"Enlightenment . . . " || 01
Sept 25, 2016 3:34:02 GMT
Valentina Lemay, Jack Owyns, and 2 more like this
Post by Felix Hartley on Sept 25, 2016 3:34:02 GMT
E N L I G H T E N M E N T //
♡ ♡ ♡
To the surprise of many, Felix Hartley qualified for the next round of Ultimate Championship series match-ups following Victory's debut show. Why was it a surprise? Who knows – most people more than likely didn't expect the vivacious redhead to be able to hold her own on a roster that seems to be dominated by the typical powerhouse male. Although Victory has it's own petite group of female superstars (if you're counting the likes of Mysti Savage and Harper Riley – Felix wasn't, though) one could easily conclude that Felix Hartley stood out the most by far. Whether it was looks, charisma, talent, or the natural ability to draw attention to herself whenever possible without question, Felix Hartley far supersedes almost all of the talent on Victory's current roster. She had to admit, she loved to think about how it boiled in the pits of her haters' stomachs, seeing her face among the other three contenders heading into battle the next few weeks to determine Victory's Ultimate Champion. She knew there were few people in EOW that had little faith in her, and to be quite honest she wanted it that way – how boring would it have been to sit back after the show had aired and said, "thanks for your support?" No, no no. It was way more satisfying to sit there and say what Felix says best, in her own charmingly unique way:
I fucking told you so.
Those words were like music to Felix's ears, especially when it was her own music, her own beat, and her own lyrics. Felix tends to like everything her way, if you haven't noticed. This week, though, things were going to be just a little bit different. This time, she didn't have seven different people to concern herself with (notice how I didn't say 'worry about') and, as a result, admittedly she allowed herself a little bit of extra time to hit the clubs and celebrate. She hadn't been employed in over a year, and quite frankly she didn't miss the wrestling business. What she missed, though, was the satisfaction of winning and the glory of gloating; proving person after person after person wrong and being able to slander those who doubted her. She missed that. Apparently, though, she hadn't missed a beat in terms of staying on top of her fitness game and remembering what she had learned in the ring although some days she wished she could forget it.
Felix's passions and aspirations certainly didn't align with those who were actively wrestling for EOW – a former Burlesque dancer exclusively employed by the Vegas strip, Felix just loved being the centre of attention. She was a literal gypsy, moving from club to club, job to job, career to career, whatever provided her with the utmost fulfillment for whatever void needed to be filled at that junction in her life. There were a lot of reasons why she was the way she was, but none that kept her up at night. For being such a young woman, and as immature as she could be sometimes, the girl had experienced more than the average young female should by her age and not all of it was bright lights and superstardom. "Felix Hartley" was merely an extension of Felicia Jackson, a girl with a dimly lit past and a dark family history. Some girls have a natural talent for acting, but for Felix, it became an escape. Dancing was an escape. Stripping was an escape. A pattern began to form in her life where she was living her aliases instead of creating a healthy lifestyle for Felicia Anne, the girl trapped inside the personification of Felix Hartley.
She saw a lot of similarities between herself and her opponent this week: Jack Owyns. On the exterior, Jack was a rough, rough man. Verbally abusive, rebellious, blunt, obnoxiously hateful and angsty. Much of the same things could be said for Felix, among a long list of others, as you've grown to become familiar with once you've explored Felix's social media habits, or even just listened to those opposing her on last week's Victory. Not many nice things could be said about either of them. Deep down, though, Felix saw through Jack on a much more intricate and tangible level; the man was a father figure – however not an ideal one – and that spoke to his character. There was something to be said about the Freudian/Oedipus complexes stirring about between her ears, but there was even more to be said about Felix's relationship with Jack's type. Felix tends to be the running joke in regards to "Daddy Issues" and the like, but what does Felix do best when she inherently can't deal with the psychologically problematic character she possesses? She uses them to her advantage, of course, like any real woman with an ulterior agenda would do.
♡ ♡ ♡
Friday July 12th, 2013 | StripTease Gentleman's Club | Las Vegas, Nevada. 11:50 PM
Friday nights at the club were an entirely new experience for Felix; otherwise known at StripTease as Lainie. Friday night slots were normally reserved for the regular girls, the girls who could bring cash into the club like they were born to strip. These were the girls that could do really, really weird things with their bodily crevices that most girls weren't prepared to learn just to earn an extra pocket-full at the night's end. Felix had the connections, though, and by "connections" I mean her mom – Isabel Jackson, who worked both the popular Friday night slots and the popular Saturday night slots under the name Charli.
"You're up next, baby girl," Isabel's voice had an apologetic tone to it as she squeezed Felix's shoulders.
"What are you so worried about?" Felix's lip curled up into a side-smile, looking at her mom's reflection through the dressing room mirror as she stood behind her. "You know I can do this, right?"
"I have no doubt in my head that you can do absolutely anything, baby. I just know what this does to people – young women – over time," Isabel sighed, taking the empty seat at the vanity next to her daughter. "It ruins your life, honey. I know you may not see it now, but—"
"Mom, I'll be fine," Felix dismissively bellows with a roll of her eyes. "I'm eighteen, I think I know how to disassociate my work life from my personal life."
"Hey, hey, hey . . . " Isabel suspiciously looks behind her shoulder, lowering her voice as she moves closer to Felix. "Quiet down. I talked them into giving you the Friday night slot, but they don't exactly know that you're underaged."
"Pfft," Felix makes a passive noise with her lips, "As soon as they see how much money I rake in tonight, they ain't gonna care about my age, ma."
"The money isn't the point, Fel. It's the fact that my entire reputation in this club is on the line. I've been dancing here for over ten years, I know everything that goes on behind the scenes. Stuff that, quite frankly, you're too young to know about just yet. Working in this business can crush your soul, and you have no idea how many nights I cry myself to sleep knowing I've dragged you into this," Isabel stops to put her face in her hands and breathe in deeply. She exhales, wiping at her eyes and smudging her eye makeup ever so slightly. She looked distressed. "If this ever does to you what it did to me, I don't know if I could ever forgive myself. His money isn't your problem—"
"Stop." Felix put her hand up to silence her mother, "I'm not doing this for him. Let's get that straight right now. I chose to do this because I don't want you crying yourself to sleep every night wondering how you're going to fix the problem that somebody else created for you. That man is literal fucking garbage. I'm not religious and you know I've never believed in any higher power but that doesn't stop me from fucking praying every night that he gets hit by some sort of oncoming traffic."
She puckered her lips confidently, smacking the bright red paint together as she fluffed her hair and made any last minute adjustments to her appearance before they would announce her arrival on stage. Felix had been stripping in the Saturday night slot for a few months thanks to her mom, who now had the burden of guilt for letting her daughter into this industry. It wasn't a promising one, and Isabel has trained hundreds of girls and seen them all turn to drugs and alcohol eventually. She didn't want that life for Felicia; but she certainly didn't want to drown in her husband's debt any longer, either.
"Please just promise me that you'll quit as soon as you make enough money," Isabel placed her hand on Felix's knee.
"Yeah, yeah . . . " Felix brushed her mother's hand away, standing up to buckle the belt on her 'school girl' kilt.
"Aye, Lainie," Antonio, the Club's night shift manager bursts into the dressing room. "Hurry up, buttercup – what's the hold up?"
He nods to the doorway, signalling Felix to hit the stage. She glanced back at her mom one more time to assure her that she was going to be fine, and more importantly, to assure her that nobody would find out that Isabel had snuck her in to perform when she wasn't even legal to have a drink. Isabel mouthed the words, 'I love you' to which Felix shook her head in response, mouthing 'Love you too' even though she thought this was a wild overreaction.
The car ride back home was silent, mostly because Felix's head was tilted back and her eyes were closed. Once she and Isabel finished their dances for the night, they stuck around to help the bartenders clean up, which took a toll on Felix's energy considering she had to come back the next night alone. When they got in the door, George Jackson, Felicia's father (not biological – Felix was left on Isabel and George Jackson's doorstep) sat upright where they had left him hours ago – in his sweat-stained, musty, warped computer chair seemingly glued to his desktop, the reflective green glare of PokerStars.Net casting shadows on the jowls of his unkempt face.
"George? We're home," Isabel's angelic voice rang through the open concept hallway into the living room where he had been situated. Their home was small and cozy, but had been recently renovated. "George, did you hear me?"
"God damn it woman, will you shut your gab o'er there? I'm busy." George's hoarse and discomforting voice echoed out with a vibrato that seemed encouraged by the multiple layers of skin and fat surrounding his neck and vocal chords. "Did you bring the little whore with ya?"
He chuckled to himself, his whole body blubbering in unison.
"Well who else is going to pay your gambling debt, you fat fuck?" Felix chimed in, leaning into the door jamb with her arms crossed over her ample chest. "Can't even stand up to take a piss but he can sure talk out his ass."
"Isabel, what the fuck did this dumb bitch just say to me?" He yells out to Isabel, who had still been unbuckling her platforms in the hallway.
"George!" Isabel storms into the living area with a threatening tone to her voice, pointing her finger in his face, "Don't you dare . . . "
"You gonna let her speak to me that way?" George turns to look at both of them standing side by side, growing angrier at the sight of Felix's arrogant smirk. "And just what in the hell are you so proud of? Wipe that smirk off your face, your lips are starting to look like a fucking cum-target."
"I'm sure if I wiped it off and deep-fried it you'd have no problem with it," Felix retorted, the arrogant smile never leaving her lips.
George jumped out of his chair, charging directly at Felix with a ferocity she had never seen before. He shoves Isabel out of the way and takes Felix by the throat, hoisting her up against the wall, both hands clasped around her neck squeezing as hard as he could.
"GEORGE! PUT HER DOWN! GEORGE!"
Felix squirmed and kicked and spat, but her slender legs proved to be no match for George's size and strength. He squeezed harder, harder and harder until her movement began to slow down, her grip on his hands began to weaken and she started to lose consciousness. Isabel began sobbing uncontrollably as she sunk to the floor in the corner . . .
"GEORGE, PLEASE! PLEASE PUT HER DOWN YOU'RE GOING TO KILL HER!"
At the very second he released his grip, Felix fell to the floor with a solid thump. Barely conscious, she had just enough life left in her to grasp at her own throat. Things seemed hazy and grey around her, and she could vaguely hear her mother sobbing in the corner. She felt hands on her, felt confused and angry, but had absolutely no willpower to refuse. George had stuck his hand down Felix's skirt, knowing that she kept her nightly allowance tucked safely in her undergarments when she left the club for the night. He pulled out a wad of cash, waving it in front of Felix's glazed-over eyes.
"That's all that pussy is worth, huh?" George chuckled, still bent down and waving the money in front of Felix's face. "Worthless, just like your mama. And she ain't even your real mama!"
His knees cracked and he grunted as he stood up, hobbling over to a sobbing, defeated Isabel tucked into the corner with her head in her hands. He held out his hand expectantly, staring down at her without an ounce of sympathy.
"And you?"
With shaky hands, Isabel reached into the waistline of her skirt. She latched onto the wad of cash that was tucked there, barely extending her arm out to him before it was greedily ripped from her dainty hands. He hobbled back to his computer chair as if none of the current events transpired at all, resuming his game and muttering under his breath. Isabel crawled on all fours over to where Felix lie, slowly regaining her consciousness . . .
♡ ♡ ♡
"The stubborn little bitch in me wants to say that there's absolutely no way in hell that Jack Owyns is going to out-work me next week."
Felix was being recorded on camera, her hair tucked into a side ponytail, casual but elegant. The camera was focused on her side-profile, as if she were talking to somebody the camera couldn't see.
"Realistically, I'm too smart for anybody on this entire roster. I play mind games like I'm fucking Milton Bradley's neuroscientist. I talk a lot of shit – a lot of shit – but I back it up because I know I can. Training in the ring and all that garbage comes with time and if people doubt me now? Think about how much I've obviously improved since I started wrestling two years ago. Am I a fucking legend? No, obviously not, I'm not an idiot and I'm not going to pretend like I am. But I know for a fact that with the shit I've been through in my life, there's not a woman alive that can manipulate people the way that I do. I know exactly how to get inside people's heads, and if you don't believe me just look at what happened last week. How many people thought that I couldn't 'hang with the guys' even though nobody seemed to realize that Mysti Savage was also in the lethal lottery? I know she could easily be mistaken for a prepubescent boy but, people just love to give me shit because I know what I'm capable of, and the only thing people hate more than arrogance is confidence. Knowing what you can do and knowing how to exploit your own talents – are you kidding me right now? I was raised on exploiting myself for profit. Don't fucking talk to me about how to play games and get what I want."
Felix leans back in her chair, relaxed. She mindlessly twirls a strand of her vibrant red hair between her middle and index finger, grinning into the camera.
"The problem with Jack, is that I know him. I know guys like him like the back of my hand. Buddy comes in with this holier-than-thou attitude to hide the mistakes he made as a husband and as a father. Masks the shame with drugs and alcohol. Blames his problems on the rest of the world and never holds himself accountable for anything – sound like anybody you know?" Felix rolls her eyes. "Jack and I, we're similar whether he wants to admit it or not. We both come from some pretty fucking dark pasts, and I'd be lying if I said he didn't both turn me on and also enrage me simultaneously knowing that he's fucked up the lives of two other people because he couldn't handle his shit and turned to wrestling to help him sleep at night. Real heroic. Coming from a family where, for one, wasn't my real family, and two, my mother and I suffered abuse at the hands of a fat prick who couldn't get his addictions in order and used everybody else around him to help bring him out of the hole he was sinking further and further into . . . Of course it sparks something in me."
Felix was rarely impassioned by anything that her colleagues do, and she was nothing short of vocal about that – but seeing the similarities between herself and Jack Owyns, and her family and the situation Jack currently finds himself in, stirred something sinister in Felix's stomach.
"The unfortunate part of this match for Jack is that now . . . I've made it personal. I feel like I owe it to myself, and the version of me that I've repressed because of a lot of the fucked up, psychological damage that I've been exposed to, to personally make Jack Owyns my own vendetta. The Ultimate Championship is one thing, and I'll never lose sight of that because after I personally take Owyns out of that equation, my goal is that much closer to being attained. And trust me, it pains me – really, truly pains me – to say that my real priority when I'm standing across from Jack next week is to take out the frustrations from my past. A part of me would heal knowing that I can stand across from people like him and beat his dreams out of him. Take that opportunity he thought he had for the Ultimate Championship completely out of his grasp. Make him beg me for it back, but just when I think about giving him another chance, I take it away again. I take everything he has including his dignity, and his shot at the title. Leave him hobbling out of the arena next week, embarrassed, tail tucked between his legs knowing that he was defeated by an inexperienced little slut that has no business in professional wrestling . . . "
Felix could feel herself smiling at the thought, and for the first time the camera sees a genuine smile from Felix Hartley, and not one that was spawned from a clever retort.
"Imagine that. Thirteen whole years of experience, gone to waste. Completely upstaged by the one he doubted the most going into this tournament. It's not even like I care," Felix shrugged, her arms coming out to her side in an exaggerated manner, "The only thing I have to think about this week is how exactly I'm going to spit in Jack's face when he's so much taller than me. It's hot, don't get me wrong, I really, really dig tall guys . . . But do I wish he could be just a bit shorter, and maybe weigh a little less so I can toss him out like I toss the trash out of my expensively decorated California condo? Yeah, I do. I know how this looks. I know it seems ridiculous for me to believe that somebody who weighs about as much as Jack Owyns' left thigh could effectively have him down and out, but I can assure you if any female is going to earn her place among the EOW rankings, it's going to be me. I'm the one you saw in the final four with Finn and Matthew Page. I'm the one who people are talking about on social media, not Mysti, Harper or even Courtney. Nobody cares about them. Nobody cares about anybody on this roster except for the four of us, and that's just fact."
Felix spoke confidently, adjusting so that her leg crossed over her knee. She admired the way the light reflected off of the decorative zippers on her Louboutin's as she spoke.
"So, do I have a plan at this very second about how I'm going to work around Jack's size? His technique? His experience? No. I don't. Do I need one? Probably. But if I'm capable of proving anything, it's the fact that I don't need to have a game plan in advance. I told Finn the same thing last week, and I'll say it again. I don't do game plans. If I've learned anything in my twenty years of living in Vegas, a one hour engagement and two years in this bullshit industry is that nothing ever goes according to plan, anyway. All I have to do is know what to do . . . and I've made it very clear that when it comes to big bad Jack Owyns? I know exactly . . . what to do."
Felix gives one last sinister smirk into the camera, flashing her pearly whites as the scene slowly fades out . . .
"You're up next, baby girl," Isabel's voice had an apologetic tone to it as she squeezed Felix's shoulders.
"What are you so worried about?" Felix's lip curled up into a side-smile, looking at her mom's reflection through the dressing room mirror as she stood behind her. "You know I can do this, right?"
"I have no doubt in my head that you can do absolutely anything, baby. I just know what this does to people – young women – over time," Isabel sighed, taking the empty seat at the vanity next to her daughter. "It ruins your life, honey. I know you may not see it now, but—"
"Mom, I'll be fine," Felix dismissively bellows with a roll of her eyes. "I'm eighteen, I think I know how to disassociate my work life from my personal life."
"Hey, hey, hey . . . " Isabel suspiciously looks behind her shoulder, lowering her voice as she moves closer to Felix. "Quiet down. I talked them into giving you the Friday night slot, but they don't exactly know that you're underaged."
"Pfft," Felix makes a passive noise with her lips, "As soon as they see how much money I rake in tonight, they ain't gonna care about my age, ma."
"The money isn't the point, Fel. It's the fact that my entire reputation in this club is on the line. I've been dancing here for over ten years, I know everything that goes on behind the scenes. Stuff that, quite frankly, you're too young to know about just yet. Working in this business can crush your soul, and you have no idea how many nights I cry myself to sleep knowing I've dragged you into this," Isabel stops to put her face in her hands and breathe in deeply. She exhales, wiping at her eyes and smudging her eye makeup ever so slightly. She looked distressed. "If this ever does to you what it did to me, I don't know if I could ever forgive myself. His money isn't your problem—"
"Stop." Felix put her hand up to silence her mother, "I'm not doing this for him. Let's get that straight right now. I chose to do this because I don't want you crying yourself to sleep every night wondering how you're going to fix the problem that somebody else created for you. That man is literal fucking garbage. I'm not religious and you know I've never believed in any higher power but that doesn't stop me from fucking praying every night that he gets hit by some sort of oncoming traffic."
She puckered her lips confidently, smacking the bright red paint together as she fluffed her hair and made any last minute adjustments to her appearance before they would announce her arrival on stage. Felix had been stripping in the Saturday night slot for a few months thanks to her mom, who now had the burden of guilt for letting her daughter into this industry. It wasn't a promising one, and Isabel has trained hundreds of girls and seen them all turn to drugs and alcohol eventually. She didn't want that life for Felicia; but she certainly didn't want to drown in her husband's debt any longer, either.
"Please just promise me that you'll quit as soon as you make enough money," Isabel placed her hand on Felix's knee.
"Yeah, yeah . . . " Felix brushed her mother's hand away, standing up to buckle the belt on her 'school girl' kilt.
"Aye, Lainie," Antonio, the Club's night shift manager bursts into the dressing room. "Hurry up, buttercup – what's the hold up?"
He nods to the doorway, signalling Felix to hit the stage. She glanced back at her mom one more time to assure her that she was going to be fine, and more importantly, to assure her that nobody would find out that Isabel had snuck her in to perform when she wasn't even legal to have a drink. Isabel mouthed the words, 'I love you' to which Felix shook her head in response, mouthing 'Love you too' even though she thought this was a wild overreaction.
Saturday July 13th, 2013 | Jackson Residence | Sparks, Nevada. 2:44 AM
The car ride back home was silent, mostly because Felix's head was tilted back and her eyes were closed. Once she and Isabel finished their dances for the night, they stuck around to help the bartenders clean up, which took a toll on Felix's energy considering she had to come back the next night alone. When they got in the door, George Jackson, Felicia's father (not biological – Felix was left on Isabel and George Jackson's doorstep) sat upright where they had left him hours ago – in his sweat-stained, musty, warped computer chair seemingly glued to his desktop, the reflective green glare of PokerStars.Net casting shadows on the jowls of his unkempt face.
"George? We're home," Isabel's angelic voice rang through the open concept hallway into the living room where he had been situated. Their home was small and cozy, but had been recently renovated. "George, did you hear me?"
"God damn it woman, will you shut your gab o'er there? I'm busy." George's hoarse and discomforting voice echoed out with a vibrato that seemed encouraged by the multiple layers of skin and fat surrounding his neck and vocal chords. "Did you bring the little whore with ya?"
He chuckled to himself, his whole body blubbering in unison.
"Well who else is going to pay your gambling debt, you fat fuck?" Felix chimed in, leaning into the door jamb with her arms crossed over her ample chest. "Can't even stand up to take a piss but he can sure talk out his ass."
"Isabel, what the fuck did this dumb bitch just say to me?" He yells out to Isabel, who had still been unbuckling her platforms in the hallway.
"George!" Isabel storms into the living area with a threatening tone to her voice, pointing her finger in his face, "Don't you dare . . . "
"You gonna let her speak to me that way?" George turns to look at both of them standing side by side, growing angrier at the sight of Felix's arrogant smirk. "And just what in the hell are you so proud of? Wipe that smirk off your face, your lips are starting to look like a fucking cum-target."
"I'm sure if I wiped it off and deep-fried it you'd have no problem with it," Felix retorted, the arrogant smile never leaving her lips.
George jumped out of his chair, charging directly at Felix with a ferocity she had never seen before. He shoves Isabel out of the way and takes Felix by the throat, hoisting her up against the wall, both hands clasped around her neck squeezing as hard as he could.
"GEORGE! PUT HER DOWN! GEORGE!"
Felix squirmed and kicked and spat, but her slender legs proved to be no match for George's size and strength. He squeezed harder, harder and harder until her movement began to slow down, her grip on his hands began to weaken and she started to lose consciousness. Isabel began sobbing uncontrollably as she sunk to the floor in the corner . . .
"GEORGE, PLEASE! PLEASE PUT HER DOWN YOU'RE GOING TO KILL HER!"
At the very second he released his grip, Felix fell to the floor with a solid thump. Barely conscious, she had just enough life left in her to grasp at her own throat. Things seemed hazy and grey around her, and she could vaguely hear her mother sobbing in the corner. She felt hands on her, felt confused and angry, but had absolutely no willpower to refuse. George had stuck his hand down Felix's skirt, knowing that she kept her nightly allowance tucked safely in her undergarments when she left the club for the night. He pulled out a wad of cash, waving it in front of Felix's glazed-over eyes.
"That's all that pussy is worth, huh?" George chuckled, still bent down and waving the money in front of Felix's face. "Worthless, just like your mama. And she ain't even your real mama!"
His knees cracked and he grunted as he stood up, hobbling over to a sobbing, defeated Isabel tucked into the corner with her head in her hands. He held out his hand expectantly, staring down at her without an ounce of sympathy.
"And you?"
With shaky hands, Isabel reached into the waistline of her skirt. She latched onto the wad of cash that was tucked there, barely extending her arm out to him before it was greedily ripped from her dainty hands. He hobbled back to his computer chair as if none of the current events transpired at all, resuming his game and muttering under his breath. Isabel crawled on all fours over to where Felix lie, slowly regaining her consciousness . . .
♡ ♡ ♡
"The stubborn little bitch in me wants to say that there's absolutely no way in hell that Jack Owyns is going to out-work me next week."
Felix was being recorded on camera, her hair tucked into a side ponytail, casual but elegant. The camera was focused on her side-profile, as if she were talking to somebody the camera couldn't see.
"Realistically, I'm too smart for anybody on this entire roster. I play mind games like I'm fucking Milton Bradley's neuroscientist. I talk a lot of shit – a lot of shit – but I back it up because I know I can. Training in the ring and all that garbage comes with time and if people doubt me now? Think about how much I've obviously improved since I started wrestling two years ago. Am I a fucking legend? No, obviously not, I'm not an idiot and I'm not going to pretend like I am. But I know for a fact that with the shit I've been through in my life, there's not a woman alive that can manipulate people the way that I do. I know exactly how to get inside people's heads, and if you don't believe me just look at what happened last week. How many people thought that I couldn't 'hang with the guys' even though nobody seemed to realize that Mysti Savage was also in the lethal lottery? I know she could easily be mistaken for a prepubescent boy but, people just love to give me shit because I know what I'm capable of, and the only thing people hate more than arrogance is confidence. Knowing what you can do and knowing how to exploit your own talents – are you kidding me right now? I was raised on exploiting myself for profit. Don't fucking talk to me about how to play games and get what I want."
Felix leans back in her chair, relaxed. She mindlessly twirls a strand of her vibrant red hair between her middle and index finger, grinning into the camera.
"The problem with Jack, is that I know him. I know guys like him like the back of my hand. Buddy comes in with this holier-than-thou attitude to hide the mistakes he made as a husband and as a father. Masks the shame with drugs and alcohol. Blames his problems on the rest of the world and never holds himself accountable for anything – sound like anybody you know?" Felix rolls her eyes. "Jack and I, we're similar whether he wants to admit it or not. We both come from some pretty fucking dark pasts, and I'd be lying if I said he didn't both turn me on and also enrage me simultaneously knowing that he's fucked up the lives of two other people because he couldn't handle his shit and turned to wrestling to help him sleep at night. Real heroic. Coming from a family where, for one, wasn't my real family, and two, my mother and I suffered abuse at the hands of a fat prick who couldn't get his addictions in order and used everybody else around him to help bring him out of the hole he was sinking further and further into . . . Of course it sparks something in me."
Felix was rarely impassioned by anything that her colleagues do, and she was nothing short of vocal about that – but seeing the similarities between herself and Jack Owyns, and her family and the situation Jack currently finds himself in, stirred something sinister in Felix's stomach.
"The unfortunate part of this match for Jack is that now . . . I've made it personal. I feel like I owe it to myself, and the version of me that I've repressed because of a lot of the fucked up, psychological damage that I've been exposed to, to personally make Jack Owyns my own vendetta. The Ultimate Championship is one thing, and I'll never lose sight of that because after I personally take Owyns out of that equation, my goal is that much closer to being attained. And trust me, it pains me – really, truly pains me – to say that my real priority when I'm standing across from Jack next week is to take out the frustrations from my past. A part of me would heal knowing that I can stand across from people like him and beat his dreams out of him. Take that opportunity he thought he had for the Ultimate Championship completely out of his grasp. Make him beg me for it back, but just when I think about giving him another chance, I take it away again. I take everything he has including his dignity, and his shot at the title. Leave him hobbling out of the arena next week, embarrassed, tail tucked between his legs knowing that he was defeated by an inexperienced little slut that has no business in professional wrestling . . . "
Felix could feel herself smiling at the thought, and for the first time the camera sees a genuine smile from Felix Hartley, and not one that was spawned from a clever retort.
"Imagine that. Thirteen whole years of experience, gone to waste. Completely upstaged by the one he doubted the most going into this tournament. It's not even like I care," Felix shrugged, her arms coming out to her side in an exaggerated manner, "The only thing I have to think about this week is how exactly I'm going to spit in Jack's face when he's so much taller than me. It's hot, don't get me wrong, I really, really dig tall guys . . . But do I wish he could be just a bit shorter, and maybe weigh a little less so I can toss him out like I toss the trash out of my expensively decorated California condo? Yeah, I do. I know how this looks. I know it seems ridiculous for me to believe that somebody who weighs about as much as Jack Owyns' left thigh could effectively have him down and out, but I can assure you if any female is going to earn her place among the EOW rankings, it's going to be me. I'm the one you saw in the final four with Finn and Matthew Page. I'm the one who people are talking about on social media, not Mysti, Harper or even Courtney. Nobody cares about them. Nobody cares about anybody on this roster except for the four of us, and that's just fact."
Felix spoke confidently, adjusting so that her leg crossed over her knee. She admired the way the light reflected off of the decorative zippers on her Louboutin's as she spoke.
"So, do I have a plan at this very second about how I'm going to work around Jack's size? His technique? His experience? No. I don't. Do I need one? Probably. But if I'm capable of proving anything, it's the fact that I don't need to have a game plan in advance. I told Finn the same thing last week, and I'll say it again. I don't do game plans. If I've learned anything in my twenty years of living in Vegas, a one hour engagement and two years in this bullshit industry is that nothing ever goes according to plan, anyway. All I have to do is know what to do . . . and I've made it very clear that when it comes to big bad Jack Owyns? I know exactly . . . what to do."
Felix gives one last sinister smirk into the camera, flashing her pearly whites as the scene slowly fades out . . .
