Part Two - Lost Weekend

It had only been a day since Paul had unceremoniously frogmarched her from the safety of the hotel room she’d been laying low in, but it felt like an eternity.

Scarlett looked down at her wrist, where a faint hand print resided - the remnant of Paul’s insistence that she stayed in line while in the public exposure of the hotel lobby. The memory of him finding her still sent a chill down her spine - along with the sting and what she knew would be a bruise on her jaw and cheekbone from his latest blows.

The only relief was the fact she’d been able to text Shane before Paul took her phone. It was bad enough that he would now be thinking she didn’t care enough to show up, without him thinking she just wasn’t bothered enough to even tell him.

She cast her mind back over the last few months, trying to pin-point the exact moment when everything changed. When had it all fallen apart? When had she lost the ability to stand up and walk out? To be the strong woman she knew she was? Scarlett knew it wasn’t as simple as that; if she had a concrete starting point then maybe she would have been able to make sense of all of this. Instead, she was lost. It had all crept up on her so suddenly that she was already trapped before she’d even realised there was something not quite right that she needed to run away from.

Paul was Scarlett’s first and only manager. Up until the point she’d met him she’d always gone it alone. Granted, the indy’s were more of a goldfish pond than the shark infested waters of the pro-scene that she was currently residing in - but she’d done okay. Even managed to win the odd title here and there. So when Paul approached her a few weeks before she joined RAW, she was reluctant at first to change a recipe that was already proving to have the potential to be successful. His targeting of her was subtle. Planting the seed of how tough it would be to go it alone, how he could take the stress of contract negotiations and arranging appearances from her shoulders - promised her he’d get her booked in the best of matches.

Scarlett wished she’d known then what she did now. Wished she’d delved deeper into his history or actually thought to get references. Her response would have been very different. More akin to the response given to a cold caller on your doorstep - the door slammed in his face, but she hadn’t known and that was not her response. Hindsight is a wonderful eye opener.

---

“What the hell are you doing in there?” The sound of Paul’s voice through the flimsy bathroom door shocked Scarlett back to her current surroundings; a grotty bathroom consisting of a small shower cubicle, which was only fit for the half a dozen spiders currently roaming free along it’s yellow tinged tiles; a solitary wash basin and a toilet. It was hardly the height of luxury. Jesus, it was barely even fit for human inhabitance. That was the least of Scarlett’s worries at the moment. She knew she couldn’t fix the entire situation today but if she could just, somehow, manage to convince Paul to let her go, then she had an idea of how she could.

“I’m nearly finished.” Scarlett’s voice sounded strange in her own ears. The tremble of fear it held made her want to scream at her own weakness. This wasn’t her. She was a pro-wrestler, she’d fought men, and women for that matter, who were bigger and stronger than Paul - so why couldn’t she just stand up to him?

She fought with the rusted faucet on the stained washbasin, finally managing to turn it enough to release a small trickle of water; although, describing the brownish liquid coming from it as water was a stretch at best. “On second thoughts,” she muttered.

Scarlett ran a slightly shaking hand through her tousled hair, desperately trying to compose herself. She wrapped her fingers around the door knob, inhaling a large lungful of air and then exhaling it as she slowly pulled it towards her.

Paul stood, arms crossed in the doorway in front of her; the scowl on his face told Scarlett that she’d pushed her luck with the amount of time she’d spent locked away in the bathroom. “You took your fucking time, didn’t you?” he snapped.  Wrapping his hand tightly around her wrist he gave a short sharp yank, pulling her through the doorway and propelling her into a dingy motel room. Just as suddenly as he’d propelled her, he released his grasp. With the speed of move Scarlett, unable to regain her balance, fell to the floor in a heap. “Now, look what you did! You’re absolutely fucking useless, I swear I don’t know why I bother. You’re a waste of oxygen. Maybe if you spent more time on your career and less time on social media acting like a two-bit tramp, you’d actually accomplish something.”

Paul spat the words out with such venom that Scarlett physically recoiled from them. The lack of shock in her eyes a tell-tale sign that she wasn’t unaccustomed to this kind of onslaught.“Paul, please….” Scarlett’s voice trailed off. She knew that begging him, pleading with him, none of it would work. She’d tried it so many times before. If anything her pleas seemed to make him worse.

As Paul stepped back he laughed; he enjoyed the power he held, the fear that he was able to instill through his cruel treatment. It was the only way he’d ever been able to have any power, so he played it to his full advantage - using whatever means he had at his disposal. He’d make them all feel as he had. Why should he be the only one to suffer? His pain was sated by her anguish and that’s why, no matter how much she cried, begged or pleaded, he would continue.

“Paul, you have to think about this logically. People are going to realise I’m missing, they’ll come looking for me.” Scarlett’s voice trembled but she held her head up; looking at Paul for any indication that her words were reaching him. She was desperately trying to ignite any kind of spark of humanity in him. Trying to reason with the man behind the monster. “I’m under contract at BFW Paul, you know that. The alarm bells will ring when I don’t turn up for work and there’s….” her voice trailed off. Shane’s name caught in her throat before she could speak it out loud. How much she wished he was there right now was immeasurable.

The seconds ticked by slowly as Paul simply stared at Scarlett’s tear stained face. Instead of compassion a look of victory tinged his features. “You really think they care about you? You think they’ll send out the search parties for some bottom of the rung slut? You’re there as eye candy, nothing more. I’m doing them a favour, this way they get to cancel your contract without the legal nonsense.”

A sudden realisation hit Scarlett like a sledgehammer; he had no intentions of letting her go - ever. This was it. She’d found Shane and with him, the strength she’d always had inside and Paul knew that. He knew his manipulations and mental torture would no longer suffice to keep her dutifully toeing the line. So this was the end? Scarlett couldn’t let herself go out this way, not now, not like this.

Scarlett pulled herself into a seated position using the shabby bed as a support. She knew she had to time any attempt to escape perfectly. In her current position he held the cards, she wouldn’t be able to defend herself from this angle and he knew that. “You don’t need to do this, look at me Paul, I’m your friend. I can help you. It doesn’t have to be this way.” She tried to sound genuine. At that moment she would have told him, promised him anything.

For a split second a look crossed Paul’s face. Scarlett couldn’t be sure but she thought her words were, perhaps, just a little starting to get to him. She didn’t dare run the risk of pushing it too far. The last thing she needed now was to push it too far and undo all the progress she was seeming to make. Instead she slowly and carefully pushed herself up to gingerly sit on the edge of the bed, ensuring her movements were non-offensive.

“Nobody needs to know what’s happened here Paul,” she almost whispered in a compassionate tone. “All you have to do is let me go, that will be it, the end of it.”

The silence in the room was palpable. Scarlett perched on the edge of bed, preparing for whichever way this was going to go. Would she need to strike to defend herself? Perhaps making a run towards the external door would be the best option - she was sure he had locked that though.

Paul looked down at Scarlett with an unreadable expression. Maybe her words had reached him finally. Maybe her calming tone and assurances of help had caught hold of some human feeling inside him. His quick lunge forward towards Scarlett showed her that, that was wishful thinking. The light reflected off of the metal object in his right hand as he caught her wrist and made to pull her into a standing position. “I have to do this, there’s no other way it can end. Everything will be better afterwards, it always is. Don’t worry though it won’t hurt for too long,” he said coldly as he raised the knife.

The adrenaline pumping through her body told her she was ready. It was time. One way or another this was going to come to an end. Scarlett used the momentum from Paul pulling her towards him to step to his side, narrowly avoiding the blade in his hand. The movement left a shift in their positions, roles had been reversed, he was now the one with his back against the bed. The open space behind Scarlett made her feel free, no longer trapped; it was the feeling she needed to fight and this was a fight for her life, she had no choice but to win.

Raising her hands slightly in front of her while slowly stepping backwards,she tried to placate him. “Just put it down Paul, it doesn’t have to be this way. I know you think it does, but it really doesn’t.” Scarlett carried on backing away towards the door as she spoke. “This doesn’t have to end badly, it just needs to end.”

Paul stared at Scarlett through glassy eyes. She knew that meant he was unreachable. Whatever small impact her words were having was gone, there was no talking to him now. Her years of training, of wrestling, of fighting, finally awoke inside her; stancing herself she prepared for his attack. This wasn’t a contest for bragging rights or a Championship belt. This was life or death.

As he lunged towards her she watched his direction as the knife aimed towards her chest. Raising her arm she blocked the blow and feeling the cold metal against her bare skin made her adrenaline levels rise rapidly. Grabbing his wrist she struggled to keep the blade away from her body, trying desperately to free it from his grasp. For the first time since this torture had begun, she was in control, she knew that and soon so would he.

Scarlett darted her eyes around the room looking for something, anything she could use to subdue Paul; there it was finally, the answer to her prayers. At the side of the bed sat an ornate brass lamp, in her mind, Scarlett calculated the path from her current position to it. It was possible, she could do it. One step sideways, a quick dash and then that would be it. Her natural instincts kicked in. Reaching the lamp took seconds but felt like a lifetime, she swung, flinching at the sound of the brass connecting with Paul’s skull.

Paul crashed to the floor in a heap. The nightmare was over, she was finally free. Carefully she kicked the knife away from his hand. She knew he was out cold but Scarlett didn't want to take any chances now that she was so close to being free.

Crouching down carefully she slid her hand into his pocket, retrieving her confiscated phone. She set it on the floor beside her and turned on the speakerphone. Reaching carefully into Paul’s collar Scarlett checked his pulse while quickly pressing 3 numbers on the phone. “911, What's your emergency….”