NaNoWriMo Story Snippets

15. Excerpt from FIEND ZONED 3

This isn't technically a Camp NaNoWriMo project, but I started it in June because @KriSany1 has so patiently and politely kept requesting a sequel. No idea when it'll be done, but here's a bit of the beginning.

Not if, but when. A forboding feeling had been weighing Seth down all day, and he couldn't figure out why. When he saw Bayley heading towards him, face tense with barely contained panic, he was pretty sure when had just become now. "Hey, Bayley. What's up?"

"Hey. Um . . . Is Becky okay?" Bayley tugged at the cuffs of her sleeves, lowering her voice as she looked down the corridor.

Maybe it's not me, Seth thought. Maybe it's the day. It wasn't one of the big four pay-per-views, but most of the titles were still on the line, so it was bound to be a big night. "Yeah. I mean, I think so. As okay as she's been after . . . everything." With no official answer as to what had happened to Becky, all her friends could do was keep an eye on her and watch for relapses. So far, they had managed to keep the worst of it from her family, who just thought she was stressed about work. "Why?" He tried to keep Bayley, Charlotte, and Sasha updated on any strange episodes Becky had, but it was getting more difficult to do because Becky had figured out that everyone was keeping tabs on her and would do her best to stop them from sharing information about her. Seth was changing his phone code almost daily to make sure she couldn't intercept his texts.

Bayley wouldn't quite meet his gaze, which was never a good sign. She was like a younger sister to him and they had been friends since their NXT days, so they didn't have a lot of secrets between them. "Do you have a minute?" she said at last.

"Sure." Seth had been on his way to the men's locker room, but he shouldered his bag instead and followed Bayley, worried by the tension that made her shoulders hunch. When she headed into the women's locker room and held the door open for him, he stopped on the public side of the threshold. "Um, unless it's an emergency, I shouldn't—"

"It's just me and Sash and Charlie," Bayley said, voice curiously flat. "I asked the other girls to stay away for a little while."

Seth did the mental math and came up one name short. "Where's Becky?"

Bayley beckoned him forward. "Come on. We don't want anyone else to see."

That doesn't bode well, Seth thought as he stepped into the women's locker room. It wasn't his first time: during his indie days, if a promotion didn't have any female wrestlers, they used both locker rooms interchangeably, and in the early days of dating Becky, they had often snuck away wherever they could grab a few minutes of privacy. "What's wr—"

The answer to his curtailed question was sitting on one of the benches. Charlotte's face was pinched and unnaturally flushed, tears streaming down her cheeks as Sasha tried to comfort her; her breath was coming in huge gulps, and she kept trying to grab her throat. "Don't," she sobbed. "I don't want her to get in trouble."

"Char, you won't get her in trouble. We promise." Sasha looked up from smoothing back Charlotte's hair to give Seth a grim look.

Seth was already coming to some sickening conclusions on his own, but he knew he needed to hear the whole story. "What happened? What did Becky do?"

Charlotte shook her head firmly, spraying a mist of tears over Sasha's arms. "It's not her fault. I'm fine. I'll be fine. Please don't tell anyone." She hunched over so her hair fell over her shoulders.

"Roman was walking by when it happened," Bayley said quietly, "so I called him in to help. I came to get you as soon as I could." Nodding at Sasha, she swept Charlotte's hair out of the way while Sasha held both of Charlotte's hands down in her lap. "Come on, Charlie. He needs to see."

Though she resisted at first, Charlotte eventually straightened up, tears dripping off her chin, and let Seth look at her neck. Livid red and purplish lines spanned either side, and it took him a moment to recognize them as finger-shaped. "Becky . . . did that?" None of it made sense: Becky and Charlotte had been best friends for years, ring rivalries aside, and Charlotte had been instrumental in helping bring Becky back from the brink.

Sasha let go of Charlotte's hands and handed Seth a phone. "I asked the girls if they would make a happy birthday video for my brother, so I was recording," she explained, queueing up the video for him. "Everything was fine, and then Becky just. . . ."

Charlotte started sobbing again, shaking horribly, and Bayley wrapped her arms around her friend. "Just watch it, Seth. The volume's off, right?"

"Yeah, but . . . he should hear it too. He needs to know." Tapping Seth on the shoulder, Sasha headed into the empty showers. "Keep the volume low," she said softly, adjusting a few settings on her phone before handing it back to him.

The video started off with Bayley and Sasha doing a happy birthday rap. Then Sasha spoke into the camera for a few moments, telling her brother how much she loved him. The next scene was of the other three Horsewomen sitting side by side on the bench, smiling and waving—until Becky's eyes seemed to go yellow. Her hands locked around Charlotte's throat while Bayley was still talking, and then everyone seemed to be yelling. Charlotte managed a few half-screams for help before the pressure of Becky's fingers was too much to bear. Sasha dropped her phone as she rushed forward to help, hollering at Becky to let go. Bayley was doing the same until Seth could hear the door being flung open, crashing into the opposing wall, and then a heart-rending Roman! We need help!

And through it all, guttural and low, was Becky bellowing Let me out! Let me out!