Chapter 27
Geneva had officially lost her mind.
She finished up at the arena, knowing it would take him a few hours to get to Phoenix and an additional one to get through airport security. Geneva left when she finished with her final Superstar of the night and booked it to her rental car, not believing 4 hours had flown by. He was here, he had to be.
The moon shined down on her as Geneva drove back to the hotel, trembling from head to toe, never being this scared in her life. Never in all the time she'd known Taker did she fear him, not even a little, until now. Her head ducked instantly when she seen Taker fly by her in his own rental, instincts taking over. Stepping on the gas full throttle, Geneva whizzed past him and headed to the hotel, not ready to face him yet. She needed time and also had to protect her friends and family.
Taker rolled his eyes and followed her in his jet black car, knowing she was thinking he'd probably left her friend in a full body cast or something. Fickle bitch. He peeled into the hotel parking garage and jumped out, moving faster than a man his size had the right too. Geneva had tried running, but his long legs quickly caught up to her, his hand grabbing her upper arm.
"Can you please just stop for one goddamn minute, darlin'?" Taker demanded, swinging her around so she had to face him. "I want to know why you ran out that night. What the fuck is your problem?"
Tears shined in her ocean blues as Geneva stared into those acid orbs, a surge of anger flooding her, making her shove him away. She was a lot stronger than she looked. "Don't touch me." She hissed, yanking her arm out of his grip when the shove did absolutely nothing. Geneva didn't know what to say to him. What could she say? "You know why I ran out that night, Taker." She refused, flat-out REFUSED, to call him by his birth name because she didn't know this man from a hole in the ground. "You lied to me, you manipulated me, you made me believe you were seriously injured when you did it to YOURSELF!" When his green eyes widened, that just pissed her off more, not falling for the innocent act. "You have nothing to say now, huh? You tried putting this all on Steve and he was innocent the whole time. I trusted you, I actually BELIEVED you over him and that was a MISTAKE. You blew up your own truck too, didn't you Taker? What else have you done that you haven't told me? I bet your broken hand that you came to me with was false too, wasn't it?" Geneva did not wait for a response. "I'm done with you."
"Woman, are you out of your ever loving mind?!" Taker roared, not believing the poisonous words she spewed. "I'm the first one to admit I probably need therapy, but if you think for one damn second I'd ever purposely take myself out, you're more insane then I am, especially since I would NEVER do that just to fuck with that piece of shit Austin. He isn't worth the thought and time. I'm too damn self-centered to want to hurt myself!" He snapped, fury clouding his eyes. "You don't even know what the hell you're going on about. I lied to you? Bullshit if I did! If you'll stop being so damn bullheaded, I'll EXPLAIN things to you."
"I saw it on the monitor with my own two eyes and Steve told me it wasn't scripted!" She shouted, standing her ground and felt fresh tears course down her cheeks, confusion hitting her like a ton of bricks. "You BUSTED Steve open last night and then came to my hotel room acting like a raving LUNATIC! He was bleeding badly and I had to stitch him up because I didn't want him spending another night in the hospital." She spat crossly, wishing he would stop lying to her, wishing he would admit what he did so they could both get on with their lives. "You said you took yourself OUT on national television and, as far as I know, what happened to you WASN'T SCRIPTED EITHER!" She wasn't falling for his lies and tricks again, no way in hell. "Just STOP lying to me!"
The screaming was too much, so Taker slapped her. Not a hard blow, just enough to stun her into silence. "Listen to me for once, Geneva," He was getting a headache, holding her in place with one hand and pinched the bridge of his nose with the other. "My accident wasn't scripted, you're right. And I don't know what Austin told you, but I was given lines to say and I fucking said them, okay? You just assumed it was real because of everything Austin told you about me. And yeah, I did bust his ass open and I'll do it all over again simply because he lied to you."
Geneva cupped her cheek with her hand, staring back at him in shock, not believing he actually struck her. She wouldn't do it. She wouldn't believe what he said because the facts were clear as day in front of her. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she stumbled away from him. "Just stay away from me. I'm your physician just like every other employee with the WWF. You two can kill each other for all I care at this point." Her voice was low and dark, icy blues flashed at him as Geneva trembled from head to toe from the slap.
"Fuck it." Taker snarled, too tired to deal with this shit at the moment. He shook his head, turning and wound up being greeted with a fist to the face, sprawling back, holding his mouth.
"You heard her son, we can kill each other."
"My pleasure." Taker returned the swing.
"Stop it right now!" Geneva shouted, barely stepping a few feet away when Steve attacked. She immediately ran over, seeing them delivering blow after blow, not believing this was happening. "Mark, Steve stop it!" She gasped when Steve got knocked down, bleeding from the mouth, but didn't go to help him up, running at Taker instead, pressing her hands against his chest. "STOP IT!" She shrieked, ignoring her throbbing cheek, seeing both men were panting heavily. "You two are unbelievable! What the hell is going on? I want explanations and I want to know who is telling me the truth and who is lying to me RIGHT NOW!"
Geneva was tired of this merry-go-round, remaining standing between the two men so they wouldn't kill each other. Taker breathed heavily, wanting nothing more than to attack again, but held himself back simply because Geneva was there. He refused to let her be caught in the crossfire of his wrath against Austin, eyes spitting venom.
"You best be telling her the fucking truth, Austin, or there isn't a force on this earth that's going to stop me from snapping your goddamn neck."
"This isn't a damn game anymore, MARK." Steve snapped, holding his head. "The world is not here for your amusement, stop before you wind up hurting someone besides me. Fuck..."
He dropped to his knees, knowing he probably had one hell of a concussion considering his head never fully healed to begin with from last night's attack. Geneva's head spun as she kept pressed against Taker, knowing he would attack if she moved. Worry flashed in her eyes for Steve because Geneva knew that one shot from Taker could've potentially killed him with the concussion.
"Sit down on the ground. It'll help with the dizziness." She ordered dryly, feeling how tense Taker was against her hands, but Geneva refused to budge. "Please, I don't care what happened. I just want someone to tell me the truth. Tell me what happened that night. I don't care about it, I really don't, but I need to know for my own sanity." She pleaded with both of them now, looking back and forth between the men.
Wondering if Taker was playing his mind games he was famous for or if it really was Steve the entire time, Geneva didn't know who to believe. She loved Taker with everything inside of her, but Steve had somehow gotten inside her head too, making her care deeply for him. Taker stared at Austin, hatred boiling in his green eyes and growled before stepping back, tossing his hands up. He couldn't ignore the pleading in Geneva's voice, refusing to hurt her a second longer and knew he'd already lost her.
"Fine," He all but roared. "Game fucking over." He pushed past Geneva, making sure to kick Austin on the way.
Steve groaned, hunching into a ball. "Mother fucker..." He cursed, finally pushing himself off the ground and leaned against the wall, turning to see what direction Taker went.
Hearing it caused a new pain to explode within her, a pain unlike any other, as Geneva watched Taker stalk away, simply standing there. Her entire body was numb from head to toe, feeling as though her feet were super glued to the carpeted floor. She didn't bother checking on Steve, staring in the direction Taker went and knew her time in the WWF was over.
"You were innocent." Geneva murmured, blinking, the shock still in her system because tears hadn't surfaced yet. "I love him. I love him and he betrayed me. I love him and he played me like a fool." She swallowed hard before backing away from Steve. "I-I need to go...I need to get out of here. I need to get to the airport and get away from here!"
Steve frowned, reaching a hand out to her, hiding his physical pain the best he could, though it was hard when he was fighting to keep conscious. "Geneva, just come inside." He pleaded, clenching his teeth clenched with pain. "Let's go inside and talk about this rationally. Or we can call your Uncle and have him come get you, just calm down, honey."
Not listening to him, Geneva ran away from Steve and pulled her cell phone out, dialing Uncle Mick's number. "Uncle Mick…" She immediately broke down, sliding down the wall in the hallway as her knees gave out. "I-I need you…"
Mick felt his jaw tighten at the raw pain in his niece's voice, up on his feet instantly. "Where are you, sweetheart?" He already slipped into his shoes, heading out the door.
"Second floor…"
When Mick arrived, he immediately bent down and scooped Geneva in his arms, his heart breaking at her gut-wrenching sobs, carrying her back to his room. Something happened with Taker, he was sure of it, remembering his conversation with his niece they had while she was in Houston. He refused to let her go, especially when she just clung to him and wrapped his arms around her, letting her cry her heart out to him. Through sobbing, Geneva managed to tell him what happened, how Taker had played a horrible mind game on her by self-mutilating himself and tried pinning it on Steve.
To say Mick was pissed would've been an understatement. He officially wanted to rekindle his feud with Taker, only this time it wouldn't be him flying off the top of a cage. It would be the other way around. It wouldn't be him going through tables and being cracked open with steel chairs either. Mick stroked her curly hair, gritting his teeth and finally laid her down on the bed, leaving the room to give Colette a call.
"Uncle Mick…"
"Just relax and sleep." He said soothingly, seeing how exhausted his niece was. "I'm just gonna be right outside talking to your Aunt Colette, sweetheart."
"P-Please don't tell her…" Geneva didn't want Aunt Colette knowing about this, red-rimmed ocean blue eyes pleading.
Mick sighed heavily, nodding. "I won't, now get some sleep." He exited the room, keeping the door cracked and proceeded to call his good friend, Dwayne.
"Hey Mick, what's up?" Dwayne greeted, lying in bed with a bowl of popcorn on his stomach, getting ready to settle in with a movie.
"A lot." Mick heaved a sigh, blue eyes narrowing. "Remember how I told you about my niece and Taker, way back in 1997?" Of course he had to confide in someone besides his wife, though Geneva didn't need to know about it.
"What about it?" Dwayne still couldn't believe what Mick told him, finding it hard to believe such a sweet girl could be with an animal like Taker.
"One more question then I'll tell you everything. You know how Taker was 'attacked' backstage and had to have emergency surgery? And how Vince decided to use that as a storyline to end his feud with Steve?"
"That's more than one question, Mick…" Dwayne pointed out, sitting up a little and paused his movie, setting the popcorn aside. "What the hell happened?"
"Gen called me crying and told me that it was all a hoax. That Taker self-mutilated himself all to play a sick mind game on Steve." Mick didn't believe it, not for a second and scrubbed a hand down his face. "Me and you need to have a talk with Mark because my niece got hurt and all I want to do is kill him right now."
"Man…" Dwayne groaned, standing from the bed and turned the nightstand light on. "Do you think it was a mind game or do you think Taker's innocent?"
"At this point, I'm not sure."
A few hours later, when she knew Uncle Mick was asleep, Geneva stood up from the bed and headed into the sitting room. He had a suite that came with a mini bar, which is exactly what Geneva wanted. Sinking into a chair, Geneva stared out the window and letting fresh tears scorch her cheeks, knowing it would only take time to forget Mark Calaway.
Mick woke up suddenly and walked out into the sitting area of the suite. "Gen?" He murmured, looking around and found her huddled in a chair, staring out the window. "Sweetheart, come lay down." He whispered, knowing she was torn up mentally and emotionally from all this. "You can't go without sleep."
Geneva slept though in the chair, a bottle of Jack Daniels dangling in her hand. Her head rested against the glass window, her body torqued in a complete circle, and her face looked burnt with tears. She moved a little and the bottle dropped, completely empty, not feeling Uncle Mick lift her up in his arms and carry her back to bed.
"Mark...I love you..." She whispered in her sleep, snuggling into the pillow as her body trembled.
"Brilliant." Mick muttered, wishing there was something he could do to take her pain away. He knew it would take time for Geneva's wounds to heal and he planned on being there to pick up the pieces of her broken heart.