This is my late birthday present to Surreal, hope you enjoy.
Chapter 8
The week had passed rather slowly. Now it was Sunday night and all though everything seemed fine, it was far from that. Heat was an hour away. Gangrel and Edge were scheduled in a tag team match against the Hardy Boyz. They were still on edge. Someone had tried to kill their younger companion and they were no closer to finding out who as they were when this nightmare had started.
Gangrel looked across the locker room to the bench that Edge and Christian occupied. Edge was leaning against the wall and Christian was propped up against him. He still looked tired and pale. He hated to drag the young man to the ring with them, but they were too afraid to leave him alone. He wouldn't be much help if a fight started, but they wanted to keep an eye on him. Christian hadn't argued about that at all. He had readily agreed to accompany them. Gangrel had noticed that he tended to stay within arms length of at least one of them at all times. They were rarely out of his sight, which was fine with him. Christian was gonna need a lot of help after this.
Edge smiled as he felt his brother shift against him, getting comfortable. He opened his eyes and met Gangrel's curious stare. He smiled and nodded, assuring his friend that everything was fine, before turning his attention to his younger brother. He brushed his hand across his brow, clearing it of a couple of stray strands of hair. Christian's turned his eyes to his brother and smiled. Edge slipped his arm around his shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine, Edge."
"Good. You sure you want to go out with us?"
"Yes." Christian answered a little too quickly.
Edge sighed. Christian was still scared to be alone. He couldn't blame him though; he was scared for him. He leaned back against the wall and waited for Heat to start.
**
The lights dimmed, the music played, and out of the fire rose the Brood. The Hardys and Michael Hayes were already in the ring waiting for them. Gangrel had left his chalice in the locker room, knowing that they would be attacked once they got in the ring.
Edge and Gangrel crawled into the ring and the bell sounded. Edge was a little bothered by the odd looks that the two brothers kept throwing to his. He shook it off and watch as Gangrel went to met Jeff Hardy.
When Gangrel grabbed Jeff, he just barely managed to flip the young man before he was back on his feet. It wasn't because of something Jeff did that caused the slip, it was something Gangrel smelled. "The hotel room. His scent is one of the ones from the hotel and the park." He stood where the Hardys had stood when they had entered the ring and took a deep breath. "They are the ones!" His mind screamed. Something snapped and he let his vampire side take over. He leaped on Jeff Hardy beating him savagely. Matt came in the ring but was tossed aside like a rag doll. Only one word ran through his mind. Revenge. He hissed at the cowering boy and bared his fangs before sinking them into his exposed neck.
Edge had been only half paying attention when Gangrel screwed up his move. He looked at him closely. He had a really odd look on his face and then it looked like he just snapped. He flew at Jeff Hardy with a viciousness Edge had never seen. He caught sight of Christian climbing onto the ropes, fear in his eyes. He jumped over the top rope when Gangrel bit him. He had to get him off. He was gonna kill him. The bell had already been rung, but he wasn't stopping.
Christian reached him first. He grabbed his shoulder only to be flung away. He sailed through the ropes and landed hard on the mat below.
Edge stopped for a second to glance and make sure Christian was okay before grabbing Gangrel with both arms. This gave Matt and Michael Hayes enough time to get Jeff and run.
Gangrel snarled and fought against the arms that held him. "They have to pay. Let me go!"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Christian…" He stopped struggling and looked over to where Christian was trying to climb back into the ring. He broke free of Edge's hold and helped him inside the ring before hugging him tightly to his chest. "My apologies, my friend. I didn't hurt you, did I?"
Christian shook his head. "You just surprised me. I'm okay. What happened?"
Gangrel's eyes clouded over. "I recognized their scents."
"What?" Edge asked from behind.
"Their scents. I smelled three different people the night Christian was attacked and the same three in the park. I couldn't place them until now. It was the Hardys and Hayes. They are the ones who tried to kill Christian."
Chapter 9
The door to the Hardy Boyz locker room flew open as Michael Hayes stormed in. Matt followed closely behind with Jeff, who was leaning on him heavily, blood still flowed down his neck from Gangrel's bite. Matt quickly helped his brother over to a nearby bench and had him lay down while he ran to the bathroom to get a towel and some bandages. He came back out quickly and put the towel to Jeff's neck to stop the flood, only then realizing that Hayes was talking.
"I can't believe this. That little twerp is still alive. They should know by now not to mess with us after what we did. They obviously have not learned their lesson. I guess it is time for another. They will pay for hurting us. With their lives."
Matt looked at Jeff. Hayes was really starting to scare him. After the first blood bath, Hayes had come to them asking for help. He had offered to mentor them and it had sounded like a good idea. It had worked out, too, until the second blood bath that they had received. After that, Hayes seemed to slowly be losing his touch with reality. They liked Michael, but this was going too far. That night they had gone to a local club and had had a fairly good time when Michael came to them with a plan. They had no idea that he was intending on killing the young Goth. Hell, he wasn't much older than they were. The argument that had erupted once they had Christian in the park had been horrible. Hayes had been ballistic. He couldn't believe that they were not gonna help. Both he and Jeff had tried to stop him. But they hadn't tried hard enough and that was going to eat at them for a long time. They remember seeing Christian awake and the fear in his eyes. He felt awful over what they had done to Christian and he knew Jeff did, too. They had even called a local hospital afterward to find out if he was alive or not, only to find that no one had heard of him.
Matt sighed. Things could only get worse. He took a good look at his brother. Jeff was pale and his eyes were distant. Matt didn't really think that he was aware of anything. He pulled the towel away to check the wound. It had almost stopped bleeding, but Jeff had lost a good bit of blood. He pulled his shirt off and used it to wipe some of the sweat of his brother's forehead before he began talking quietly to him. "Jeff? Can you here me?"
Jeff's eyes turned and slowly focused on him.
"You're gonna be okay. Just relax and try to sleep."
He nodded and shut his eyes, leaning his head toward his brother. He was asleep almost instantly.
Matt jumped when the door to their locker room slammed shut. He glanced up only to find Hayes gone. He shook his head. He hadn't heard a word the man said. He shrugged, not caring and turned his attention back to his brother.
He would later regret not hearing what Hayes had said.
Chapter 10
The Brood sat in their dressing room. Well, Christian sat. Gangrel was over in the far corner of the room trying to stop Edge from trashing it.
Edge picked up the chair and threw it against the wall. "I'm gonna kill those bastards!"
"Edge calm down."
"Calm down? Calm down! They tried to kill my little brother and you want me to calm down? Sure. I'll calm down once I rip their arms off and feed it to them!"
"Edge. You're throwing a tantrum isn't helping Christian any." He said motioning to the man in question.
Edge looked over at his brother. Christian hadn't moved from the spot he had originally sat in when they had first entered the room twenty minutes ago. Edge's coat was still draped over his shoulders. His head was down and his hair effectively covered his face. He felt his rage diffuse and he crossed the room in a couple of strides and sat down next to Christian. "Chris? You okay?"
He nodded.
Edge looked at Gangrel, at a loss for what to do.
Christian answered that for him. He leaned against his brother, his head resting on his brother's broad chest. He reached out with his other hand and captured Gangrel's hand and pulled it to him, clutching it like a small child would a toy.
Edge wrapped his arms around him. No one would hurt him again.
Gangrel allowed Christian to keep his hand and he used his other to stroke his hair as he rested on Edge. It took Gangrel a moment before he realized Christian had spoken.
"Why?"
"Why what, Christian?" Gangrel watched as he turned his eyes to him. They were large and frightened.
"Why did they try to kill me? We didn't do anything bad enough to warrant that, did we?"
"No, Christian. We didn't and I don't know the answer to your question. But I can tell you one thing, your brother and I will find out why and make sure it doesn't happen again."
Edge nodded.
Christian smiled slightly. "Thanks, guys. But you have to promise me that you'll be careful. If they are willing to try to kill me, they may be willing to do the same to you and I don't think I could take that. I can't lose you two."
Edge hugged him closer. "You're not gonna lose us. I promise to be careful." He smiled wickedly at his younger sibling before he continued. "Besides, Gangrel's already dead."
Christian chuckled.
"Not funny."
Edge turned his smile to Gangrel. "Well, it could have been worse. We could have been discussing braces and dental hygiene."
"I'll give you dental hygiene." Gangrel said as he barred his fangs, trying to keep the smile off his face.
Christian laughed harder and curled up against Edge.
Chapter 11
Raw is War
The Brood had a tag team match against the Acolytes for the tag team titles.
Christian was originally supposed to fight, but he was still not quite up to par, so Gangrel was fighting for him. He watched from the floor as Gangrel and Edge gave the Acolytes hell. The match was going good, until the lights went out. Christian whipped around, fear gripping his heart. He heard Edge call his name and he started to answer, but something hard hit him in the back of the head and slumped to the floor.
**
The lights had shut out suddenly. Edge had just speared Bradshaw when it happened. "Christian!" He listened for a response but all he could here was the crowd. The lights came on a moment later and he looked for his brother. He was no where to be seen. He rushed over to Gangrel, who was just getting up after being suplexed by Bradshaw. He helped his friend to his feet. "Christian's gone."
"What?" Gangrel turned to face Edge and saw the fear that was clearly written all over his face. They had to find Christian. Screw the belts. He leaped over the ropes and landed neatly where Christian had last been standing. His scent was still strong. "Come on, this way." p>The two men left the Acolytes in the ring stunned as they went to find their missing member.
**
Christian became aware of his surroundings slowly. He was bound and gagged. He head was throbbing and it was cold, but he didn’t think they had left the arena. He was pretty sure he was under the arena in some type of boiler area. “I have to get out of here!” His mind screamed. “They’re gonna kill me!”
He heard footsteps and voices once they got close enough.
“What is this surprise you have to show us?” The voice sounded a lot like Matt Hardy.
“It’s a surprise.” A voice that sounded like Hayes replied.
The door opened and two figure walked in, a third stayed outside the door. “Keep an eye on him. I’ll be right back.” The door shut quickly.
“Him, who?”
“Uh, Matt?” Jeff said taping on his shoulder as he started a Christian.
“Yeah?”
Jeff pointed.
“Holy shit! It’s Christian.”
Both boys approached the young Goth quickly.
Christian couldn’t help but cringe as they reached for him.
“Easy, man. It’s okay. We aren’t gonna hurt you.”
“Yeah. We’re real sorry about what happened. We had no idea he was gonna do that.”
Christian looked up at them with wide eyes. He could tell by their eyes that they were almost as afraid as he was. His mind flashed back to the park and the two masked men who were arguing with the third. He watched as Jeff bent down in front of him and started working on getting his hands free.
Jeff worked as quickly as possible. Christian was shivering beneath his hand and he was pretty sure it was from a mixture of fear and being cold. Matt stood a couple of feet away, searching for something to cut the bonds with. He got his hand free and he immediately wrapped them around himself, not even moving to take the gag out. Matt came back and sat down behind Christian. He cut the gag off and let it slide to the floor. “Better?”
“Y-yes. Th-t-thank you.”
“What the hell is this?”
All three turned to look at the voice. Michael Hayes stood by the door, a gun in his hand.
Chapter 12
Jeff Hardy stood up quickly and stepped between his brother and Christian. He watched as Hayes, his mentor and teacher, stepped into the room. He glared at the two of them before he spoke again.
“I said what the hell are you two doing?”
“We’re letting him go.” Matt said from where he sat on the floor beside Christian.
“Why?”
“Because this is wrong.” Jeff took another step forward. “You can’t just kill him. He doesn’t deserve that. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“He hasn’t done anything wrong! He and his friends have embarrassed us repeatedly. They gave us a blood bath on nation wide television and they haven’t done anything wrong!”
“That’s not worth killing somebody over.”
Hayes looked at both his boys. They could not help but shiver under his insane gaze. This wasn’t their Michael Hayes, their teacher, their friend. This was somebody else entirely.
“I say it is, now move.”
Jeff stood up straighter. “No.”
“Then I’m truly sorry, Jeff, but he must be stopped.” He fired.
Matt watched in horror as Jeff spun around from the impact of the bullet and crumpled to the ground. “Jeff!” He leaped over Christian and rushed to his brother’s side. Blood was flowing out of a wound on his right shoulder and he was unconscious. He yanked his shirt off and tried to stop the blood flow.
Christian watched in horror as Jeff Hardy went down. He had taken a bullet for him. A shadow fell across his vision and he looked up to see Michael Hayes standing over him.
“See what you made me do. You made me hurt one of my boys. It’s time to pay the piper.” He raised the gun, aiming it at the young boy’s head. He watched with a sick fascination as the boy’s blue eyes fixed on the gun. He smiled and started to squeeze the trigger when the door to the room burst open.
“Christian!”
**
Gangrel and Edge were in the hallway when they heard the gun shot. Fearing the worst both rushed head long into the room. They were meet with a horrifying site. Matt Hardy sat in the floor cradling his younger brother, who was bleeding from a gunshot wound to the shoulder. Behind them, Christian knelt on the floor and Hayes stood above his, a gun aimed right between his eyes.
“Christian!” Edge yelled as he ran forward.
Gangrel got there first. Using speed that only vampires possessed, he races over to Hayes knocking the gun from his hand just as it went off. The bullet hit the floor two inches away from Christian. Gangrel picked him up by his collar and tossed his into a nearby wall. He leapt on him and beat him mercilessly until he was unconscious and only stopping then because Christian called him.
Edge let Gangrel have Hayes and he rushed over to him. He dropped down on his knees beside him and enveloped him in a big hug, which Christian returned. He put his hand on his face and tilted his chin up so he could look at him. “Are you alright?”
Christian nodded, not really trusting his voice at the moment. He winced when Edge’s hand probed the gash near his temple.
“Are you sure?”
“No. But I will be.” He leaned into Edge’s embrace and once again felt safe. He vaguely heard sobbing and looked over at the two brothers. Neither had moved and the only sound was Matt’s sobbing and occasional murmuring. He knew Edge wasn’t gonna let go of him anytime soon so he turned his attention to Gangrel, who was busy turning Hayes into a puddle.
“Gangrel?”
Gangrel turned to stare at his young friend with worried eyes. He followed his gaze over to the Hardy’s.
“Help them.”
Gangrel looked at him as if he had lost his mind. They had tried to kill him and he expected them to help him. He saw Edge giving his brother the same look and watched as Edge put his hand to Christian’s forehead, looking for a fever of some kind.
“They didn’t know he was gonna do that. They tried to save me. Jeff took a bullet for me.”
Gangrel nodded. Yes, he would help them. He crossed the room quickly and knelt beside them reaching out to take Jeff’s pulse. Matt turned puff eyes to him. “He’s alive, but he needs to get to a doctor.”
“Michael,” he said between sobs, “has a cell phone.”
Gangrel nodded and quickly collected it and dialed 911.
Edge leaned against the wall and pulled Christian with him. He felt his weight settle on him more and listened as his younger brother started to relax a little. His brother was safe in his arms and that was all that mattered.
Epilogue
Two Days Later
Jeff Hardy got to the hospital in time and the doctors were able to save him. He was still there with his brother close by his side.
**
Gangrel got up off the couch and stretched. “It’s almost sunrise, time for me to turn in.”
“Good morning, Gangrel.” The two brothers chimed in unison.
He turned to glare at them. Edge sat in the middle of the sofa and Christian was draped across him, half-awake, watching the TV. Edge was absently running his hand through Christian’s hair. He couldn’t help but smile. If anything, this incident had only brought them closer together. All of them. He started off into the back and was just closing the door when Christian called out.
“Hey, Gangrel. You may wanna stay up for a few more minutes. Dracula Dead and Loving It is coming on.” He could hear the smile in his voice and barely made out Edge’s slight chuckle.
“No thank you.”
He listened as they both broke into laughter. Yes, things were finally getting back to normal.
**
Michael Hayes stared at the padded white walls that held him prisoner. He would get out. He knew he could and when he did, he would have his revenge.
The End.
Happy late Birthday, Surreal.
Disclaimer: I don’t own these guys and I’m not making any money.
