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Summer Sanders; Ash CD
Topic Started: May 31 2017, 10:58 PM (183 Views)
Ash

May 15th, 2017
1:50 p.m.
Des Moines


“Gahhhhh… FUCK!”

Ashlyn sat behind the wheel of the rental, fingers white-knuckling the wheel to distract from the pain that started at her head, stinging with the kiss of alcohol against a fresh wound. The pain would then work its way down into her jaw, somehow, and her neck. Perhaps she was imagining it, but the pain didn’t subside. Seated in the passenger seat was Cassandra McPherson… wrestler-turned-journalist that had become one of her closest acquaintances since reconnecting over the months.

McPherson winced in empathy, retracting her cotton-ball-wielding hand. “I’m sorry! I mean… I know you said you didn’t want to sit in there with the HKW doctor but…” She sighed, looking down at the small bottle of rubbing alcohol. The two were in the parking lot of a Wal Mart, roughly halfway between the arena and the motel the two had chosen to occupy.

“I know. My bad. I wasn’t yelling at you.” Ashlyn groaned, leaning back in the driver’s seat, eyes closed. “Maybe I should’ve stayed.” She shrugged. “I just didn’t want to sit in there and wait for them to cart Artemis in. I didn’t want to…” She trailed off.

“...didn’t want to fight her again?” Cass finished.

Ashlyn laughed bitterly. “Are you kidding me? This is what she wanted.” Her smile faded as the seconds ticked on and she drew a breath, continuing. “I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. I didn’t want to her whatever shit she had to say next.”

Cass’ eyes drifted up toward the cut on Ashlyn’s forehead, suffered at the hands of Alex Reyn. “Do you like this?”

Eyes still closed, Ashlyn threw her hands up a little. “Kinda fuckin’ vague, Cass, don’t you think?”

“Bloodlust Rules,” Cass clarified. “You have someone out there, hitting you in the head as hard as they can, busting you open-- or trying to-- all the time. You have people that take liberties with you because of the position you’re in.” Cassandra gave Ash a look of concern, though the latter would never see it. “How long do you expect to keep going like that?”

“Jesus. I’m not about to fall apart or something.” Ash opened her eyes, gaze drifting toward her friend. “It’s nothing I’m not used to. It proves something. It…” She shrugs, turning to look back out through the windshield. “It prepares you for shit, you know? Like, mentally.”

“What, getting thrown into doors and having metal chairs smashed against your face?”

“The whole aspect,” Ashlyn muttered, tone growing slower as the moments drag on. “Survival.”

“When we were training up in Toronto is this what we were training for?” Cass raised a brow. “To survive?”

Ashlyn rolled her eyes, tiredly letting her head fall to the side, locking eyes with Cass. “I want to kill her.” An inexplicable, faint smile crossed her face. “I don’t wanna survive Artemis Kaiser. I wanna kill her.” She sighed and readjusted herself in her seat for a moment before going on. “We were in Toronto learning how to wrestle, but no matter how much shit Logan saw, and no matter how much he warned us, he didn’t tell us about people like Faith Skyler who wanted to set me on fire. He didn’t tell us about people like the Baroness that were so obsessed with records and fame that they’d fucking kill you for it.” She shook her head a little. “He didn’t tell us about Artemis.”

Cassandra digested all of it, but didn’t say anything. She looked back at Ashlyn intently, letting her know that she was with her for every word.

“I’m tired of being attacked,” Ash went on in the same uncharacteristically quiet tone. “Tired of getting fucked with.” A deep breath. “Really tired.”

With that, Ashlyn turned the keys in the ignition and the engine hummed to life.

“Let me drive,” Cassandra insisted.

Ashlyn opened her mouth, fully prepared to argue, but Cassandra didn’t give her the chance. She unbuckled her seatbelt and pushed open the passenger door, walking around the rear of the vehicle. Rolling her eyes, Ashlyn pushed herself over the console and into the passenger’s seat, allowing Cass to slide into the driver’s. Cass pulled her seatbelt on and turned, giving Ashlyn another glance a she slid the car into Drive.

“You really need to see a doctor or something tomorrow. You don’t look so good.”

“I will.”

“Promise?”

“Mmhmm.”

Cassandra said something else after that and Ashlyn might’ve responded but she couldn’t remember what it was. As soon as the burden of having to drive those last eight miles to the motel was lifted, she was out, drifting off to sleep before they’d even exited the parking lot.



May 17th, 2017
11:22 a.m.
Atlanta


“I wish I didn’t see you so often.”

Dr. Karis Anastas smiled, raising an eyebrow at her young patient, Ashlyn De Luca. Despite being twelve years her senior, Karis always found it easy to relate to Ashlyn. She’d been her first patient, and nine years later, still trusted her with her health, and her thoughts, and her words. Karis had made a promise, as a professional, that she wouldn’t engage Ashlyn outside of their office aside from the occasional, “as luck would have it” encounter at a social function-- but it didn’t stop their conversations from going far beyond what patient-and-doctor demanded.

“I’m accident-prone, I guess,” Ashlyn said toward Dr. Anastas… or as she called her within the confines of her locked office, Karis.

“Yeah? What kind of accident is that, all over your face and your forehead? Fall down the stairs?”

Ashlyn smirked, leaning back on her palms on the medical bed. “Accidentally pissing off all the people that already wanna kill me.”

Karis nodded a little, pushing back Ashlyn’s hair to look at the cut across her forehead, wincing as it disappeared beneath her hairline. “Why didn’t you go get stitches after this happened?”

“It’s not that bad," Ashlyn muttered.

Karis chuckled softly, using her latex-covered finger to rub some type of cream over the wound. “Oh? I forgot you were a doctor, Ash. Forgive me.”

“Ah, it’s because you haven’t learned enough. Come downtown with me and Karen one day. We’ll smoke a blunt. We’ll have some drinks. You’ll basically get the Sparknotes on Ashlyn De Luca.”

Walking toward her desk, scribbling something down on a sheet of paper, Karis laughed aloud, saying with her thick Greek accent, “I’m afraid I don’t smoke blunts.”

Disappointing,” Ashlyn moaned, throwing her head back dramatically. “It’s like you’ve opted out of the finer things in life.”

Karis chuckled softly, finishing whatever she was writing before turning back to Ashlyn. “It’s too late to give you stitches. Keep it covered up though.” Wink. “It looks gross.”

“Brilliant words of reassurance,” Ashlyn murmured.

“Well, it’s not like you would take my advice anyway.”

“And what’s your advice?”

Karis handed Ashlyn the paper, continuing in a soft voice. “Step away from all of this for a while. Find a reason to. Go on a long vacation with your son-- summer’s coming up, right?” She turned away with a sigh as Ashlyn took the sheet from her. “I’m the one that sees up-close… the marks on your skin where your old scars used to be. I know it comes with the territory, but knowing every few weeks you’ll be in here with your head split open again--”

“I don’t even work the kind of schedule some of these other people do,” Ashlyn said, shaking her head. “And you want me to take a break? Karis, it’s not that bad.”

Karis nodded, but it wasn’t in agreeance with Ash. It was at whatever thought had crossed her mind. “It’s a prescription for Vicodin. Nothing new.” A shrug. “If you don’t use them, that’s your choice.”

Ashlyn looked down at the sheet for a few seconds. She turned toward her belongings, sliding the paper into her purse, speaking to Karis without looking back at her. “Karen’s birthday’s coming up. You should come out with us this weekend for a bit. I’m sure you’re not this much of a downer when you’re in a bar, hm?”

Karis’ smile never faded. She looked away for a moment but just a second later, her eyes darted back to Ashlyn. “Be careful.”

“Mmmmm. Ominous.”

Ashlyn smirked at her doctor and turned, walking out of her office. She paused only for a moment, just outside of the office, looking back at Dr. Anastas before continuing down the corridor, allowing the door to drift shut behind her.



May 19th, 2017
7:03 a.m.
Atlanta


“What’s your plan… do you have one?”

Ashlyn spoke the words aloud to herself, blinking herself into consciousness in her bed. She brushed a hand over the bandage that covered the center of her forehead, laughing with a tinge of bitterness.

Artemis.

“Of course not.”

She rolled over in her bed, looking at the packed suitcase that sat by the door. In twenty-four hours she would drag it into the coach section on another plane back to England. It was a process she used to dread, but one that she’d grown helplessly comfortable with. She could sleepwalk through the routine now. Typically she knew what awaited her when she landed… but no such luxury this time. She wasn’t booked to compete for SSWA, but she knew Selena King, the World Champion, would be there. Consequently, CruZe would be there in some capacity. It seemed short-sighted to say that dealing with anything other than Artemis Kaiser was a welcome change. In their own right, Selena and CruZe were just as dangerous. Just as vicious. But it wasn’t Selena’s face that Ashlyn saw every time she dozed off, nor was it CruZe’s. It was Artemis Kaiser’s.

It was infuriating.

“What do I do… what do I do…”

Ashlyn turned her head in the other direction, looking away from her luggage and instead at her dresser. Next to the alarm clock sat the painkillers prescribed by Dr. Anastas… and next to that sat the HKW Bloodlust Championship, faceplate still splashed with crimson. It was unclear whether it was Kaiser’s or her own.

“Gotta figure something out.”

With a groan, Ashlyn rolled herself out of bed and up to her feet. She approached the dresser, leaning forward on her elbows, looking at the blood-stained championship. For seconds she sat there, running her fingers over the gold… over the dried blood caked onto it… over the letters of the name etched into its nameplate…

“Figure it out…”

Ashlyn moved the hand to the small, copper-colored bottle, emptying two of the Vicodin down onto the top of the dresser.

Figure it out.”

And without hesitation, she threw her head back, swallowing the prescription.
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