Coming up to the house, you could almost feel the dark clouds of sorrow overhead.
Taylor Wilde drove up the long driveway to the Kazarians’ home, just outside of Anaheim, California, unsure of what she intended to do once she got there.
With her was Matt Hardy, whom she had known since her time in WWE’s developmental system.
He has always been a rather supportive friend, and asked to come along when Taylor told him that she had intended to visit Traci Brooks the week before.
She wasn’t sure she should bring him along.
He barely knew Traci, or Frankie, for that matter.
They may have met a handful of times in passing, as many wrestlers do, but as they primarily worked in competing companies, she was worried that involving Matt in what was purely a TNA situation may not go over well with her co-workers, no matter how well-intended.
Matt, too, was concerned.
Concerned for Taylor’s well-being, above all else.
While Taylor has long been able to handle her business inside the ring, outside of the ring, she tends to be more trusting than she sometimes ought, allowing her kind nature to blind her to real and present danger.
And considering the many enemies Frankie Kazarian has made over the past few weeks, it’s likely that Traci, and anyone she’s associated with, are walking targets just waiting to be hit.
Nearly two weeks ago, an attempt was made on Hulk Hogan’s life.
Frankie Kazarian, under the guise of ‘Suicide’, had broken into Hogan’s office at the Impact Zone and attempted to strangle Hogan to death with a cable taken from a nearby production truck.
Security acted quickly, and Kazarian was captured.
He was then transported to Bellevue Hospital in New York City, where, coincidentally enough, Dr. Steven Richards holds a residency.
Dr. Stevie, as you may know, also works for TNA, acting as a counselor to its employees.
After a failed attempt to treat Frankie, Dr. Stevie committed Kazarian to Bellevue’s Mental Health Ward, where he is currently held against his will.
Due to the severe nature of his condition, Frankie has been denied visitation, leaving his newlywed wife, Traci Brooks, with no other option than to go home and attempt to hold together what life she has left.
Unfortunately, for her… for all of us… life just isn’t as simple as we’d like it to be.
Traci sits alone in her home, curled up in a ball on her couch, allowing the silence to surround her.
It’s been weeks since she’s last seen or heard from her husband.
She has no earthly idea what is going on, or why.
All she knows is that her husband is gone, leaving a murderous, rampaging lunatic named Suicide in his place.
She thought she knew him, that she understood what motivated him.
She thought ‘Suicide’ was just a character Frankie played on TV, nothing more.
That ‘Suicide’ was just a costume, not a dark, sinister persona hell-bent on killing the Savior of TNA.
Why wouldn’t he have told her this?
Didn’t he think she’d understand?
Or, perhaps, he didn’t say anything because he knew that she would try to stop him, to somehow talk him out of it.
After all, she did love him.
Did he love her?
All this time, was their relationship a lie?
Was he Suicide this whole time, using her for whatever purposes he saw fit?
Dr. Stevie had told her that Suicide claimed Frankie died in 2008, the day Dixie Carter approached him about dropping the ‘Kaz’ persona and adopting a new character, based on the upcoming TNA Impact video game.
Could it be that, this whole time they were together, ‘Frankie’ was nothing more than one of Suicide’s lies?
She couldn’t bear the thought, yet it always returned to her like a bad dream she was unable to wake from.
The doorbell rings.
A blessed distraction!
Whoever it could be and whatever reason they could be here, it was preferable to the thoughts floating around in Traci’s head.
She walked to the door and opened to see Taylor Wilde and Matt Hardy with concerned looks on their faces.
“Hi, Traci,” Taylor said.
“I’d ask how you’re doing, but…”
Traci, glad to see just about anyone even remotely supportive at the given moment, hugged Taylor and began crying.
“Is there… anything I can do to…?” Matt stammered, not knowing what to do here.
Taylor looked over to Matt, as if to say, ‘not now’.
Matt took this as a nonverbal cue to stand back and keep quiet.
Traci looked up for a moment, and upon seeing Matt Hardy, released Taylor and attempted to compose herself.
“I’m sorry,” Traci mumbled.
“I… um… Come in, please.”
Traci nervously moved back, self-conscious about her apparent emotion, allowing Taylor and Matt Hardy to enter.
“Sorry about the mess.
Things have been…”
“Traci, stop,” Taylor said to her, putting her arm around Traci gently.
“Let’s sit down, okay?”
“Yeah,” she said to Taylor.
Looking to Matt, Traci tells him, “the living room is over this way.”
Traci and Taylor walk off as Matt Hardy follows behind.
Matt looks around a bit, noticing the various pictures of Traci, Frankie, and friends scattered about the house.
To look at these pictures, one would believe the Kazarians were just an ordinary, happy couple.
You would never believe for a second they were otherwise.
In the living room, Traci and Taylor take a seat on the couch as Matt Hardy continues to look around the room.
“I must seem like a terrible host,” Traci began.
“Traci, it’s okay,” Taylor said.
“We should have called.”
Looking over to Matt, who was still looking at the various picture frames sitting on the Kazarians’ mantle, Taylor said, “Matt!”
“Sorry,” Matt said, turning his attention back to Taylor and Traci.
“I was just…”
“It’s all right,” Traci said.
“You didn’t really know Frankie that well, did you?”
“No,” Matt answered.
“Not really.
Jeff did, though.
Said he was a good guy.”
“Yeah, he is,” Traci said, “or… was, I guess.
I really don’t know anymore.”
“Well,” Taylor began, “if you want to talk about it, we’re here.
I want you to know, Traci, you still have friends, and we’re all here for you.”
“Thank you,” Traci said.
“Both of you.
It’s been hard these past few weeks.
Not knowing…”
“So…” Matt said, hesitating for a moment before taking a seat next to Traci, “What exactly happened?
Do you know?”
“Not really.
I just know what the newspapers have been saying,” Traci answered.
“Beyond that, no one really knows what’s going on, and the people who do aren’t telling me anything.”
“Dr. Stevie’s been treating him, though, right?” Matt asked.
“Matt!
Stop it!
We’re not here to interrogate her!” Taylor interjected.
“It’s okay,” Traci said to Taylor.
“I don’t mind.
These days, it’s just enough to stop me from thinking the worst, you know?”
“What do you mean?” Taylor asked.
“I mean,” Traci began, “what if he never comes back?
Or, even if he does, if he even still loves me.”
“Traci,” Taylor said, “of course he still loves you!”
“Does he?” Traci stated.
“Seriously, I don’t know who this man is anymore.
He tells me he’s Frankie Kazarian.
Tells me he loves me.
Tells me he wants to spend the rest of his life with me.
Marries me.
And the next week, I find out he’s been living a double life as Suicide this whole time, plotting revenge on Dixie Carter and conspiring to kill Hulk Hogan.
I don’t even know if the man I loved, the man I fell in love with, is even the man I thought I knew.
For all I know, Frankie Kazarian never existed, and I was just some pawn in one of Suicide’s evil plots!”
“Traci, stop it!” Taylor said.
“You’re talking crazy!”
“Am I, Taylor?” Traci asked.
“A month ago, I thought I knew just about everything I’d ever need to know about Frankie Kazarian.
And now?
I don’t even know what to tell your friend about him.”
“I’m sorry,” Matt said.
“I shouldn’t have…”
“No,” Traci interrupted.
“You’re fine.
Dr. Stevie just did the initial diagnosis.
He’s being treated by the Belleview Staff, and they won’t tell me anything.
All they said was that he was too unstable for visitors, and that it wasn’t safe for me to see him right now.
They told me to go home, and that they’d call me when he was well enough to speak to.”
“So Dr. Stevie hasn’t seen him since Frankie was committed, then,” Matt figured.
“If he has, he hasn’t said anything to me about it,” Traci told him.
“All I know is, Chris… Chris Daniels… you know him, right?”
“Yeah,” Matt replied.
“Okay, well, Chris told me that Stevie’s been in Orlando for the past couple weeks,” Traci concluded.
“Maybe he caught a flight in the meantime and saw Frankie, but as far as anyone knows, he hasn’t seen Frankie since the commitment.”
As she finished her sentence, the doorbell rings again.
“You expecting anyone?” Matt asked Traci.
“Not really,” she answered.
“Might be Chris.
He said he was going to try to come over sometime this week, maybe, if he could.”
“Okay,” Matt said.
“I’ll get the door.
You two stay here and… yeah…”
As Matt walked away, Traci looked to Taylor and said, “You’re lucky to have a guy like that looking out for you.”
“I don’t know,” Taylor replied.
“Sometimes, I think he’s just paranoid.
He’s so used to taking care of his brother… Sometimes, I think all I am to the guy is someone else to worry about.”
“It means that he cares, Taylor,” Traci said.
“Believe me, I know.
Frankie was the same way with me.”
Meanwhile, as the doorbell continues to ring, Matt Hardy makes his way to the front door.
Once there, he reaches for the knob and opens the door to see…
“Hi, honey!
We’re home!”
…The Nasty Boys, Knobbs and Sags, wielding baseball bats, each carrying a pink slip, one with Traci’s name on it, Frankie’s on the other.
Matt Hardy tried to close the door, but Sags forced his way through, pushing Matt to the ground.
As Brian Knobbs entered the Kazarian home, he declared in a loud, booming voice, “On behalf of Dixie Carter and Hulk Hogan, we hereby terminate your contract with TNA Wrestling, affective… well… NOW!”
Knobbs then proceeded to swing his bat violently into the nearest wall, smashing a frame with pictures of the Kazarians’.
In the next room, Taylor and Traci hear the ruckus.
“What’s going on?” Taylor asked.
Traci responds, “I have no idea.”
Back at the front door, Matt Hardy valiantly rises to his feet, ready to face the Nasty Boys head on.
“All right, boys,” Matt Hardy began.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, but there’s no way you’re just going to barge in here unannounced and…”
*THUD*
Jerry Sags swings his bat directly into Matt Hardy’s gut, knocking the wind out of him and possibly breaking some ribs.
Matt falls to his knees as the Nasty Boys laugh.
“You were saying, tough guy?” Sags taunted.
Knobbs continued to swing his bat violently, breaking various objects in the Kazarians’ home.
“I said…” Matt Hardy gasped, struggling to his feet.
With a violent blow, Sags felled Hardy once again, this time, across the back, knocking Matt face-first to the floor.
“Hey, Knobbs,” Sags shouted, “looks like we got a hero on our hands here.” Sags grabbed Hardy by the shirt, pulled him off the ground, and looked at Matt eye to eye.
“You wanna play hero, tough guy?”
“Matt Hardy… will… not… DIE!!!” Matt gasped, defiantly.
“We’ll see about that, tough guy!” Sags threw Hardy up against the wall and shouted, “Batter up!”
Knobbs and Sags then proceeded to beat Matt Hardy with their baseball bats, smacking Hardy repeatedly back into the wall.
Taylor Wilde ran into the hall towards the door to see what the noise was, just to see the violent beatdown for herself.
“Oh my God!” Taylor gasped.
“Matt!”
Upon hearing that, Knobbs and Sags turned to see Taylor, staring in horror and shock as the badly beaten Matt Hardy coughed up blood.
“Well, if it isn’t our lucky day!” Sags said.
“Hey, Knobbs, don’t we have something for Taylor Wilde?”
Knobbs drug around inside his pants until he pulled out yet another pink slip, “I do believe we do, Sags!”
Approaching the former Knockouts Champion, Knobbs declared, “On behalf of Dixie Carter and Hulk Hogan, we hereby terminate your contract with TNA Wrestling, affective immediately!”
“Okay… fine… so I’m fired,” Taylor said to the two goons.
“That doesn’t mean you have to go and break into people’s houses and beat them to death with baseball bats!”
“Oh, please,” Knobbs began, “This is nothing!
You should have seen what we did to Alyssa Flash!
Now THAT… that was fun!”
As the Nasty Boys continued to approach her, Taylor backed up, nervously searching for an escape route.
Unfortunately, she slipped and fell backwards onto the floor, leaving her vulnerable to the Nasty Boys’ advance.
Knobbs reached his greasy hand out, grabbing Taylor by the hair when, suddenly, a tranquilizer dart hits Knobbs in the neck, putting him to sleep immediately.
He releases his grip on Taylor’s hair and falls to the ground.
“What the…?” Sags said, turning around, just to be hit in the throat with a dart as well.
He passes out, falling to the ground next to Knobbs.
Taylor Wilde looks up into the distance and sees a fit brunette dressed as a cheerleader, holding a blowgun.
“Alyssa?” Taylor asked, wondering if the woman in the distance was, in fact, the recently released Alyssa Flash.
“MEL-Lissa, actually,” she corrected.
“Cheerleader Melissa, to be exact.”
“Of course,” Taylor conceded.
“You don’t work for TNA anymore, so you can’t legally call yourself Alyssa Flash.”
“Exactly,” Melissa answered.
“Isn’t pointless exposition fun?”
“Yeah,” Taylor agreed, “especially when it’s being done as dialog between characters in a story.
People just LOVE reading that!”
Traci now enters the hallway to see the fallen bodies of the Nasty Boys, as well as Cheerleader Melissa talking with Taylor Wilde.
“What the…?” Traci gasps, seeing the carnage left in the Nasty Boys’ wake.
Taylor gets up and dashes to the aid of Matt Hardy, who, despite his beating, is still trying to get back to his feet.
“Pretty brutal beating, he took.
He’s lucky to be alive,” Melissa said to Traci.
Kicking Sags, she screams, “Had to beat the poor guy to death, huh?
He doesn’t even work for TNA, moron!”
“What did you do to them?” Traci asked Melissa, looking down at the fallen Nasty Boys.
“Oh, this?” Melissa asked, holding up her blowgun.
“They’re just tranquilizers.
They’ll sleep it off for a few hours.”
Looking down at the Nasty Boys, she screamed, “In the meantime, you and me, we’re going to have a little fun, aren’t we?”
“What were they even doing here?” Traci asked.
“You remember how Bischoff used to FedEx people their releases while they were out hurt and whatnot?” Melissa asked, returning her focus to Traci.
“Yeah,” Traci said.
“Of course.”
“Well,” Melissa said, “they’re the new FedEx.”
“You’re kidding me.
I’m being released?” Traci gasped.
“After everything that’s happened these past few weeks, TNA was just going to fire me?”
“You’re not the only one, hon,” Melissa continued, “seems the new administration is letting go of anyone who doesn’t buy into the ‘new vision’ of TNA.
They released me, Kong, Kip… Looks like they wanted to get rid of you and your boy Frankie, too.”
“I don’t understand,” Traci said.
“I haven’t said or done anything to even give Hogan the impression I wasn’t on board.”
“You didn’t have to,” Melissa said.
“Frankie’s little stunt a few weeks ago was all they needed.
Problem was they had to wait a few weeks before they actually cut you two off, or else Dixie would look bad for firing a guy with a mental illness.”
“So… what do we do now?” Traci asked.
“We?
‘We’ don’t do a damn thing,” Melissa said bluntly.
“You need to get your boy Matt over there to a hospital, stat, then you need to find a place to hide before Hogan and Bischoff decide to do something more than just fire you!”
“What about…?” Traci began.
“Look,” Melissa interrupted.
“I’ve had just about all I can take of this bullsh*t, okay?
Me and the Nasty Boys here have some unfinished business, which is the only reason I’m even here right now.
After that, I’m sending a tape to Vince and trying to get my ass in WWE, where the worst thing I have to worry about is carrying Michelle McCool’s bony ass to a two-star match, okay?
So, if you don’t mind, these tranks aren’t going to last forever, and I’d like to finish up before these two fat-asses wake back up!”
“Sorry,” Traci said, disappointed by Melissa’s attitude.
Meanwhile, down the hall, Taylor attends to the beaten Matt Hardy.
“Matt,” Taylor said, cradling her friend in her arms, “are you okay?”
Coughing blood, Matt manages to gasp out, “I’ve… been better… you?”
“I’m fine,” she replied.
“They didn’t… hurt you… did they?” Matt gasped.
“No,” Taylor said.
“Cheerleader Melissa got here just in time.”
“Who?” Matt asked.
“Cheerleader Melissa.
She used to be Alyssa Flash in TNA,” Taylor answered.
“You’ve met her.
She was at your New Year’s Party, remember?
She was the one who tied Hornswoggle to your Christmas Tree, remember?”
“Oh yeah,” Matt smiled.
“I remember now.
Hornswoggle kept hitting on her all night, and she got sick of it, so she tied him to my Christmas tree and tossed it out the window.
Scary girl…”
“Yeah,” Taylor conceded.
“A little.
But she probably just saved all of our lives.”
“I know you keep telling me that things in TNA are bad,” Matt began, “but I had no idea it was like this.”
“I’m sorry, Matt,” Taylor said.
“I shouldn’t have…”
“Stop,” Matt said, placing his finger on Taylor’s lips.
“It’s not your fault.”
Again, Matt began coughing up blood.
“We have to get you to a hospital,” Taylor noted.
“Traci, you have a phone?”
In the next room, Traci shouts to Taylor, “I’ve already called 911.
An ambulance should be here any minute now.”
“Don’t worry, Matt,” Taylor said.
“Help’s on the way.”
In the background, the sound of clippers can be heard.
Taylor turns around to see Cheerleader Melissa with hair clippers in her hand, shouting maniacally at the fallen Nasty Boys.
She turns back to see Traci rushing to her, taking hold of Matt and helping her hold him up.
“So… what do we do now?”
“Well,” Traci sighed.
“You’re going to the hospital with Matt.”
“What about you?” Taylor asked.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Traci said.