Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.

-Peter Ustinov

 

 

Being knocked out is a hard thing to describe. In fact, the term "knocked out" is a bit of a misdescription, as your world doesn't go entirely black every single time. Depending on the severity of the blow, and the spot it lands, you may just "gray out", or simply feel lightheaded. In cases where ether is involved, you don't go out right away, but you fade to black.

Coming back is actually the weird part. It's like time travel if you really think about it. One minute you're awake, maybe you're standing up and trying to run away and suddenly you have a cloth covering your mouth and then the curtains close shut on your consciousness. Then you wake up, your arms are bound behind you, and someone is pointing a gun at you.

When you realize that in this case, "someone" is your father, you tend to freak out, at least if you're me.

"What the fuck is going on?", is all I can really manage to get out. I struggle to stand up, but he quickly pushes me back down. My brains are scrambled, my mind is fried, my thoughts are scattered. I try to figure out where I am by remembering where I was last, but I've already done that and so far it's gotten me nowhere. I remember the last second before it happened, but that's it. I catch the scent of copper, and realize that I'm bleeding. I just don't know from where.

My father smiles, then scratches his temple with the barrel of his gun. I'm no expert, but I'm fairly confident that that's dangerous.

"You're not very good at hiding, are you?", he says with a smirk.

"Why should I be?", I ask, shaking my throbbing head. I look around, taking in the small, dimly lit hotel room. I know my father well enough to know that this isn't his hotel room, but probably a short-term rental. Whether or not he intends to kill me here remains to be seen, as he seems more concerned with lecturing me instead.

"I know what you're doing for Tony," he says, pointing the gun back at me. "You're following in my footsteps."

"Not by choice," I respond. During the course of the conversation, I've been working on loosening the knot in the hopes of freeing myself, but neither action seems to be possible. What the fuck did I expect? The world's greatest hitman to tie a shitty knot?

"Still, you've got the gift," he says with a proud smile on his face, marking this as the first time in my life that I've ever seen my father display pride as a result of my actions. "You've got a natural talent for it."

"How did you know where to find me?", I ask, not expecting the answer. The question that I actually have on my mind is more along the lines of "How the fuck did you get out of jail?", but I have a sneaking suspicion that he hasn't seen the inside of a cell in many years. If he'd just broke out of prison, he'd be jumpy, continuously checking the door, looking out the windows, and intently listening for intruders.

As I look at his face, I see that he's eerily calm, like someone who's overdosed on Valium. It would seem that a certain FBI agent lied to me when he told me that my father would never see the light of day as a free man again. That's what I get for trusting a fucking fed.

"You're a famous man, Ace. All I had to do was track you through your website."

He reaches over towards the laptop that's resting on top of the cheap brown desk and spins it around, showing me the XWF World Tour Schedule page that he has pulled up in the browser. If you're keeping track, this would be yet another clue as to his previous whereabouts. Someone on death row doesn't know how to use a computer this well, especially when they're in their sixties.

Not to mention his reasoning is flawed. I'm not scheduled to be anywhere this week, and I'm not expected to be in China until Saturday morning. How the fuck did he know I would be in Philly?

"You saw me on TV then?"

I continue to pry, and to ask him questions that will help point to who gave me up to him. I have quite a few people in mind, but I'm not trying to figure out who it was so much as I'm hoping to prove who it wasn't. If it turns out to have been her, well-

-Well, I don't think I'd take that very well, and I don't think she'd like my reaction too much either.

"I don't watch TV," he says, and a small sliver of my childhood makes it's way to my conscience thought. Remembering the few years I had with them as a family (you know, before he murdered her), I realize that my father never once watched the television with us. I watched a ton of TV, as did my mother, but the only time my father even looked at the thing was when he was walking past it. "It rots your brain."

And that is, of course, the only reason behind it. He thoroughly enjoys being brighter than everyone else on the planet, and he would never contribute to anything he perceived as a threat to his intelligence. Come to think of it, he never drank, he never smoked, and never did drugs. Unlike the rest of his peers, my father demonized cocaine and marijuana, and I had always just thought it was because he had high morals.

To a certain extent, that's true. The difference between your morals and his morals, however, is that he applies his morals to everyone else. You apply your morals to everyone and yourself. If drugs, alcohol, and television made you a smarter person, my father would drink a fifth of Jack while watching TV Land marathons, and he'd bump lines of coke during the commercials.

"Someone directed you to that website, Dad," the term makes me sick when I hear it escape my mouth, but I don't know what else to call him. "You didn't stumble upon it by accident."

He smirks, enjoying the fact that he knows something I don't. I continue to work at the knot.

"Do you know the only way that two men can keep a secret?"

I shake my head, and he flips on the lights in the room.

"One of them has to be dead."

I raise an eyebrow as he points at me. He nods, and I realize that he's not pointing at me, but behind me. As I spin around, the copper scent once again floods my nostrils, and I realize that it's not me who's bleeding, but Collin, who is lying face first on the bed across from me in a pool of his own plasma.

"What-"

I quickly survey the scene. Like me, his arms are bound behind his back. There is a lot of blood, but I don't see any gunshot wounds. I look around for the object that he was beat with, but I see nothing. I glance at my father, then at his knuckles, and I realize that he didn't use a crowbar, or a baseball bat, but his own hands, one of which was holding the gun.

"What the fuck did you do to him?"

My father walks over to Collin, grabs him by the back of the head, and lifts him up just enough for me to see his swollen face.

"He knew something that I wanted to be let in on, and I had to get it out of him."

Collin's eyes are both swollen shut, his nose has been crushed, and a very long and deep laceration has found it's way from his right eyebrow to his lip. I've never seen someone so beat up in my life. I'm sure that if his mouth were open, I'd catch a glimpse of cracked and missing teeth.

"He turned out to be a lot tougher than I expected him to be."

My father lets go of Collin, who slumps back into the bed.

"Either that or I'm not as good as I used to be, but age'll do that to you!"

The sick motherfucker laughs and slaps his leg as he says it. He's acting as if he's a construction worker who's complaining about his worn body affecting his trade.

"Don't ever get old, kid."

I stare at Collin, looking for any sign of life, but I see nothing. There doesn't appear to be any breathing going on, not even the shallow kind.

"Is he dead?", I ask, knowing the answer already, but needing to hear it. "Did you fucking kill him?"

My father looks at me as if I just asked him if the Pope were Catholic. Of course he is, you dumb motherfucker.

"I wanted to keep the secret, didn't I?" He points the gun at me. "I knew I couldn't trust him to not tell you."

"You fucking bastard!", I scream as I lunge at my father. I strike him with my shoulder and he flies backwards and slams against the wall. The gun goes off, but my adrenaline is so high that I doubt the pain would register if I were hit. I press him against the wall and knee him in the balls, then in the face as he doubles over. He falls to the ground, and I stomp on his head until he stops moving, then I lay on the floor and slip my hands over my feet, bringing my bound arms in front of me.

I look for the gun, but it's nowhere to be found. I walk over towards Collin, grab him by the arm, and roll him over. He coughs and I breath a sigh of relief.

"I know you're in a lot of pain right now, but you need to do exactly what I tell you, or we're not going to make it out of here."

He looks around, his eyelids barely able to upon up enough for him to get a peak at what's going on.

"Ace-"

His voice is weak, and raspy. He tries to sit up, but I gently keep him from doing so. As I listen to his breathing, I hear evidence of a collapsed lung, adding it to the list of injuries I need to report to the ER when I get him there.

Of course, the easy part is getting him there. Getting him there alive is going to be the hard part.

 

 

I make my way towards my locker room with Bree's assistance, nodding and waving to the guys I pass as they congratulate me. As soon as the door shuts behind me, I collapse on to the floor, clutching my ribs in agony.

Bree grabs a bottle of percocet out of my duffel bag, then gives me a pill. I eagerly swallow the painkiller, washing it down with a bottle of water, all while still laying on the cold concrete.

"Do you think anything's broken?"

"Maybe my ribs," I say as I gently trace the bones lining my abdomen, wincing as I reach the floaters on my lower right side. "I caught the edge of the table or something."

I'm referring to the point in the match where I gave Jayzon Williamz my new finisher off of the top of the ladder and through a table. Before exploding into a thousand pieces, the table saw fit to thank me for it's destruction by forcing it's corner underneath my ribcage.

"That's where your liver is," Bree responds. "We need to go the hospital in case it's lacerated."

I shake my head.

"There's no fucking way I'm going to a hospital in South Africa so they can fuck up my diagnosis and give me a blood transfusion and infect me with AIDS. I'll just wait until we get to the next city."

Bree sighs, then looks away.

"What?"

She shrugs. It's clear to me that she has bad news.

"Where the fuck are we going next?"

"China", she says with a frown.

I roll over and begin to laugh (which hurts like a motherfucker). Do I wanna die in South Africa, or do I wanna die in China? Choices, choices.

"Fuck me," I mutter. "I have to get stateside."

Just as I finish saying it, Collin walks in to the room, then cocks his head in confusion when he finds me laying on the floor.

"What's the problem, pussy?"

I point to my ribs.

"I may have lacerated my liver," I groan, trying to get to my feet. Bree grabs one arm and Collin grabs the other, and they sit me down on the bench that stretches across the room.

"Is that bad?"

Bree huffs.

"Of course it's bad, you fucking moron. It could be leaking toxins into his body."

"I didn't realize that they gave those out."

I raise an eyebrow, as does Bree.

"Gave what out?", she asks in confusion.

"Nursing degrees at The University of Whore Island."

Bree gives him the finger, then turns her attention back towards me.

"You'd rather be safe than sorry."

I look at Collin, who doesn't seem too thrilled with the situation.

"I need to get this checked out, and there's no fucking way I'm doing that here or in China. We need to go home for a few days."

He bites his lower lip, then looks down at his phone.

"What's the fucking problem, man?"

He shrugs, then looks at me.

"You're going to miss the Press Tour. The boss isn't going to be happy."

"Who gives a fuck? Either I miss the Press Tour and am healthy for the match, or I make the Press Tour and perform like shit. Which one do you think he'll prefer?"

"Probably the match."

"Probably. Book the flight."

Collin dials a number on his phone, and then exits the room. I turn to Bree, who is visibly concerned with my welfare, as evidenced by her pouting lips and raised eyebrows.

"I'm fine."

"I hope so," she says, looking back at the door "You know, he's really paranoid about us listening to him when he's on the phone."

"He just likes his privacy," I reply. I honestly don't blame him, as the three of us spend pretty much every hour of every day with each other. At least he doesn't have Bree following him around like a fucking puppy. At first it was cute, but it's starting to get annoying.

"Hey, look at that!", she says as she points to her watch. She has it set to Eastern Standard Time, and it reads as 12 in the morning. "Happy birthday!"

She kisses me on the cheek, then gives me a gentle hug. It's funny, a month ago I was supposed to be spending my birthday in Cancun with Lidiya, and instead I'm spending it in South fucking Africa with a girl I met three weeks ago and a pothead who's in charge of my reincarnated wrestling career.

Collin comes back into the room and gives me a nod.

"Everything is good to go."

"Thanks for taking care of it."

He bites his lower lip again, and I roll my eyes.

"What fucking now?"

"Bliz wants you to do an interview before we leave."

I shrug, figuring things could be worse.

"Fine."

I grab a towel and dry myself off as Bree unlaces my boots (hey, she volunteered).

"I should probably tell you-", Collin says quietly.

I look over at him slowly, doing my best to convey my annoyance. Whatever it is isn't his fault, and I probably shouldn't be an asshole to him, but I'm in serious fucking pain, and I'm ready to get the hell out of South Africa and go home.

"-the interview is with Sayors."

I was right. Things could be fucking worse.