Foster kid Emilia Pérez is placed in a shiny new family and will be starting at a new school, but always finds her way back to her only home after the tragic passing of her parents years ago - the wrestling ring.
Until a stranger falls through the c...
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"Claudio, come on!"
"Millie, I really need you to drop this right now."
The place was nicer than she ever saw it. Cleaner, brighter, and without that rancid odor of sweat, rust, and old takeout. All signs something was definitely wrong. Emilia practically skipped all the way to the old warehouse. While the day itself wasn't all that bad, having made the tenuous first steps in making friends, this was the part of the day she looked forward to for months.
She burst through the door and the excitement drained from her on the spot. It wasn't so much the warehouse they used to transform into a venue every other Saturday as it was a fully functioning gym with new equipment and mirrors lining a whole wall.
She slammed through the main office door and found Claudio at his desk, on his computer, not even jumping at the sound.
The conversation unraveled quickly from 'I missed you' to 'what the fuck happened' right around the time she asked to use the ring in the back.
It was still there, sure, and the whole room it was in looked exactly like the gym used to look, drab and run down, old beyond belief. Still, despite the boys getting to use it, Claudio told Em to pack up and go home.
"I just don't get it!"
There were a lot of things Em didn't get lately, but the way this threw her wasn't something she could come back from as easily as everything else.
He typed something and didn't look up at her, faded scars on his knuckles reminding her he wasn't always just the guy in charge. "I don't know why. It makes perfect sense."
"Since when?" She dropped her schoolbag on the new laminate floor, her practice gear poking through at the side.
"Since forever, okay?"
"It's been three years." Three years of training her ass off whenever she could. Running drills, taking bumps. Jumps, rolls, submissions. Working on promos she'd never use after everyone cleared out.
"Two and a half, by your own admission."
Damn that six months. Damn Greg and Paula Abrams, the creepiest people she ever met, and their cockatiel who caught her trying to sneak out every time. "But now I'm back! I'm ready to get in there!"
"No, you're ready to take a bad bump again cause you don't know when to stop."
If it weren't for that concussion, the family before the Abrams would've kept her. She felt it, knew it in her gut. They were a nice couple who were very concerned with appearing nice, and Em could be nice. She was a pro at 'nice', and 'amiable', and 'charming'— but not being fast enough to put her hands up to brace for hitting a ring post brought down the façade instantly. Three weeks, one bad bump, and a hospital trip later, she was shipped off to Long Island. "But I did stop."
