THE FOLLOWING IS A SECRET PROMO FOR KODM. READ THAT SHOW FIRST.
It’s a bitter night at the tail end of February.
It didn’t start bitter, of course. Few things ever do. Outside of certain natural chemicals or ingredients, bitterness is an affliction gained over time. It often starts off sweet, or at the very least, benign. Then over time, the acidic taste sets in. The resentment sinks down to the bone. The antipathy becomes one with the canvas, and soon the colors of the painting become sullen. It’s a process, one that is rarely instantaneous, but once it starts to spread, it’s difficult to remove before it becomes the key component of a meal. The driving factor of a night. Or, perhaps, the defining trait of a human being.
In the evening of this night, the door to a restaurant is kicked open, the wooden frame very nearly denting from its hinges. From within, storming like the ground had taken a particular offense against her, was a woman - Pale, slim, with the kind of expression that would cause exit wounds. Her vibrant, bright green mohawk quickly vanished as she tugged on a black beanie, pushing through a small crowd on the sidewalk with a snarl. A black jacket that seemed a size too big for her hung off her shoulders, one she didn’t even realize she was still wearing as she shoved aside a particular surprised man.
“Hey, watch wh-” The man began, the kind of man who would stick his hand into a tiger’s enclosure to get a better photo of the wild carnivore without any consideration for how many fingers he might lose. The description was apt, as he only got two and a half words from his indignant remark before the woman swiveled on a heel and barked, her teeth dangerously close to the aforementioned fingers.
“Fuck off!” She snapped, with a tone so caustic the man felt himself turn sterile.
“Piece of shit, telling me to watch where I’m going, fuck right off! How about you watch your back, never know who you’ll piss off next because fuck knows you’ve got a talent for it, you fucking… Fucking…”
The woman’s irate response tapering off was not for a loss of words, surely so. Anyone who has even shared an elevator with this vulgar lout can attest that her tirades, colorful as they are, could literally last for days. And yet, she felt herself lose track, as the door to the restaurant was pushed open.
She fell silent, in hopes, in expectation, that a certain someone would step out, would follow, would chase after her and offer an explanation, a clarification, a reasoning for the lack of communication. Anything. In her tense state, she would doubtlessly dismiss it, turn on him and unload another profanity-laden earful. But the gesture, the attempt to ease the open wounds before bitterness sunk in, that would’ve meant something. Regret. Guilt. Acknowledgement that his own fuckup had driven her away.
It would’ve meant that, beyond saving his own ass, saving this friendship meant something to him.
Maybe, just maybe, even after unloading the mother of all rants against him, she might’ve heard him out.
Because maybe this relationship meant something to her, too.
Otherwise, why would she hesitate, why would she wait at the possible implication that he was chasing after her, ready to shame-facedly admit that he didn’t have the fucking balls to keep her up to speed?
Why else would she have felt her heart sink as someone else stepped through the door, swaying, before vomiting in the bushes?
The door swung shut, and with it, came the realization.
Alyster Black wasn’t coming after her.
“You fucking FUCKER.”
With a growl, Violet Dreyer whirled, this time taking care to stomp on the foot of the man who had spoken up previously. She marched down the sidewalk, hands clenched, as she wiped away a tear she would deny ever existed.
Underneath a sea of gray clouds, the evening grew dark and bitter.
In a way, maybe it was never going to be anything else.
-=-=-=-
When Krash had vanished, Violet felt herself begin to withdraw from FWA.
Krash was her advocate. Her advisor. As much as she often ignored or did the opposite of his advice out of sheer spite, the fact is that Krash was her best chance of getting her foot into the door in FWA. Without him, it was a pipe dream, once again.
Sure, Alyster could vouch for her. Give her clearance to go backstage, mingle with the crew (including a particularly annoying Jackson Fenix) and, if there was space on the card, appear as an impromptu guest wrestler. Her appearance in a recent Battle Royal was pure happenstance, something she managed to participate in simply because anyone in the back was liable to. Despite a stronger-than-expected showing, despite her assumption that she performed well enough that FWA Officials would slide a contract over or at the very least give her a phone call, she was shown the door just like any other night.
Alyster couldn’t open the same doors Krash did.
Alyster couldn’t ensure she’d get something of a spotlight the same way Krash did.
What Alyster could do, is drag her into his spat with Danny Toner and have her concussed to shit by a spiteful gutterfuck with barely a thank you.
On one hand, she expected as much - Alyster was never the kind of person to put on a professional smile, sit down with a suit, and do business. No. He was brash, he was vulgar, he didn’t play nice and he certainly didn’t wear a suit. He was too much like her, and she was too much like him. Maybe that was the worst part of the entire situation.
So, after seeing the writing on the wall, she quietly began rejecting Alyster’s offers of a backstage pass. It was never going to lead to an offer for a contract, so what was the point? Best to leave before it gets pathetic and find another way to fame and fortune. Build her name on the - hurk - indies so FWA eventually has to take notice, or sign with a company that would actually appreciate her god-gifted talents. CDW might’ve been a good start, or LCW, even. Hell, Ground Zero is a direct pipeline to FWA. But those all carried the same baggage, in that they were tangibly related to FWA, and if FWA hadn’t called her by now they certainly weren’t going to just because she appeared in a sister promotion. No. It still would’ve been her, begging for scraps of attention, while FWA rolled their eyes and pretended to read the news. It still would’ve been pitiful. No, she needed a clean break.
Therefore, she stopped accepting the backstage passes, and stopped watching FWA altogether.
A part of her felt she should’ve, if only to keep supporting Alyster during his world title run, but he didn’t need her. He didn’t need her support, he was like a runaway train - he was going to speed up and derail regardless of whether she was cheerleading him on or not. So she didn’t. Right up until that fateful night inside Dazzling Dave’s restaurant, Violet Dreyer had been blissfully ignorant to everything that had happened in FWA over the past few months.
She didn’t know that Alyster had lost the world title to midlife crisis Devin Golden.
She didn’t know that Devin Golden had, in turn, lost the world title to Chris Thimblecock or whatever his name was.
And she certainly didn’t know that that Krash had:
A) Returned in a kinda-alive capacity, and
B) Been immediately attacked and taken captive by Jeremy Best & Bryan Baxter, more on one than the other, but regardless.
She didn’t know, but Alyster did.
He knew.
Motherfucker, he knew.
He knew all along and never said a word.
That fucker.
The second she got back to her shitty hotel room, she booted up her equally shitty laptop, paid the subscription fee for access to the FWA Network, and set to familiarizing herself with everything that had happened within FWA over the past few months.
Not just the Krash, Jeremy, or Alyster segments, but everything.
From the TV title being bounced back and forth between a Fox News patsy who looked like they just got a neck tattoo removed to a masked nimrod with more self-esteem issues than a clown at an adults party, to the arrival of perhaps the only woman more of a malformed childish airhead than Lizzie Rose herself. To the debuts of a new wave of fresh talent, all of whom she didn’t bother to remember their names - except for Weaselperson, because holy shit, she wouldn’t be able to forget Weaselperson if she had six more concussions. Even the entire Ratin Mikichin vs Steve the Techno Vampire series didn’t escape her viewing - though she oddly found it compelling in a way that she couldn’t quite explain.
It took pretty much an entire night of watching to catch up on things, and when she finally got to the big reveal at Back In Town, she felt her veins burn.
The initial sight of her long-lost mentor, even if mentor probably wasn’t the best word for it, caused her lungs to stop working for a brief moment. He looked so pale, so thin, so ragged. He looked less like a man and more like a carcass that had been left out on the road for vultures to peck at. What the fuck
happened to him?
Her first feeling was a sense of guilt, or something akin to it. Sure, she didn’t blame herself for the whole spat Krash found himself in with Randy Ramon - them duking it out was going to happen regardless of whether she took $20 bucks to preface it or not. But maybe she could’ve prevented things from going too far, stopped them from sinking into the lake, never to resurface.
That brief feeling was quickly dismissed. She knew damn well she would not have stopped anything. If nothing else, she would’ve egged them on through the entire brawl, even as they sunk into the dark waters.
The next feeling she felt was a deep, burning anger. It didn’t take a doctor, or a medical professional, or even a vet to see that the Krash Bryan Baxter had dragged to the ring was pretty much a canary in a coal mine. The lights were on but who the fuck was home? Physically, mentally, and psychologically, the Krash before them was a husk. A shell. A wreck of a man who only by the slimmest of margins could be described as the man she once knew. So, why the hell did no-one step in to stop this? Why the fuck did the entire locker room sit backstage and do absolutely nothing, as Bryan Baxter beat the shit out of a borderline comatose Krash? As Jeremy Best cooed and crowed and kidnapped the guy, and only looked upset about it because it wasn’t the same guy he was expecting? Where was anyone?!?
She slammed the laptop shut with a huff. Sure, she knew that the list of enemies and rivals Krash had made through his career was a long, endless one, despite his insistence on otherwise. She had a front row seat to witness Krash’s very first enemy and what he did to ensure they never crossed paths with him again, long before he popped up in FWA, CWA, APW, or even OWW, and she was pretty sure only a handful of people alive even knew about it. But still, she expected at least a token effort by someone, at the very least the usual crowd of pointless suits and officials when brawl breaks out to break it up.
The fact that he didn’t even get that as the bare minimum turned her knuckles white in anger.
Violet pushed the laptop back open, a rushed plan forming in her mind as she scanned for the next FWA event. Steel City, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a few weeks’ time. Jeremy Best was advertised for the event, which meant he’d be in the arena.
Which meant she could strangle the two-faced fuck until he spilled the beans on where Krash was now, or until her hands grew numb, whichever happened first.
And if she ran into Alyster while there, then fuck it, she’s got two hands. She can multitask.
-=-=-=-
It’s the midpoint of March.
The weather in Pittsburgh sucked just as much as it did in New York. She wrapped the black jacket around herself tighter as she stepped out of her shitty rental, in the parking lot of the PPG Paints Arena.
Oh, the jacket?
If Violet had any idea about the significance of the jacket, how much it meant to someone, or how much it didn’t mean to another someone, she likely would’ve burned it and thrown the scraps into the dumpster out of spite.
Instead, to her, it was just a jacket. A jacket that was a touch too big, but it had some sizable pockets, so it’d do for now. It had no real meaning, no significance to her. Just another article of clothing. In a way, that might be more of an insult - to burn or desecrate it would be acknowledging that it held some kind of meaning to someone. It meant that the jacket meant something, enough to make a show out of destroying it. As it stood now, treating it with the same kind of affinity one would for any other article of clothing probably hurt its former recipient more than pissing on it would.
Of course, that was assuming Violet was being obtuse on purpose, for a point, and not that she was being obtuse because that’s who she naturally was.
Regardless.
Violet stepped up to the performer’s entry point of the arena, a hand in her jacket, idly thumbing a pair of brass knuckles. All she really needed was a few minutes with Jeremy, and she’d be on her way without watching the show. She had experience with enough bloody brawls to make a bitch cry, after all.
Suddenly, a hand appeared in front of her, halting her progress before the entry gate. Attached to the beefy hand was an equally beefy security guard, a thick musclehead who looked like the kind of person who had steroids every day for breakfast, then wondered why their balls were so tiny.
“Authorized personnel only.” Beefy McMancake grunted, crossing his arms. That probably wasn’t his name but it’s the one we’re sticking with.
Violet huffed.
“Step aside, shitbrick, I’m authorized as fuck.” She boasted, puffing her chest out.
“Check your list for Violet Dreyer, I probably have a backstage pass waitin’ for me.”
Beefy McMancake stared at her, squinting behind a pair of cheap sunglasses.
“You’re not on the list. Beat it.”
“Motherfucker, check the list, I’m there.”
Beefy let out a grumble, before making a show out of glancing at his clipboard. He slowly ticked his way through it, occasionally pausing to glance at an increasingly irate Violet.
He licked a finger, and flipped the clipboard over to the next page.
“What are you, illiterate?” Violet barked, tapping a toe impatiently.
“Would you be quicker if you had a Dr. Suess book instead of a list? If we were on a boat I’d be on this list, if we were on a moat I’d be on this list, if we were on a goat, do you catch my drift? Hurry the fuck up, I have shit to do.”
“Name please.” Beefy grunted.
“For fuck’s sake. Violet Fucking Dreyer. I’m a godamned icon, do you have any idea who the fuck you’re holding up? I know people, I’ll ruin you, you hear me? I’ll make it so you’ll be spending the rest of your days picking up trash on the side of the road. Step the fuck aside and let me in!”
Beefy mumbled something incoherent.
“Mmmhm. Violet… Dreyer, did you say?”
“Yes! Finally, about fucking time, now if you’ll excuse me, I-”
“You’re not on the list.”
Violet’s left eye twitched in anger.
“What?!?”
“You’re not on the list. You’re not getting in.” Beefy rumbled, in his toneless voice.
“Come the fuck on! There has to be some kind of mistake, Alyster always leaves passes for…” She trailed off, coming to the realization that she had stopped taking those passes long ago. It only made sense that Alyster would eventually stop granting them, even moreso after their recent spat, the self-pitying shitbag.
“Oh, fuck me!” She spat, kicking a rock. The entire basis of her plan hinged on getting inside the arena, so she could corner Jeremy Best and show him how far someone can jab a toothpick under his fingernails. She really should’ve had a plan B to get inside.
Beefy McMancake coughed.
“I’m going to have to ask you to please leave the arena.”
“No, look, I’m supposed to be here, I swear! I need to-”
“Ma’am,” Beefy continued.
“Please leave the arena or we will be forced to use physicality.”
“Ha! You and what army?!?”
Beefy snapped his fingers. Almost instantaneously, two equally beefy security guards sauntered up next to him. One of them appeared to be chewing on a hunk of concrete.
“Oh fuck that’s an army.” Violet faltered.
“Look, I just-”
She cut herself off, as just over the shoulder of one of the beefy security guards, she spied a figure walking past the hallway. A figure dressed entirely in black, save for a few green accents.
“Alyster.” She whispered, daring to feel hopeful. She jabbed a finger in his general direction, rising on her toes.
“That’s the guy, that’s my hookup! Ask him! He’ll vouch for me! He always fucking does, just- JUST ASK HIM GODAMIT!”
The trio of beef, as one, shook their heads. The middle one, Beefy, might’ve said something, but Violet didn’t hear it.
She was too focused on Alyster, turning his head at the sound of her voice. Not enough to face her, but enough to show that he heard her.
“Alyster, tell these fucking goombas! Tell them I’m supposed to be here!” She shouted. More heads turned, yet Alyster himself refrained from turning the full view to face her.
“Come on, fuckwit! Say something, do something!”
Alyster didn’t move, seemingly battling with himself…
… before turning in the opposite direction and walking away.
Violet felt her blood burn.
“You piece of- You fucking coward!” She spat, storming forward.
“Can’t face your fuckups, huh?!? Yeah, go on, you run away, just like you always d- HEY!”
Her trade was interrupted as middle beef caught her attempting to step inside, and slung her over his shoulder.
“That’s enough of that. Out you go.”
“Oi! Put me down!” Violet shrieked, ineffectively beating her fists on the back of Beefy as she was carried away from the arena.
“Godamnit! Let me go! Alyster!”
Her cries fell on unhearing ears, as Alyster vanished around a corner. She didn’t know why she was surprised. If he wasn’t going to help before, he wasn’t going to now.
But still, that cemented the fact - it was up to her, to make that bitch Jeremy eat his hair.
“Fine, you do your thing, selfish prick!” She cried out, shaking a fist in the direction Alyster vanished.
“Don’t let the lives of your fucking friends inconvenience you! You don’t want to help save the guy who would kill for you, then fine, be my guest! But if you get in my way when I’m fucking up Jeremy, I’ll fuck you up so badly you’ll need a new mask to put over your old mask! Do you hear me? DO YOU HEAR ME, ALYSTER?!? Fucking asshole.” She hissed, kicking impotently.
“Put me down, I got some kidneys to stab! Syringehead, drop me or I’ll fuckin’ drop you!”
“Unlikely.” Beefy McMancake grunted.
It’s unlikely that Alyster heard the full tirade.
However, as she was being carried away, one person did, infact, hear the full tirade.
They heard the tirade, and chuckled to themselves.
And suddenly Beefy McMancake stopped, pressing a finger against his earpiece.
“Come again?” He said, a shadow of confusion on his features.
“Yeah, she’s here.”
Violet temporarily halted her ineffective flailing.
“What? Is that about me? Yeah, you’re letting me in, I fuckin’ knew it, put me down and I’ll-”
“Uh-huh, ugly green mohawk, that’s her. Said her name was…” Beefy squinted at Violet, trying and failing to recall the name of this unimportant person he had only just met.
“... Lavender?”
“Violet, you fucking cret-”
“Violet, yeah, that.” Beefy paused. Beside him, the other two beefcakes exchanged glances, and shrugged.
“You sure about that? She’s not on the list.”
There was another long pause, before Beefy placed Violet back on the ground like a sack of potatoes.
“Alright. I’ll bring her in.”
Violet climbed to her feet, wiping her legs.
“About fuckin’ time! Point me towards Jeremy Best’s locker room and I’ll make it quick and bloodless-”
“Not quite.” Beefy shook his head, and held a hand out.
“Someone wants to see you. Would you like to follow me for a minute?”
“Fuck no, I’d rather drink bleach.”
“Would you rather me carry you?”
“I’d still rather drink bleach.”
“Let’s compromise.” Beefy said, before grabbing her by the wrist and dragging her into the arena, down the hall. Despite digging in her heels, Violet rapidly gave up, unable to break Beefy’s grip, and instead went limp, staring at the ceiling instead.
“Who’re you taking me to?” She listlessly demanded.
Beefy paused before a firm, wooden door.
“Who do you think?” He asked, before pushing it open and shoving her inside.
“Got her here, boss.” The door closed behind him. Violet massaged her wrist, scowling, before turning to face whoever had asked that she be brought in.
A short, bald man wearing the ugliest suit imaginable sat beaming at her, hands splayed across a rich, mahogany desk. A portrait of himself in a slightly less uglier suit took up the entirety of the wall behind him. He motioned to an empty chair in front of his desk, before bending to pick up something out of his drawer, setting a nameplate on his desk.
- JON RUSSNOW -
FANTASY WRESTLING ALLIANCE AUTHORITY FIGURE
- KNOWS BETTER THAN YOU DO -
“Ah, piss.”
“Hello, Violet.” Jon Russnow greeted, with his predatory grin.
“Been a while, hasn’t it?”
Violet shrugged uneasily.
“I guess?”
“Of course you guess. Take a seat.” He gestured again to the chair in front of him, with a touch more insistence than before.
“The fuck is this about, Russnow?”
Rather than answer, Jon Russnow instead smiled placidly, reaching into his drawer and pulling out a pen and some paper.
“Take a seat and I’ll be right with you.” And he began reading through the paper, making some corrections with his pen, while he waited for Violet to sit down.
Hesitant, Violet glanced at the door. She could probably sprint to Jeremy’s locker room and stab him three times, maybe four if she didn’t bother aiming for non-vital areas, before Beefy and his cronies could grab her. But that would require knowing exactly where Jeremy’s locker room was, and assuming that Jeremy was in there right now.
She couldn’t count on either of those things.
So instead, she sat herself down on the chair, a chair so uncomfortable she felt her morale take a hit.
Russnow glanced at her, before adjusting his office chair so that he was taller.
“Heard about your little tirade, Violet.”
“Yeah?”
“Mmm. Might have a… Proposition for you.” Russnow turned the paper around, and slid it over to Violet.
“You’re a sketchy guy and you creep me out.” Violet said, before glancing at the paper.
“I don’t know what the fuck your deal is, but I don’t want any…”
Her words died in her throat as her eyes widened, scanning the header text on the document before her. She gaped, words failing her as she picked up the paper.
“I… Is this-”
“A FWA Contract, Violet.” Russnow confirmed, twirling his pen between his fingers.
“Only for the upcoming King of the Deathmatch event.”
Violet’s eyes went from the contract, to Russnow, then back to the contract.
“Are you fucking with me?”
Russnow shook his head, and merely handed the pen over. Violet snatched it from his grasp, hovering it over the signature area.
This was it.
This was what she had always wanted. Right?
A FWA contract. The chance to make it big, earn the big money, and ensure the family name finally had something of value. Sure, it was a temporary contract, but if she managed to win the entire King of the Deathmatch tournament, then they’ve HAVE to sign her on to a lengthier, long-term contract, right? It’s not just the Crown of Thorns on the line, but the X Championship, too. One was a status symbol, the other an accolade, together they were money. It would be a repeat of Thomas West’s ascension last year - unsigned talent wins the big one and gets their name plastered all throughout the show. If Thomas West can do it then surely Violet Fucking Dreyer can do it too.
She knew she could do it. Never short on confidence, she knew that whoever else was in the field, she could fuck them up. Who else had as much to gain as her? As far as she could tell, anyone else who blew this shot would be able to arrive on Fallout or Meltdown next week and move on with whatever feud was waiting for them.
The only thing waiting for Violet if she blew this shot was an empty hotel room.
The pen quivered in her grasp.
It’s what she’s always wanted.
So why was she so hesitant to sign?
Violet raised her head, and stared at Russnow. If something was too good to be true, it probably was, after all. Not to be blinded by the glitz, she focused on the glamor, and gently set the paper back down on the desk, unsigned.
“What’s the catch, cueball?”
Jon Russnow seemed mildly offended, which was exactly what she was hoping for. He breathed a sigh, rolling his eyes, before leaning forward.
“I like to think of myself as a… Visionary, when it comes to ideas, Violet. King of the Deathmatch, Tag Warz, the Bounty-”
“You came up with the Bounty? Dude, that was a fucking terrible idea. I wouldn’t even put that on my worst enemies resume.”
Russnow fixed her with a glare. The impotent kind that didn’t really do much.
“Be that as it may, Violet, I am constantly looking for ways to… One-up myself, as it were. King of the Deathmatch last year was good, great even. But how can I make it better? Sure, I can guarantee more of the violence from the previous edition, but ultimately it’s up to the combatants to provide such violence. What I can provide, however… Is drama.”
Violet frowned.
“Drama?” She repeated. There was a sour taste in the back of her throat, one that she attempted to ignore for the time being.
Russnow nodded.
“Nothing milks money quite like drama, Violet. This year’s King of the Deathmatch has your… Friend… Alyster Black, as a central figure, and whoever wins the tournament, wins his treasured X Championship. Therefore, logically, it’s likely that whoever wins the tournament will clash with the guy at some point, and I feel… Well… Given your and Alyster’s… History…”
“Ah.” Violet grimaced.
“I think I can see where this is going.”
Russnow shrugged.
“I’m sure if you’re not interested, we can find someone else to fill the spot. No shortage of people waiting to break out and all.” He reached over the desk, a finger brushing the contract-
-before Violet pulled it back.
“Hold on! Hold the fuck on, I didn’t say no!”
“You also haven't said yes.” Russnow echoed.
“I’m giving you a lifeline of an opportunity here, Violet. The exact thing you've been begging for for years, more or less. And all I ask is that if you just so happen to run into Alyster Black during the event, well… Don’t make your tirade from earlier out to be nothing.”
Violet bit her lip, glancing back at the contract. She knew when she was being used, to add petty drama to the event, and normally she would be all for petty drama. The fact that said drama was against Alyster didn’t mean much to her… Right?
Right. Of course. Alyster didn’t give two shits about her, so she didn’t give two shits in return. He would absolutely make her taste metal, no doubt. Only fair to return the favor. That sour taste in her throat intensified, before she forced it back.
“What about Jeremy Best? Is that chucklefuck in the tourney too?” She instead asked, trying to get back on why she was here in the first place.
“I’m not here for Alyster, I’m here for that slimy parasitic fuck.”
“I can’t confirm or deny that, Violet. I mean, with eight mystery entrants, chances are he might be included… Or he might not. My hands are tied.” He raised his hands, demonstrating that they clearly were not tied.
Violet squeezed the pen in her grasp, staring back at the contract.
“And if I win, this’ll… This’ll be extended, right?”
“Can’t have an X Champion not under contract, that’s just shoddy business.” Russnow agreed.
“You’ll be FWA Superstar, Violet Dreyer. Your name can be on the marquee, your image can be plastered across the arenas. You can be that famous, successful wrestler you’ve always wanted to be, but was never able to become.”
Violet breathed, a bead of sweat dripping down the back of her neck, before fixing Russnow with a steely gaze.
“I have one demand.”
Russnow quirked an eyebrow.
“You are far from any position to make demands… But I’ll hear you out.”
“I want Jeremy Best.” Violet demanded, punctuating with a jabbed pen on the paper.
“Doesn’t have to be in this tournament, doesn’t have to be in a match. I want him delivered to me on a cold fucking platter, so I can beat that piglet until he squeals. If you, if Alyster, if no-one else in this shithole is going to, then I’ll rip his fingernails off and shove them in that saccharine fuck’s eyes until he tells me what he’s done to Krash.”
Russnow frowned at the mental image, tapping a finger against the desk.
“So, so far from any position, to make demands.” He quietly repeated.
“Are you really willing to possibly throw this shot I'm giving you away, shove your entire dream in the trash, if you don't get your hands on Jeremy Best? Just to possible help out this... Mentor of yours, who as far as I can tell got exactly what he deserved, more or less? And here I thought I had you figured out. I'm having second thoughts - maybe you’re not worth the trouble.”
Violet remained still, forcing her stare to remain even, despite a chill going across the back of her spine. Russnow returned the stare, a cold stalemate between them, as the clock ticked over.
After what felt like an eternity, Russnow cracked a smirk.
“But I’ll make you a deal. Whatever you do to Alyster Black during this event… I’ll let you do to Jeremy Best at a later date. No handcuffs. No restrictions. Do to Alyster what you’ll want done to Jeremy, deliver the drama I desire, and I’ll see that you have an opportunity to deliver. How does that sound?”
Violet fell silent, contemplating.
Even as she tried to do the right thing, for one point in her life, fate always seemed to conspire to have her take the dirtiest route possible to get there. Her career and Krash’s health, vs Alyster’s reign. Was it really that tough of a call? Alyster would bounce back, surely. He had Chris to fall back on, and doubtlessly he’d be lined up for more chances down the line to do whatever. Can’t say the same for her, and can’t say anything at all for Krash, considering.
And yet, she couldn’t deny that there was a part of her that reveled in fucking Alyster’s world up. Call it an even deal for his antics landing her in the hospital. Call it fair coming for him doing absolutely nothing to help Krash. Call it well-deserved for being such a piece of shit that he wouldn’t even tell her that Krash was alive.
So what if she was possibly burning a friendship by agreeing to this contract on behalf of a petty blowhard who was drama fishing.
It’s not like there was any friendship here left to burn, anyway.
With an exhale, she put the pen to the contract, and signed.
People aren’t born bitter.
They're made bitter, through the course of events in their life not going according to plan.
A bitter person is a person who has had their hopes, dreams, and trust shattered, time and time again, until only bitterness remains.
And when bitterness is all a person has left, when the poison inside of them matches the poison outside of them, then one day they'll look at themselves in a mirror, and wonder if it could've ever been anything else.
