S&S - Monster, Man, Demon

Trace Demon – A Rolling Stones Profile
Part Two
By Alex Camus


Trace Demon’s house is an exquisite display of his wealth, a mansion in the most expensive part of Los Angeles. His neighbours include A-list celebrities that certainly cause Trace to look out of place. He doesn’t care. Inside the mansion looks like any other house, slightly messy, comfortable, most certainly lived in, Trace Demon doesn’t have a cleaner, he doesn’t like the thought of somebody finding something they shouldn’t (his words). In the corner of his built-in gym is a large glass cabinet that holds replicas of all the championship belts that Trace Demon has won. He currently stands staring at just the one – his first (and as of this moment only) WFWF World Heavyweight Championship.


Trace Demon: It doesn’t mean anything; it may as well be melted down for scrap.


His discontent is surprising. This is the title that all WFWF stars long to hold, the sign that they have risen to the very top of the pile. Those who have held a World title often cite it as the greatest achievement of their career and those that don’t cite it as the one big goal of their career. For Trace Demon to offhand this achievement is a rare display of humility for the often arrogant man.


Trace Demon: I won this off of DGX, big star, great wrestler, but the day I won it he was barely there. It was the last match on his contract and he just didn’t seem to give a damn anymore, I put him to shame, made him look like a fool and that wouldn’t have happened if I’d been wrestling the real DGX. It was a sign of the times, the entire roster was on shaky grounds, it was probably the weakest it had been in a long time. They said I should have been happy to be champion but you know what? I was pissed off. I was pissed off that I was just the best of a crap lot. I was just a man with a bit of gold and a strap, there wasn’t any meaning to it, I didn’t feel any pride, I felt hollow and cold and f*****g pointless. That title isn’t there to remind me of an achievement, it’s there to remind me of what I haven’t done. I don’t consider myself a WFWF World Champion, I don’t consider myself a grand slam winner, I’m a man who came close but didn’t quite make it. That’s what this is about, I’m going to change that.


He is of course referring to his match at Scars & Stripes with Scarlett Quinn.


Trace Demon: Back then I was the best of a bad lot. Now I’m simply the best.


Alex Camus: You have had a lot of success in the past few years, both here and in the XWA, well both of them in fact. Is there something in particular that has caused this big change in dynamic for you?


Trace Demon: I grew up; I realized that I’d been coasting. I had the talent, the brains, the heart, but I was happy to be on top of a poor roster. Over the years that roster has improved, the guys back then have gotten better, we’ve picked up big names, old names have come back, the level of competition has improved so I knew I had to improve with it. I went out to the XWA to get a fresh challenge and that ignited the fire in me again. I brought that passion back here and I started putting on the best performances of my career. There’s a reason I’ve gone nineteen months unbeaten and it’s the same reason I held the XWA Hardcore Championship and the WFWF International Championship for a year plus, I refuse to be beaten. I want to be the best and I’ll do anything to make that happen so as I see others get better I make sure that I do as well. Everyone always says that there’s someone better out there than you, well I want to make sure that isn’t true.


Alex Camus: You don’t think there’s anybody out there that can beat you?


Trace Demon: I’m not saying that, there’s a few guys who have picked up victories over me, one guy in particular who I have yet to beat, Alex Sean if you’re wondering. What I’m saying is with that saying, that there’s always somebody better, eventually that has to be wrong. Eventually you’ve got to reach that last person who is simply the best and I want to be that person. I want to be the best and I don’t want there to be any argument that I am exactly that. Until that happens I’ll keep this plastic, pointless title in that cabinet just to remind me that I’m not there yet.


Alex Camus: There’s a lot of talent in the WFWF roster right now and with Scars & Stripes coming up one of those talents will book themselves a match, possibly against you, for the title. Is there anybody in that match who you think might pose a threat if you do win the title?


Trace Demon: Honestly? No, I don’t. I think that right now I’m the very best this roster has to offer and the only two who could match me won’t be in that world title match at Superbrawl. One is Reverend Shadow, he’s a threat, a great talent, the only man who could put up a real fight against me, but he’s not going to be in the battle royal so I don’t have to think about it. The other is Scarlett and she won’t be in that match because… well, you know, I’m going to beat her.


Alex Camus: That does somewhat of a disservice to the rest of the roster though.


Trace Demon: Look, if I believed any of them posed a threat I’d readily admit it because while I might be arrogant I’m not oblivious. But you’ve got veterans in there like Shawn Malakai, Thunder and Yukio Blaze and their time has all passed, this might be their last chance and even if they do manage it I know I can beat them all. Shawn’s falling apart, Thunder’s still a shadow of his former self and don’t even get me started on Yukio. Then there’s guys like Mak, Cam and Ace Bennett and while they’re all great talent it’s not their time yet, they’ve not reached the peak they need to be at. This might be their breakthrough moment but then they’re going to come up against a man where the luck of the draw won’t help you. Then there’s the newcomers and… screw it, I don’t need to explain that. They’re green, they’re rookies, some of them, Dex, Ace Andrews, Joe Bishop, they could be big in the future but they’re not there yet. If they managed a miracle and won I’d tear them apart before they even got a chance to get to Superbrawl. This isn’t a little pond anymore, this is a bloody ocean and it don’t matter if you’re a big fish or a little fish…


He pauses, smirks as he thinks up the next line. He strikes me as the kind of man who enjoys his own rhetoric. He doesn’t just like the sound of his own voice, he finds the words he says as truly inspired.


Trace Demon: I’m Poseidon. I’m a God, the kind of the ocean. This is my house and it doesn’t matter who wins Scars & Stripes, I will walk into Superbrawl as the WFWF World Heavyweight Champion and walk out the same way. And then that title…


He points up at the replica WFWF World Heavyweight Championship, as if I didn’t know what he was talking about in the first place.


Trace Demon: That’ll finally mean something.


< *** >


The Long Way Home


Trace Demon often travelled to and back from shows by car rather than by plane. The open road gave him time to think, to theorise and most importantly to listen to guilty pleasure music without anyone judging him. So here he is, on the way back from the final Revolution before Scars & Stripes, rocking to the classic beats of T-Swift without a care in the world. He wonders whether she’s got the right idea, if he’d be better off turning all of his evil plans into classic country-pop songs rather than inflicting them on unfortunate losers. Hey, maybe he could do both, he’s talented enough, he can play the guitar and he can totally rock a blonde wig and a pair of cowboy boots. It’s how he hooked up with that nineteen year old rodeo queen down in Texas a couple of years back. He really should call her, find out if her father still plans on shooting him next time he steps foot in the state or not. It had really put a hamper on his holiday plans.


Anyway, he’d barely thought about the events back home since he’d gotten into his car. No I mean it, I do, I’m not lying. It’s not like his argument with Emily has been running through his head every five seconds and no amount of teenage girl music angst would change that, not… at… all. He is so perfect in fact, so perfect that he almost misses the strange sight on the side of the side of the desert road ahead of him. A person, a girl by the figure, stands with her thumb stuck out, hitching a ride. A crimson hoody covers her face as the sand from the desert surrounding them swirls around her elegantly but violently all at the same time. A torrential assault of nature’s beautiful horror. Now usually he wouldn’t even consider pulling over but this was as middle of nowhere as it could possibly get. He’d been driving for a good two hours through this desert and he hadn’t seen another living soul, unless you count the buzzards he’d seen further back chowing down on some kind of large animal. He didn’t, buzzards are like the zombies of the bird world.


So he decides to pull over, knowing full well that if this is some axe wielding murderer he can totally take them. He’s seen enough horror movies to know that you should simply kick them in the balls and then beat their head in with a rock. It’s why he keeps a rock in his pocket at all times, just in case. The car door opens, evidently the red hooded hitchhiker had approached while he was readying himself to bash her head in with his trusty pocket rock. A lost resort of course…


Red Hood: Thank god, I didn’t think I’d ever see anyone out here.


Trace Demon: Funny, I was thinking exactly the same thing.


She removes the red hood and what lies beneath both surprises Trace but doesn’t at the same time. She’s a good looking girl, but she can only be nineteen, twenty at a push. Her right eye is prominently black, a fresh bruise as far as Trace can tell, but there’s a twinkle in it all the same. Whatever happened to her, whatever pushed her to be out here in the middle of a freaking desert, it hasn’t crushed her. Maybe she’s like him.


Maybe she’s invincible as well.


Red Hood: I’m Caitlyn.


Trace Demon: Trace.


Caitlyn Lucia: Hey I recognise you, you’re that wrestler right? The crazy one?


Trace Demon: You usually think it’s a good idea to get in a car with a stranger then call him crazy?


Caitlyn Lucia: Not my best, but it beats standing on the side of the road through nowhere, right? Where are you heading?


Trace Demon: Back home to Los Angeles.


Caitlyn Lucia: That’s like a day and a half drive from here.


Trace Demon: There’s a motel along the way I’m gonna crash at, you can either get off there or get off in LA, up to you.


Caitlyn Lucia: You offering to get me off Trace?


Trace Demon: You’re not in the least bit funny, and you’re utterly terrible at this hitchhiking thing.


She laughs, though there’s pain there too, he can hear it now. This girl isn’t invincible, she isn’t like him. She lets things affect her. No, not like him at all.


Caitlyn Lucia: Let’s get as far as the motel and then we’ll see what happens, kay?


Trace Demon: Whatever you say girl, just as long as you give me one thing.


She looks at him sceptically, because of course you would if a stranger who just picked you up on the side of the road had just said that. Plus we’re not just talking about any old stranger, we’re talking about the crimson haired, punk rocker looking Trace Demon. The very guy who looks like he’s just come back from some kind of black Sabbath tribute concern. He is the very personification of the man your mother told you never to get in a car with, he may as well have been the mythical boogeyman used to scare children into behaving. So yes, Caitlyn’s scepticism was understandable.


Caitlyn Lucia: What thing?


Trace Demon: Song choice.


He hits the Ipod dock and… “Trouble, Trouble, Trouble”


Caitlyn Lucia: I regret this immediately.


< *** >


Caitlyn Lucia: Why are we stopping?


They’ve been driving for a good couple of hours when Trace eventually pulls over. It’s not been a particularly eventful trip considering Trace was expecting to fight off a crazed murderer but hey, that can’t be a bad thing, right? They’d made small talk, played some really bad car games (eye spy sucks when every other answer is sand) and argued in depth about the lack of merit in modern pop singers. Trace of course maintains that Miley Cyrus should go and die while Caitlyn is firmly on the “I really don’t care what she does” bandwagon. In my humble narrative opinion both are perfectly acceptable opinions to have.


Trace Demon: I’ve got to piss.


Caitlyn Lucia: I’m really sorry I asked.


Trace Demon: We’ve been in a car together for two hours red hood, civility passed us by twenty minutes in when you told me about the time you first got your period.


And yes, he’d started calling her red hood because he’d forgotten her name twice already, as he was inclined to do with just about everybody, and she’d gotten tired or reminding him. It’s the same reason he calls Jason Anders by his surname, who can be bothered remembering something as boring as Jason?


Caitlyn Lucia: I thought it’d bring us closer together.


Trace Demon: It did, only by making us both incredibly uncomfortable.


He popped open the car door and used the opportunity to stretch out for a few seconds. The car was spacious enough but there’s nothing quite like that first stretch, that first breath of truly fresh air, that first moment when you realize it’s scorching hot out here without the air conditioning comfort within your tin can with wheels.


Trace Demon: Give me five, I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a long one. Here, fiddle with the radio.


He throws the keys back through the car window and walks off into the desert for the best spot to empty the tank. Not that it really matters since every sprinkle of sand looks the same as the last. Once Caitlyn is sure he’s far enough away she scoots across and frantically begins fiddling with the keys. She curses his name and wonders why anybody needs this many keys on a single key ring. She also wonders why anybody would have a picture of The Brady Bunch on their key ring but this guy is just weird enough that it doesn’t seem all that strange. She almost feels bad, he’s cool enough even if his taste in music sucks and his hair is as crazy as Yukio Blaze’s stench is foul but it’s survival of the fittest. She knows that when the time comes he’ll cut her loose and then she’ll have nothing and nowhere to go. At least this way she’ll have a car and whatever’s in the boot. God, she hopes it isn’t a dead body, he seems like the type that might have a dead body in the boot.


Caitlyn Lucia: Come on, which key?


Trace Demon: It’s probably this one, you know, the one I slipped off before throwing you them.


He startles her as he stands at the window, looking in with a twisted little smirk that’s so menacingly perfect that she almost thinks he stands in front of a mirror practicing it. She goes to kick the door open, intending to smash it right into him on the outswing, but he jams his knee against it, keeping it shut. She climbs over the seats to the passenger’s side and goes for the door but he slips the key in the lock and turns it, locking her in.


Trace Demon: How stupid do I look?


Caitlyn Lucia: Just let me leave and you’ll never have to see me again.


He can see from hey body language that she’s ready to put up a fight. This garners a laugh, surprising Caitlyn.


Trace Demon: Sit up for god’s sake, you look ridiculous.


Confused she hesitantly does as he says. He pops open the driver’s side door and gets in, still laughing at her. Her confusion makes her forget for a moment that she’s now trapped in close quarters with a crazy guy who’s car she just tried to steal.


Trace Demon: I mean what do you think I’m going to do, attack you? I mean let’s be honest, when people are constantly trying to smash your head in with chairs stealing my car really isn’t that big of a deal.


Caitlyn Lucia: Well you’d have been stranded out here… in the desert… in the scorching heat.


Trace Demon: True, didn’t consider that… nope, still struggling to care. I mean I’ve been in worst places that the desert.


She doesn’t even want to consider where said ‘worst place’ could possibly be. She certainly doesn’t doubt that he’s been there, but she doesn’t want to know about it.


Caitlyn Lucia: Look I’m sorry I tried to steal your car, just let me out here and I’ll find another ride. This doesn’t have to be a problem, I don’t want any trouble.


Trace Demon: Oh shut up red hood, I’m not leaving you on the side of the bloody road. So what, you tried to steal my car, does it look like I care? You did what you thought you had to do, you did what was best for you, I can respect that, hell I live that. I’d have done the same thing if I was you, I mean I’d have been better at it but still, props for trying I suppose. Even if you suck at it.


Caitlyn Lucia: How are you not pissed off?


Trace Demon: Because unlike everybody else I understand. You’re like me, however terrifying that thought might be. So I’ll take you as far as the motel and I’ll pay for a room for the night, give you a place to get a night’s sleep and then like I said, you can decide where you go from there.


She sits there, surprised by how understanding he’s being. If it was any other guy she’d probably be lying in the sand by now, her body being the buzzards latest meal. And truthfully if that was ever going to happen he’s the kind of guy she expected to be the one who put her there. So this… this was utterly bizarre.


Caitlyn Lucia: What did you mean, when you said I was like you?


He looks at her as he starts up the car with that exact same grin. Only this time, this time it’s somewhat softer.


Trace Demon: You’re a survivor, you’re a winner.


< *** >


Another hour ticks by with next to nothing happening. They’ve gotten over the whole carjacking thing pretty quickly, neither of them are the types to get hung up on the small stuff and apparently carjacking is small stuff nowadays. Well, it is if one of you is a professional wrestling-slash-psychopath and the other is a runaway with a red hood and a surly attitude. And yes, I did just describe the greatest road trip movie never made… yet. Caitlyn leans out of the window, feeling the warm breeze on her skin. The heat blaring down from the sun above them causes ripples through the clear air, there’s an almost ethereal feel to the whole thing. Trace looks across at her, once again noticing the black eye that’s been lit up by the sun.


Trace Demon: So you want to tell me how you got the shiner?


Caitlyn Lucia: Not really.


Trace Demon: Now while I appreciate the typical surly answer I do on occasion get tired of clichés.


Caitlyn Lucia: I’m starting to notice a pattern in that most of what you say makes absolutely no sense.


Trace Demon: You should also notice that I’m a master of twisting the conversation around, so trying to change the topic really isn’t going to work on me.


Caitlyn Lucia: Can’t we just enjoy the drive?


Trace Demon: Let me think about that for a second.


He pulls a smoke out of the dashboard and places it in between his lips before pulling out the lighter and sparking it up. He takes a brief drag and blows the smoke out of the window.


Trace Demon: No.


Caitlyn Lucia: It’s like somebody ripped you straight from a cartoon.


That only works if it’s a cartoon banned from ever being viewed by children. Or it’s on Adult Swim, that’d work too.


Trace Demon: The shiner, spill, because I know that’s not from walking into no door. And I’m pretty sure it’s come from the same reason you were hitchhiking on the side of a deserted road in the middle of the morning despite the fact that barely anybody drives down this way. So what is it? Dad? Brother? Boyfriend? Girlfriend maybe? Don’t worry, I don’t judge, I might make some jokes but I don’t judge.


She sighs, because it adds to the drama of the moment and we’re all about drama around here. Yes, even in this unnamed desert.


Caitlyn Lucia: Step-dad if you must know.


He takes a final drag of his cigarette and flicks it out of the window, the remains hitting the asphalt and being left behind as the car speeds onwards.


Trace Demon: I get it.


Caitlyn Lucia: You don’t get it.


Trace Demon: Is that right? Let me guess, the guy’s an bunghole to begin with, he verbally puts you down and discourages you in everything you do and that’s before he starts drinking. Once that liquor has rolled on down his throat he gets a hell of a lot worse. Maybe he throws bottles around when he gets a little bit angry or maybe he just beats on you. Maybe this was a onetime deal but you know it won’t be for long. Maybe you’ve wanted to believe that he’s just going through a hard time and that one day it’ll change but now you realize you were stupid to ever think that because the truth is he’s exactly what he appears to be – a drunken bunghole with a penchant for beating up people smaller than him.


He notices the surprise in her eyes and we notice that he really doesn’t pay enough attention to the road when he’s talking. The guy’s always looking everywhere but the one place he should be.


Trace Demon: I get it, I’ve been there. My dad, well he was exactly the same. He’d get drunk and he’d take out his frustrations on me because he was a loser, and that’s what drunks are Cait, they’re losers. They retreat to a bottle because they’ve got nothing else, because they’ve got nothing inside them to keep them satisfied. Addicts are hollow inside, I should know. Best day of my life was when that bunghole died.


This got deep quickly dawg.


Caitlyn Lucia: I ran away… and I left my mother behind. I asked her to come with me, I begged her but… but she wouldn’t leave him. She still thinks he’s going to change. I’ve put off college for two years trying to stop him from putting her in a coffin and I just… I couldn’t do it anymore. I had to leave but I just left her there.


Trace Demon: Don’t judge yourself, you did the right thing. You see the thing people don’t realize until it’s too late is that you’ve got to watch out for yourself. And I get it, she’s family, she’s important to you, but if she can’t see what’s right in front of her face then you’ve got nothing to feel guilty about. I understand wanting to keep her safe but you’ve got to survive and you’ve got to thrive, you’ve got to do what’s best for you. It doesn’t matter if people think that’s selfish, it doesn’t matter if they judge you for it, you do what’s best for you always. That’s the only way you survive in this world.


The car goes silent, it’s clear to them both that he isn’t just talking about her now and while his words help there’s this underlying feeling of remorse that echoes out from the words that neither of them dare to speak. For them it isn’t about other people judging them, it’s about them judging themselves. It’s about the person they see when they look in the mirror and while Caitlyn has every right to see a survivor Trace… well Trace can only see a man who chooses success over everything.


Caitlyn Lucia: Do you think it’s enough? Survival I mean?


Trace Demon: Survival, success, love, family, they’re all important red hood. But survival’s the one thing that holds it all together. If you’re not on top of it all, if you’re not making sure that you come out on top in every situation then all the rest is just going to slip through the cracks. You don’t get anything unless you’re willing to take everything.


Caitlyn Lucia: That’s kind of bleak.


Trace Demon: But it’s true, and look at it this way red hood, I’ve been looking out for myself for years now and I’m doing just fine. I’m successful, I’m popular and… I’m happy…


Right?


< *** >


Caitlyn Lucia: This was not what I was expecting.


The motel that Trace had stopped off at was not what you or I would call five star. Don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly not rat infested or anything but still… homely is probably the nicest thing you could say about it without getting sued for false advertising. The plaster on the wall was beginning to peel and the floorboards creaked as you walked across them loud enough to make you think you’re going to fall right on through into the room below where a local senator was getting frisky with his mistress and doing crack cocaine. There’s a large damp patch in the corner which Caitlyn really hoped was water and not something else and that she really didn’t want to know what could have been done in this bed. In short it was the kind of place that you’d come to plan a murder making it the perfect place for Trace Demon to spend the night.


Trace Demon: It’s a motel in the middle of nowhere, just from that description you should have been expecting to be murdered by a serial killer.


Caitlyn Lucia: My god, you’re a serial killer.


Trace Demon: I am not a serial killer.


You can’t prove anything.


Trace Demon: I stop here when I’m passing through this area because I know I’m not going to meet anyone who has any idea who I am. They’re not going to ask me for autographs or try to get the inside scoop or any of that crap. More importantly they’re not going to offer they’re pointless opinions on everything I’ve ever done.


Caitlyn Lucia: Which is all pretty messed up.


They’d gotten onto the subject of the WFWF on the drive and she’d been surprisingly receptive to his actions. She didn’t care about Scarlett Quinn or anyone else she doesn’t know so she’d seen the entire thing pretty open ended and agreed that while it wasn’t exactly the moral thing to do it was the smart thing to do. He knew he’d picked her up for a reason.


Trace Demon: You do what you’ve got to do.


Caitlyn Lucia: Even if what you’ve got to do involves sleeping in a rat infested motel.


Trace Demon: Hey, there are no rats here. Bats maybe, but definitely not rats.


Caitlyn Lucia: Well that’s reassuring.


Trace Demon: You can either crash here or you can crash outside but let me tell you, if you think it’;s been scorching out there today imagine the complete opposite now.


Caitlyn Lucia: I know how weather works in a desert you idiot.


Attitude, these girls always have attitude. It’s almost like Trace is drawn to people who can challenge him just so he can knock them down later.


Trace Demon: Well sorry for trying to be educational red hood, just be happy in your rat infested room.


Caitlyn Lucia: You said there weren’t any rats.


Trace Demon: Well I’m an idiot, remember.


Trace gives his signature smirk and winks at her as he lets himself out of the room, closing the door behind him and heading down the hall to his own room. He hears a slight scurrying from behind him as he does so and pauses. He knows the sound of a rat when he hears one…


< *** >


It’s the middle of the night when he hears the knocks at his door. It doesn’t wake him up, he barely sleeps three to four hours on a good night anymore, but that doesn’t mean it’s any more welcome. He might not sleep but it’s these few hours that he gets to be alone, to think all of this through. It’s in these few moments that he allows himself to look at the man he has become, to see himself the way everybody else does. By morning he’ll be the Trace Demon they all know again, the man who’ll hurt his best friends daughter just to hold a piece of gold with a leather strap. And that’s all there is to it, a leather strap and a hunk of gold, but that’s what proves he’s the best, that’s what they say at least.


And he wants to be the best, that he’s sure of.


He climbs out of the uncomfortable motel bed and stumbles over to the door, not caring about his state of undress (if there’s underwear on, it’s perfectly acceptable to get the door). He doesn’t really know what he’s expecting when he opens the door but when he does he realizes it couldn’t have been anything else.


Caitlyn Lucia: Just don’t speak.


She stands there with just a shirt on and it’s only now that Trace realizes she’s actually quite beautiful. Brunette, deep blue eyes, this natural beauty in her features and a slim build that seems effortless. But as she moves in for a kiss Trace knows that he can’t do this.


Trace Demon: Cait, don’t.


He pushes her away and sees the hurt in her eyes. The girl has daddy issues, trouble with rejection and a deep seated need to feel wanted. He knows what she’s going through, he’s been there himself but while he threw himself into drugs she’s throwing herself at him. Neither is the answer to their problems.


Caitlyn Lucia: God, this is stupid, I’m-


He grabs her by the wrist before she can try to leave. Is he a monster? Maybe, when he has to be, when it’s needed of him. But he’s also a human being, even if nobody gets to see it.


Trace Demon: Don’t say you’re sorry; nothing gets done with the word sorry. The world falls a f*****g part with the word sorry.


She doesn’t say anything, because what do you say when you’ve just made a fool out of yourself trying it on with a guy you don’t even know. He leads her into the room and kicks the door shut behind them as she sits on the bed, almost collapsing onto it.


Caitlyn Lucia: I just… I don’t know what I was thinking.


Trace Demon: You weren’t thinking red hood, you’re just lonely and your head’s all messed up. I’ve been there, I’m… I’m still there, every day, every moment of every single day. I’m messed up, I know it, people don’t think I do but I do but that doesn’t mean that what I’m doing is wrong. Just like you being messed up doesn’t mean that what you’re doing is wrong, it doesn’t mean running away was wrong or that leaving your mother was wrong. We do what we do to survive and to be better than we are and what makes us different to everyone else is that we understand the sacrifices required to do that.


Caitlyn Lucia: We hurt other people.


Trace Demon: So that they can’t hurt us.


He approaches her, kneels down in front of her and takes her hands in his. They share a look, both gazing deep inside the other, knowing the other in a single moment of clarity that few will ever share. It’s a connection that neither one of them wants, but one that they can’t break, not now, maybe not ever. That isn’t their choice.


Trace Demon: Your mother is not you, your father is not you, they are not as important as you are to you. Nobody is, nobody. Two kinds of people red hood, two. Those who put others ahead of themselves, and those who put themselves first. That first group, they’re the ones the world sees as good, the doctors, the nurses, the humanitarians. But the second group, they’re the politicians, the leaders, the people at the top of their field. They make the decisions that are best for them no matter who it might hurt and they come out the other side better, more successful and more powerful than ever before. It doesn’t matter what the world throws at them they can beat it because they are survivors. We are that second group, understand me? You’re not a coward or a monster, you’re a winner, a champion, a survivor, whatever you want to call it… you are better than everyone else because you deserve to be.


Caitlyn Lucia: You’re mad.


She says it half-jokingly, ignoring the subtle truth behind such a simple statement.


Trace Demon: Even a madman is right sometimes.


Caitlyn Lucia: Can I-


Trace Demon: I’d be stupid to kick a girl like you out of my bed, right?


Caitlyn Lucia: Shut up.


She lies down on the bed, turning her back on Trace who grabs the spare blanket he kicked off the bed earlier, he’s too hot to need two sheets obviously, and sets up in the quite frankly uncomfortable old seat in the corner of the room. He looks over Caitlyn, feeling something that he’s only ever felt for Alexa, Emily and Eliza before. A feeling of duty, of compassion and caring, he had a soft spot for this damaged girl and for once in his life it didn’t feel like a weakness. This is going to make things very interesting.


< *** >


He’s awoken by the sound of hammering at his door, jolting him from his slumber in the uncomfortable sleep. He’s not sure when he fell asleep but sunlight now streams through the window. He rubs the sleep from his heavy eyes and looks across the bed which now lies empty. When had she gone? No time to wonder, not with all that hammering doing his head in. He stumbles over towards the door, once again in just his boxers, and pulls it open. There he finds the owner of the motel, a short old lady in her seventies who smelt so strongly of cats you wouldn’t be surprised to find out she kept one in her grey afro of a hairdo. She’d been hammering loudly on the door but now stands in silence, somewhat shocked as she stares at Trace’s exposed physique. He has no time for the amorous advances of an old lady.


Trace Demon: Did you come just to gawp?


He didn’t catch her name earlier, so we’ll just call her afro-cat, because why the hell not?


Afro-Cat: The girl you came with, she just left in your car.


Trace chuckles. Yes, it’s totally out of character, we thought so too.


Trace Demon: She say anything?


Afro-Cat: She asked me to say she’s sorry but that… she has to keep surviving.


Trace Demon: I knew it, I told her.


Afro-Cat: Told her what Mr. Demon?


He glances over to the bedside table where his wallet was last night. He smiles.


< *** >


Caitlyn drives down the open road in the stolen car, regretful over betraying Trace but knowing it was the right thing to do. She grabs his wallet from beside her and pulls it open, she hasn’t had a chance to look inside yet but she’s hoping it’ll be enough to get her where she has to go. If not she can always sell the car. Inside she finds only three things. The first is a wad of notes, at least a thousand dollars if not more. Score. The second is a card with a phone number on – Trace’s phone number. The third is a torn piece of paper with a message scribbled on it, he must have written it last night.


“You’re just like me”.


This won’t be the last time she sees Trace Demon, she knows that now.