Peering between the tatty curtains, a low afternoon sun crystallised a cross-section of dust that hung heavy in the stuffy air. What scant light penetrated the dense atmosphere fell upon a scene of squalor; food-encrusted plates, ripe clothing and week-old newspapers creating a festering tapestry of a floor.

In the shadows, a gnawed mattress floated upon the queasy sea, barbed springs stabbing out through the grimy off-white fabric. Mummified within a stained duvet, the apartment’s tenant - Aaron Roberts - numbed the dull ache of another day the cheapest way he could. A foot hung off the mattress, fungal-nailed toe poking through the hole in a sweat-starched sock and smearing tacky ketchup across last night’s hairy dinner plate.

Aaron Roberts was face-down the gutter and, living under a suffocating smog of depression, had forgotten what it was like to look up at the stars.

Back when his trademark bushy, rich mahogany moustache wasn’t choked in the wild undergrowth of a greying beard, the comically villainous Magnum Wolf was the most unlikely cult favourite of the mid-south independent wrestling scene. While younger specimens with infinitely more athletic prowess were bouncing off their heads twenty times a night to be noticed, all Roberts needed was the aforementioned ‘tache, a balled up sock to create his attention-grabbing ‘package’ and a finisher called The Donkey Punch to get himself over.

“Hyuh… yes, I’ll have… no, it’s Monday… he’s… crimson… he’s not dead… no body… flying… an angel…”

A sleep-twitch shocked his body, kicking the dinner plate over to reveal a rare glimpse of stained, fraying carpet. From the muffling confines of his mottled duvet, Roberts rambled incoherently, head whipping from side to side, torment finding him even in his escapist slumber.

“…no, devil… here, here cat…don‘t speak of him… smile… I see his smile… late… late for…”

The shrill ring of an archaic cellphone rudely awakened Roberts. Tightly wound, his arms flailed about violently to shed his grotty duvet. Icy perspiration forced itself to the surface of Roberts’ skin, dense hair becoming sodden in the blink of a baggy, blood-shot eye. Clammy hands fumbled about in the dark, the rattle of pill bottles playing percussion alongside the chimes of emptied bottles. His temper fully awakened before delicate senses, Roberts lashed out at the pizza box that had substituted for a bedside table, the phone’s incessant wail maddening.

Behind the phone’s cracked display, its LCD display had bled into a Rorschach blotch.

“Wh-…” A sudden, violent cough purged his arid throat of phlegm, almost stripping it raw. “What?”

He recognised the caller’s voice almost instantly. They’d called him Magz. It was a name which his fondness of had been eroded down to a lonely, bitter grain with every passing year.

Panicked, flittering eyes began to focus under the spiteful landslide of his bushy brow. A scowl peeled his cracked top lip back to show gnashing teeth, plaque grouting them to his pale gums.

“Go fuck yourself,” Roberts hissed, his voice as strained as the muscles clamping his jaw shut.

Four bludgeons of his weathered thumb failed to end the call, the buttons stubborn in their old age. Tense fingers almost cracking the phone’s plastic shell, he stabbed a finger down into the off button, succeeding only in bleaching his scuffed nail milky white. The muscles in his neck tensed, pushing up into blotchy skin as he hurled the phone against the wall. To his despair, Roberts’ weary eyes watched as the ancient phone bounced unscathed onto the mattress beside him, a fine shower of plaster dust falling around it.

Resigned, Roberts held the phone back to his ear.

“Been six years,” Roberts growled. “What could you possibly have to say to me… and why would I wanna listen to a fuckin’ word of it.”

The tinny voice called out distantly from within the battered cellphone, causing Roberts to press it hard against his ear to capture the words. Roberts’ reluctance to listen waned as his lifeless eyes defied the burden of their heavy lids, peering out into the squalid world he’d crawled down in to. Ashamed to even look at himself, every mirror Aaron Roberts owned had been smashed, the scars on his knuckles keeping a tally.

“Just gimme a name,” Roberts curtly interrupted. “It’s twenty-five bucks an hour plus expenses, but just for you, I’m doublin’ it… and I’ll be sure to be all thorough, like.”

Scratching a living digging up dirt on others, Roberts traipsed plenty of it back with him.

Once the bright lights were no longer shining on him, he blended back in with the herd a little too easily. Once the cheers and jeers stopped following him around, nobody really had much at all to saw to him.

Once the camera flashes subsided, he simply… wasn’t there.

He was unremarkable.

When drinking away all recollection of his glory days cost more than they’d earned him, Aaron Roberts found himself a profession which exploited the fact that the only people who could remember his face were his landlady, the graveyard shifters at the corner store and an Estonian prostitute who’d undercut the Ukrainians by $5 on a slow night.

“Oh, and Kannon?” Roberts sneered, their brief business concluded. “Just ‘cause I’ll take your money, don’t mean I stopped thinkin’ you’re a selfish cu-”

The line went dead, just as Magnum Wolf‘s career had six years ago when Christian Alexander Kannon pulled his promotion from under Aaron Roberts‘ feet.

“-nt.”

With a luscious, endless mane of copper hair floweing behind her like a bridal train, it were as if she had floated out of the pages of Rapunzel. A glittering of light freckles tumbled from the bridge of her nose to her cheekbones. Her ethereal white dress surrendered to the breeze skipping off the Caribbean, its rippling making her appear to shimmer as it glowed in the blazing midday sun. From within the blinding, heavenly aura which engulfed her, a pair of vivid emerald-green eyes looked fondly down upon Merlin Bay. It was as close to a home as the untamed, child-of-the-world Isabelle Kannon was comfortable having.

Basking in the invigorating heat of the Barbados sun on her youthful face, Isabelle dropped her head back, the curling ends of cascading hair brushing the sandy path.

Down the winding path she flowed, a glorious chorus of birdsong and applause from the breeze-rippled trees welcoming her home. Kicking her ballet pumps into the flowerbed, Isabelle snuck on tip-toes along the balance-beam of bricks bordering the gravel, gracefully dismounting onto the poolside paving so softly that a pin dropping would have drowned it out.

A cold shock of surprise juddered Christian Alexander Kannon as a splash erupted behind him; Isabelle for once forfeiting grace for effect. As warm pool water crashed against his bare back, Kannon flung his copy of Dianetics: The Original Thesis (he was a fan of the classics) aside to steady his toppling poolside chair. Swallowing his heart back down, the flustered Kannon sprung up to the sight of his sister emerging from his pool, decorated fingernails combing her endless hair from refreshed face.

“Been looking forward to that for hours,” she announced, as giddy as she was sodden. “Oh, and hey!”

“Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?” he asked as his tattooed arms welcomed his little sister home. “I’d of picked you up.”

“I think I like surprising you better,” Isabelle answered, infectious smile ripe with mischief. “Oh, and your book kind of went for a swim. Water’s nice, though.”

“So… how was India?” Christian enquired, pre-judgement weighing down every word. “Squalid? Filthy? Dry?”

“Fascinating, actually,” she beamed back. “Cambodia, too. Just so… humbling.“

Gushing, Isabelle tenderly cradled the hand-carved necklace that had been bestowed upon her on her travels.

Isabelle Kannon was a young woman who couldn’t find comfort in one place. Just a few nights in the same hotel cast a dull veil of familiarity down over her vivid, eager eyes. She could walk a hundred feet from where she stood and feel the purest sand give way beneath her feet, or hear the soothing lick of the foamy waves as they tickled her toes.

But it would be the same sand the next day, the same surf the day after that.

“But you know this is my favourite place on earth,” she conceded to her protective older brother. “If that’s what you were oh-so-subtly hinting at in your own, um, unmistakable way. Even if I don’t spend as much time here as I should.”

“Well, since you’re here now, let me go grab your bags,” Kannon offered, wrapping up his curiously at her lack of luggage into a neat parcel of kindness.

“Um, they’re going to be coming a little bit later,” Isabelle revealed, her lips unable to straighten out a secretive smile. “Long story; lots of drama. I’ll tell you about it later because - right now - I want to catch up with the glowing mother of my soon-to-be beautiful niece or classically handsome nephew. So, c’mon, where’s Ellie hiding at?”

“Iz, there’s something you should know,” he called after Isabelle, the concern on his voice lassoing her. “We didn’t… she didn’t want to ruin your trip.”

“What do you mean something I should know?” she demanded to know. Isabelle only meant for the distances spent from her family to be geographical, not emotional, so the thought that Christian was holding something back flushed her words with sudden anger. Eleanor wasn‘t just her sister-in-law; she was her friend. “Chris, what’s wrong?”

“Iz.. she miscarried three weeks ago.”

Christian followed in his sister’s wet footprints down the hallway.

Trophies of his wrestling days looked down upon him; framed black and white photos of bloody, gruelling, triumphant victories and lavish replica belts engraved with name Xavier Kannon. But for this walk, in each photo, his head was thrown back in despair, not jubilation. For this walk, every once-glistening belt respectfully - mournfully - withdrew from the light.

The door was ajar, and through it he watched as Eleanor clung to a sodden Isabelle. For three weeks, the grief had festered within his wife, Christian’s words - no matter how sincere - unable to bleed it from her. For three weeks, the heaviest of emotions had sunk deep within her, brewing stronger. He’d had to watch as Eleanor locked it under the surface, beneath a permafrost.

It began with a single tear trickling down her cheek. Then, as Isabelle whispered into her ear words that would forever stay between only them, Eleanor cracked. A stuttering sob fought its way to the surface, welling up tired, anaemic eyes. Stood in the doorway, Kannon watched as his wife finally let go, a primal outpouring of grief that wilted her down to Isabelle’s feet where she clung tightly to her sister-in-law’s damp dress.

It was more than Christian could take, his head dropping and gravitating away as he retraced Isabelle’s wet footprints back along the hallway.

Brendan Grace’s fist stalled a few inches short of the Kannons’ front door.

Lips puckering, he sucked in a deep breath, steadying nerves and hand. Clawing at the collar of his sweat-soaked t-shirt, Grace flushed his scorching lungs with another cooling breath, but his pores remained gaping, sweat dissolving styling wax to leave his forehead tacky. A hand ran through sandy blonde hair, plastering it back.

“Just knock on the door,” Brendan urged. “Just knock on the door.”

Stooping down, Grace loaded Isabelle Kannon’s bags onto him, face showing the strain as straps dug into his shoulders.

Knock, knock.

There was no turning back now.

Suddenly, Merlin Bay fell silent. The birds improvised a suspenseful pause into their chorus, while the sea stifled its next crashing wave. Brendan felt a thunderous heartbeat shudder his ribcage as the door opened.

Christian Alexander Kannon’s judgemental glare fell upon Brendan Grace. A choppy mess of blonde hair was matted down with the same sticky sweat which flowed down his flushed face, dripping off his heavy brow and past icy blue eyes until a thin beard mopped it up. Around his neck a beaded necklace hung just under the collar of a grey Affliction t-shirt where a triangle of sweat darkened the fabric.

“Yes?” Kannon rudely prodded.

“Um, hi, er, Mr Kannon?” Grace spilled, words tripping each other up as they tumbled off of his arid tongue. “I’m, er, you don’t know me, but, I, um, I w-”

“What do you want?” an impatient Christian demanded, filling the doorway as arms folded defensively across his chest. “Try it in one attempt this time.”

The heavy burden of Kannon’s stare piled onto the dead weight of Isabelle’s luggage.

“I’m, er, Brendan… Brendan Grace, I, um, Isab-”

“I told you to be nice to him,” Isabelle reminded her brother with an elbow nudge to the ribs as she slithered herself in beside him. “Christian, this is Brendan…my ever-so-dashing knight in shining armour.”

At the most polite, Kannon’s eye-brow arching look could have been read as, him… really? At the most polite, Isabelle’s narrow-eyed look could have been read as, behave, you.

Before Brendan could attempt another stuttering introduction, Isabelle had wormed her way past Christian and - much to his displeasure - clamped onto Brendan with a suffocating hug. His body locked down by Isabelle and her luggage, Brendan Grace was left facing the overbearing glare of Christian Alexander Kannon.

It was less than welcoming.

“I’m, er, I’m a little sweaty,” he apologised to Isabelle, ensnared eyes unable to break from Christian’s. “I , um, couldn’t get a cab all the way so I, er, well, took the, um, scenic route for the last hour or two.”

“You poor thing,” Isabelle fawned, detaching herself and mopping his burning brow with her headscarf. “Come in, and please dump those bags of mine before you pull something.”

“Um, can I just say that’s it, er, it’s an honour to meet you Xavi-… er, sorry, Christian,” an overawed Brendan rambled as he reached out a trembling hand. “I’ve been a massive fan for, um, well, years… which is why, I, er, I came here to ask you if you, um, if you‘d train m-”

“Er, Brendan, about that,” Isabelle interrupted, regret draining the volume from her words as teeth bit down into her lip. “Now might not be the best time. I’m really, really sorry.”

“Oh, I, sorry…” weakly trickled off Brendan’s bottom lip, awkwardness shuffling him back and forth between worn sneaker soles. He withdrew his shaking hand, stuffing it safely back down into the pocket of his three-quarter-length camo shorts.

“She’s right, kid,” Christian decreed with the merest hint of an apologetic tone. “Not the time. Also, not the greatest fan of surprises.”

“This was a mistake,” Grace conceded, head bowed, unsure where his eyes were welcome. “I, um, yeah, I think I’d better go. I meant no offence, sir. I apologise.”

“Um, isn’t anyone going to ask what I think?”

A pair of petite feet, nails painted electric fuchsia, snuck down the stairs behind Christian. Encased in a form-fitting white and pink summer-dress, and with platinum hair braided into a Grecian up-do, Eleanor Kannon-Hall made her unexpected arrival.

Radiant skin betrayed the fact that it had been under shadow for three weeks.

Isabelle had told her about the dashing Brendan Grace; her saviour in possession of, as she had put it, a kind soul. It was obvious that Isabelle was smitten, something only amplified by the disapproval etched into her husband‘s chiselled features.

Eleanor looked to Isabelle, the softest, most sincere of smiles giving thanks that could never carry on words alone.

“I think it’s a spectacular idea.”

Despite the sickly-sweet haze that blossomed in the stifling air around the taxi rank, Isabelle Kannon’s dilating nostrils could still recognised the scent of home. This was where she came to recharge, the blissful port of call between far-flung adventures.

In her head, three months of inspiration drawn from the Indian sub-continent sketched themselves into designs, fingers itching for a pencil to channel them out through, like a surging electrical current needing to be grounded. Outshining the charcoal outlines, emblazoned in glorious Technicolor, was one special design; a maternity dress for Eleanor. Thoughts of bold, art deco inspired panels left no room for creeping shadows and peripheral blurs.

“Ugh…”

An impact between her shoulder-blades jettisoned the air from Isabelle’s lungs. Feeling the pull on her bags, she defiantly tightened her grip, despite gasping lungs struggling to heave air back into them. Struggling, Isabelle was led by her attacker in a violent tango, his head snapping back and forth with every heave. Twirled around to face the fierce Barbados sun, Isabelle had to slam down the lusciously-lashed shutters down over her emerald eyes before the sun bleached them. A trio of clubbing blows to her wrist bone vibrated a dull, paralysing ache up her arms, snipping off the hydraulics that kept her fingers clamped to her bags.

Disoriented, Isabelle swayed, centre of gravity orbiting her body until a heavy push sent her flying… into the muscled arms of her hero.

“You okay?” she read from his lips, sound venting through her popped ears.

As he sat her softly down, a bewildered Isabelle nodded, the direct, assuring stare of sharp blue eyes calming her. As Isabelle’s senses settled, her hero sprinted off, hurdling the bags which the would-be-mugger shed as he fled.

“No, not Brent Gracewood. Not Grace Bender, Brandon Gray or Gray Bentley. Brendan. Grace.”

Aaron Roberts - for the want of a better word - was peculiarly groomed. His greying hair had been slicked back under an oily torrent of hair product, while a quick shave with a blunt razor left his moustache towering over an unevenly hacked-at covering of stubble. A crease-resistant shirt hung awkwardly off his gaunt body while a mismatched comedy tie scruffily lurked a few inches under his open collar.

“Do you actually have a filing system?” Roberts snapped. “Well check again, and this time do it without your head rammed up you-… hello? Hello? Bitch.”

A panting Brendan Grace scuffed his scorching soles along the paving slabs as he returned to Isabelle Kannon’s side.

“He got awa-”

Before he could apologise, Isabelle sprung up and flung her arms around him, planting a kiss on his cheek. “My hero!” she declared, squeezing even tighter; apparently unfazed by the waterfall of sweat pouring off of him.

“I just did what anyone else would have done,” the bashful Brendan claimed.

“Yeah, right,” Izzy quipped, her biting sarcasm trying to cut through his modesty. “Like the hundreds of people who, y’know, stood by and watched?”

“Fine,” Grace conceded, the couple not breaking eye contact at close quarters. “Hero it is then.”

“I’ve a cab waiting for me… just wanted to thank you first.” Isabelle then realised that she’d been holding onto Brendan the whole time and swiftly released him with a liberal dose of flustered embarrassment. “I can drop you off somewhere if you like? Least I could do.”

“I… well… I don’t really know where I’m going,” he confessed, finally breaking eye contact as his head dropped to the side.

“Ah, a mysterious wanderer,” an intrigued Isabelle purred.

“I’ve, well, I’ve pretty much come here uninvited to see if a man I’ve never met and never talked to will train me to do something he’s retired from,” Brendan rambled, realising with every word how preposterous it sounded. “So, naturally, I also have no idea where this person lives, if they’re on the island, or if they’ll even open the door to me. So, yeah, thanks for the offer though.”

“Well, who is this mysterious man then?” she pressed. “I might be able to put in a good word for you… can‘t be that many people actually live here.”

“Xavier Kannon,” answered Grace, playing along with Izzy‘s sarcasm. “Don’t suppose you know him?”

Syrupy metallic blood seeping from his stinging nose, Brendan Grace wrenched a wad of crimson phlegm up from his dry throat and spat it down onto the dusty concrete. Eyes watering, he wiped a bloodied hand down his face, salty sweat stinging the gash that straddled his freshly broken nose.

“Again,” commanded Kannon. “Let’s go.”

Clearing his airway with another churning cough, Grace stepped back onto the mats. Even in the suffocating humidity, icy fingertips played a giddy tune up and down his spine. Yanking his t-shirt up, Grace mopped out his eye sockets of blood, sweat and tears; through the fabric he saw a shadow loom.

With his protégé blindfolded, Kannon drilled a row of taped knuckles under Brendan’s ribcage, forcefully evicting air from lungs to leave a vacuum which crumpled him inwards. Grace collapsed to his knees, a sickening wheeze sounding as if his lungs were about to drop out of his gaping, bloody-lipped mouth.

“Only way you win a match on your knees is if the other guy’s shoulders are under them,” lectured a remorseless Kannon. “Up. Again. You wanted this.”

Oxygen-starved muscles resisted as Grace prised himself up off the slippery mat. Fighting the asphyxiating straight-jacket of his own body, Grace raised his arms to once again lock up with Kannon. Before they could intertwine, Kannon stabbed a short elbow at the shattered bridge of Brendan’s nose, only for a parrying forearm to deflect it, bony point glancing off a sharp cheekbone. Utilising the distraction provided by its opposite arm, Kannon drove his left fist up into Grace’s gut, but a bear-trap of strong, defiant fingers snatched around his tape-wrapped wrist.

For maybe half a second, Brendan Grace basked in a soothing sense of satisfaction; it ended when Kannon forcefully ploughed his knee into Grace’s groin. Face souring, teary eyes rolling up into their sockets, Grace crumpled into a heap ay Kannon’s feet. Body ravaged by stomach-churning heaves, Grace felt acidic vomit strip away at his nostrils as he tried to hold back the torrent.

“Don’t you puke on my mats,” Kannon commanded, disgust and contempt rife in his tone. “Don’t you dare fucking pike on my mats.”

Struggling to unfurl from the foetal position, Brendan squirmed and slithered to the edge of the mats, every movement mixing together the dull, throbbing aches and sharp, searing pains that occupied his body. Bloodied fingertips clawing at concrete, Grace uncorked the tide of vomit he’d bottled up, jettisoning the contents of his stomach across the garage floor.

“You’re cleaning that up when we’re done,” were the less-than-sympathetic words of his trainer. “And we aren’t done.”

Face almost imploding in agony, Brendan blindly fumbled about for a water bottle… only to hear the disheartening trickle of one being emptied just a few inches from his face. Crimson soaked and sick burnt, Grace’s tongue probed out towards the water, but the sole of Kannon’s right boot pressed it back.

“You don’t get to drink yet,” Kannon scoffed. “Now get up.”

Dehydrated and disoriented, Brendan Grace planted a foot on the concrete and managed to lever himself up. Licking away crimson lipstick, Brendan staggered back to the mats as Kannon’s goading words swirled around in the distant wilderness. Staying on his protégé’s broad blindside, the antagonistic Kannon stalked Grace, pestering him with slaps.

Prying sweat-stung eyes apart, Brendan caught sight of a smirking Kannon descending upon him. A thumb fought free of a clenched fist, was thrust forward, and stabbed into Christian Alexander Kannon’s right eye.

Grace froze as Kannon wailed, hand clamping over his eye as legs buckled.

“Shit.“ Brendan’s senses came screaming back to him, slapping him back and forth across his sweat-dripping face. “Shit, shit, shit. I’m, uh, sorry I… I go-”

As Grace leant over the thrashing Kannon, a clubbing forearm swung up between trembling legs. Brendan’s pain-ravaged body shut down, leaving him in a wheezing heap beside a grinning Kannon.

Blinking the last of the irritation from his eye, Kannon sprung back to his feet and prodded the lifeless Grace with his boot. “Don’t worry,” he assured. “I’ll teach you how to keep those humanitarian feelings in check.”

Peeling his tongue from the soft palate at the arid pit of his mouth, Christian Alexander Kannon staggered down the hallway towards the kitchen. His body reluctant to stray too far from slumber, Kannon’s feet dragged along the carpet on stiff legs, while eyelashes caked together by sleep gave lids only the most narrow peephole.

A violent yawn erupted, mouth opening so wide to let it escape that it stung in the corners. In the yawn’s wake, Kannon’s ears hummed. But, even through woolly hearing, Christian heard a door creep shut behind him.

Looking back over his shoulder, Kannon peered down the hallway towards a pair of doors; one to Isabelle’s room and the other to the guest room.

The guest room’s door hung ajar.

Despite the hollow hunger groaning deep in his stomach, Brendan Grace was in no hurry to reach the breakfast table.

“What’s wrong?” sighed Isabelle, growing weary of having to tug at his wrist. “I’ve told you before; they like you.”

“They liked me when I slept in the guest room,” Brendan murmured.

“I don’t know about you, but I worked up quite the appetitive last night,” she purred. “Now, it’s only gentlemanly that you take a lady to breakfast the morning after.”

She offered her arm, which he dutifully took, leading her into the kitchen. Isabelle breezed towards the breakfast table, but the forceful, concussive stare of Christian Alexander Kannon stopped Grace in his tracks.

“Oh, behave,” Izzy jabbed at her brother.

Brendan didn’t know if his tired eyes were playing tricks on him, or if it was simply a muscle twitch, but his eyes tried to convince his doubting brain that Christian had let slip a hint of an approving smile before he could raise the newspaper back over his face.

Bleached a ghostly white by the bold full moon hovering outside the wide-open bedroom window, a restless Eleanor Kannon-Hall squirmed under the light bed sheets. Letting out a muffled squeak of frustration, she tossed the sheets across onto her husband, plumped a pillow up, and wedged it under her head. For a few, blissful seconds she felt sleep finally open its arms to welcome her… until a cool breeze tickled at the few inches of midriff between her pure white vest and shorts.

“Gmphrrr…” she growled, frustration at flirting either side of a comfortable temperature being soaked up by the silencing pillow. “Grr…. grmm… hmph…”

Mother Nature wisely chose not to anger Eleanor any further, ushering her breeze away from Merlin Bay. Ellie’s tense body finally relaxed, a dreamy sigh expelling the last resistance as she finally surrendered to sleep.

Ring, ring…

“HMMHMM HMM HUHHUM HUHM!!!” Eleanor screamed, the ferocity almost tearing to shreds the muffling pillow with and eruption of feathers.

Oblivious to his wife’s tantrum, a groggy Xavier flopped a hand down onto the bedside table and blindly fumbled around for the phone. Ellie buried her head under a second pillow.

“Wha-”

“Is this some kind of fucking joke?” Aaron Roberts roared down the phone. “Thought you’d have a laugh at poor ol’ Magz? Wait ‘til he’s hit rock bottom then throw him a pity job?”

Curiosity collapsed Kannon’s weary features as he tried to figure out what Roberts was ranting about.

“Mag-”

“Well guess what? I don’t need your pity, you patronising prick!” continued the onslaught. “You know what I did need? My job, six years ago! But you didn’t seem to care then when you, Mason and Kriegman all decided to bail.”

Kannon strained to sit his stiff body up.

“Magnum, what is this abo-”

“My. Name. Is. AARON!” almost shattered the plastic of the phone. “Who else was in on it? Who else thought they’d have themselves a little laugh at my expense? Oh, let’s all remind ol’ Magz that he doesn’t have a career anymore by having him search out one of our boys!”

Those words echoed around in Kannon’s ear.

“What did you just sa-”

“Don’t you tr-”

“Aaron,” Kannon’s bluntest words commanded. “What did you just say?”

“Oh, like you didn’t know?” Roberts scoffed. “Brendan Grace? Really thought I wouldn’t figure that one out? I might not have trampled over enough careers to buy myself half a fuckin’ island like you, but I’ve kept most of my fuckin’ brain cells.”

Hurling the pillows from her head, a cranky Eleanor flung herself around to snap at her husband, until she saw the words of Aaron Roberts drain her husband’s face.

“Brendan Grace is Andy and Grace Brand’s son,” Roberts stated, robotically. “Little Sammy, remember? There. I figured it out. Do I get a fuckin’ cookie along with my fee or was that part of the joke too? Answer me you fu-”

“What’s wrong?” Ellie was hesitant in asking as her husband hung up on Roberts mid-rant.

“Izzy…”

Sam Brand’s lungs steamed in the heat and humidity. Gulping down the sticky air in between hurdling baggage trolleys, he struggled to call out after Isabelle Kannon’s fleet assailant.

“Hey!” evaporated into the muggy air. “HEY! Stop!

His feet were scorching; insulated by socks and laced into leather sneakers doubling for pressure-cookers. Every bounding step was like plunging a red-hot iron onto his blistering soles.

“Outta my way!” Sam bellowed, trying to clear straight path through the slalom course of plodding tourists. “Move!”

With his pursuer gaining ground, Isabelle’s assailant skidded to a halt. Before he could set his stance, Sam Brand was upon him, clasping his wrists and wrestling him closer.

“At least put up a fucking fight for the security cameras,” Brand hissed through clamped-down teeth. “People are watching.”

Their audience were treated to a fierce struggle; teeth gnashed, arms grappled, bodies clashed. As each wrestled for dominance, Sam’s hand wormed its way down into the assailant’s pocket, leaving five-hundred Barbadian dollars poorer. Ten seconds later, a clash of limbs propelled Brand backwards, his footing abandoning him.

“It’s… it’s n-n-nothing p-p-personal, Andy… we just… we’re g-g-going with someone… n-n-newer…”

The panicking words of Gerald Fisk not only had to overcome his stutter, but also the gargantuan paw of “Angry” Andy Brand which had clamped around his neck. The raging fire within him only stoked further by the weasely promoter’s excuses, Brand pushed Fisk higher up the wall, so that the dangling, polished toes of his shoes flapped about a good six inches above the locker room floor.

“P-p-please let m-m-me go…” gargled Fisk, his face flushing an asphyxiating shade of maroon.

“Not ‘til I gets me the spot y’all promised,” Brand growled. “Ain’t no way I’ma be sittin’ back here watchin’ some scrawny lil’ carrot-top flop about in mah spot. Y’all gets tah finding’ Kannon, and let ‘im know that he ain’t even close tah payin’ his dues in mah locker room.”

“F-f-folks wanna see him, Andy,” as Gerald’s uncharacteristically brave rebuttal.

“Maybe that’s got a bit tah do wit’ya bringin’ in tha wrong types,” was accompanied by the jab of an accusing finger. “This place used tah be all about wrestlin’… not tha garbage punks like Kannon peddle in that ring.”

Brand released his mauling grasp on Fisk, leaving the gasping promoter to slide down the wall and into a limp heap on the floor.

His 6’9 frame wasn’t the only reason that the locker room looked up to Andy Brand. He was their mentor, their unofficial union leader, their Sheriff, and - in most cases - their friend. To some, he was the first father figure they’d had; a sage voice to keep an angry young man on the straight and narrow. He stood for the principles of the promotion they’d built; and he stood tall for them. That is why not a single man - from the greenest of rookies to the most grizzled of veterans - intervened.

One man, however, was blatantly flouting the everyone changed and ready by first bell edict Brand had issued.

“Sad,” Xavier Kannon sighed with slow shake of the head. “There are always some who try to stand in the way of progress.”

Just the sound of Kannon’s voice polluting his ears caused Andy to grind a layer of enamel from his teeth. Venting an angry breath through snarled nostrils, the colossal Brand turned to face the tardy Kannon, who was casually leant against the doorframe, jaws mauling a piece of gum.

“They’re usually tha guys that spilt tha blood tah gets us tah where we are today,” a resentful Andy barked, chest swelling.

“Andy, I’m going to make you a promise,” Kannon chimed, jovial manner in stark contrast to the raw hostility facing him. “Once I use your old main event spot here to further propel me to wrestling stardom, I’m going to build a wrestling museu-… no, a wrestling zoo. That way, all the kids that grew up wanting to be like me can appreciate the same relics that I had to overcome. As the star attraction, Andy, I’ll even have your keeper toss you an extra banana every now and again.”

“Disrespectful lil’ cunt,” Brand growled as if he’d swallowed a rusty cement mixer. “I could burst yah fucking head in mah one hand.”

“I have no doubt that you could,” conceded Kannon with a conceited shrug. “A big, powerful specimen like you. Ripped, jacked… and entirely natural, I’m sure.”

Basking in their heated stares, Xavier strolled into the heart of the locker room.

“I hope you don’t mind if I just shove your bags out of the way, Andy,” Kannon goaded. “Seems fitting since I’m taking your spot and all.”

With a hefty swing, Kannon used his travel bag as a battering ram, sending Brand’s tumbling off the bench and onto the floor… where a cluster bomb of pill bottles exploded across the dirty tiles.

“What the--” a stunned Brand uttered.

“What have we here..?” Kannon eagerly enquired, engaging Andy with a checkmate stare. “Now, just being a - how did you put it - a scrawny little carrot-top, I wouldn’t know. But, Andy, geez if those don’t half look like they’re non-prescription.”

“Guys, y’all know I’m clean,” Brand protested as he felt the weight of the locker room’s gaze fall upon him.

“That’ll be for the entirely random drug testing to prove, Andy old chap,” Kannon beamed through a Cheshire Cat grin. “But we’ve had out suspicions. Thankfully, someone on the roster had a little word in Gerald’s ear this afternoon; would hate to see the reputation of this place suffer whe-… if it turned out someone in a main event spot was gulping down the ol’ sack-shrinkers morning, noon and night.”

The smirk etched deep into Kannon’s features oozed the smug satisfaction of a victor who had all bases covered. Andy Brand knew right then that he wouldn’t only fail any screening, but his piss would pretty-near melt the fucking cup.

He’d underestimated the brash newcomer.

He wouldn’t be the last.

“Yah snivelling’ lil’ shit,” seethed Andy as he was barricaded behind a wall of his fellow wrestlers.

“Oh, ‘roid rage!” Xavier diagnosed with a satisfied snap of the fingers. “I think someone needs help, Andy… for little Sammy’s sake.”

“Son of a BITCH!”

Christian Alexander Kannon’s hands clamped around Brendan Grace’s neck, dragging him out of bed and down onto the varnished floorboards.

“What are you doing?” screeched a startled Isabelle. Ignored by her fire-eyed brother, she turned to Eleanor, who was watching on nervously. “Ellie… do something!”

Eleanor’s powder-blue eyes evaded Isabelle’s pleading stare.

“Tell me who you are!” Kannon demanded, face warped with rage. “Tell her who you are!”

Brendan remained defiantly silent, simply unfolding a disdainful smirk across his lips. Kannon’s fist drilled down into Grace’s fragile nose, the force swatting his head back against the wooden floor.

“Stop!” Isabelle pleaded, scrambling across the bed to hook her brother’s recoiled arm. “Why are yo-”

Seizing upon Isabelle’s intervention, Brendan thrust both hands up, gouging Kannon’s eyes with his thumbs. Blinded, Kannon swung wildly as he toppled back. Springing up, Grace punted Kannon in his side, sending him rolling across the floor, coughing and spluttering.

“Brend-”

Isabelle tried to hold Brendan back, but was flung violently back onto the bed. Another kick dug itself into Christian’s ribs, but as Brendan raised his foot ready to stamp down, Kannon reared up and tackled him back to the floor. Grabbing clumps of messy blonde hair, Kannon bounced Grace’s head off the floorboards, feeling the fight seep from him with each blow.

“You tell them,” Grace began to cackle. “Tell them, almighty Xavier Kannon. Tell your wife… tell your sister… who I am. Who‘s son I am!”

Before Kannon could silence him, Brendan reached up to the bedside table and brought a glass crunching down into the crown on his skull. As blood began to pour down a dazed Christian’s face, Grace surged up and drove him down into the floor. A volley of punches rained down on the defenceless Christian Kannon, until Eleanor and Isabelle flung themselves down onto him.

Brendan’s fist ground to a halt just an inch shy of Isabelle’s tear-tracked cheek.

“Brendan, please st-”

“Stop calling me that!” he hissed. “My name is Samuel Francis Brand… and that pathetic excuse for a man knew this was coming.”

As he stood, Brand stamped down onto Kannon’s gut with all his might, causing him to convulse in Eleanor’s arms as blood trickled from his lips.

“Why… why are yo-” Isabelle screamed.

“Why am I doing this?” Sam interrupted, looking down at her with the same contempt her had for her brother. “Oh, sweet, innocent Isabelle. The reason I’m doing this? It’s because he had to have one of his little minions find out who I was before I could properly hurt him… in that black, decaying heart of his. But, hey, you were easy enough that at least I made start.”

“But I…” The words clung to the tip of Isabelle’s tongue, refusing to be shaken loose.

“… make me feel sick,” Sam scoffed. “Oh, but, Izzy, do me one last favour; and you’ve done me many in this room. If there’s any memory loss when he finally comes around, make sure he knows what I did to him. Would be a shame for all this effort to of been wasted.”

As a departing gift for Isabelle, Brand spat down onto the floor in front of her.

“I’ll let myself out.”

Waif-like frame struggling to haul her overloaded shopping bags up the steps, Eleanor Kannon-Hall returned to an empty house.

In the wake of Samuel’s departure, Isabelle reacted to his betrayal by flying off to who-knows-where the very next day, only a scribbled note left on the breakfast table to say as much of a goodbye as she could muster. Christian had been flying back and forth to the States for the past month, determined to keep himself busy. She’d only seen him in the moonlight, slipping into bed beside her in the early hours and crawling back out before the sun came up.

She missed her husband, she missed her friend, and as much as she tried to reprogram her thoughts, she missed Brendan Grace, regardless of vile man behind the persona.

For a few short months, it had been a family home, as it was always intended to be.

As she reached the top of the steps, the lush, weeping green tops from a bunch of carrots tickling her nose, Eleanor saw that the door was open.

“Christian,” she called, wondering if a flight had been cancelled. “That you?”

Dumping the bags porch, Ellie slithered in through the door. The blinds had been drawn down, starving the kitchen of the rich morning sun it was usually bathed in.

“Sorry.” Isabelle’s voice, apologetically faint, spoke from the shadows. “I let myself in. I… I didn’t know if I was still welcome.”

Ellie exhaled a tense breathe, nerves eased.

“This is your home,” Eleanor reassured her sister-in-law. “Nothing’s ever going to change that.”

“I brought him here,” a guild-ridden Isabelle blurted, her fragile voice beginning to fracture under the strain. “I brought him into this place… our home. I…”

“… were taken in just like me and Christian.” Eleanor took Isabelle‘s hand - icy despite the unrelenting heat of the bay - in hers. “None of this is your fault.”

“I loved him, El,” Isabelle, confessed, the realisation finally breaking her. “I trusted him. I opened up to him about everything, stuff I can’t even talk to you about… and I never even knew his name.”

“Izzy, he’s gone.” Ellie scurried around the kitchen table to hold her best friend… just as Izzy had done when she needed it most. “He’s gone. He’s out of our lives. You have t-”

“I’m pregnant,” Isabelle wept, words remaining hollow in her mouth. “I’m pregnant, El.”

Eleanor’s fingers froze halfway down a comforting stroke through Isabelle’s endless copper hair. Too many questions screamed over one another, the white noise they blended in to distorting her thoughts.

“Yeah,” Izzy snuffled. “Was kinda my reaction, too. Twins… and, yeah, they’re his.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ellie whispered, lips pressing against Isabelle’s ear. “You’ll make an amazing mother, Is, and we’ll be here to help you with everything. You know that.”

“You know that’s a lie, El,” Izzy sighed, peeling Ellie’s arms from around her. “I’m not ready to be a mother. I can’t settle down, can’t even look after myself… I can’t even listen to a whole song without skipping past the end. No child deserves a mother like me.”

“Izzy…”

“They deserve parents like you and Christian,” Isabelle declared, her words forceful. “Ellie, you know I could never… I could never get rid… I just couldn’t. And I don’t want a stranger… I don’t think I can ever trust another stranger as long as I live.”

“You don’t have to do this, Izzy,” Ellie whispered, barely audible. “We love you, you know that. You’re my sister, you’re my best friend, and we will do everything to help you.”

“Then do this,” Isabelle pleaded, eyes emptying all her emotions out with the tears that streamed down her cheeks. “You are the only people in the world that I would ever ask, Ellie. You and Christian have practically been my parents since I was seventeen… and when Christian said you’d miscarried, I’d have done anything… anything to give you the children you deserve. Ellie, let‘s be real. This is me. I‘m pregnant with twins. I don‘t have a single maternal bone in my body and terrified that I‘m going to do something stupid, something wrong, with them inside me... Let alone when they’re born. I can‘t be responsible for two new lives, Ellie, when I can‘t even handle my own.”

Eleanor’s skull began to split as all the thoughts swelling within it pushed to be first in line. All she wanted in the world was to be a mother… but she’d never wanted it to be like this. What if she was destined never to have a child of her own? What if she was cursed? What if this would be the one chance she had? Would they have to pretend the twins were theirs? What if Brenda-… what if Samuel knew Isabelle was pregnant with his children? Was she really ready? Could she take Isabelle’s children from her? What is Izzy changed her mind? Could she handle motherhood being stolen from her twice?

“Ellie, please,” Isabelle’s crackling voice begged. “I need to know… I need to know that I’m not going to ruin another pair of lives.”

If they’d of had a daughter, she would have been called Imogen, after Eleanor’s grandmother.

If they’d of had a son, he would have been called Alexander, after Christian’s grandfather.

All she wanted in the world was to be a mother.

“Okay,” Ellie whispered, eyes retreating behind their lids and she cradled Isabelle’s head. “We’ll do it.”

“You can’t just hold me here!” roared Samuel Brand, fists thundering off the two-way mirror. “I haven’t done anything.”

Face collapsing into a fierce, concave snarl, Brand bounced his head off the glass. Pacing around the white, echoey holding room, Samuel rolled a seething eye up at the camera blinking its tentative red dot back at him.

“I’m being set up!”. Yanking the plastic chair from under the table, Brand hurled it up at the camera, only for the legs to straddle the room’s corner and bounce back down at his feet. “Someone must have got to my bag! None of that this was mine! I’ve got a fucking Masters. Why would I be messing with that shit? Do I look like some cokehead?”

Thru the looking glass, two men watched.

“Must’ve wronged your boss somethin’ pretty bad to get fucked over like this,” the main encased in the stiffest of airport security jackets pondered. “But, hey, the fuck do I care? I just put my kid through college.”

“Maybe they’ll even get themselves a Masters,” smirked Aaron Roberts, fingers stroking his bushy moustache. “Heard they go on to do great things.”