THIRTEEN

I spent the next few days working on building a case to get my creature back. Every spare second I had was spent researching similar cases, talking strategy with Donnie, and sending positive energy into the universe so I might stand a chance against the McMahons.

I was booked for two independent shows that week. I wasn't sure if I was up to going back to work. I was fighting for Abigail, I was recovering from the trauma of the last battle, and I was still deeply grieving Emily. Dixie offered to send another TNA talent in my place to smooth things over, but I couldn't bring myself to disappoint the fans. They didn't know about any of that, and I hated letting them down.

That was how I found myself in New Jersey (of all places) facing Tommy Dreamer (of all people). "Are you sure you can handle this, Michael?" He asked me.

"I need this," I told him. "I need to do something normal."

"It's a hardcore match..."

"Good. Don't hold back, Tommy. I need to do this, to prove to myself that I still can."

He nodded, then gave me an encouraging pat on the back as only Tommy Dreamer can and I felt better. I love wrestling. You can hug a guy, then go beat the crap out of him, then laugh about it and maybe hug again afterward. This may be a strange way of life, but it makes sense to me.

Tommy didn't hold back. From the second he entered the ring, he hit me with everything he had. He attacked with a kendo stick, because he's Tommy Dreamer, and immediately got in a hit on my chest. When he got in a second hit, I started to focus. For the first time since James had been kidnapped, I focused purely on wrestling. I lost myself in the familiar motions, in the pain, in the excited thoughts of the crowd. It was great. I felt better than I had in ages.

I retaliated for the kendo stick by hitting Tommy with a chair. I proceeded to grab a ladder. I swung that at him and he doubled over, taking it like a pro. I hit him twice before he ducked and pulled the ladder from my hands. He tossed it aside and hit me with a trash can. I broke out the thumb tacks. Since I poured them on the mat, I am of course the one who ended up getting slammed onto them. My back was bleeding from a bunch of tiny wounds. I sold that for a second before getting up and throwing Tommy into the ringpost. I bashed his head against it a couple of times before we each hit a few standard moves to get from Point A to Point B. I hit the One Percenter, and it would have been over, but suddenly something happened that we hadn't planned.

Out came Austin Aries, for no logical reason whatsoever. The fans gave him a nice pop, because he's Austin Fucking Aries and none of them know he's an evil son of a bitch. I was pretty sure he'd only just put himself back together after Lauren mauled him, and man did he look pissed!

Tommy is the most professional guy in the business, but he hesitated now. I could tell he wasn't sure how to handle this situation. Kayfabe, we were enemies, and Aries was sort of a babyface. In reality, this little prick had essentially caused my girlfriend's death and now he'd apparently come back for me. Tommy was one hundred percent Team Good, but we had a live audience witnessing this and he could only do so much.

Aries had a chainsaw. No, I'm not fucking kidding. What the fuck? This isn't CZW for God's sake, I thought.

"I thought your hardcore match needed something more," Aries said as he charged toward me. He dropped his mic.

Tommy got in the way and got the chainsaw away from him. "Sorry, Austin," he said with a grin, "but this promotion hasn't filled out the waivers for chainsaws." He flashed the crowd a reassuring smile, and Aries had to let it go, but when Tommy moved out of the way to put the chainsaw down, Aries grabbed the chair and slammed it hard against my head.

It hit too hard. I could feel blood trickling down from my forehead. I tried to focus, knowing it wasn't over. Aries kicked me in the back of my head twice. That was when my blocks failed me and every single voice in the building rushed into my head at once. I dropped to my knees, clutching my head and trying not to scream from the pain. It was so loud inside my head, I thought it might explode. Aries wasn't done. He swung the ladder toward me. I braced myself for an impact I knew I couldn't stop.

The impact never came. I looked up and saw the most unexpected person on the planet holding the ladder. He'd caught it mid-swing. I blinked at him in confusion.

"Kenny?" I asked aloud. Was I concussed? Probably, but Kenny King really was standing there. I'd forgotten he was even on this card.

Kenny picked up a microphone. "This is a tag match now, bitch!" He declared.

Tommy looked as confused as I felt, but he smiled and shook Aries' hand like a true professional. The match was restarted. Kenny helped me stand back up.

"Stay close to the corner and focus on Tommy," Kenny said quietly. "I got Aries." I stared at him. "Hang in there. You'll make it out of here alive. I got you, Michael." I nodded, not sure what else to do. I couldn't fight, not for real. My head was way too fucked up. Disturbingly, my life now depended on Kenny King not fucking me over. I was pretty sure I was screwed.

Tommy immediately came at me. He pulled me into a submission so Aries had no excuse to touch me. Kenny kept him busy, attacking hard and not holding back. I may mock the guy, but Kenny's not a bad wrestler. That night, he was fighting a thousand times harder than I'd seen him do before. He took the ladder Aries had meant for me and hit him hard in the head. Aries collapsed.

Tommy eased up on me. I reversed the submission, then somehow hit him hard and knocked him to the mat. I pinned him and the referee counted to three.

It was Kenny who helped me stand back up and raised my hand in victory. He had to take most of my weight on his shoulders to help me to the back, but we made it. When we got back there, he helped me sit down.

"Why?" I managed to ask him.

"Aries would have left me for dead, and Angle did," Kenny said. "You didn't. We're even."

I nodded. "Thanks."

Kenny left me when Tommy came in the back. "Fuck, Michael... Are you alright?" He asked.

"I'll live," I said.

"Did Kenny King just switch sides?"

"I think he's starting to."

Tommy nodded. "About time. Lashley will be relieved." He studied me. "You need a healer."

"Don't have one tonight." I laughed. "Well, I did say I wanted a real hardcore match." My head was screaming. "So loud... I can't..." I clutched my head in my hands and started rocking, unable to process much of anything because the voices had gotten so loud.

"Give me five minutes." Tommy left. He returned a short time later with Mark.

"Did you just pull him out of thin air?" I asked.

"He doesn't fit in thin air," Tommy teased.

"You should talk, Walrus," Mark countered. "But no, I was in the area. Jamie's working a show about a mile away." He knelt beside me and immediately forced his shield around me. The voices were silenced instantly. I collapsed against him, unable to keep myself sitting up anymore.

"Did you call a healer?" Mark asked Tommy.

"I can't find one," Tommy said.

"He's lost a lot of blood, Tommy." Their voices were starting to drift off. I couldn't focus. Without the psychic pain to distract me, there was just physical pain, and that was bad enough on its own. My mind couldn't process that much pain. I was definitely concussed, and I had a feeling I might be in worse shape than I even knew.

"It's not good when our best healer is the one who needs to be healed," Tommy said. "Any ideas?"

"Not really... Wait, I do have an idea. WWE's got a house show three towns over. It's a little bit of a drive, but I can get us there pretty quickly."

"Why WWE?"

"They have a shitload of healers on their roster, including some of the strongest I've ever seen."

"Why would they help me?" I asked. I was barely holding on to the conversation, but I had to try to focus.

"Because this isn't about WWE or TNA, Michael," Mark said. "It's about Team Good versus Team Baddie, and Team Good will help you, regardless of your promotion."

And so, we headed into enemy territory. While Mark may have been welcome as long as he was calling himself Bubba and not Bully, I was not. Still, Mark got me to a hotel and half-carried me upstairs. When he knocked on the door, I wasn't expecting the person on the other side.

Heath "Slater" Miller swore under his breath. Mr. One Man Band might be a joke in WWE, but he was probably the only healer I'd ever met who was stronger than I was. He led us inside and sat me down on his bed.

"They did a real number on you," he said.

"Aries tried to kill him. In front of an audience," Tommy said.

"That's both incredibly bold and incredibly stupid." Heath set to work healing my head before any of my other injuries. He worked very fast. I felt relaxed as his energy spread over me. By the end, even the thumbtack injuries felt better. "You'll be alright now," he promised me. "Be careful, Michael."

"Thanks, Heath," I said. I couldn't even begin to express how much I appreciated his help.

Mark snuck us out of the hotel to avoid stirring up the rumor mills about why EC3 and Tommy Dreamer might be hanging out at a hotel the WWE had rented out. The rest of the night was a blur. By the time I got back to my hotel room, I passed out.

I woke up the next day and was ready to do it again. This time, I had a match against a really green wrestler calling himself Snyder Bateman. No one had heard of him yet, but I didn't mind taking the match. It's good to give back to the next generation sometimes, and maybe the kid would go somewhere someday and remember that Ethan Carter III gave him his first great match. And if not, at least I got to do a Meet and Greet with the fans before the show.

I know you're not going to believe this, but I'm actually kind of shy. It's really humbling to go to a Meet and Greet and meet fans who support you and believe in you. Unlike my character, I'm not the type of guy who thinks I'm perfect and that everyone should be honored to meet me. In fact, part of me is still confused why anyone likes me, considering WWE thought I was a loser. I love meeting my fans and unless it's at a TNA event, I generally break character for them. If you come up to me and you seem to genuinely want to talk to me, you won't meet Ethan Carter III, the stuck-up asshole champion who rules TNA and will someday rule the world; you'll meet Michael Hutter, a down-to-earth guy who genuinely cares about people and wants to make the world a safer place for psychics and innocents. This wasn't a TNA event, so I got to be myself.

It's funny, because people are always surprised when they meet me and I show that side of myself. I'll do just about anything to make my fans happy, and most of them appreciate it. It's always a great experience to connect with the fans, and I enjoyed myself that day. I also made a decent amount of money. (Hey, indy wrestlers have to eat, and even though TNA takes care of me nicely, it's still good to have some extra cash once in a while.) It was a good night.

The match was very tame compared to the previous night. Snyder couldn't handle anything hardcore. For the most part, I just talked a lot of trash and threw a few good hits. I let Snyder get one hit off on me before I hit him with the One Percenter, and that was the end of it. It was an easy night, which was a relief after the previous one.

I made it back to my hotel room just before my cell phone began to ring. I was tired and almost didn't answer it. The I saw the Connecticut area code.

I picked up immediately. "Hello?" I asked.

"Michael..." The voice on the other end said. "Michael, something's happened... God, this is my fault... I trusted her... I never thought... I just..." I realized the rambling sounded familiar.

"Shane?" I asked.

"I made a stupid choice, Michael... I mean, she just... She came over saying she wanted to take Abigail out for some girl time, and I let her... I never thought she'd hurt a kid, you have to believe me... But she... She was supposed to be back here four hours ago, and she's still out... And she won't pick up her cell phone... I don't know, I just have this terrible feeling..."

"Shane, slow down. Where is Abigail?"

"I don't know," Shane said as my world crashed down around me. "She's missing, Michael. Stephanie has her."