Nattie, here's your surprise! And a huge thank-you to AliceJericho, who assured me that my...fun...at the end of the chapter is not actually fun. In a good way. (With a nod to the great June Jacobs – consider it my Easter Egg to you!) If you're in the mood for happier reading at the end of all this, give "Can You Help Me Heal?" and "Fade to Black" a spin - they're both brilliant. Mom2AliceandJames, EyexLinerxWhore, a thousand thank-yous for the reviews. I can only hope there are more of you out there - I'd love to hear from you!
Onward!
"I was thinking-"
"Uh-oh," Meg threw a tongue depressor at Randy, "Hamsters of the world, duck and run."
Randy dodged the wooden stick and continued, rolling his eyes but managing a smile at Meg. "Don't worry, the little guy is still moving along just fine. I was thinking about what I said that night at the gala, about wanting to..." He half-flinched, expecting the jar of tongue depressors to come at him next. Meg stood as though time held its breath with him, waiting for her next move. "Uh...I know we didn't really talk that much about it...but...I mean, we kinda did, I know I said I wanted to go back, but that wasn't exactly the point of the evening. And you didn't sound like you were mad that I went – I mean, not mad that night, I know you were mad before then – so I was thinking...God, I'm fucking this up. You were remembering all of the people – I mean, even the cat, and that cat didn't like me at all. Anyway, I was only there, like, a day. Half a day. And you knew the places, too, but you knew more than I did, by a long shot, and you would have loved the frogs – fuck, you woulda died laughing if you knew how bad I scared the frogs when I got out of Remy's car – but...shit, that's not the point, I really am fucking this up..."
"I'm not flying. That's my only no-go."
"...and I don't kn – what? Wait. Meg. You'll...actually go back to New Orleans with me, spend some time there, like...really show me around...make me understand it? That's really okay? Not just a day, Meg, I mean...time."
"Did you catch the part where I said I wasn't flying?" She drummed her fingers slowly along the edge of the counter, her other arm crossed protectively over her middle. "Randy...there are still things there for me. You said so. Now I just have to find them, right? Figure it out?"
Randy seemed pinned to the wall, unsure if moving would somehow cause her to change her mind, even though weeks had passed since the gala and neither of them felt they had to tread quite so lightly about New Orleans anymore. Walking cautiously toward him, Meg let her hands trail up over his chest, pressing her fingernails into the cotton of his shirt just hard enough to get him to close his eyes and press his palms into the cool plaster behind him, trying to anchor himself in place. "You did something...ridiculous and wonderful for me. The least I can do is show you why I called it home. And anywhere you are is home. Plus..." Fingers trailing higher, she eased the Saint Anthony medallion out from under his shirt, "I know us. We're never going to do the big, formal, stuffy, traditional, church...thing. You did it once and it bombed, and I...would have to be wed at a side altar if we went Catholic, put it that way. You couldn't even make it in the door." She winked. "But, if you're in the mood when we go, we might be able to formalize things a bit. Informally. You just have to know the city, and...ease into it."
Randy hummed, a low, relaxed vibration that bounced pleasantly between him and Meg, and she pulled herself up to kiss him, trying to capture more of the feeling. "Yeah, Remy told me all about that one. Relax and be open to whatever it's trying to tell you. I was so keyed up when I went...I didn't get it at first. I do now."
"Exactly." Pushing herself firmly against him, sliding a knee up between his thighs, and tightening her grip in his shirt, she fixed him with a stare that was equal parts dare and desire. "What message do you think you're getting now, Sir?
"The message that says I better go get warmed up for the show." Randy pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head, and rubbed his hands up and down her arms. "I'm glad you want to go back, Meg. We'll plan some stuff out after the show tonight, okay?"
Confused, and feeling more than a little frustrated, Meg arched an eyebrow at Randy. He slid away from the wall and went out the door, looking for all the world like he was about to leave. Instead, he checked the hallway, slid the sign on the door to "In Use," and stood in the hallway for a count of ten. Grinning, he re-opened the door to find Meg standing where he'd left her, looking at the door, still perplexed. He locked the door behind him and turned the lights off as he moved towards her, taking his shirt off as he went.
"Feeling shy?" Meg clicked on the softer light over the sink, grateful his prank was over and she'd lost.
"Nobody looks good under fluorescents, Meg. Not even me." He winked, and lifted her up onto the table. "But I look good under you, and this definitely qualifies as pre-show warm up."
Quietly, Meg laughed, and kicked her boots to the side. "Just remember – be quiet. If you can't, I'm going to do things with surgical tape to make sure you stay quiet. We don't need an audience."
Randy's eyes widened, then rolled back as she slid over him – the dueling sensations of her hot and cold were something he was never going to get used to but was always going to enjoy – and then tuned back into reality, considering the implications of what she'd said.
"If I ask nicely – and it won't leave marks – show me this tape stuff?"
Now more than ever, Joe's wife was convinced there was still something between him and Meg. Not that it had anything to do with Meg; whatever her entanglement with Joe had been, it was clearly over. Renee's words echoed in her mind – where had Joe gone, exactly, that night at the hotel? Did she really remember him being out, or had she been out herself? 'Fucking clubs. Fucking drinks. Maybe I was out that night, too. But why would Renee even say anything? She's Meg's friend, so she wouldn't say anything to get Meg in trouble. And it would be too easy to bust her on a lie...something had to happen.' Keeping Meg as his phone wallpaper was ridiculous; even moreso was the pile of shirts she'd found at their house. She was quick to decide to wash those, even though it then took her nearly an hour to figure out the washing machine. The rose perfume was cloying and reminded her of that confusing moment they'd shared on the porch at Joe's house. Meg looked so lost and desperate, and she looked – well, she knew she looked perfect, but that wasn't it. She hoped she hadn't looked scared. Desperation made people do crazy, scary things.
Crazy, scary like the things she was reading in the police report, for example. She'd told Joe she was going to stay at the hotel for a while, go to the spa, have a late lunch, and meet him at the arena. She'd done all those things, just at record speed – it was more brunch than lunch, trying to give herself enough time to get back to up their room and tear apart his belongings. He hadn't been himself since the night of the gala. Whatever garish bauble Randy had given Meg – and it certainly didn't look like anything proposal or wedding related, or any type of engagement gift, at least to her – something had changed in Joe. Quiet, intense – those were things she could deal with. This, however, was in a whole different league. Everything he had been before was compounded by his being sullen, withdrawn, and...heartsick? She hated to say it, but he was mooning over Meg like a teenager who'd just been dumped for the first time in his life.
Between Meg and Randy's 'engagement,' Joe's fits of pique, and Renee's warning long ago that things weren't quite what they seemed, the night after the gala seemed like the perfect time to concoct a plan to sift through Joe's things in the hotel and see if they offered up any clues. Going through his phone would have to wait until he left it unguarded – he'd changed the privacy code on it after the debacle with the wallpaper and voicemail, but occasionally he'd forget to lock it and take it with him to the bathroom during a shower, so she'd be able to snoop freely.
His suitcase, however, was fair game. It took weeks, but she had patience. A run of the mill house show, run of the mill day, and she set things in motion. Joe's wife checked every pocket of his pants, sniffed every bottle of shampoo and cologne, and found absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Sighing, she slid her hands around the bottoms of each crevice and corner of the suitcase, and came up empty-handed again, until she tipped it forward and saw the liner tilt awkwardly, as though something was pressing against it from the inside.. 'This is designer luggage. This shit doesn't come apart unless you make it come apart. What the fuck is back there? Divorce papers? A change in his contract? Who hides shit in the lining of a suitcase, anyway? That's some shit out of a movie.'
Carefully, she felt around the inner edge of the top of the suitcase until she came to the split in the seam between the liner and the leather. Grateful for small hands and thin fingers, she worked the narrow end of the papers – and what appeared to be a photograph – through the slit, though she had to bunch and roll them a bit to get them through. Joe clearly hadn't made the opening any bigger than was necessary. 'Well, he put some time in to keep this shit away from me, whatever it is. He really, really wanted this hidden. So...here goes. What the fuck is this?' Photograph first, she recognized Meg immediately, though it took her longer to place Sarah from memory, having only seen her in the gala – and with makeup on, dressed formally – not looking like she fell out of a thrift shop and landed in a liquor store full of pigeons.
'Trash One and Trash Two. What the fuck does he see in you? Maybe I should sit down with you and have you help me figure him out. Or maybe he'd just use that as an excuse to be closer to you. More bullshit either way.'
It was what came next that turned her stomach. Whatever idiot Meg – sorry, Magdalena – was with that night in the report had decided to play NASCAR on the highway. While he had achieved both parts of the motto "Drive Fast, Turn Left!" only one was worth employing on the highway. The speed was well over 80; the left turn had planted them both into a concrete barrier and driven the steering column through his chest and his seat. The car they were in then went into a disgustingly long roll down the highway, apparently bouncing off the concrete median like a ping pong ball. She couldn't even conceptualize the distance Meg had traveled. Joe had taken her to football stadiums before and so she knew the playing fields were one hundred yards. She vaguely recalled the size of a wrestling ring, or so she thought. But this was different. How Meg lived – well, maybe she shouldn't have, and that was part of the problem.
The reports continued, with the tamest one being on top – that from the police. Once she came to the EMS report, she gagged several times and eventually gave up once she reached the description of open, displaced, and comminuted fractures, instead opting to order alcohol from room service and have a drink to steady her nerves. Drinking turned to plotting, plotting turned to jealousy, then rage, then finally, an idea. It was time for the bitch to go, simple as that. She'd asked Joe to make it happen, and he hadn't gotten the job done. Now, it was her turn. She'd watched enough TV crime shows – and really, who hadn't? – to know that fingerprints were bad and getting caught was worse, so the best course of action in this case was to know her enemy.
'You cried. I dressed up and you cried. And you went to his locker room and I'm pretty fucking sure that you do just what every other wrestling wife, ring rat, and general fuck does before they get it on with someone sweaty – you set up a shower. Guess where you get your surprise?'
She rubbed the papers with tissue, the bedsheets, on the carpet, anything she could think of, to try to take Joe's touch off of them, just in case any part of Meg's panic involved a call to security. 'Doubt it, though. All this shit is from New Orleans. That means you went down there, so maybe you'll just take this shit and go back. And not tell anybody.' Dressing normally, spritzing on an incredibly light dash of jasmine perfume – she wanted to feel like herself but not linger, knowing she could up the scent later at the arena after her plan was in motion – she lifted the packet of papers with a tissue, slipped them into her oversized bag, and called for a car to take her to the arena. 'Normal time, normal transport. No big deal. Now to call Joe.' A pleasantly dull conversation later, he knew she was coming to see him, and that was that. Not that he expected anything of her; she usually stayed in his locker room unless she wandered to catering for water. 'All I have to do is figure out where that other asshole has his private locker room. Either he finds the report and picture first and panics, or she does. Either way, I win. There's no way she stays here thinking that her business is in the wind. She's worked too hard to hide those scars, and if she thinks someone's got the proof on how she got them – bye bye, bitch. And how the fuck did he get that picture, anyway? He's gonna have a long fucking conversation with me, and that's if I decide not to wreck his ass in a divorce.'
Finding Randy's locker room was easier than she thought – she walked right past it on the way to Joe's. A simple loop around the arena, and she'd walk right past it again, in plenty of time to slide the papers under the door and then move along as though nothing had happened. If she timed it right, she could even be blocked by a crowd; plenty of technicians and crew were milling around the area. Glancing around, she didn't notice anything that looked like a security camera, either – the locker rooms were too centrally located in the building and the people who needed them had gone through too many checks and scans. 'They're assuming if you made it this far, you don't have any tricks up your sleeve. Nice. Nice and dumb. Nobody will even notice what I did. Hide in plain sight. I just have to hope Meg acts like the weepy little cunt I remember.'
The more Meg thought about things, played with her necklace, rubbed the half-stripe of surgical tape Randy had wrapped around her ring finger – joking that now it was for real – and around his finger as well, saying it'd be an official televised announcement that nobody would know was official, televised, or announced, the more she warmed to the idea of spending time with him in New Orleans. 'Real time. A week. Maybe more. Just the food takes a week, never mind the people. All the people he's got to meet – Christ, it's probably going to take another week just for me to remember all the names, the little places I know about that nobody else does...and I want to show him the bar. Not go in, I don't think I can do that, but I want him to see my window. Fucked up, Meg, fucked up, but that window kept you alive, because you imagined he was out there. He was.'
Shaking her head, smoothing down her hair, Meg went back to watching the monitors outside triage, taking notes, and popping the occasional caramel into her mouth. 'We could spend a night or two above the bookstore, but I want to rent a flat closer to the quarter, afterward. There are catacombs to see, too, and I've got to talk the Father into at least...something, with us. He can't marry it, but he can condone it, I suppose. The one I really want to see is Mama Ruby. Randy didn't know what he walked into with that cafe. Intuitive my ass; he's lucky she didn't set that cat on him, nervous as he was. If she says we're good, then we're good – in anyone's eyes. He's gonna take convincing on that one, though.' Meg chuckled to herself, thinking of all of the candles, both above Mama Ruby's cafe and in Saint Anthony's church, and pondered the juxtaposition for a moment, until she saw an ankle roll on the monitors that she didn't particularly care for, jotting down notes and treatment options. 'Well...better jump on that, fast. Otherwise, there goes our shower.'
Playing with her necklace again, she pressed the flat of her finger down over the middle of the rose, feeling the sapphire set there. 'Oh – the beach. The bay, really, but the beach. He picked out that sapphire; I want to show him how blue it gets by the water. Watch a sunrise, watch a sunset, pick shells...like we did in Blaine, but warmer. And hopefully, no Barbie. Guess I didn't really think about that...being seen. And Lord knows we're gonna be seen. We spend too much time in any one place and everyone crawls out of the woodwork.' Hearing Randy's music hit – the sound team was having fun with the equipment in this arena: new, high-tech, and capable of rattling the teeth of people three states away – Meg couldn't help but beam and rub her band of tape as she saw his was still on his ring finger as well. 'Behold, fangirls. Neener, neener. He really did go out there with the tape on his finger – what'd Renee call it? Slapdick head over heels in love?" Looking down at her hand, then touching her necklace, Meg whispered, "Guess that's two of us."
Daydreaming as she shifted her weight from left to right in the hall, eyes still on the monitors, Meg continued her mental trek through New Orleans. 'He's gonna have to want to walk. Shit, I'm going to have to be able to walk. Didn't think that one through so well, but I guess that just means we're going to have to do a lot of stopping in between things. Cafes here and there, parks, bars, things like that. I wonder how much convincing it's gonna take to get him and Ruby on the same page...I know he can get his head around the Father, if the Father can get his head around him...but Ruby's a whole different world. And I'm gonna have to take an ass kicking on that one, too. She's not going to be happy with me, what I let happen to myself. She's gonna love him, though – she always had a soft spot for the naive ones, but they're also the hardest sells. Unless he really means he's open to the experience. If Ruby says we're meant to be, that this is really it...that's that. Nobody fucks with what Ruby says. That's mama talking, period. Oh, shit – his mother. I didn't even think of that. Did he talk to them? What would she think? I know they know who I am, but Sam was so bad...they probably don't want to hear anything like this. Even if they know what shit I helped him through...and everything he's done for me...they're just going to see dramatics.' Fretting, Meg worked the rose back and forth on its chain.
Out in the ring, a nearby medic raised an eyebrow at Randy, having heard nothing in his earwig about a hand or finger injury. Randy never used white tape for anything, so it stuck out immediately and caused the medic to tap at his ear, listening for an update and calling out for info. Meg and Dave were neurotic about keeping everyone updated, so he was nearly ready to jump up and inspect the damage, but Randy shot him a quick wink. 'Not what you think it is. Relax.' His mind drifted a bit during the match, wondering if Meg had already started the water for their shower or if he'd missed an injury during the course of the show and he'd have to set the soaps for both of them while she treated a performer – but no matter, as long as they both ended up under the water, each working the other over in completely different ways. He and Colby both put themselves on auto-pilot through their bout, still managing to sell every inch of it, saving their effort for the end, both of them off in some other mental world. They occasionally checked in with each other, but so far everything was going as planned. 'No backup shows up tonight, Colby. Start the countdown. We've done this a million times before.'
Joe's wife stuck to her normal routine, rotating through the building, being chased from spot to spot, stopping long enough in catering to grab a bottle of water, talking briefly to Joe but mostly trying to keep out of his way, and letting the mood of the support staff guide her from place to place. 'It's almost a good thing you all hate me. You won't let me stay in one spot long enough to sit down. If I have to keep walking, then I have to end up by Randy's locker room. After I pass triage. I'll know exactly where she is or isn't.' After a series of glares and pointed comments from a group of pyro technicians about accidental fires, she moved along again. This time, she breezed past triage, where she could hear Meg talking – something about weight bearing and ankles and things that weren't relevant to her plan, but definitely sounded time-consuming, especially when the words 'be patient with me' came out of her mouth. 'Perfect. You stay there. I've got somewhere to be, and you aren't going to like It. Then again, I didn't like finding you in his suitcase, so we're even. Well, no. You're still a bitch.' Upping her pace slightly, Joe's wife rounded a corner and started up the next hallway, doubling back toward her ultimate goal. 'Get the message, this time, okay? Leave. Just fucking leave.'
Heading up the hall, spotting her target, Joe's wife stopped long enough to snag a script from a pile near Talent Relations' temporary office, earning a sneer from an assistant with a headset.
'Fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you. But keep staring, because you're a great alibi.' "What, like I'm not allowed to look up when his match is?"
"His match is done, you dolt."
"Fine, whatever. I can still look at what he was supposed to do."
"You were supposed to give a shit about thirty minutes ago. Jesus." The assistant huffed and walked off.
'If I had the time to stand around and scream at you, I would, but right now I need to deal with a bigger problem. Don't think I'm not gonna remember you, though. And your ugly lipstick – try upgrading from the three dollar shit at the pharmacy.' She stuffed the script down into her bag, around the photograph and the reports, pretending to be upset by the assistant's words, then moved over to the wall across from Randy's locker room and took the script out again, along with the extra papers and her bottle of water. 'Showtime. Now I just have to wait a minute. Guaranteed won't take long because it's him and I'm-'
"Are you that dumb? Do you even see where you're standing?" A lighting technician stared at Joe's wife like she'd lost her mind for daring to be that close to Randy's locker room.
Feigning a startle reflex, Joe's wife dropped all of the paper on the floor, along with the capped water bottle, shooting the tech a pitiful look and slowly dropping to her knees to pick up the water bottle, now coated in grit and dust from the floor. Taking her time wiping it off, the tech rolled his eyes and moved on, pressing his headset to his ear. 'Gotcha. Sloooow. Idiot.' Using the script to grab the packet of paper and the photograph, she acted as though the water bottle slipped from her hands again, toward Randy's door, and lunged across the hall, shoving Joe's last link to Meg into Randy's locker room. 'Good fucking riddance. I just have to make sure not to show up once the show – her show – starts. Or his. Whatever.' Checking up and down the hall to make sure she hadn't been spotted, she tried to make a good scene out of being a mess herself, faking tears, taking her shoes off – as though her heels were somehow to blame for her dropping everything – and sitting on the floor sniffling for a few seconds before getting up and walking back to Joe's locker room. 'Now, patience. That conversation with Joe is going to wait for somewhere private. Maybe the car is a better idea than the hotel – he's got to think about driving, instead of throwing me into another wall.'
Meg, having finally finished up with the world's longest lesson on ankle safety, checked the monitors outside of triage. Randy appeared to be doing fine; sweaty, of course, but moving freely and swinging his folding chair over Colby without any overt pain on his face. 'Good. Back nice and loose, shoulders doing okay, and I have time to set up a shower for us because the only thing I had to deal with was a nasty ankle. Life is good.'
She was stopped quite a few times in the hallways by people, just to chat and say hello, but Meg didn't mind taking the time. People were fascinating to her, and someone always had some new bit of information or interesting story for her. Of course, she could barely contain herself over her necklace, and was constantly drawing her hand up to it, fielding questions about the design and showing off Randy's promise to her. More than a few people looked at the tape on her hand, but she simply smiled and shrugged. 'To them, surgical tape means a cut. To us...it's like saying we were found in the church. Maybe nobody else gets it, but to us it's everything. I wonder how long it's going to stick there? I'll glue it if I have to, I swear. Duct tape. Whatever. Just something that keeps us...like this. This really did – in his eyes, and in mine – make it real.' Opening the door to the locker room and flicking on the light, Meg's left foot nearly shot out from under her as she planted it on a stack of paper.
"Randy...not the smartest idea..." Meg bent to pick up the papers, turning them over in her hands as she stood, trying to dust them off. 'What is this? Travel itinerary? He must really be serious about this whole New Orleans thing if he's already printing ou-'
The train of thought Meg was on promptly derailed as she saw her name printed, in all caps, in box number two of what she immediately recognized as a police report. Box one was a case number. 'Oleysia? How the fuck did they find my middle name? Why is there a police report in his locker room? Did I get a parking ticket or something?' Once her eyes had processed the idea of her middle name, in print, they shifted down to box three. Department: New Orleans Police Department, Sixth District. It was there that Meg sat down, hard, her legs crumpling underneath her. Her hands, usually steady, started to shake, and she pawed wildly through the papers she was holding. Her boots were digging into her legs from the position she'd landed in, but the pain wasn't registering with her the way it should have been.
"Police...Fire...EMS...they're all fucking New Orleans...the fuck is thi-"
At the second to last page of the EMS report, not that Meg had yet truly been reading anything in any meaningful way, the picture of her and Sarah together slipped out from the paperwork and dropped into Meg's lap. Letting out a shriek of absolute terror, Meg tried to scramble backwards, but only succeeded in slamming herself into the door and bending the metal of her boots further into her legs. They weren't designed to do anything more than hold her shins in a straight line, and she was attempting all manner of gyrations to escape the papers in front of her. The picture sat before her, uncaring, as she looked down at it. Dazed and vision swimming, she reached down to touch it, feeling sick when she picked it up. It was the original, on Sarah's shitty knockoff brand photo paper that she complained always jammed in the office printer, complete with their notes to each other on the back:
'To pigeons and bourbon! Love you forever!' 'To cigarettes and plum sauce! Hearts for my best-everything!'
The reality that the person – or people; the police never had figured out what had happened at Sarah's apartment, but both she and Meg missed that picture dearly – was that near to her, knew that much about her, somehow managed to have that much access and came that close to her and Randy, sent her nearly into a panic attack. Her vision began to constrict, and she grabbed at the reports, her hands crushing their paper and the photograph as she picked them up. Slapping at the lock, she connected with the button, and then instantly regretted her decision, not knowing who else might have been in the room with her. Twisting the doorknob until she heard the lock disengage, she read through the reports, her eyes only picking up a smattering of words here and there as she went.
'Protruding collarbone...crushed tib-fib...through-and-through of the steering column into the driver's sternum...exposed ribcage...clothing removed...contusions and hematomae...injuries appear aged/old...bruising yellow, green, black...shoe prints...belt buckle prints...appear to be from extension cords...large blade-style cut inconsistent with automobile accident...rolling 800 feet...glass removal incomplete...'
Unconsciously, Meg's hand not occupied with holding the report had flown to each part of her body mentioned in the recounting of the accident, grabbing, digging, drawing blood as she read the words over and over – her fingernails chewed into the same slices of skin again and again until she was raw, then cut, her mind finally having the information it needed to fill in every blank it had about the actual accident. The pen was noted in all its grisly detail – the ice scraper in his leg, she hadn't known about – her head flying through the window, Meg pulling at her hair and pressing her nails into her scalp until chunks of hair were coming out and her nails were coming back deeply bloody, not caring in the least that she was opening new wounds and re-opening the scars that had finally healed and paled, aggravating the delicate tissue where she didn't simply tear it apart. Reading again and again, seeing the blood on her hand, her mind went wild with what she'd done. Where she'd been bruised thanks to Jackson, rather than broken thanks to his car, she pressed her fingers in, gripping hard around herself, until she could feel the joints in her fingers begin to grit. Mercifully, she felt two hands press onto the tops of her shoulders and almost wilted with relief. 'Randy. He's here now. It's safe.'
Fetid, swamp-rotten breath blew across her face as Jackson leaned over her, taking away any illusion of safety, some of what was left of his flesh falling off of him and onto her in chunks as he moved; he was simply too rotten, too decomposed to hold together anymore. His eye – only one remained, Meg didn't want to consider where the other had gone – focused intently, nearly expectantly on her, as though he was waiting for her to press the oozing, fallen pieces of himself back into his torso and pat his tattered shirt back into place. Meg tried to lunge forward, away from him, but he slammed her to the floor, her head bouncing off the tile.
A gash opened on the back of Meg's head from the force she used to throw herself away from Jackson, but he still loomed over her the way he'd done a thousand times before in bed, his hands trailing over her in ways she'd tried to forget.
"Well, kitten? Are you ready yet? That apartment of yours was right across the street from the cemetery. It's not like he won't still visit you."
This voice, too real, no longer a whisper in her head but something she could feel rattle across her body, caused her to scuttle backwards across the floor, away from the door, but ended with her slamming herself into yet another solid object – this time, a wall of lockers. No matter to Jackson, he simply vanished from in front of her and slid his fingers out from the vent slats in the locker behind Meg, yanking her head down by her hair.
"You didn't answer me, bitch. It's been a lot longer than two weeks, Meg. I gave you two weeks to come back to me on your knees. And you fucked up my car. Don't you owe me for that?"
Anyone who looked into the locker room would have seen Meg, curled over herself sideways on the floor, neck bent at an impossible angle, appearing to be pinned against the lockers by an invisible force, talking to the vent in number 217 as though it was going to answer her. Unfortunately, nobody was looking. Randy was still happily swinging a chair, Colby was happily laying on the floor in the crowd taking it, Dave was finishing Meg's report on the ankle sprain, and Jon and Renee were in a shower of their own. That left Nell, who was in catering, bopping her head up and down to the music in her iPod. Technically, that left Joe, but he hadn't crossed Meg's mind.
Giving her hair a particularly fierce yank, Jackson caused Meg to slam her face into the floor, crying out for Randy, but nobody came. Her lips were bleeding from the impact, her cheekbone sported an ugly scrape, and she still struggled against her mind and invisibility. She slapped weakly at Jackson's hands with the crumpled reports and photo; they'd been locked in her bloodied hand. Her once-clean hand was now picking up where the other had left off, working trenches and valleys into her skin, ripping at every old injury that had closed. When she didn't manage to connect with her own skin, she tried for Jackson's, missing simply because he wasn't truly there, but bloodying her knuckles on the lockers with each punch, or tearing her fingernails down to the pink where they caught against the vents. Tiring, trying to push away and finding no traction due to the blood on the floor, she made it half under the bench before a glimmer of a plan came to her.
'Shower. No windows, Meg. Randy found you in the shower.' It was the best her addled brain could give her in the moment; she'd watched Jackson snap off several of his fingers in the vents of the locker due to his wild attempts to grab her hair and continue to slam her face into the floor, and then simply emerge from the next one over, 219, reach down with his remaining digits, and try re-inserting the missing fingers into the sockets. Hoping he'd be too fixated on his phalanx-based task to bother with her for the moment, she began to crawl toward the shower stalls in the back, trying to use the bench for cover and camouflage, her blood-soaked clothing leaving smears in her wake.
If she knew how wrong she was about Jackson's fixation – or her mind's own ability to destroy her when properly loaded and triggered – she would have waited at the lockers for Randy and continued to fight the apparition her mind had pulled from the reports and memories. Jackson pounced on her full-bore as she tried to move away, raining down a shower of flesh and slime. Meg waved her arms wildly, trying to push him off, but managed to slam them into the bench instead. Her legs met the same fate – no matter how much she kicked, it seemed she only connected with wood and metal, never with Jackson.
Hissing, wild with rage, Jackson loomed over her. "Don't you understand, yet? You are never getting rid of me!" He fell onto her, earning a flinch from Meg that drove the side of her face directly into one of the metal legs of the bench, but she barely felt it. "Let's be honest, Meg. There are nights you still feel me. Everywhere. You can't sleep because when you do, I'm with you. In you." Licking the side of her face and earning a sobbing howl from Meg, he smiled, some teeth missing and others loose and dangling. "Let's be even more honest, Meg. When you thought he left, who did you want? You wanted me, Meg. Fucking come home already. Stop fighting it."
'The shower, Meg. He won't go with you again. Not this time.' The only idea that had come to her, Meg kept pushing, somehow knowing that this time, if she could just make it to the water, she would be alone. Jackson would be fearful he'd rinse apart, he wouldn't have Randy's tattoos there to buoy him, whatever the reason, but she needed the hot water and she needed it now. Her legs kept going out from under her, and the snap she heard when she hit the floor for the fourth? fifth? time told her something had gone terribly wrong in her wrist on that particular landing, but she was starting to move faster than Jackson could keep up with. The concerned look on what was left of his face told her she was on to something.
He snagged her by the pants before she'd quite made it to the stalls, so Meg spun, trying to kick him again, the way she'd done in the elevator so long ago. Her leg sailed through nothing, slamming into the wall, earning a scream for her efforts, and she nearly tore the boot from her right leg in an effort to quell some of the pain, though she had no logical understanding of how or why taking her boot off would help. It did, however, give her access to the scar on her leg, and when she wrapped her hands around her shin to try to silence the throbbing, the reports pressing into her leg, she simultaneously flexed her fingers down into the trench of the scar, earning a series of half-moons of blood before she tore her hands down the length of the damage Oechsner had caused her. The peeling skin and instant rolling ooze of blood startled Meg back into motion, and she hurled herself backwards toward the shower stalls in one last attempt to get to the water.
She didn't bother with taking off any more of her clothing, kept the reports and picture in her hands - where they'd been through the whole ordeal, even as she picked and dug and dragged her fingers across herself - and slammed the water all the way over to hot, not considering that she was risking burns given all the raw and bleeding skin she had. Staring down into the paper, watching it soak through and stick together, seeing the inked messages on the picture start to disappear under the hot water, Meg's mind went entirely blank, locking her out of the reports, out of the room, away from everything but silence. She couldn't hear the shower, couldn't hear Randy call her name when he finally walked in, couldn't hear him yell her name when he saw the smears of blood on the floor and the new dents in the bottoms of some of the locker doors, and didn't see him when he reached into – and rapidly backed away from – the screamingly hot water of the shower.
Covering his arm with a towel, thinking it'd buy him enough time to shut down the faucet, he yanked at the handle until he managed to turn the water off. Even then, Meg didn't move. The water had prevented any of her gouges and cuts from closing, and she continued to bleed as Randy crouched over her, trying to pull her forward, take the paper from her hands, and get her to respond to him. He'd forgotten he left the door open behind him, his own mind going blank when he saw the blood smeared on the floor, and it took mere minutes before Jon and Renee - who, after their own romp, decided to bang on the door to Randy's locker room just to hassle him during his - were standing over him, Renee running back to the door to scream into the hall that someone needed to get Dave before turning again and running toward the showers. The mistake was in drawing that much attention to themselves; Joe latched onto the scene like a targeted missile, flying past his locker room and directly into Randy's, terrified at the blood, then jaw agape at Meg, looming over both Jon and Renee, who turned around and began a ferocious argument with him about leaving.
Randy had finally pried the papers loose from Meg's hands, trying not to destroy whatever they were; wet paper tore easily, and he knew even without looking that they were the cause of the disaster. Jon and Renee had managed to back Joe to the doorway, only to have him shoved back into the room by Dave and Nell as they pushed past him and directly to the back to see Meg.
Edging away enough to give Dave access to Meg but still staying close by on the floor of the shower, Randy took mere moments to understand what the paperwork was – he'd seen the same copies himself, months ago, and felt the same catatonic response inside himself at various points. It was the rest of the scene – the violence and aggression – that terrified him.
"How the fuck did you get this, Meg?" Randy, whispering, incredulous, knew there was no way Meg would have requested the paperwork on her own – not with her agreement to go to New Orleans with him, at any rate. Carefully lifting each sheet apart, he froze when the picture of Sarah and Meg came into view, stuck to the back of one of the pages of the EMS report. 'Who...Sarah was right. I'm going to kill Joe. Soon. Now.'
Seeing Joe in the room, Sarah's words echoing in his mind, Randy exploded internally. He knew Meg was essentially blind at the moment, functionally deaf – he had a free pass to do whatever he wanted, and neither he nor Joe had the advantage of traction thanks to the wet floor. Jon, however, saw Randy's mood shift well before Randy felt the change sweep over him, and dropped down next to him in the shower.
"Don't fuckin' do it. Take care of her. Renee called security. Get her out of there and you and Dave go take care of her. But don't fuck up. We have no idea what the fuck happened here."
Gritting his teeth, Randy reached for Meg, who was in a full-body shiver from sitting so long in the now-cold shower stall, lifting her up against him. Dave nodded and ran ahead as fast as he could muster, mentally ticking off the list of things he'd need to get Meg functional again – the top of the list being Randy. Nell clutched at Renee, both of whom were nearly bowled over by the arrival of both the arena's security staff, as well as the company's private security. Randy tried to pass them the police reports, only to be met with rolled eyes and rejection from the man who appeared to be in charge of the arena's response.
"They're soaked. There's nothing we can do with these. Whatever might have been on there – it's washed off. Gone. Same deal for her, unless she either says she was raped or submits to a rape kit." Idly, he placed the papers back on top of Meg as Randy held her.
'Submits? Rape? Stop talking. Stop talking NOW. You don't say that about her. That isn't – it's not – Meg is fine. Meg is going to be fine. Why did you put that shit on top of her like she's a file cabinet?' Randy reflexively pulled her in against him, earning a whine from her for his efforts.
Startled, but now having a starting point, Randy lifted her to a more vertical position in his arms. "Meg? Meggie? C'mon, Meg, wake up. We've gotta go see Dave." 'And I have to stay This. Fucking. Calm. Otherwise, I am going to go kill Joe. Maybe Sarah was right, somehow.'
Nell reached in, cautiously, and lifted the wet packet of paper from on top of Meg. "Go, Randy. Go get her help." The security personnel took a few photos, opened and closed the lockers with the dents, and then left, seemingly uninterested in the whole event, Nell listening in as much as she could before whispering back over her shoulder.
"They're saying something about seeing if there are any cameras down here, but they don't sound convinced. They said main doors, high traffic areas, but probably not here." She was crestfallen, and her eyes brimmed again.
Furious, Randy carried Meg down the hall to triage – not a short walk by any stretch, and the more people who saw her, the more people who began to follow him. Voices pressed into headsets, fingers flew up to earwigs, chatter went into wristbands, and Nell, following far behind, found herself mobbed for the report she didn't realize she had and wasn't sure if she should be showing to anyone. Trying to make her way to triage, a few people did manage to get hold of it – now that it was closer to dry, it was easier to handle – and fortuitously, ran in to Renee on the way. She and Jon had threaded their way out of the locker room with Randy and Meg's bags at some point after Randy left with Meg, unsure of what else to do to be helpful.
"Here, take this fucking thing! Everyone wants it from me, and I don't even know what it is."
Perusing the first few pages and turning an ashy grey, Renee stilled. "Nell...it's Meg's accident reports. From New Orleans. Did anyone see these?"
"Oh...oh shit...Renee..." Nell's eyes brimmed. "Yeah. A few people did. They wanted to know what happened to Meg, and I didn't know what this was, so when I told them she got hurt in the locker room, some of them grabbed at the reports and read them."
"It's okay, Nell. Don't worry about it." 'Oh my holy fucking shit, Meg is going to lose it all over again when she finds out that the report is actually...out...in the company.' Putting an arm over Nell's shoulders, they walked down to triage together, Jon having made his way there already to play crowd-control at the door. He simply shook his head at Renee and Nell, and both women knew it had to be bad if Randy wanted them all to wait outside the room. Jon knocked, and passed the paperwork inside the door, closing it quickly behind him.
"Now what?" Renee sounded as nervous as Tenille usually did.
"Fuck if I know," Jon shrugged, "Now we figure out what the hell happened. How that got there. And who."
"And if Meg is gonna be okay?" Nell, more of a question than a statement. There, she was met with silence.
Gently, Randy extricated Meg from her remaining boot, biting his tongue when he saw the bruises forming on her legs and the bleeding, scraped redness along the scar on her leg. He was willing to chalk that up to whatever struggle she'd been in, and let himself feel a small sliver of hope that whatever fight Meg had in that moment was still somewhere in her. Her face was blackening, and her lips had been bleeding badly – Randy wanted to touch her, but was afraid she'd flinch. Her arms were equally as bruised from flailing around, and when he lifted her shirt and saw that the scars along her ribs and collarbone had been torn at, he had to turn away from her and hide his hands along with his face. 'What the everloving fuck? The same person who went after Sarah went after her? Here? Was that close to her – to us? And did this to her? Jesus Christ, what happened to her? She won't talk.' Dave, doing his best to remain calm, started blotting at Meg after laying warming blankets over her, trying to cover as much of her as he could and still give himself space to work.
A scuffle outside the door brought Randy out of his stupor, and he stepped into the hallway to see what the problem was. Jon, one arm tightly around Renee, was yelling over her head at the director of Talent Relations, while Nell simply stood and bawled. Rolling his eyes, Randy stepped forward.
"Enough, shut up, and what?" His voice, something more than loud but just under a yell, quelled the situation.
"Randy." The director did his best to look calm, but there was something tilting in his posture that set Randy's nerves further on edge. "The first thing I want to say is, the decision didn't come from me, and-"
"What decision?"
"Meg has to leave. As in, go back to Saint Charles. Corporate considers her a security risk, and until they can sort out what, exactly, happened, they don't want-"
Randy turned on his heels and went back into triage, slamming the door behind him. A terrified wail rose up from Meg due to the sound, and the heated argument simultaneously resumed in the hallway.
"Meg! Meggie! No...no, it was me. It's okay. I slammed the door. I'm sorry. It's okay. Dave's here, I'm here." He stroked her hair, wincing when his hand came up bloody. Dave sighed, and began to part through Meg's hair for the wounds he'd clearly missed. Randy reached for Meg's hand, and tried again.
"Meg...you're in triage now. With me. Tell me what happened? Please? You're home now. It's safe, Meggie, it's all okay. Nothing in here is going to hurt you. Tell me what you need me to do." 'Her necklaces are still there. The shower didn't take the tape off. Who would have hurt her but not taken anything?'
When Meg looked up at him, the same vacant, destroyed look that was in her eyes in Tampa was back, full-force. Randy was at a loss; he wanted to do a dozen things to protect her, solve the mess, but none of them felt enough. He'd left her alone, she'd dawdled in the hallways, someone vile had come far, far too close.
"Randy?" Meg's voice was tinny, as though he was listening to her from her headphones. "It's okay if I go home. You need to focus on this. It's the lead-up to the big one. Mania. I'm not going to take that away from you."
Her words, so close to what she'd said to Joe, killed something in Randy. It laid down next to the same parts of Meg that had died, fragile and cold, and they stayed still together in their hearts.
Joe had wandered off himself, trying desperately to choke down the panic that was catching in his throat. His reports. His photograph. In her hands. Once he saw that, he feigned acquiescence to Jon and Renee, and moved to go. He wanted to confess, to run, to do any number of things, but had to force himself to keep mentally still and show proper concern for Meg, when what he really felt was sheer terror for himself.