:: Jason Helms :: He's No Superman ::

Jason Helms’ home
Aurora, Louisiana
April 19th, 2020

This was it. Everything with Gio and his little followers, the whole Wonderland versus Helms shit-show, it had all led up to this. To Cold Blooded… the most fitting of pay per view names where reptiles and backstabbing bastards were concerned, right? And I’m gonna be honest bro, as much as I’d like to have sat there in my home in Aurora being a picture of composed cool and calm, I have to admit that I was more than a little uncertain about what my immediate future was going to involve, you know? For all the bluster and bravado I showed in my promo, the big claims I made about how the night was gonna go for Aries, I can’t say that I wasn’t nervous about what fresh hell he would have in store for me when I got to whatever ridiculous setup he had arranged for the start of our match. I remember the first Wonderland match, Ace Marshall dubbed as the original Judas by Gio - because that crazy son of a bitch just has to call it somebody, right? - going to the Wonderland in a bid to beat the piss out of the so called Saviour of the Wonderland. That didn’t end well for Gio that night, he ended up going down the hole himself with Ace victorious thanks to a bit of assistance from those pesky Stewards, but from what I remember, the match was pretty intense at times. Funny in parts, because who the fuck drags an opponent to an adult store and uses a fucking massager as a weapon, other than Ace Marshall? But the thing is… I look back at the heat between those two guys at the time, and could I say that this was similar? Okay, so any asshole with a few brain cells to knock together could draw comparisons; Gio thought I was a traitor, he thought I wanted to bring down the Wonderland from within, that I was an agent of the Lizard King and the New Judas, blah blah blah… but to me at least, this whole war between them and us, it felt… I dunno, more personal? And on one level I guess I was always going to think that, because this was happening to me, wasn’t it? I was involved this time, rather than just being on the same roster as two guys that were trying to tear chunks from one another… but it wasn’t just my own involvement in this thing that left me a little on edge, it was more than that. This did feel more personal than the original Wonderland match, it felt like the hatred and the emotions were deeper, somehow. Gio didn’t just hate me, he brought my family into it, my loved ones. The shit he’d said about Amy would be enough alone for me to want to slap the drugs right out of his system and the smirk from his face, but bringing up my entire family the way he had done at times?

Man, I wanted to knock Gio’s dick in the dirt… and that’s not a euphemism, before you say anything. I wanted to hurt Gio, I wanted to ring his fucking neck by the time I started getting ready an hour or so ago, which was an experience in it’s self in a way, because normally I’m getting ready in a locker room at whatever arena we’re due to go live from, but I was in my own home this time. It was a surreal experience. I’d asked Nia not to be home while I got my head in the game, I didn’t want her around me as I came to terms with how far I was probably going to have to go to beat this asshole; she didn’t need to see me in the shape I knew I was gonna be so she headed to Nadine’s place to watch the show from. I hoped they wouldn’t actually watch if I’m honest, but at the same time when Miss Ambitchous was in the main event for not just her own US title but the World title too, there was no way that Nadine wasn’t going to watch that show. Not when she worked for and with Amy. But I settled for the fact that at least Nia wasn’t in the house as I got ready. I didn’t want her to see me, especially in the state I was in as I sat on the edge of the tub, watching my hands shake in front of my own eyes as I held them out.

Was I giving the match too much credit? Was I giving Gio too much? After all, it was only two weeks ago that we introduced him to a true Jersey ass-kicking, wasn’t it? That street fight should probably have ended things if I’m honest, but my own fucking ego got in the way there. I can’t let shit lie, can I? Just can’t let it go. I drop Alice slap bang in the middle of the ring with the Back From The Dead, grab the one two three… and even as those little bitches were scurrying away in their loss, I grabbed a mic and challenged Gio to one more round of madness, one more bout of insanity, this time on his terms. Me and my goddamn big mouth, huh? Always running me into trouble... and yet I consistently ignore the fucking problem, I never try and fix it, try to get my ego in check. The fuck is wrong with me?! It’s not a conscious choice to be the way I am, not entirely anyway; I can admit that there’s always going to be a part of me that wants to poke and prod, to get a rise out of people or piss them off, I can’t help that, my life experiences kind of bent and shaped me into the guy I am these days, a jackass with a heart of gold as Amy keeps telling me, though I’d debate that if I was actually in the mood for an argument. But it’s not like I actively go out seeking confrontation, proper confrontation, intentionally, either. I just can’t help myself at times, it’s like my brain goes out for coffee, leaving my mouth in charge and that is not a sane choice which only further proves that I speak before thinking half the damn time. And now I’m getting ready to go meet Giovanni Aries in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, gps coordinates putting it practically in the fucking bayou, to fight him!

“You ready, sunshine?!” Lucas shouted from downstairs; we’d gone over a lot of details in trying to make sure this wasn’t gonna be a one sided bloodbath, a three on one against the entirity of the Wonderland, which was something I would not have put past Gio when he was plotting and scheming the minute he accepted my challenge. “Not got to leave for a while, but that doesn’t mean you can keep hiding up there in the crapper either,” he added before I heard his footsteps again as he headed back into the lounge from the bottom of the stairs. Lucas was coming in the pickup with me to the gps location I’d been given by the office, in case Gio wasn’t alone when I got there, an equaliser basically, in case Ames and Adams were on hand to do their bosses dirty work for him, which wouldn’t come as any real surprise if it turned out to be the case. And Dave had the other end covered, he was waiting at the arena to make sure those two ass-clowns weren’t waiting to get involved there either. If they had anything up their sleeves to ensure Gio scored the victory, Dave would make sure it was nothing but a spectacular fuck up.

In truth, I’d been sat there on the edge of the tub, ready to go, for a good ten minutes by the time Lucas called out to me. I guess I just needed the wake up call - fitting - to drag me around to that realisation. I stood up and took a final look in the mirrored bathroom cabinet, staring at my own reflection and trying to work out if I looked as nervous as I thought I did or whether that was all in my head, before shutting the light off on my way out. “You’ve found the liquor cabinet I see,” I said to Lucas as I walked into the lounge. Not that we had that much in the house, given Amy was around here a fair bit, just a few select bottles… including the bottle of Infamously Dangerous that Lucas had opened to pour a glass for himself.

“With where we’re heading mate, I figured a little dutch courage wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he told me as he grabbed an empty glass from the table and poured out a generous slug of the stuff for me.

He held out the glass towards me and I was hesitant but I took it from him before sinking it in one. “Just one,” I told him, reaching over to put the tumbler down on the coffee table before dropping down on the couch. “Last thing I want is to get jelly legs from your rum when we get to wherever the fuck Gio wants this thing to start…”

“Yeah well, what the office don’t know won’t hurt them,” Lucas said as he re-filled his own glass and took another drink. “You ready? Feels weird hanging out here mate, instead of being at the arena, I’ll be honest…”

“Doesn’t exactly feel normal for me either bro,” I reassured him as I sat forward and leant my arms across my knees. “I mean, I’ve worked home-town shows before, and enjoyed the fact I could hang out at home before heading to the arena, but this is just weird. Then again, given the match…”

“Yeah, I hear ya,” Lucas said as he sat down in the comfy chair at a right angle to the couch I sat on. “We’ve probably got a few more minutes left before we have to make a move, you wanna go over anything?”

What was there to even go over? Wasn’t like I could really plan for anything where that demented bastard was concerned, and he probably had a whole tonne of tricks up his sleeve for when this shit show got underway, but it’s not like I could really take a guess at exactly what that would be. I don’t want to be able to think like Giovanni Aries, that idea fucking terrifies me. “Not really sure what’s left to go over, bro…” I told him, shrugging. “This whole thing is gonna be out there, we both know that. I dunno what the douche canoe has in store, so I’m gonna have to just react on the fly and hope that I’ve got it covered…”

“You think you will?” Lucas asked, and for a minute I wondered if maybe he could see the worries that were buzzing around my brain like it was locust season in there or something. But I realised he wasn’t even looking at me when he asked, looking out of the window instead, apparently looking at the weather. I guess it was something to consider, given we were heading out to the bayou for the start of this thing. “Christ knows what that crackmonkey’s got cooked up, he’s not exactly the whole tea service, is he?” he asked as he turned back to me from the window.

“Bit of an understatement, bro…” I said, knowing full well just how creative Gio could be when he put his mind to it. That was part of what worried me… didn’t really want to let on with that though. “I’ll weather whatever he throws at me though. I’m not letting that bastard throw me down that fucking hole, even if I have to sacrifice my own wellbeing to ensure it…”

“That’s the spirit mate,” he said, raising his glass to me before finishing the rest of the rum in it. “Better not have anymore of this for now or I might not be upto cracking a few skulls later if needed… goes down too easy, that’s the problem.”

“I dated a girl like that in highschool,” I quipped, though I wasn’t really in the spirits for joking around. Fortunately he smirked but it didn’t require me going into detail about any of it. “Time do we need to leave?”

“We should probably think about making a move soon,” he told me, checking his watch to make sure. “If traffic’s shite, we’ll get held up a bit until we end up on the backroads. I looked up where we’re going on my phone, probably ten minutes before we’re off the bigger roads then it should be plain sailing I reckon…”

“Camera guy all set?” I asked, and Lucas nodded. The office had sent a one man film crew with a camera that ran off a battery pack in a rucksack he wore, bullet microphone attached to it so that it didn’t need a separate sound crew. I guess they didn’t want to risk a full crew on this, when they were already humouring Gio’s insanity and my penchant for revenge the way they were. I couldn’t blame them. Why put even more people in danger, when they knew full well that Gio wouldn’t care who got hurt in his quest to show me why I fucked up by ‘disrespecting’ the Wonderland. Fuck, the more you say it out loud, the crazier that shit sounds. Why? Why the fuck do I even acknowledge this assholes insanity, why did I have to challenge the douche canoe to another match?! Me and my fucking ego! “Alright, I guess we can’t put this off any longer.” I slowly pushed myself up from the couch, using my hands on my knees for extra leverage in case the old legs didn’t want to cooperate in this final battle. The last thing I wanted was to give off a sort of ‘dead man walking’ aura as we headed for the door; Lucas locked up for me using my keys, which he was going to keep on him for the duration. I was wearing jeans rather than my ring gear, sure, but that didn’t mean I wanted ‘shrapnel’ in my pockets that could do me a mischief, you know? “So you’re the poor bastard that’s getting dragged along on this rollercoaster, huh?” I said with an attempt at a laugh as the camera guy jumped out of the pickup and walked towards me. He’d actually tried getting in the house to film me earlier as I was getting ready, but Lucas blocked him off. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him in the house, I didn’t care about that… but I was king of thankful for Lucas’ actions, because the last thing I wanted to do at the time was give some random SCW camera guy an interview about how I was doing as I got ready. I was already trying to fake my usual confidence just to my own reflection in the mirror, I didn’t need the added pressure of thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment adding to the load. “Sorry about earlier bro, had to get in the right headspace and I didn’t want a camera in my face while trying to do that… no offence was meant by it.”

“It’s fine Mr. Helms, don’t worry about it,” the guy said. He couldn’t have been any older than like, twenty five at most I’d say, but he didn’t seem nervous. I’ll be honest, we chop and change the crew quite a bit so I wasn’t sure if I’d even seen the guy before or not, but he seemed to know what he was doing. That or he was pulling a similar stunt to me by putting on a brave face, one of the two. “The office didn’t tell me to get any footage or anything, I just figured I’d roll anyway, in case it was useful… thinking ahead or outside of the box helps keep you on the books, you know how it is.”

I nodded. The kid definitely had potential if he was trying to go above and beyond in order to get SCW what they wanted. At a guess, I’d say he fancied a producer's roll down the road, which would make sense. “Keep up that attitude man, it’ll get you places quicker.” I told him. It was only after I’d said it that I realised how sarcastic it could have sounded if he’d taken it the wrong way, like I was mocking him or whatever. Jesus, bro, you’re supposed to be a smarmy bastard when you need to be… talk about being all over the place. Luckily, the guy seemed to take it the way I’d intended and shot me a crooked smile. “What’s your name?”

“Oh, yeah. Kurt,” he said, wiping his hand on the side of his pants leg before offering it to me, and I took it in my own, to shake. Dunno if he was concerned his hands were dirty from messing with the equipment, or sweaty because he was nervous but

“Well Kurt,” I said as I let go of his hand. “Do me a favour when we’re out there and try not to get in my way, okay? Or Gio’s. In fact, especially Gio’s, because I don’t want you being collateral damage in this thing. One person on their own out there with him makes you a target if you get in his way…”

“Yeah well, there’s another car that’s gonna be meeting us out there, but I’ll do my best,” he told me. Yeah, the chase car. Forgot about that. I dunno if there was gonna be crew in there to meet up with Kurt or whether they were just on hand should this thing take us on a wild detour like it did the first time with Gio and Ace.

“All I can ask bro,” I told him, trying to shoot the guy a reassuring smile before taking a deep breath. “Alright, we good to go?”

Kurt shrugged and shot me a nod, and I turned around to look at Lucas, who had that damn bottle of rum and a glass in his hand, as if this was a road trip we were taking instead of heading out to the middle of nowhere for me to meet up with a psychotic douche canoe who wants to kill me and my entire family. He shot me a thumbs up and I just shrugged before turning to walk to the drivers side of the car. Kurt slid back into the truck, lifting his camera up to make room for Lucas as he walked to the same rear door. I went to open the door to climb in myself but stopped at the sound of screeching tires up the street and I’m not too ashamed to admit that I tensed up at the noise, wondering if Gio had changed his tactics and planned to ambush me in my own home… but would I really have anyone else to blame but myself if that turned out to be the case? I mean, I fucking offered to start it at my place, didn’t I? In my promo? Me and my big mouth again! But as the car that had caused the screaching tires came into view, my defences dropped. It wasn’t that psychotic cunt Gio deciding to accept my invitation, but Niamh in her old, beaten up, weather worn Mercury. Lucas was standing on the foot plate, holding onto the roof to get a better look as she came flying around the corner, way faster than she had any right to be going on a suburban street.

She had to slam the brakes on as she approached, and the wheels locked, causing her to skid a little and she nearly took out our mailbox in the process before coming to a complete halt, and she didn’t even shut the engine off as she threw the door open and rushed towards me. “Oh thank god,” the blonde said, bending down to grip her knees as she fought for breath despite the fact that she’d only run a couple of feet from her car to where we stood. “I thought I’d missed you, that you’d have left already,” she said, straightening up to look at me before casting a glance at Lucas then Kurt who still sat in the backseat. Credit where it was due, he wasn’t filming any of this. The guy clearly respected privacy. She cut another glance at Lucas before turning back to me, taking a sidestep as if trying to put more distance between us and the car despite it doing nothing to actually move us away from where Lucas and Kurt were waiting for me. “We need to talk… in private…” she said, cutting another quick glance at Lucas before back to me. “We need to talk now. Before you leave. It’s important.” she told me, and a frown formed on my face of its own accord as I turned to Lucas. He shrugged but then tapped his watch, leaving me under no uncertainty about whether we had the time to chat or not.

“Not exactly the best time, kiddo…” I told her, my hand still on the door handle of the pickup truck I’d picked up cheap for this little journey. There was no way I was taking my own car out there, knowing that Gio would probably see it as a prime target. Plus, with the location being right there in the bayou, I knew I needed something with a little more traction than my german silver dream machine. A pickup with big beefy tires was far more appropriate than an Audi. “You know where I’m going… I-”

“I know exactly where you’re going,” Niamh told me, cutting me off before I could go any further. “And yet here I am anyway, and I said we need to talk!” she told me again, really throwing emphasis on the word talk, as if she was trying to make a point of it.

Sighing, I took a couple of steps away from the car, grabbing her by the elbow to drag her with me. “Look, it’s not exactly the best fucking time right now, sweetheart. I’m literally about to head out there to meet this ass-clown and you’re the only thing that’s stopping me right now, so this better be good…”

She looked up at me, biting her bottom lip out of I guess nervousness? I have to hold my hands up and say I was acting like a bit of a dick, being snippy or short with her, but considering what I was about to go do, I’d like to think that maybe I’d be slightly forgiven for being brusk with anyone at this moment in time, you know? “Well…” she started, letting her lip slip from the grip between her teeth. “Look, this is going to sound… I don’t really know how…” she mumbled, starting, stopping, starting.

I’m not gonna deny it, I was already growing impatient with her, which was a sign that my head wasn’t in the right place, given that this is a chick I’ve taken under my wing at BlackOut, someone I’m meant to be treating as a sort of protege of sorts. And I’m not that kind of mentor anyway, I’m not even that kind of teacher; I’m not the guy who turns into a complete asshole and shouts at people or the guy who gets impatient when one of the students doesn’t get something first time, I’m just not that kind of person… but there I was, glaring at Niamh waiting for her to spit out whatever the fuck it was that she rushed over here to talk to me about, only to stammer and stutter her way through trying to get her words out. Fucking Gio, bro. Guy gets in your goddamn head. “Jase, we’ve gotta go mate!” Lucas yelled from the pickup and I looked over at him, holding up a finger to say one more second before turning back to Niamh.

“Better spit it out, sweetheart, or it’s gonna have to wait until tomorrow; don’t think I’ll be in any shape to hear you out later tonight to be honest,” I told her, going to check my watch before realising I wasn’t wearing it. I’d left it on the bathroom vanity when getting ready. Another little thing in a whole list of shit that felt so fucking weird about this match I guess, leaving stuff at home that i’d normally take with me to the arena.

“Oh shit, oh, okay, um,” she started, spluttering again; she was starting to panic now, so whatever it was must have been important. “Well, it’s about our conversation earlier this week, I… I spoke to my brother,” she said before physically jumping, physically fucking jumping at the sound of the horn blasting from the pickup truck and I looked over her shoulder to see Lucas leaning over inside the cab to hit the horn. He tapped his wrist hurriedly, trying to get me to get a move on. I frowned at him before turning back to look at Niamh again, rolling a finger in the air to get her to speed things up. “Shit, um, well, I spoke to my brother and he got kind of pissy with me at first, and I had to, you know, talk him into it, because he can be kind of a jerk when--”

“Sweetheart, you’ve got ten seconds to get to the point or I’m leaving,” I told her, feeling bad for cutting her off but why couldn’t she grasp that we were pressed for time as it is, without her going all around the houses?!

“Fuck. Okay, well, I spoke to him. Doesn’t matter that he was a jerk, what matters is that he did what I asked,” She told me, giving a single nod, though I dunno if that was for emphasis or because she was just happy that she finally got out what it was she wanted to say.

Which made me feel like a bigger douche for what I was about to say to her, if I’m honest. “I appreciate the help sweetheart, but I think it’s a little late now, don’t you?” I asked her, conscious of the fact that I was looking for something that I could use in advance of the match that I was literally being held from going to, so to be there, already late for leaving, with no time to use any or all info that Niamh may have in any way shape or form. “Look, whatever it is--”

“No, wait!” she shouted, actually making me shut up. Me. “This isn’t, it’s not… look, there’s something you need to know!” she said, and I went to speak, to tell her fine, I’d hear her out, but before I could, there was another blast on the horn and as I looked over the car Lucas was straightening up to lean out of the door again.

“If you wanna make it on time then we have to go. Now,” he told me. “Kurt’s nearly shitting himself in here, worried we’re gonna be late, so come on!” he added before disappearing back in the cab, pulling the door shut behind him. Despite being a few feet away, I could see Kurt looking embarrassed from where I stood.

“Sorry kiddo, I’ve really gotta go,” I told her, already edging back toward the truck. “But, assuming I’m not in hospital or whatever, swing by here tomorrow okay? I swear, if I’m conscious and able to understand you, I’ll hear all about whatever it is your bro found out. And don’t follow us, okay? Don’t want you getting hurt!” I finished before spinning around at the door to the truck. I heard her shouting something after me as pulled the door closed, but as I turned the key in the ignition to start the truck I can’t tell you what it was that she shouted; Lucas was already moaning at me about how we were running late thanks to the dramatic appearance stage left from Niamh and I did my best to haul ass to the location that was already programmed into the gps system. Lucas was right about the journey at least; the first ten minutes or so gave us a bit of a problem, the busier roads with cars and trucks on them, I had to floor it a bit on the freeway in the hope we wouldn’t bump into a cop or state trooper, but once I got off the freeway the other side of the river and out of the city itself it was all back roads. I dunno how long we were driving; the gps barked it’s orders at me and I did what it said without question, hoping to fucking god that it wasn’t going to turn into one of those situations where it drove us into the middle of a fucking swamp or over a drop or something, you hear the stories about that kind of shit… but truth be told, the closer we got, as the miles dropped off the distance left to travel, I found that I disappeared further inside of myself. I knew what was to come, in as far as I knew that Gio was gonna have some sort of fresh hell set out for me, that he was gonna do his best to fuck me up in the weirdest, most painful ways he could imagine… but at the same time, the uncertainty of exactly what was to come was doing nothing for my nerves and my mind was performing the most amazing feats of creativity, that I felt like I could have taught Stephen King or Thomas Harris a thing or two at this point… and before I knew it, my guts twisting almost as much as my mind was tristed, the gps flashed up to say we’d arrived. “Looks like we’re here…”

I looked over my shoulder at Lucas and Kurt in the back. Kurt had the camera on me already, the light was fucking blinding. “Yeah.” Lucas said, looking out of the window for an idea of where ‘here’ was before back to me. “Better get ready to smack him around.”

“Just remember. This is him and me,” I told him, wanting to make sure Lucas remembered what we’d discussed. I know it’s rich, coming from a guy that cost me and Dave at Retribution when I got a little chair-happy, but I didn’t want Lucas interfering unless he absolutely had to. “You’re here in case his other goons show up, that’s it…”

He just shrugged. “I’m sure they will… and Dave’s at the arena in case they try something there,” he told me before looking out of the window at the view outside of the truck again. “Lucky bastard…”

Despite myself, despite the way I felt and the situation, I couldn’t help but smirk. “You could’ve won the rock, paper, scissors…”

Lucas smirked as he looked back at me again. “I just hate the damn bugs,” he told me with a shrug.

Managing a laugh, I just turned and opened the door to step out of the truck. The chase vehicle had pulled up behind us, ready to get the dramatic action if we took a trip across New Orleans like the first match, but nobody was getting out of that one. Lucas and Kurst both stepped out of the truck too, Kurt’s camera trained on me, but Lucas suddenly disappeared back inside the cab… only to return with the bottle of Infamously Dangerous and the glass he’d taken from my place. “Jesus… couldn’t at least wait for the victory?”

He scoffed. “Gotta do something while I wait…” he told me as he poured himself another slug of the rum before grinning at me. That fuucking grin. Smug bastard. Can’t say I blame him though. If I didn’t have to be out here in this moment, I don’t think I’d want to be, you know? I mean, I love New Orleans, or I’ve come to love it anyway, the city embraced me as one of it’s own, welcomed me with open arms… but this wasn’t the French quarter, we weren’t on Bourbon Street right now. It smelled, there were flies everywhere because of the water. It was practically a fucking swamp. Great. “Looks like we’re in the right place anyway,” Lucas added as I’d started to look around, and I glanced over at him to see him pointing at something. I shot a glance in the direction he was pointing and saw a hand-carved sign on a piece wood stuck in the ground that read ‘Lizard Spawn Not Welcome’. Good luck with that one bro, those fucking brown lizards are everywhere at the minute… okay, so he meant Lizard King bullshit, you know that, I know that. Everyone knows that. But I couldn’t help but internally laugh at the irony regardless, because seriously, those little fucking anole things were everywhere in Louisiana right now. With a sigh, I headed towards the sigh, passing through the bush behind it to try and track down the crazy bastard that set all this up. “Bring me back something!” Lucas shouted after me as I probably disappeared from view, Kurt in tow.

“Plan to!” I shouted over my shoulder, almost managing a grin. “A crazy asshole!” I added, fully intending to drag Gio back to that fucking truck, alive or dead if necessary, to get him to the arena. Like it or not, dead or alive, the cunt was going down that fucking hole! I gotta admit though, I was on edge walked through the brush; the whole place was creepy as hell, despite the fact that sunlight peered through the trees and bushes and I continued to walk around, Kurt with his camera following me, as I tried to look for a sign that I was heading in the right direction; every fucking sound seemed amplified, eerie is fuck… every twig snap sounded like a gun shot and don’t get me started on those fucking crickets. Lucas wasn’t wrong when he said he hated the bugs. And water… son of a bitch had to pick what was basically a swamp, by the bayou, didn’t he? I tried my best to avoid it, and I was wearing decent boots instead of my wrestling boots because I figured I’d need em, but there was no avoiding the water in parts as me and Kurt continued on the search. I stopped to try and get my bearings, even looking back in the direction we’d come for a moment, and I realised Kurt was now holding the camera to get a good look at my shirt. ‘I Killed The Wonderland’ was a nice touch, I thought. Hopefully it gave the fans watching this shit a kick, even if it’d probably only serve to antagonise Gio in the process. Going back to the path I’d been waking, I took a few steps before coming across the first of what’d turn out to be a series. “The hell?” I muttered to myself as Kurt stepped around to get a good look at what we’d found; a grave marked with a wooden cross. The name carved into the plaque on the thing said ‘Katya’. “Never liked the bitch,” I vaguely remember saying as I stepped past the grave, at least confident that we were on the right path now. And that actually helped, in some weird way. Yeah, I’d been nervous on the way here, I’d been anxious about what was to come, but it’s odd… just seeing that first prop of his, it actually calmed me down. I dunno why, I really don’t. But it put me in a better frame of mind or something. I was more confident. Or maybe it was just the flight or fight response, the adrenaline kicking in. Someone throw some science at me to explain it because I sure as fuck couldn’t.

By the time we found the next set of graves - one for Mr. D, one for Sasha and one for D’s late wife Melinda - I wasn’t worried about what may happen to me, I was more worried about what I might do to him. I’d found a pretty hefty stick on the ground as we continued walking, felt strong enough to make a dent if I whacked the whacko around the head with it, which was all that mattered… but it wasn’t Gio we found as we continued down the path towards the bayou, my feet starting to sink a little in the mud as we reached the bayou’s edge, but a fucking barge floating there, a few feet away in the water. The thing was covered in flowers, arranged like a damn funeral procession, or some sort of viking funeral, and more names were listed next to it: Owen Cruze, James Evans, Ace Marshall, Kelcey Wallace and Alistaire Allocco… jesus, how far was Gio taking this crap?! I was on edge, my senses were all going hyper as I turned away from the barge. He wouldn’t be out there on the thing, that was too obvious. It was a statement, not a hiding place. A snap behind me left me spinning around, holding the stick like a club but it was Kurt standing there, looking mortified. “Sorry!” he gushed, realising how close he’d come to taking a whack up the side of the head.

“Jesus man,” I cried out in frustration, exhaling loudly as I lowered the stick again. “We’re out here dealing with a crazy cult leader and now you’re getting noticeable!” I lectured, and I could see his cheeks flushing from embarrassment as I turned to walk out of the mud and back to the trail we’d been walking down, past a bunch of shrubs to continue down the path. The place was filled with flies buzzing in the air, drawn to the water, and I swatted them away, half amused at the irony that they were almost as annoyingly persistant as Gio was. It was then that we came across the final batch of graves in Gio’s little production. The first one I stumbled across, that son of a bitch, had the name Amy Chastaine written on the marker in what looked like blood. That bastard had been firing shots at Amy since this shit began, and now he was adding to those shots, but adding fuel to the fire too I guess, because I was getting angrier with every uncertain step I took. The graves appeared quicker now; first AJ then Jenni… then in a cluster, Dave, Regan, Mikaela and finally, somewhat fittingly… me. The final marker, each of them written in blood, had my name, Jason Helms, scrawled on it. I felt my mouth twist into a smirk despite the anger that was raging inside of me. “Guess Lucas is lucky. He doesn’t have to worry about this shit.” I remember muttering, though whether it was to myself, Kurt or the fans watching, I couldn’t really say. Filling the awkward silence I guess? Not that I needed to...

The next thing I know, a shrill scream filled the air and I’m getting clubbed from behind as Gio appears from fucking nowhere bro, I swear to god. I didn’t realise it at first, because I was busy getting clubbed again, and thrown right into the fucking grave that held my own name, the wood shattering into pieces beneath my prone body as the dickbag ran me right through it, but he’d been hiding there the whole time, maybe even following us; the bastard had dressed himself up in a god damn ghillie suit, he was one with the fucking shrubbery! The Knights Who Say Ni would have approved I’m sure, but as I looked up at him from my own grave, one that maybe I’d dug myself, metaphorically speaking… and I saw those eyes, a white a beacon in the greens and blacks and browns of his suit and painted face and what I saw sent a chill running through me. There was no fucking emotion in those eyes, there wasn’t anger or rage, disgust. They were empty. And that somehow made it worse. “How do you like what I’ve done with the place?” Gio asked, nonchalantly, as if we were having a nice chat or he was showing me around his newly decorated apartment or some shit. The real question mark was a stomp right to my face though, that both hurt like crap and send me rolling over. I’d say that it helped me protect my face, but the bastard went after my ribs instead, running at me to kick me in the side, which left me coughing like I was trying to throw up a lung. His boot drove all the air out of me, I was struggling to breath and I didn’t see Gio grabbing the stick that I’d brought with me, which he gave a couple of test swings of before inspecting it. “This place… more pure than anything you’ve been part of. And to use it against me… vile!” he said, spitting on me before rearing back with the stick, swinging for my head. Fuck that, I wasn’t gonna let Gio Lucille me like I was Glenn from the Walking Dead. As he swung the stick, I juked right and drilled him in the ribs with a hard right, and another for good measure. Always double tap, kids. I grabbed that bastard by the throat and threw punch after punch to the ribs before throwing him with everything I had into the trunk of a nearby tree. You want a fight, asshole? Then that’s what you’re gonna fucking get!

A couple hours later
Smoothie King Center
New Orleans, Louisiana
April 19th, 2020

I was falling. At least it felt as if I was, that my body weightless and plummeting down, darkness enveloped me like a shroud, a shiver running through me. It was cold, but I felt clammy, sweating. I tried to scream, but nothing came from my throat, it felt dry and sore, and every attempted scream seemed to take more from me as I tried in vain to yell out, to cry for help, anything… but it was wasted, it was all hopeless, no matter how hard I tried to scream, tried to call out, nothing came. I flailed, trying to grab hold of something, anything, to stop my fall, no idea what was coming at me from below as I hurtled towards the ground, the inevitable end to the final trip of what would be a short life, just like my parents. My parents… where the fuck had that come from? They say your life flashes before your eyes when you’re about to die I guess, but I barely knew my mom and pops, I was two when they passed in the wreck that took their lives, how much can a fucking two year old actually remember? How many of my memories as a kid, with Donald and Grace, be relied on? I was adopted pretty much straight away, unlike Dave. I had the life of luxury I guess, while he rotted away in that state run joint that doesn’t stand anymore… how many of my memories with my birth parents were just bastardised version of memories with Chuck and Diane, my adoptive parents? They were long gone too, but that was hardly a shock; they were old when they took me in anyway, already into their late fifties, trying to give back. People often thought they were my grandparents when I was a kid. It was a confusing time. That’s a long running theme in my life, I guess. Confusion. I can’t say that there was anything there as I fell though. I want to be able to say that I saw flashes of visions or something funky or psychedelic, but… I saw nothing, heard nothing. I felt nothing. I wasn’t scared, not one bit. It’s funny, but I almost found myself welcoming the inevitability that was surely to come, the all consuming finality of the landing. Falling is the easy part, it’s the ground that’s hard. I shouldn’t joke…

...but it felt funny. I was falling, crashing to the ground, waiting for what was to come and… I was at peace. All those fears, the anxiety, the worries I had when I was getting ready for the Wonderland match, they were all gone. As much as I hate to use the word thanks to an annoying cunt that coined it, I had a sense of serenity in that moment. Until I realised the screams I’d been unable to vocalise as falling weren’t silent anymore. My eyes shot open as the scream tore from my throat and I recoiled backwards, crashing from the trainers bed I’d been laid out on to the floor below, sending a medical cart flying with a second almighty crash that littered the floor with various pieces of medical kit. I back peddles on the floor, my hands slippery with sweat and my feet sliding from beneath me too as someone had removed my boots, leaving me in just socks, but I backed up into the corner hugging my knees before looking around, no fucking clue what was going on for several seconds as the door burst open at the sound of the commotion I was making. I couldn’t tell you who came in first, I’d tucked my head into my knees as I cradled my legs against my own chest, but as I was dragged up to my feet, David, Lucas and Amy were all in the room, looking at me with varying degrees of concern or worry etched on their faces. Not that I could look at any of them for long, I couldn’t hold anyone’s gaze for more than a few seconds as I looked around the room, half spaced out and still not really knowing where the fuck I actually was.

It seems foolish now, thinking about my reaction in that moment, but in that moment, the room could have been anywhere, used for anything, I just wasn’t with it. It took a good few minutes for me to actually start processing everything around me and for things to start making sense, way after the three of them had first entered the room to begin with. “For the love of all the gods, what the hell is going on with him?!” Amy asked as Lucas and Dave got me on a different bed inside of the trainers room, one that was against the wall, which I leant back against out of fear of falling. It’s strange that I was afraid of falling now that I was awake, but beforehand I welcomed it, complete polar opposites. “Babe, can you hear me?” she asked me, but despite the fact I could, I sat there just staring at the wall opposite, fixated on the crack beneath the door, my paranoia expecting it to fly open any second, rushed by Cain and Ames or Gio again, dressed in another fucking ghillie suit. The graves… those fucking graves… two of the people in this room, three if I included myself, had graves back there… that deranged fuck. “Jason, come on, snap out of it, okay? You’re freaking me out.” she told me, staring at me as she willed me to do as she asked. I didn’t. I sat there, just staring at the gap under the door, the gap no bigger than an inch, but so black, because the door above it made the gap into shadow and nothing more. No light from the hallway beyond, just empty black void. Like…

“We should get the doc back in here,” I think it was Lucas, said in worried tones. Not that I can’t tell the difference between Lucas and David’s voices, given one’s a cockney bastard and the other one sounds like Kevin Smith with a touch more gravel… but with how I was feeling, I knew male from female, but beyond that was kinda guesswork to a point. “There’s obviously something up with him… concussion maybe?”

“Could be, but I don’t know…” Amy said. That was definitely Amy. Lucas and Dave aren’t that high pitched. “I’ve seen my fair share of concussions, sufferred my fair share as well… I’ve never seen anything like this though…” she gestured wildly with an arm, and fuck bro, I actually flinched before looking up at her.

“Damn,” Lucas said, reacting to the way I’d flinched, I think? Maybe it was out of character for me, who knows. Wasn’t sure of a whole lot at the time.

Amy went to say something, maybe to me but maybe to the other guy in the shadows, but whatever it was, she didn’t get to say it before the door to the office opened and I gripped my legs even tighter at first, expecting it to be Gio or one of his minions. It was some guy in white… had they come for me, already?! But… how did they… how?! “Thank god bro, we were just debating coming to find you,” David said, and my eyes flickered from the man in white to my brother. He wanted me taken away? I was fine! Why the fuck did he think I… that I… I dunno. “Something’s not right man, he’s acting way off right now… he woke up and fell off the bed, he knocked over the cart, that’s why everything’s all over the floor… we were outside, came in to find him huddled in the corner, and he’s not said a word since we found him…” David told him, talking about me as if I wasn’t right there in the room. Did he think I couldn’t hear them? I was perfectly fine, just a little tired that’s all. And now they wanted me committed? I sprang from the bed in one jump, out of the reach of Amy as she instinctively tried to grab me; I wanted to head for the door, the void beneath an outstretched welcome, but as I landed, my legs damn near gave way beneath me and Lucas had to catch me before I hit the deck again. “See!” David said to the doctor as they stepped over to help Lucas guide me back to the bed. “He’s… I don’t fucking know, but he’s not himself…”

“Alright Jason, just sit down, nice and steady…” the quack said, him and Lucas sitting me on the edge of the bed. I looked back at the door again, and suddenly the gap wasn’t black anymore. I could say the reflections and shadows dance as people walked by, I could hear their footsteps. Where’d it gone? Where was the void? “Now, tell me… do you know where you are right now?” he asked, and I looked back at him, my eyes focusing properly and when I got a good look I realised I knew this guy. Okay, I didn’t know him, but he was the guy who checked me out after the street fight, just couldn’t remember the name. And he wasn’t wearing white, he had a navy blue windbreaker on with the SCW logo on it. What the fuck? “Jason? Do you know where you are?” he repeated as I shook my head, trying to shake off the cobwebs.

“Ar-ugh-…” I said, my voice wheezy as I cleared my throat, swallowing hard. “Arena… um,” I said, tapping the first two fingers of my right hand against my thigh like a drum, trying to place the name, before snapping my fingers in the air. “Bud Walton Arena, that’s it! No, wait…” I said and I could see Dave, Amy and Lucas exchanging looks behind the doctors back as I said it. “No, that was last week, wasn’t it? Um… Smoothie King center?” I asked, hesitantly, but the doctor nodded his head.

“That’s the one,” he said, fishing in his pocket for something before pulling out a pen light. “Alright, now just sit still for a minute, okay? I’m going to check for signs of concussion, see if there’s anything we need to worry about,” he told me and I nodded my head before wincing. My head was pounding, I’d not really noticed until that point. Weird, because damn, how had I missed this much pain?! The doctor checked one eye first, flicking the light in and out of my right eye, then switched to the other. After a while, he clicked off the light and I blinked heavily, trying to get my eyes to adjust again. “Well, everything seems like it should. I don’t see signs of concussion… how do you feel?” he asked me as I rolled my head from one side to the other, trying not to wince too much at the jungle drums reverberating in my head.

“Thirsty…” I told him, clutching at the back of my neck, hoping pressure might reduce the headache. “And my head’s pounding… I mean, everything kind of hurts but, my head’s on another level…”

“You have a headache?” The doctor asked me and I nodded, once again wishing I hadn’t. “Alright, we can do something about that,” he said, walking to a cabinet to grab a bottle. He popped the cap and took out a couple of pills, before placing the cap back on and walking back to me. “Here, chew these,” he told me, handing me the two pills. I didn’t even ask what they were, I didn’t care; if it would get rid of the headache, I’d have taken anything. “Strictly speaking, you should take those with water, but if your head hurts as much as you say, chewing them will get them to work faster… can someone grab him a drink?” he asked, and Amy walked past him straight away to the water cooler, grabbing one of the triangular paper cups to dispense water into before walking back to me.

I took it from her greadily, any more eager and I may have crushed it in her hand, swallowing the paste that had been the pain pills the doc gave me a second or two earlier before going to work on the water. “Thanks babe,” I said once I’d drank the whole thing in one, holding it back out to her. She turned to go for a refill as Lucas spoke up.

“I’ll go to catering, grab a few bottles,” he told her. “You’ll be going back and forth non-stop at this rate, and I think Jase could use some space, right mate?” he asked, but I ignored him. I didn’t disagree, I just didn’t want to be that guy to say it.

“That’s a good idea,” David agreed. “I’ll come with you, let the doc finish up with his tests, but when you’re up to it bro, we can get you back home, alright?” he asked me and I give him a piss-weak thumbs up with very little enthusiasm. It seemed good enough for him though and he turned to Amy. “Amy, you coming? I could use a coffee right about now…”

Amy looked torn between wanting to do what she thought was right by giving the doc the space to go through whatever he had to do to sign me off and wanting to stay with me to make sure I was okay, probably worried I was gonna freak out again or something. But apart from the headache and general pain, I felt… well, surprisingly normal I guess? “You gonna be okay?” she asked me, her voice full of concern, the decision was clearly weighing on her as she asked it and I wanted to reassure her, but I was tired. Aching. Probably needed patching up in places and in truth, I kind of wanted the room to myself but didn’t want to tell them to leave, you know? I just nodded and despite the fact I winced again, she gave me a smile before leaning in to kiss me on the cheek. “Alright, I’m gonna go grab some coffee with David and Lucas then. We’ll bring water back with us, but let me fill that up again first,” she said, taking the cup from me. She filled it at the cooler and handed it back to me, her fingertips brushing the back of my hand gently for a moment longer than necessary before she turned and joined Dave and Lucas as they headed out of the room.

I sighed as the door shut behind them, pausing just to look down at the gap beneath the wood again. No change. Why the fuck had I seen it so differently when I first came around?! “There aren’t too many checks we need to go through if I’m honest Jason, but I decided it may be best to clear the room for a little while to give you some space,” the doctor said as I drank the water in one go again. My throat felt as if I’d not drank anything in days, it was dry and itchy, there was no wonder I felt hoarse when I spoke. “In all honesty, I think we’re just dealing with a simple case of dehydration and a headache. Maybe a migraine from what you’ve said, but you took plenty of bumps out there, so that’s no surprise really… with some rest you should be fine. Need another?” he asked, pointing at the cup and I nodded. He refilled the little paper cup before bringing it back over to me and this time I tripped to sip it a little slower while the doc ran through a few more tests, basic memory stuff, checking on the wounds that I’d picked up during the match, that kind of thing. By the time he was done, my headache was starting to subside a little and I didn’t feel too bad. “Alright, surprisingly you’re not in too bad shape, all things considered… I’m fairly sure that there’s no concussion but I don’t want you doing anything too strenuous for a few days just in case. When you feel better, you’re free to go,” he told me, patting me on the arm reasurringly.

“Thanks doc, appreciate it,” I told him, finishing the water, wondering if I could carry myself to the cooler yet to get a refill.

“Just doing my job,” the doc told me as he turned to leave. I left it a couple minutes before hopping down from the exam table; I braced myself to hit the deck, but my legs held me fine, so I headed for the cooler to get another refill and drank it straight down before getting one more for the road and making my way back to the table.

It wasn’t an exaggeration when I say that pretty much my entire body was aching as I climbed back onto the table and sat back against the wall for support. Me and Gio, from what I remembered, had put each other through fucking hell during that match. I poured boiling fucking coffee on him, I remembered that part. I mean, I guess anything was a weapon in the realms of that thing, and as a member of the Lucho Brothers, coffee probably would be a weapon of choice, so wasn’t I just being on-brand with that? I started to wish that there was a monitor in the trainers room, to see whether the show was still going on. I couldn’t tell how long I was out, didn’t know if the show was over or what, just that I woke up in there. Christ, I hope Bree didn’t beat James, that would suck. Just the idea of the fucking fanfare she’d insist on in celebration was nauseating to say the least and despite his share of issues, I liked James well enoug so the idea of Bree bringing him down of all people… yeah, wasn’t looking forward to that if it happened…

Crumpling the cup in my hand once I’d finished drinking the last of my water, I tossed the empty aside and sat back; the drugs the doc gave me had started to kick in now, which was a blessing, because the headache was starting to subside and rehydrating was doing the trick too. I hoped Lucas would be back soon with those bottles though, because I didn’t want to keep getting up to get another drink if I could help it. On cue, there was a knock on the door, but when it opened it wasn’t Lucas that stepped in but Niamh. “Oh my god, you’re alive!” she said as if she actually expected different. I was sat on the bench, leaning back against the wall with one leg bent at the knee to rest my arm on, what was she expecting, to find me laid out with a sheet over me?! “Fuck, I didn’t even know what to expect when I came here, whether you’d be awake or bust up, or what,” she told me as she walked into the room and closed the door behind her. “How you doing? You and Giovanni beat the hell out of each other, I dunno how the hell you did it!”

“I mean, it’s my job?” I said, sitting up a little straighter, able to think a little straighter now that the pills were kicking in properly. “But how in the blue fuck did you get back here, the arena is locked down to anyone without access?!”

She gave me a guilty smile and something told me I wouldn’t like the answer. “Aniya called in some favours,” she told me, looking down at the floor. “She put in a call to, I think a guy called Dean? She said she was sending me to bring you some things that she thought you’d need, and he pulled some strings and there was a pass waiting for me with security,” she finished with a shrug before removing her backpack from her back to bring it to me at the bench. “There’s wash stuff and a change of clothes and everything in there, she said you’d need them. Dave apparently forgot your stuff when he left for the arena or something?”

Doesn’t surprise me. In truth, I couldn’t even be annoyed by the fact; we were all so focused on wanting to make sure that Gio and his cultaholics couldn’t pull any shit, that i’m not shocked a few fuckups happened. If that was the biggest, I’d take it. “Thanks,” I said as I grabbed the bag and unzipped it. To my relief, there was a big ass bottle of Gatorade in there, and I slid it right out of the bag before removing the cap to chug some down. “Oh god, that tastes good…” I said, to myself more than to her, but she smiled anyway.

“Aniya didn’t say what flavour you liked so I had to take a guess,” she admitted as I screwed the cap back on the bottle. “How you feeling?” Niamh asked once I put the bottle back down.

I shrugged. “Like I got into a fight with a mack truck,” I admitted, chuckling a little. “But I’m still kicking I guess, so I’ll call it a win… I didn’t though, right?” I asked, suddenly looking at her, waiting for the answer I was expecting. My memory was hazy, but I was pretty sure about that one. She shook her head.

Fuck. “I mean, I don’t think you lost either?” she said, trying to lighten the blow. “You both went down the hole, even commentary was confused. They assumed a draw…”

“What about the main event, has that happened yet?” I asked, hoping to god for the right result.

“It finished just as I got my pass from security. I watched the finish on a monitor as they signed me in,” she told me, and it looked like she didn’t know whether to be pleased or not. That told me all I needed to know before she said it. “Bree won. She’s double champion now,” she told me, confirmed what I’d already seen in her face; she was happy because Amy’s sister-in-law and Jaina’s aunt had won, but was unsure about her happiness, because she knew how I felt about the bitch. With a sigh, I shrugged.

“She had to win one at some point, right?” I reasoned, laughing it off before changing the subject. “So hey, listen, I’m sorry about earlier,” I started, and straight away Niamh’s body stiffened, her shoulders tightening at the mention of our conversation. Did I say something wrong?! “Hey, you okay? Look, if I said something--”

“No, no, it’s just…” she started before sighing and taking a seat on the bed next to me. “Look, I wanted to catch you, because… well, my bro finally got back to me about what I asked him to look into, and… well, there’s something I thought you should know before going to face Gio, but it was too late by the time I got there…”

“He found something?” I asked, feeling a weight in the pit of my stomach. If I’d only held off for a few more minutes so she could have got to whatever it was earlier, when we were talking. Fuck.

Niamh nodded her head. “Yeah, he did,” she told me, looking at the floor between her feet as they dangled from the edge of the bed. “I mean, it’s not really something that you could have used, or even anything that’s going to help you fuck with him, or… well, I dunno, maybe it is, but I… fuck, this is awkward, Jason. I dunno where to even begin with this…”

“Like a bandaid?” I said, sensing that it was something serious, given the way the temperature in the room all but seemed to have dropped a good ten degrees since I brought the conversation from earlier up. “But don’t worry about it, whatever it is. I asked you to do this for me, so you’re only doing what I wanted, alright?” I told her, trying to reassure her.

She took a deep breath and let it out through her mouth before finally turning to look at me. “Well, Petey did all the basics, you know?” she started, nibbling her lip again before looking away and continuing to explain. “Background check, personal data, that kind of stuff. He didn’t find anything that was particularly interesting though, or I guess nothing that you could use against him. Only… well, he… fuck!” she said, taking another deep breath before exhaling and this time she turned to look at me with determination in her eyes, like she was determined to get out what she needed to explain. “Well… the background checks bring up all sorts of stuff, like your family and all that kind of thing, right?” she asked and I nodded. “Kind of like a family tree. And he sent me the stuff he mined and I looked through it, looking to see if there was anything to use even though Petey said he came back clean, and… well, it’s to do with Gio’s mom.”

“His mom has something on her?” I asked, unable to shake the feeling that this conversation was getting away from me somehow. Maybe it was everything I’d gone through with my match or maybe it was the headache, the fact I was exhausted or still dehydrated… but I wasn’t making any sense out of what Niamh was trying to say and it didn’t help that she was going all around the damn houses in her explanation.

She shook her head to my question and that just left me even more confused. “Gio’s mom was born Fransesca, born in the U.S but to Italian parents who emigrated here,” she told me, talking a little slower than necessary because I guess she thought I’d been hit in the head one too many times during the match or something. “She had one older sister, several years her senior. Grazia. Both girls were born in New Jersey actually. Fransesca obviously went on to marry Gio’s father, and became Fransesca Aries, where as Grazia… well, the family moved away from New Jersey but Grazia didn’t go with them, as she met the man she would go on to marry a year later. Only… well, Grazia apparently didn’t keep her birth name either, when she married. She changed it in time for the ceremony, so that on her wedding day, she walked into the room as Grace Rossi…”

And that was the bomb that I’d been waiting to drop, the other foot coming down… only when she said the name, I suddenly felt numb. That couldn’t be right, surely. Nah, her brother, Petey was it? He’d fucked up somewhere, he’d got the wrong info, he had to have. Or the information was just plain wrong, because that couldn’t be fucking right. How many blows to the head had I taken in that fucking match, huh?! Was Niamh even here right now, thats the thought that started running through my mind. Or what the fuck had Gio done to me, he’d clearly done something because how else did you expain the state I was in earlier if he hadn’t? Only… fuck, no, this couldn’t be right. I wouldn’t believe it! I couldn’t. “But that’s… no. No fucking way...”

Niamh slowly nodded her head, and I desperately looked into her eyes for sign that this was a fucking wind up, that she was bullshitting me. My headache was starting to come back, it had to be the stress, but I shut that shit away, there was no way I was letting that take control now. “Grace Rossi married her husband at the St. Anthony Catholic Church in Red Bank, New Jersey, in the January of nineteen seventy nine, become Mrs. Donald--”

“Don’t!” I told her, cutting her off before she could go any further. I didn’t want to hear it, I didn’t want those words to come from her fucking mouth. I hated her, I actually hated Niamh in that moment, despite the fact she’d done nothing wrong but what I actually wanted her to do. I stood up from the bed and stepped away from it, holding my head in my hands, half trying to comprehend what I was hearing and half trying to block off the pain that was returning. My head was spinning, I felt light headed, I even felt a little nauseous and it wasn’t down to the fact that Ms. Ambitchous was the new World Champion, despite being surprised to find I didn’t want to vomit onto my own feed the minute Niamh told me it had happened. I turned around and looked at my protege again, hoping, pleading for there to be a sign that she was pulling my leg, that it was a wind up, but she was looking at me with glassy eyes and a deep look of concern that told me everything I needed to know. It wasn’t a joke or a wind up. What she was telling me was nothing but the absolute, unavoidable truth… and the words that will probably haunt me for some time to come came spilling from my lips as the realisation washed over me: “Donald… and Grace… Helms…”