Disclaimer, etc., in part 1.

Part Thirty

Eve pushed her hair back from her face, the woman making her way around to the back of her rental car, pressing the button to pop the trunk... Then jerking a little in surprise when someone else reached in to grab her things. A quick look to the side told her that it was Dean Ambrose... though where he had appeared from, she didn't know. She definitely hadn't seen the man when she'd gotten out of her car.

"Good timing," he said, shooting a look her way. "I just got out here. The divas' tag team match is the fourth match of the night, right after intermission. One of us will walk you to the curtain again, just to make sure Ryback doesn't try something."

"That really isn't necessary, you know," Eve told him, slamming the trunk shut after Dean finished getting her things, the woman reaching out to take her title belt from him... Pretty much the only thing any of them let her carry around backstage, which was interesting, really, because in the short time since she and the rest of the divas had been assigned as managers, she'd still seen plenty of the other women carrying their own bags around backstage.

Ambrose shook his head, arching a brow as the man looked at her. "You say that now. And I don't even doubt that you mean it. But you'd probably change your tune if he grabbed you and tried to shellshock you backstage or something. He's a big bastard, and a mean one to go along with it. Maybe the crowd likes him because of that 'feed me more' bullshit, but he's not a good guy. Not a nice guy. And he could do some serious damage to you if he tried." He met her eyes for another moment, then gestured toward the door with his head. "Come on. We should get inside."

Eve nodded slightly at that, the diva walking with Ambrose as the man headed toward the door that led from the parking garage and into the arena, wishing she had some sort of response to what he'd just said, but really coming up with nothing. After all, whether she wanted to admit it or not, Ambrose was right. Ryback could do a lot of damage to her if he wanted to. Hell, Ryback could do a lot of damage to most of the *men* in the company if he really put his mind to it. The fact that the fans chanted his catchphrase - she suspected more because they liked to chant than because they actually liked him - didn't change the fact that he was a dangerous and unpredictable man... Sort of like the guy she was walking alongside right now... Though Dean Ambrose hadn't given her any reason to suspect he might be a danger to her. She still couldn't quite think of him as 'safe', though.

"Well, that apparently didn't go well," Ambrose mused as they turned a corner and found themselves staring at a puddle of water that pretty much spanned the width of the hallway. The fact that there was a cart holding a few cases of water and the hall seemed to be littered with the remains of several busted bottles made it pretty clear what had happened... Somehow, a case of water had been knocked off, and the impact had busted the bottles and sent their contents all over the floor. Whoever had done it was gone, probably having run off to find janitorial staff to take care of the mess.

Eve shook her head. "What a mess," she muttered, and Dean sent a look her way.

"Yeah, well, I guess that's what happens when the bottles are made of plastic so thin that it practically breaks if you so much as look at it funny," he stated, the man trying to step around the puddles in the hallway, Eve going to follow him... The diva slipping slightly on a piece of busted plastic that she hadn't seen, then hissing through her teeth when Ambrose reached out and caught her, his hand wrapping around her arm to pull her upright... Her left arm, actually. In basically the same place that Zack Ryder had grabbed her the night before.

Ambrose turned to give her a look as they found themselves on dry ground once more. "What was that?"

"What do you mean?"

"When I grabbed your arm. The sound you made. And you flinched. I didn't grab you hard enough to hurt you, and I don't think you took any nasty hits in the arm last night," he said, and that much was true. Neither Alicia nor Aksana had really managed to do any damage to her or Kaitlyn at all the night before. "What happened?"

"It's nothing," Eve told him, and her words were met by a disbelieving look.

"Yeah, right. Let me see your arm," Ambrose said, arching a brow when Eve gave him a disbelieving look of her own. "You have a match tonight, which means you'll be in your wrestling gear, so I'm going to see it anyway," he reminded her, taking hold of her arm again - though this time grasping her arm much lower, down close to her wrist instead of taking her by the upper arm as he had before - the man tugging her toward what appeared to be a storage closet. For a moment, Eve thought that the Shield had somehow ended up claiming the small space as their locker room for the night, but she quickly realized that she and Ambrose were the only people in there... Which somehow didn't make her feel any better.

"What the hell?"

"Let me see your arm, Eve. If you're hurt, you shouldn't wrestle-"

"I'm fine," she told him, meeting his gaze, trying to determine if he was going to keep pushing this until he got his way, then deciding that yes, he was going to do exactly that, the woman heaving out a sigh and shoving her title belt at him. Ambrose barely caught the pink and silver belt, just managing to keep it from hitting the ground as Eve pulled off her jacket, then pulled the sleeve of her oversized sweater up until her arm was mostly bared... Including the ugly bruise that was evident there.

Ambrose reached out, fingers sliding lightly over the bruised skin, Eve holding herself very still and forcing herself not to react to his touch... The man's eyes full of anger and violence that were completely at odds with how carefully he was touching her as he looked up at her. "What happened? And don't say it's nothing. This didn't happen during your match last night. It didn't happen during ours, either. I made sure that no one touched you."

"Look, I took care of it-"

"And I want to know who did it."

Eve cleared her throat, taking a deep breath before replying. "It... Zack Ryder wanted me to convince you not to wrestle him on RAW. I told him no, and I'm pretty sure I managed to elbow him in the face."

"When was this?" Ambrose asked, his eyes snapping with fury.

"Last night. I had to run down to get something from my car, and he grabbed me in the hotel hallway. I'm fine."

"I'm going to kill him," the man said, and Eve arched a brow at him.

"Weren't you kind of planning to do that anyway?"

"Yeah. But now I'm going to kill him harder."