.
"Yeah… especially after I hit her, I wouldn't blame her if she never forgives me for it. She's right, I am a jackass." Seth says.
"Just give Mandy some space, alright? Things will chill out." Baron says, Seth seeing Roman walk over to them.
"Oh, damn, what happened here?!" Roman asks.
"Drunken fistfight… couldn't remember at first…" Seth says, Roman realising it.
"About Finn and Mandy's friendship." Roman says.
"I don't think it's a simple friendship but it's not yet romantic… wouldn't surprise me if it turned romantic at some point though." Sasha says.
Meanwhile...
Amanda, still in her pajamas, picked up her tablet and sent out a video call, a pair of hazel eyes just a little lighter than her own staring back at her but the smile fading.
"Damn, what happened, kiddo?!" Hunter asks.
"Drunken fistfight between Seth and Baron that I tried to break up… didn't end well." Amanda says.
"Damn. You crashing with Finn?" Hunter says, Amanda's eyebrows raised slightly but only for a second.
"You know me way too well. Yeah, we're just relaxing for a bit and going over tonight's script again." Amanda says, Finn sitting down next to her.
"Keep a careful eye on her… as for tonight's event, I'll make a few last minute changes and put ice on that again before covering it up." Hunter says.
"Already taken care off, my eye is numb now." Amanda says.
"That's good… hey, we all have our tempers, Mandy. We're all around each other for the majority of the year, those tempers will flare at times." Hunter says, seeing a hint of sadness in Amanda's eyes.
"Yeah…" Amanda says. 'Especially this time of year.' She thought, noticing the day on her phone listed as November 4th.
"It's been nearly 10 years… but he's still on our minds." Hunter says, Amanda blinking her tears away and burying her face into Finn's right shoulder as more formed, Finn's arm around her shoulders in a comforting manner.
"I'm… gonna let you two go about your day. Be careful." Hunter says after a few seconds, him and Amanda ending the video call and setting the tablet aside before she and Finn stretched out on the bed.
"In 9 days, it'll officially be 10 years since it happened… sometimes, it seems like yesterday that I was walking down that hallway and they were already taking Eddie to the morgue. I still think sometimes that if I had just stayed with him in his room..." Amanda says as Finn carefully brushed her tears away.
"Death never gets any easier… but it's the days after with them gone that hurts worse. He wouldn't want you beating yourself up over this, Mandy, he loved you like his own family." Finn says as the two looked at each other, Amanda nodding slightly.
"I don't know what I'd do without you in my life, Finn." Amanda says quietly, burying her head into his right shoulder as he carefully rubbed his right hand up and down her back.
"Maybe it wasn't by pure luck that we met last year, lass." Finn says, Amanda letting out a small chuckle and a small but slightly lopsided smile.
Her vulnerable side was a rare sight… but it meant that the wall around her was finally crashing down.