(Dunno if you guys caught it, but my oc is the younger adopted sister of Maxine, who I love and wish were on the actual WWE lineup. More about my oc's past, why she is the way she is will come out, only if people tell me they want to see more of this story. )
(Huge thanks to my reviewers. So glad you guys like this so far. Probably won't be your typical romance, because I love writing fights too. So there will be a lot of fighting in this too.)
(apologies for the stuff in this chapter. It's a big part of who Laney is though)
The smoke woke her up, stinging her nose, filling her lungs, scaring her. She quickly ran down the hallway to her mom's room, finding her mommy asleep, or at least that's what she thought at the time. Her father was downstairs swearing, throwing things and drunk as usual.
She ran to her little sister Ariana's room next and when she finally got Ariana awake the house was a full blown inferno. She'd almost gotten her sister safely out when her father stopped her and started yelling and ranting, raving. She screamed as he carried them back through the house, up the stairs where the fire was blazing, out of control. The closet door shut and she screamed only to have the door open again, and everything go black.
Laney sat up, throat hoarse from screaming, body covered in cold sweat, feeling like she'd just went at least 8 rounds with a boxer or something, and she looked at the clock on her nightstand in her hotel room.
Only 1 am.
Growling, she threw a pillow, then her combat boot at the wall of the hotel room as she tried to roll over, just go back to sleep, although she was still too haunted by what she'd seen in the nightmare to even dare it. She knew without a doubt when she DID go back to sleep, it'd just start over.
She never dreamt of anything else, it was her punishment, apparently, since she blamed herself for not being able to do something, even though she'd only been around 7 at the time it'd happened.
The thing that pissed her off the most about all of this was that her father, who'd set the fire after killing her mother during an argument while drunk, walked away, got away with it. As horrible as it was, it was one of many reasons that Laney didn't trust over 90 percent of men..
Because her father had been an alcoholic, yes, but until that night, he'd been a good guy. He'd just suddenly snapped, went on a rampage. Or at least that's how she remembered it happening.
Thankfully, when she was about 9, Maxine's family adopted her. In a lot of ways, what she lived through that night made her the cold person she was today, and in some ways, she feared that she might be crazy as her father apparently had been, underneath it all.
She didn't spend much time considering the second option, as it really freaked her out. She wanted to be nothing like that man.
Sitting up in bed, she raked her hands through her hair and bit her lip, squeezing her eyes shut, as she worked on ridding herself of the mental images. Of course, she knew and realized it wouldn't happen, but she needed to sleep, she knew that.
And she hadn't had a decent's night sleep in so long that she'd almost forgotten what one felt like. She rolled over and finally managed to get back to sleep just a little bit, only to be woken up by her hotel room door being knocked on.
Grumbling, she stood, pulled on an oversized bright red and black plaid shirt as she made her way to the door, throwing it open, stretching.
"What the fuck?" she snarled, glaring at the person on the other side of the door, rubbing her eyes. Ryback stood in the doorway, smirking.
"I heard something hit the wall."
"Dude.. Fuck off, seriously.. I threw something, that's why. It's called crankiness.. Because I can't fucking sleep."
The giant raised a brow, but when she glared grimly at him he seemed willing to accept this answer, and walked back down the hallway, into his room.
When he was gone, she let out a ragged breath. The man really set her nerves on edge, she wasn't sure why, but he scared the literal crap out of her, even more than Ambrose, who honestly should have terrified her more than anyone else, because he was completely insane.
Then again, her sanity couldn't exactly be vouched for.
She'd just gotten back into bed when the wakeup call she had scheduled by the hotel went off. Growling, she threw her other combat boot at a wall, and then flopped back against the mattress, angrily.
"Eve, Aksana, Rosa and AJ better stay the fuck away from me tonight, if they want to continue breathing good air." she grumbled as she threw her long black hair into a sloppy ponytail, wiggled on some of her baggy lowrise gray sweats and a black tanktop, a black and gray hoodie, then found her red converse.
She always ate breakfast with her older sister, when they were together, so that's where she was heading when she bumped into Roman Reigns quite literally, as she turned the corner in the hallway to get on the elevator.
"You okay?" Roman asked quietly as he looked at the petite ravenette in front of him.
"Yeah.. I'm good, if you consider I got maybe one fucking hour of sleep total last night." Laney said as Dean walked up behind Roman, looked at her and said with a smirk, "You ... look like shit."
"And you always look like shit, Ambrose.. Point?" Laney shot back, studying the two men in front of her, shooting Dean an amused smirk as she said "Do yourself a favor, Ambrose.. Don't think too hard about that remark."
Roman chuckled and Laney said dryly, "I'd say it's been fun, but I'd be lying. Not a morning person.. Definitely not a people person."
She stepped onto the elevator and Roman turned to Dean as he said "Seriously? You had to fucking show up, didn't you?"
"Jealous? I think she's hot for me, personally." Dean replied stiffly as Roman chuckled and rolling his eyes said "Right.. That's why she basically just told you to go to hell, Ambrose."
"No, seriously. Her mind's not wired like typical chicks, Reigns."
"And you'd know this how? If you get within ten feet of one, you're slapped and she's running."
Dean shrugged, leaned back casually against the wall as the two of them glared at one another silently.