Okay so I wasn't expecting to update again today, but I couldn't wait to get this chapter out! Hopefully I'll have another one up by the end of the weekend.
Seth POV
When we finally got back to Renee's apartment, it was almost sundown. I wanted to stay with her and have dinner or something, but I needed to do something very important now that Renee was back. Of course, I would have needed to do this regardless, but, now it was even more important that I get this done sooner rather than later.
"Are you sure you can't stay," she inquires of me. "I thought we could have dinner together." She sits on her couch in front of the pizza pie I ordered for her.
"I can't stay tonight," I answer her. I walk up to her and kiss her forehead before continuing. "I'll be in the morning, and we'll spend the rest of the day together, okay?" She nods her head with a smile.
"What did you need to tell your pack?"
"You mean besides that you're alive?" A small laughs escapes her lips. "I need Punk and Corey to come clean about the rape." Her smile disappears immediately and is replaced with a look of despair.
"I don't want to deal with that, Seth."
"I know you don't." I kneel down in front of her, looking up at her. "But Corey can't get away with what he did to you, Renee. The fact that he's gone so long without being punished for it is an injustice and you know it."
"I know, but still,"
"Renee," I interrupt her. "If we don't make him pay for this, he could do it again."
"We don't know that he will."
"We don't know that he won't." She looks down at her knees. "If you don't want to face him, I won't force you, but my pack needs to know, and Corey needs to face the consequences of his actions." She nods and slowly brings her eyes back to mine.
"Alright." We kiss goodbye before I exit her apartment and head back to the den.
CM Punk
I'm having dinner in the dining room with AJ, Dean, Kaitlyn, Sasha and Paige when I hear the front door of the den open. I get up to find out who it is and see Seth walk into the den, completely out of breath.
"Seth, were you in some kind of hurry," I ask him.
"I've got big news that the pack should hear."
"Okay, so what is it?"
"Renee's alive." I narrow my eyes at him. I do believe him, after all it wouldn't be the strangest thing to happen around here, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about what this meant for Corey.
"Let's finish talking in my room." He looks at me baffled.
"What? No, I've got to tell the rest of the pack!"
"You will tell me the story first," I demand. He looks at me with death in his eyes. I know he's upset with me right now, but I have to look out for the good of this pack and that's what I'm going to do.
When we reach my room I lock the door behind us. The last thing I need is for anyone to hear the conversation and eventual argument that is about to ensue.
"Okay, start from the beginning."
"I went to Renee's grave earlier," Seth started. "When I got there her grave was dug up, and I was mad at first, but then I saw her. I talked to her, I held her hand. She's very much alive, and she isn't even injured anymore. She doesn't know how she was brought back to life, or who dug her up. She just remembers waking up and climbing out of the grave. I found her maybe an hour or two later."
"Where is she now?"
"I took her back to her apartment. She's still there." Okay, so far so good. It doesn't seem like Renee remembers what Corey did to her. So long as she doesn't remember there's no need for the rest of the pack to know about it. "Also," Seth carries on speaking, "she knows that Corey raped her." Fuck! I try not to panic and take a deep breath so I can think clearly.
"Does she remember what happened?"
"No. On the way to her apartment she told me that Natalya had told her about the rape. She didn't want to believe it, so when I found her that was the first thing she asked me."
"And you confirmed it for her?!" I'm very upset with Seth right now. Why didn't he just deny it?!
"I didn't say anything, but I was so surprised that she knew about that she was able to get an answer from my reaction." I'm very frustrated right now. I walk around my room and run my fingers through my hair before turning back to Seth.
"Erase her memory."
"What?!" He's visibly upset at the suggestion, but I don't care.
"I'm not going to repeat myself, Seth."
"I'm not erasing her memory. You can't honestly be contemplating sweeping this under the rug!"
"Peace in this pack is my top priority."
"Then your priorities are out of whack!" What did he just say to me? "You can't keep something like this from them! One secret comes between us and all the trust between our members will be destroyed. Not to mention the safety issues for our female members."
"Corey wouldn't do that to a fellow pack member."
"The fact that he would do it at all is a problem, Punk," Seth yells at while getting in my face. "If you don't punish him for doing this, he'll do it again."
"We don't know that!"
"So what? You're willing to risk it?!"
"What I'm not willing to risk is losing another member of this pack!" I'm done with this conversation. I walk past Seth and stride toward the door. "I'm Pack Master, I call the shots," I tell him sternly. "Don't go on guard duty tonight. Your job is to go back to Renee and erase all traces of the rape from her memory. Don't make me tell you again." I turn back to the door and open it, but stop dead in my tracks when I see the person standing on the other side of the door. "April." I don't have time to read the look on her face as she takes off running toward the stairs. "Wait, April!" Before I can run after her, I feel myself being grabbed and thrown back in my room with a lot of force. I go crashing through my desk, breaking it on impact. Pain shoots up through my spine and courses through my body. When I gather my senses, I see Seth standing in the doorway, and I've never seen him so mad. "What the hell are you doing, Seth?! She's going to tell them!"
"If this is the way the pack is going to find out about this, then so be it. They need to know and you're a miserable excuse for a pack master to want to keep it from them." He walks out of my room and leaps over the banister to get to the first floor. Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!
When I get down to the first floor, everyone from the dining room is now in the living room with various looks of shock and anger on their faces. Sasha spots me first, and pissed isn't even the word to describe what she looks like right now.
"How fucking dare you," she screams at the top of her lungs. She rushes toward me before landing a hard slap to my face. "You were going to keep something like that from us?! What were you thinking?!"
"What was who thinking," Corey's voice pierces through the scene as he enters the den. He has fucking awesome timing. The next thing I know, Paige transforms and attacks Corey without warning. I'm not surprised at Paige's actions. I'm more so surprised that no one is tryingto stop her. Corey grunts in pain as Paige sinks her fangs into his forearm, but he doesn't try to fight back. He's not even showing signs that he's about to transform. What the hell is going on with him?! Why won't he defend himself? If he doesn't do anything soon, Paige is going to kill him!
"Paige stop," I call out to her, but she's blind with fury and has become deafened by it. I look around to see if anyone has decided to separate Paige from Corey, but instead they just stand there. I know Corey has done something terrible, but doesn't mean he deserves to die, right? I take matters into my own hands and jump into the fight. Using whatever strength I have, I manage to pull Paige off of Corey and she transforms back into her human form. "Paige calm down!"
"Calm down?! You want me to calm down after what this bastard did?!"
"So I guess, you all know about what I did to Renee now, huh," Corey speaks in between deep breaths while holding his injured arm."
"Bastard!" Paige lunges for Corey again, but I hold her back.
"Paige, that's enough!" Paige bites my hand and I immediately let her go. She really just bit me!
"Someday, Corey," Paige begins. "Someday, being Punk's brother won't be enough to save your ass!" She storms off, running upstairs. I'm expecting her to go to her room, but she doesn't. I see her burst into Roman's room. I mere seconds later, I hear both Bayley and Roman yell out, "what?" at the same time. This is going to hell in a hand basket very quickly.
"You aren't fit to lead this pack anymore." I snap my head toward Sasha automatically.
"What did you just say," I ask her, daring her to repeat what she just said.
"I said that you aren't fit to lead this pack anymore! Did I stutter," she replies with unbreakable conviction. "First you hold Renee prisoner, then you were planning on keeping the fact that she was raped, by one of our own pack members no less, a secret?! It is because he's your brother?!"
"That has nothing to do with it!"
"It doesn't even matter! You're clearly lacking in judgment as of late, and I won't have you leading this pack to self-destruction." This better not go where I think this is going. "I challenge you to a pack master duel. Winner will take the position of Head Pack Master." I sigh is frustration. This can't be happening to me. "As per wolf law, all pack master duels must take place during a new moon. That leaves you twelve nights to prepare yourself for the fight of your life. Enjoy your title Pack Master CM Punk because you won't have it for much longer." She walks away from me and leaves the den, slamming the door behind her. Things couldn't get much worse.
"How could you do this, Punk?" I was wrong. I turn to face April. She's waiting for an explanation.
"April, I was just trying to keep this pack together."
"Yeah, well keeping secrets is a hell of a way to do it," Dean interjects.
"No it's worse than that," April adds. "You were going to let him get away with it. You were condoning his actions!"
"I'm right here."
"Shut up Corey," I shout at him. He needs to shut the hell up. If it weren't for him and his stupid ass actions, none of this would be happening! "April, I'm not condoning his actions."
"But you weren't going to do anything about it!" I swear this is déjà vu. "What if our child is a girl and something like this happened to her?! How would you feel if someone tried to hide it?!" I never even thought of that. In all honesty I would be mad. I'm probably kill the rapist and the one who tried to hide it.
"Th-that's different." I know it's not, but I can't bring myself to admit that I'm wrong.
"How is it different," April screams at me. "I-I can't even look at you right now. In fact, I don't want to see you ever again."
"Wait! Now, April think about this." She can't really mean that. She just can't!
"I don't want you around my child either." She makes her way to the front door. I try to block her path, but Kaitlyn gets in my way before I can catch April.
"Get out of my way Kaitlyn."
"So you can hurt another woman? I don't think so," she replies, denying me access to April as she walks out the door.
"Kaitlyn, I swear to God if you don't get out of my fucking way!"
"Don't go threatening my lady, Punk," Dean warns me as he stands beside Kaitlyn.
"No it's okay, Dean," Kaitlyn says while putting her hand up, indicating to Dean that she doesn't need any help. "Let him lay a finger on me. I wonder how AJ would respond to that." I'm brought back to reality and think again. "If I were you, Punk, I wouldn't give AJ anymore reason to keep my child from me." With that she follows AJ with Dean at her side her, and slams the door behind them.
I'm pissed. I'm hurt. I'm a combination of a bunch of different emotions that I never wanted to feel. I turn around to find Corey, and all I'm seeing is red.
"This is your fucking fault," I yell at him.
"My fault? How is this my fault?"
"You're the one who committed the rape, and now I'm being punished for it!"
"No, you're being punished for not punishing me for it." His words hit me like a ton of bricks because he's absolutely right. "You're being punished for your own actions. Don't go blaming me because everyone now sees you for the monster you are. I guess we're not so different after all. Are we, brother?" He passes by Seth and they stare one another down before Corey too leaves the den. He probably did that for his own benefit though. News of his actions is spreading like wildfire. It isn't safe for him to be in the den right now.
My eyes land on Seth. "I guess you got your wish. Everyone knows now."
"It didn't have to be this way, if you would have just done the right thing in the first place," he answers me. "You're the one who made it complicated. You insisted on protecting your rapist of a brother and now you've lost the trust of your pack and of the mother of your child. You're getting what you deserve, and yet you still let the actual criminal get off scot-free. I hope you lose that pack master duel because if you don't, you'd best believe there'll be more of them to come." Seth then makes his exit as well, leaving me alone in the middle of the living room.
Yeah... no one's happy with either of those brothers are they? Punk better do something to convince AJ to let him back in her and the baby's life.
Anyway, review please!
-J.