==========
The
Nightmare
Off Camera
==========
It’s been
quiet in the Jones familial household ever since the family found out about the
death of their patriarch, the eldest Jones still living, Bart Jones. That can be understood. Bart Jones was the father of Angelica and
Kayla Jones and while Bart had been estranged from his children for many years,
they had only recently begun to reconcile.
Funny how it
sometimes takes tragedy for a family like theirs to come together? Funny how it takes tragedy for Kayla and
Angelica to see the error of their ways, and for Bart to see the error of his
ways, and thus force the three to come together and be a family again. And what’s even funnier, or perhaps even more
tragic, is that the tragedies began even before the death of one Bart Jones.
Kayla Jones
sits silently on the edge of what used to be her bed in the Jones Household in
Boston, Massachusetts. This home is now
owned by her older sister Angelica, who has lived her all of her life and
jokingly has named it Purgatory. But for
Kayla, this home has and always will hold a special place in her heart. She has so many wonderful memories of her
mother, the original Kelly Jones. Kayla
also memories of her father, Bart Jones, and of the times when she used to look
up to him.
Unfortunately
all that Kayla has are memories. Both of
her parents are dead now and coming here to this family home doesn’t just bring
back memories but emotional pain and turmoil as well.
The
beautiful redheaded Bostonian is wearing a long black dress, ankle length, with
black high heeled pumps and a half-sleeved black jacket. Her long red hair hangs down to below the
shoulders and in her hands she holds an old picture of her mother and father
when they were much younger and only recently married. Kayla stares at this picture with a sense of
longing and a tear in her eye. She
wishes they were here but now, thanks to events outside of her control, both
are gone.
Ironically
enough, you can blame the deaths of both Kelly and Bart on the same group: The
Bratva, also known as the Russian Mafia.
Now you may wonder how the Jones Family got mixed up with the Russian
Mafia but when you learn that Bart Jones, that patriarch of the family, was a
high-up FBI agent then it begins to make sense.
It makes even more sense when you learn of how Bart Jones led the FBI in
its crusade against the Bratva.
Anyone who
knows organized crime knows that the mafia typically won’t let anything like
that go unpunished. Bart Jones took the
fight to The Bratva so The Bratva made him pay.
They wanted to just kill him but instead they ended up catching his wife
Kelly instead. They raped and murdered
her. They wouldn’t kill their real
target, Bart Jones, until decades later.
Kayla Jones
is the one taking this the hardest. She
and her sister Angelica found out just a few days ago, the day of Marie
Annabelle and Corey Jones’s joint wedding, that the body of Bart Jones had been
found and that he was now officially confirmed dead. The police and the Jones family know that the
Russian Mafia are behind it because they know The Russian Mafia were the ones
who kidnapped Bart Jones.
So why would
Kayla blame herself when it clearly the Russian Mafia are at fault? The Bratva had kidnapped Angelica’s youngest
daughter, the second Kelly, and was holding her hostage. They didn’t want Kelly. They wanted their original target Bart and
they would return Kelly in exchange for Bart turning himself over to the
Russian Mafia. Bart was insistent that
they take the deal but Angelica refused to let him.
It was Kayla
who caved in and helped Bart turn himself over.
Kayla drove Bart to the prescribed meeting place and assisted with the
trade-off. Yes, Kelly was safe and
sound, but Bart was sent off to his eventual death. In a way, Kayla is partially to blame for his
death.
At least,
that’s how Kayla sees it, and that’s why she currently is so down and
depressed. Those emotions are just the
beginning. Add to that the sadness and
grief she feels about never again being able to see her father again, that she
and her sister Angelica truly are now alone in this world, and you can see how
she is having a hard time dealing with this.
“Kay?”
The sound of
the voice disrupts Kayla’s intense concentration. She turns her head towards the sound of the
intruder and she spots her older sibling, Angelica Jones, standing in the
doorway. Angelica is wearing a similar
long black dress, also with half-sleeves.
Angelica is forcing a smile upon her face. She is trying to be strong for Kayla right
now. God only knows Kayla needs
strength.
“Hi, Angel.”
“Everyone is downstairs waiting. We’re all kind of worried. Are you ok?”
Kayla shrugs
her shoulders.
“I don’t know…”
She sighs.
“…just tell them to wait.”
What’s going
on downstairs is a visitation. The
entire Jones family is gathered here, from the immediate family members
Angelica, Kayla, and their children as well as the extended family; Monroe
Jones and Vanessa Jones, the cousins.
Marie and Corey’s new husbands, Arthur and Kyle, are both here as well
as Angelica and Kayla’s own love interests, Lindsey Carter and Trenton Snow
respectively. Friends of the family are
also dropping in to pay their respects to the fallen Bart Jones.
“Kayla…”
Kayla just
shakes her head. She doesn’t want to
hear anything out of Angelica right now.
“No!
I’m not coming! I’m not ready!”
Angelica
steps away from the doorway and enters the room fully. She approaches the bed and sits down next to
her sister. She looks are her smiling.
“You can’t delay it forever. You have to come down eventually.”
“No I don’t.”
Angelica
rolls her eyes. Clearly she is beginning
to lose patience with her sister.
“Damnit, Kayla! What’s wrong?!”
Kayla turns
and glares at Angelica. It almost
appears as if she is incredulous, upset that Angelica would get upset at her or
question her like this.
“You mean other than the fact that our
father is dead?!”
Sarcasm is
dripping from Kayla’s voice as she says this.
Angelica doesn’t buy it and shakes her head.
“You’ve always been the stronger one
emotionally between the two of us, Kay.”
“Huh?”
Angelica
nods her head.
“It’s true, emotionally you’ve always been
stronger than me. Something like this shouldn’t phase you and yet here you are
having an emotional break down. Something is wrong and damnit I want to know
what it is.”
There is a
long tense stare down between the two sisters.
Kayla tries to steel herself but she knows she can’t last forever. She holds out for only a few more moments
before sighing and nodding her head.
“it’s my fault…it’s all my fault…”
Angelica
blinks a few times out of curiosity, not quite sure of what her younger sibling
means.
“What do you mean? What’s your fault?”
“Think about it, sis. It isn’t like this is too difficult to figure
out. Who killed our father?”
Angelica
sighs.
“The Bratva kidnapped him and murdered him.”
Kayla shakes
her head.
“No…”
“No?”
“The Bratva didn’t kidnap him.”
Kayla pats
herself on the chest.
“I GAVE our father to The Bratva! I handed him over to The Bratva!”
Kayla buries
her face in her hands and begins to cry.
Angelica pats her sister on the back in a vein attempt to try and calm
and comfort her.
“Yes, and they had my daughter. God only knows what they would have done had
you not traded our father for my child.
You did what you had to do.”
Kayla’s head
jerks up out of her hands. She stares at
Angelica, her face and eyes clearly red from the tears and from crying. Despite this she looks incredulous, as if
Angelica would dare question her and question her grief.
“You say that…the police have told me that…and
hell, I’ve even tried saying that to myself, I have tried using that logic to
justify it, but it doesn’t work…”
She shakes
her head.
“…I still feel guilty, because let’s face
it, I did hand him over to The Bratva.
And just think…think…”
Kayla’s
voice trails off. Angelica, furrows her
brow.
“…think about what?”
“Think…”
Kayla sighs.
“…think about what our father must have
endured. Think of the torture they put
him through…”
“We don’t know that, Kay. All we know is that they killed him.”
Kayla shoots
her sister a dirty glare.
“Be serious, Angel…our father quite
literally took their organization apart piece by piece and they hated him for
it. Do you really think they would have
made it quick and painless?”
Angelica
sighs and bows her head.
“Probably not…”
“Exactly.
And I’m…”
Kayla wipes
a tear from her eye.
“…I’m responsible for it, for all of it,
because I handed him over.”
Angelica
leans over and embraces her sister in a tight, sisterly hug. After breaking the hug, Angelica grabs Kayla
by her head and guides her face so that she is looking directly into her
eyes. Angelica’s stare is stone cold
serious.
“Listen to me…”
Kayla shakes
her head as she interrupts her sister’s thoughts.
“There is absolutely nothing you can say,
Angelica.”
Angelica
slaps Kayla across the face to get her attention. Kayla, for her part, is shocked that she got
slapped by Angelica.
“Kayla Marie Shawna Jones, I want you to
listen to me!”
It isn’t
often that Kayla gets called out by her full legal name. That combined with the slap and she is in
shock. Kayla only simply nods her head
as she remains quiet and listens intently to Angelica.
“You want to claim responsibility for our
father’s death? Not just no, but hell
no! You are nowhere near responsible for
his death. You played no part in
this. This was the doing of the Bratva
and of no one else because they put us into a position where we had no other
alternative.”
“But how…how can you say this?”
“Do you really have to ask? Kayla, you know that I murdered my own
daughter’s father in order to ensure I’d maintain custody of her.”
Kayla bows
her head as she feels almost a sense of guilt now, not due to the death of Bart
Jones but instead directed towards Angelica.
“I…I’m sorry, sis.”
“Don’t apologize to me, Kayla.”
Angelica
embraces her in a hug.
“You have absolutely no reason to
apologize. Just understand that I am a
murderer, Kayla. There is nothing good
about me. I am and always will be an
evil person. But you…”
Angelica
smiles as she runs a hand through Kayla’s long red hair.
“…you are a good person. You always strive to do what’s right. You never have to question who you are or
whether or not you are a good person. And do not question this…”
She shakes
her head.
“…you had no choice.”
Kayla and
Angelica stare at one another intensely for several moments. Kayla then buries her face in her older
sister’s shoulder and begins to cry.
Angelica pats her on the back gently.
“It’s ok, sis…it’s ok…”
Kayla looks
up at Angelica.
“I’m going to miss him.”
“So will I, Kayla. So will I.”
Kayla shakes
her head.
“But for me it’s different. Everything I could have had with our father
over the years, all of the memories we could have had, they are non-existent
because I threw away any opportunity to have a relationship with our
father. And why?”
Kayla wipes
tears from her eyes.
“I rejected him because I blamed him for
everything bad that happened to me. My
step-father beat and raped me while dad was gone and I blamed him as if it was
his fault. But now I’m beginning to
wonder did he have a choice?”
“I don’t think he did have a choice, Kay.”
Kayla nods
her head.
“And therein lies another reason I feel
guilty. I never got to really know dad
like I could have because I hated him for something that may not have been
within his control. He was being chased
by The Russian Mafia at the time. If he
stayed around, we would have been at risk.
He was protecting us the best way he knew how.”
Angelica
nods her head.
“Just as you protected my daughter the best
way you knew how.”
“Yeah…”
Angelica
pats Kayla on the back.
“So, are you feeling ready to go downstairs
and see our guests?”
Kayla
lightly chuckles.
“I guess now is as good a time as any. I need to face this eventually, right.”
Angelica
nods her head.
“That’s right. We can’t run from this.”
“And I refuse to run from anything.”
Kayla stands
up.
“Let’s go…”
Kayla leads
the way as Angelica follows her out of the door.
==========
On Camera
==========
Our scene opens with a golden throne seated atop red
carpeting. The room itself looks extraordinarily regal in appearance, as
if it belonged to some monarch. We don't have time to find out as
suddenly this exquisite room is engulfed completely and entirely in flames.
The flames burn out of control so intensely and so immensely that we can
no longer make out the room itself. Only the flame itself can be seen.
Then, just as quickly as the flame started, it dies down and comes to a
stop. Now, we are greeted with a new sight to behold. Standing to
the right of the gold throne is none other than Kayla Jones. She is one
half of The Sisterhood and she is ready for the upcoming Taking Hold of the
Flame rumble, dressed to kill in a high-low faux wrap dress with a surplice
neckline and cap sleeves. The skirt of this dress stops right at the
ankle.
“The SCW Taking Hold of the Flame rumble. This year
the magic number is forty. Forty wrestlers, forty men, women, and Red Rayne all
fighting towards the same goal but all with different motivations driving
them.”
“Now there are those in this rumble that are in it only for
personal glory. They want to win this rumble, they want to defeat all
thirty-nine other opponents, all to prove that they are the best in SCW.
They want to go on from there and become SCW World Champion at Rise To
Greatness.”
Jones smiles.
“Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I,
for one, want to win Taking Hold of the Flame. Performing well isn’t good
enough for me, because I want to go to Rise To Greeatness and prove that I am
still a world class caliber competitor in this industry and that I can be SCW
World Champion.”
Kayla chuckles lightly.
“Now not everyone has that kind of motivation. Let's
be honest with ourselves; there are those who feel they shouldn’t even have to
endure Taking Hold of the Flame, they feel entitle to Rise To Greatness and the
SCW World Championship.”
She points at the camera.
“Kennedy Street, Kellcey Wallace, I'm talking about you.”
Kayla turns her head from side to side, analyzing the regal
looking room.
“Those types of people may feel entitled to a throne such
as this. The funny thing about fire is that it is not discriminatory.
The entitled will be burned to the ground just as quickly as the humble.
Everyone's dreams are engulfed in the flame.”
“Others still just want to test themselves against the very
best SCW has to offer in the absolute most challenging match of endurance that
SCW has endured. For them, for all of us, Taking Hold of the Flame is
about competition.”
The redhead walks over and sits down on the gold throne.
“Whether you're in it for the thrill of the competition,
just to prove yourself to the wrestling world, or for personal glory, at the
end of the day all forty want to win…”
She holds up a finger.
“...but there can only be one winner. Thirty-nine
dreams will go up in flames. So the question is, if I want to win, am I
prepared to destroy the dreams of thirty-nine other competitors?”
She nods her head.
“You are damn right I am! I am ready and I will because I
want this flame win. I need it. And I will go through anyone and
everyone who gets in my way…”
“...yes, even you, Angelica. We’re sisters and we’ve
been through a lot. We’ll be competing for the SCW World Tag Team
Championships that same night. No one knows you like I do, so I know how
much being the best means to you. Winning Taking Hold of the Flame would
go a long way towards proving you are the best.”
“But you won't win the flame.”
She pats herself on the chest.
“I'm going to win the flame, and if that means going through
you, Angelica, then so be it. The honest to goodness truth is that this
really is every man, and woman, for themselves. No friends and no allies.
If you ask me, and granted I’m biased, but I think that makes me a
favorite.”
The younger Jones sibling nods her head.
“In recent years I may have had a friend, supporter, and tag
team partner in my older sister Angelica, but for the first few years of my
professional career I was on my own fighting and struggling to make my way and
to make my mark, just as I will be on my own in this rumble, fighting and
struggling to get through thirty-nine other competitors who want to kick my ass
and take what I want. And in recent years, Angelica and I may have been a
well-oiled machine, winning tag team championship gold in three different companies,
but it wasn’t always like that.”
Kayla sighs and shrugs her shoulders.
“Sorry sis, but I have to be the snitch here, though I’m not
telling the world anything they don’t already know, am I right? Just
looking at your reputation and your career and the wrestling world should
recognize that you have had a spotty career when it comes to trustworthiness.
You have stabbed people in the back in order to get ahead in this game
and to get what you want. Now yes, we have made up and are together,
united as The Sister, but am I criticizing you for your past?”
She shakes her head.
“No, of course not. As a matter of fact, that’s the
attitude you need to have if you hope to survive and win Taking Hold of the
Flame. That’s why, as I get prepared to step into this rumble match, I
will be modeling myself and my actions after my big sister in the sense that I
will do anything to win this thing and that means no allies. None.
Zero. It’s Kayla Jones versus the world and by God, if me and my
right foot have anything to say about it, Kayla Jones will win!”
“But some would say no…”
Kayla Jones lightly chuckles.
“...some would say that maybe my older sister Angelica
would have a good shot at this thing but me? Kayla Jones? The
sister who came in to help Angelica against Silas World, the sister who came in
to team up with Angelica as part of The Sisterhood...can she really get it
done?”
“Those who are asking questions like that are the same ones
who feel entitled to Taking Hold of the Flame greatness and they feel entitled
to the Rise To Greatness main event. We’re just supposed to assume that
Kelcey Wallace is going to win it all because she’s been in the main event more
times than God is mentioned in church. Or we’re supposed to just give
Kennedy Street the main event slot because she whines about it all the time.”
“There are those who don’t necessarily feel entitled but we
are supposed to just assume they are favorites, they are the ones to watch.
Competitors such as Regan Street, Amy Chastaine, and Ravyn Taylor are
favorites just because they’ve been to the top before. But what about
newcomers to this business like an AJ Helms or a Catalina Herrera?”
Jones smirks.
“And what about me? Anyone can win this thing, boys
and girls. The wild and random nature of Taking Home of the Flame makes
it impossible to predict. The obvious choices are not necessarily quite
as obvious. So I don’t care if your last name is Chastaine, Taylor,
Street, or Helms, because at the end of the day who can survive...who can
endure thirty-nine other competitors…”
“...and that person is me. I have had to endure
unimagineable trials and tribulations throughout my career. I have had to
overcome unimagineable obstacles in my career just to get to where I am today.
I suffered a broken freaking neck and I came back from it because I love
this sport and I want to compete, I want to be the best. I suffered a
broken freaking neck and I came back to become a world champion in an organization.
And now I’m ready to Take Hold of the Flame, the Flame that belongs to
me, and go on to Rise To Greatness and once again be a world champion.
And as far as Red Rayne goes...”
Kayla Jones shakes her head.
“...the script says that I’m supposed to fear you. I
fear nothing. And I damn sure don’t respect someone who resorts to cheap
mind control parlor tricks in a sick, pathetic attempt to ruin a man’s life.
And why? Because you want to be world champion?”
Jones rolls her eyes.
“Yeah, I’ve run across your type before. You are not
anything new. And your magic tricks can intimidate some people but they
don’t intimidate me. You’re starting this whole damn thing, that’s a
guarantee, but running into you isn’t, though I will say this, if I do run into
you in Taking Hold of the Flame, I will gladly kick your teeth down your throat
and do the honor of throwing your red ass over the top rope and eliminating
you.”
“That goes for the rest of the field of competitors in
Taking Hold of the Flame, as well…”
She pats her right leg.
“...my right foot is primed and ready to kick thirty-nine people in the jaw. So just accept it, accept that Kayla Jones is going to kick her way through Taking Hold of the Flame and right into Rise To Greatness where I will go on to become SCW World Champion.”