Chapter 2
SUMMER - AFTERSHOCK SOUTHEAST TOUR
Now playing: Follow You - Bring Me The Horizon
By the time Cal and I finished our first match on Thursday Night Aftershock, the Performance Center didn’t feel like a developmental building anymore.
It felt like a door cracking open, the wood splintering under the weight of something inevitable.
The crowd had been louder than usual, larger too, but not in the chaotic, messy way that smaller shows usually were.
It was a focused, rhythmic noise, a living, breathing thing that synchronized with the violence in the ring.
It was the kind of noise that didn’t fade when the bell rang; it followed us into the curtain, down the concrete hallway, and echoed in my ears long after my heartbeat had slowed back into a resting rhythm.
I was now being called “Timeless” Silas Reed in that ring, a man of clockwork precision, but as I walked past the trainers, my skin hummed with a static I couldn’t shake.
My muscles screamed. The lactic acid buildup was a sharp, biting reminder of the fifteen minutes Cal and I had just spent trying to out-maneuver each other, tearing at each other’s limits.
My chest heaved, sucking in the stale, recycled air of the hallway, but the adrenaline acted like a veil, keeping the true depth of the pain at a distance.
It was a high I knew I was going to crash from later, but right now, I felt untouchable.
Cal didn’t celebrate. He didn’t raise his arms or soak in the rare standing ovation from the jaded Orlando crowd.
He just met my eyes for half a second, a look that felt like a silent pact, dark and heavy, nodded once, and kept walking.
He moved like a man who already knew this wasn’t the last time we’d do something like that.
Like he was just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up to the reality he’d already created in his head.
Backstage, the atmosphere had shifted. The air felt thinner, charged with the kind of electricity that precedes a storm.
Conversations stopped when we walked by.
Eyes followed us. The Aftershock GM, Tate Martin, caught me near the water coolers, his voice low and urgent, vibrating with a nervous energy I hadn’t seen in him before.
“Let your boy Deadlock know that Rob Harlow, the Showdown GM, was watching the live feed. He asked if I could set up a meeting tomorrow. I think he’s considering a potential call up for you two, and soon.”
Monday Night Showdown. The Flagship. The show that changed contracts, tax brackets, and futures.
It was the show that had once been the playground for my father and uncle, the stage where they became legends before they became tragedies.
Now, it was within my reach. The weight of that realized ambition settled into my stomach, heavier than any bump I’d taken that night.
I found Cal sitting on a reinforced crate near the locker rooms, pulling his wrist tape loose in slow, methodical motions. He looked calm, almost bored, but the tension was visible in the set of his shoulders.
“They were watching,” I said, leaning against the cold cinder block wall, my breathing still not fully leveled.
“I know,” he replied, not even looking up, stripping the tape away to reveal the red marks on his skin underneath.
Three days later, the landscape of the UWF shifted.
The office announced that Aftershock would no longer function strictly as a training ground for the future talents and legends of the UWF.
This summer, it was becoming a touring brand, kicking off with a tour through the Southeast to rival the gritty indie circuits.
We weren’t just students anymore; we were the product.
But before the tour could start, the first ripple of the “call ups” hit closer to home.
“You’re shitting me,” I said, leaning against Evan’s SUV in the PC parking lot. The Florida sun beat down, turning the asphalt into a frying pan, but a cold knot formed in my gut.
Evan, my best fucking friend, the man the fans had coined “The Showstopper,” was tossing his training bag into his trunk.
With his blond hair, blue eyes, and pink and white gear, he was the definition of a golden retriever in human form.
He was the “pretty boy,” the guy who smiled at everyone and actually meant it, but he was also my only real friend in this shark tank.
“Friday Night Demolition,” Evan said, his face a mask of panicked disbelief. “I start in two days.”
“Evan, that’s huge,” I said, though the sharp sting of abandonment hit me hard. “But are you ready? Those guys will eat a rookie like you for lunch,” I teased, though the worry was real. The Demolition locker room was notoriously brutal for newcomers.
“Silas, I’m gonna get murdered,” he muttered, his goofy confidence replaced by a rare flicker of fear. He stopped packing, his hands hovering over his bag. “I haven’t even mastered my promo voice yet. I’m gonna walk in there and some seven footer is going to snap me like a literal twig.”
I laughed, shoving his shoulder to break the spiral. “Shut up. Evan. You were literally prepping for the Olympics before you signed here. You can out wrestle ninety percent of that roster. Just don’t let them see you cry when they make you do a segment with a mascot.”
Evan cracked a grin, the spark returning to his eyes. “If I embarrass myself, I’m retiring and coming back here to be your valet. I’ll carry your bags. I don’t care.”
I hugged him harder than I intended to. I held on for a second longer than normal, grounding myself.
I watched him drive away, the taillights blurring in the heat haze.
I knew that when I eventually made a main roster, seeing Evan again would be a rare and inconsistent occurrence.
He would stay here in Orlando, and I would be heading back home to the Reed Family Land.
It wasn’t on a map, just a turn off a dirt road buried deep in the swampy woods of North Carolina.
I’d live in my grandfather’s house, on a patch of unnamed earth away from the noise, just like I’d always planned.
It was a solitary plan for a solitary life.
Except, I wasn’t alone, and I knew when my inevitable call up came, it would likely be accompanied by Cal’s as well.
Across the lot, a black engine roared to life with a mechanical growl.
Cal had started parking next to me instead of across the lot.
He didn’t say a word, just sat there, the glow of his dashboard illuminating his sharp jawline and the shadowed intent in his eyes.
The empty space Evan left behind suddenly felt a little less cavernous.
The first Aftershock road show was in Greenville, South Carolina. We were assigned the same rental car, a silver sedan that smelled faintly of stale air freshener.
I took the keys.
“I’m driving. I don’t trust your up north driving in these hills.”
Cal didn’t argue. He climbed into the passenger seat and immediately took control of the Bluetooth. Asking Alexandria filled the cabin in a low growl, the heavy bass vibrating against the doors.
“You listen to anything upbeat?” I asked. I listened to the same shit, mostly to drown out the noise in my own head, but giving Cal hell for it seemed like a decent icebreaker for the long ass drive ahead of us.
“Only when I’m trying to lie to myself,” he shrugged, staring out the window.
He queued “Follow You” by Bring Me The Horizon. It was low, slower, and strangely, it fit him perfectly. It was a song about devotion and destruction, and as the miles rolled by, the “work talk” dissolved.
“My uncle Scott used to drive a route like this,” I said, staring out at the passing pines that reminded me all too much of a childhood I would rather not think about unless absolutely necessary.
“High on pills half the time. My dad would be in the passenger seat nursing a thermos of whiskey. They were such fucking disasters.”
I waited for the judgment, for the awkwardness of randomly trauma dumping out of nowhere. Cal and I knew each other as coworkers and opponents, sure, but discussing our lives outside of wrestling wasn’t even a thought.
Cal just gripped the door handle, his knuckles white.
“My old man was a cop in North Philly,” he said quietly, staring out into the darkness.
“It’s rough up there. Lots of poverty, lots of drugs, lots of people that definitely would never make it out alive.
He couldn’t handle what he saw, I guess.
He stayed home and drank enough to keep the local liquor store in business. He had a specific kind of rage.”
I looked at him, seeing the way his jaw set. “Is that where the name came from? Deadlock?”
Cal let out a short, dry laugh, devoid of humor.
“He used to get me in these holds. Drunken wrestling, he called it. But he wouldn’t let go.
I’d be pinned against the floor or the wall, completely immobilized.
I felt… locked. Like there was no move I could make to get out of my own life. Deadlocked.”
“I get that,” I murmured, the weight of his confession hanging in the small space between us. “Different monsters, same basement.”
He nodded, and that was enough of an answer.
The hotel in Greenville was a standard mid-range chain. It had two beds, but we didn’t even bother asking for separate rooms. We were too floored by the fact we were in a hotel that looked like it had been cleaned regularly to really give a damn about sharing a room for a night.
After the show, I stayed up late replaying our match footage on my phone, my eyes burning from the screen brightness. Cal was leaning against the headboard of his bed, arms crossed, quietly pointing out my tells.
“You dip your shoulder before that springboard,” he muttered, his voice rough with exhaustion.
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do.”