Finished.

He should have felt some sense of immense loss.

Right?

Staring at the charred framing; the roof rafters fallen from the beam. Empty, square holes that once held window frames sat empty in the one wall that remained standing. The back deck collapsed and scorched. The front porch much the same.

Save the stairs.

The stairs were oddly intact.

Hayes and Olivia had shared a sigh of relief upon their return to the United States, regardless of the political unrest threatening cities across the country. There was no time to get comfortable, to recharge before ReVival 70 and the start of the Almasy Tournament. No time to lick the wounds from Little Brother’s loss at UltraViolence. No time to forget about it all at strip clubs and after parties.

Instead, they were forced to head straight home. To West Linn, Oregon, and address the latest incident on Skyline Drive. Perhaps the last.

It certainly felt like it.

And yet, Hayes and Olivia stood quiet and cold; in contrast to a sunny evening n early June. Olivia had her arms folded across her chest, drumming her fingers against her shoulder. Hayes kept his fingers stuffed into his chinos. No sign of tears from Little Brother or Big Sister. That sense of immense loss? Absent.

“Did you have anything valuable in there?” asked Olivia, breaking the silence.

Hayes couldn’t help but snort, and Olivia failed to hide a grin; a bit of levity in what should have been a morose moment, at least for normal people. For Hayes and Olivia, though, standing behind the yellow tape forbidding them from sifting through ash and charred timber, all they felt was an eerie calm. Relief, even.

“Unless Mom and Dad kept my old baseball cards and posters, nah.”

“Pretty sure I saw all that in the trash years ago.”

“Figures.”

A pregnant pause as the sun drew closer to the Tualatin Mountain Range. The West Linn Fire Department had done what they could while Hayes and Olivia were in Canada, but the scene was still under investigation. The police department had left hours ago, likely to prepare for the “No Kings” protests expected in Portland. The siblings assured them they wouldn’t cross the yellow tape.

“Has anyone talked to her?” Hayes asked.

“I don’t think so,” ‘Liv replied. “Phone calls go straight to voicemail. Texts are unread. Nothing from email. She probably turned off her phone after the cops grilled her about the fire, and I’d bet a thousand she’s wine-drunk at her hotel.”

A nod from Younger Brother. He shifted foot to foot. Olivia turned her head to the Douglas Firs and White Oaks that lined their front yard, spared from the sparks and cinders.

“When was the last time this place felt like home, Hayes?”

His eyebrows lifted. It shouldn’t have been such an unexpected question in such a quiet moment, but it had caught him off guard. Skyline Drive was always home, wasn’t it? The house his father built when Paul was a newborn, while their mother was pregnant with Olivia, and finished by the time he’d been born. Up until college, it was the only home he knew.

But was it?

Because when searching for warm, fuzzy memories about the white house on Skyline Drive in West Linn, Oregon, there were very few. Instead, his mind raced to the dark places. The sad moments:

Mom and Dad, barely saying a word to each other at the dinner table.

Mom, tears pouring down her face, and screaming at him to leave her room.

Dad, exhausted from work, uninterested in his son’s fascinations.

Mom, turning the TV off right before Tchu hit the Downfall on the Illustrious Face-Eater at ReVolution 83.

And the white SUV pulling into their driveway. Nearly every afternoon.

But still, there was Paul:

Sitting on the couch while Hayes sat cross-legged on the carpet, watching Nova retain his title.

Spending countless hours on the trampoline, letting Hayes practice the Bourbon for Breakfast, the Model Citizen, and the Box Office Bomb.

Teaching him how to hide weed stash from Mom and Dad.

And calming him down, every time the anxiety reared its ugly head.

“Like, ten? Twelve years old?” Hayes answered, half a question.

Olivia smirked. “Yeah. Me too.”

They shared a meek smile, gazing across the burned remnants of their childhood home. Minds dancing to and fro from the sad moments, to the good ones.

Olivia lifted her chin toward the driveway. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here before we all touchy feely and shit.”

Hayes smirked, and the pair turned away toward the driveway, taking measured steps toward the rental waiting to take them away from this place.

But as he pulled the door handle, the audible crunch of rubber tires on gravel hit his ears, forcing him to turn his head up the driveway, to see a silver sedan approach. Olivia reacted in kind, as the two squared themselves to the oncoming vehicle, coming to a stop maybe twenty feet away.

Killing the ignition, out stepped a tall, gangly frame; long haired and black bearded. An odd, foreign sight, but entirely familiar.

“Don’t tell me I missed the family reunion,” Older Brother chided, closing the driver’s side door. “Because I could have swore…”

He was unable to finish the sentence. Hayes and Olivia had already closed the gap, and wrapped him up in their arms. Paul smiled behind his dark beard, and used those lanky arms to pull them in close.

Holding them all together, in the driveway on Skyline Drive.

You know what's hard, Kenny?

Losing. But I think you know alll about that.

I do. But I shouldn't. I'm way, WAY too good to feel that way, right? But here we are. That's just how the story goes.

But I wonder, do you feel the same?

Is Kenny Freeman anything more than a joke character? A bit of levity within the stick that's so fucking far up the Red Army's ass?

I don't think so. Because this is our second go-around in the Almasy, Ken.

And you didn't make it easy on me, to everyone's surprise, the last time we were in that ring together.

“When was the last time we were all together?”

All three Hanlon siblings paused to think on Paul’s question. Despite their assurances to West Linn’s Police Department, they had crossed under the yellow tape and sat on the intact steps in front of their destroyed childhood home. The sun had reached the Tualatins, and they basked in the golden hour.

“Shit,” said Hayes. “It had to have been–”

“It was when I ran our grandfather the fuck over,” Olivia interrupted.

She turned her head over her shoulder, glancing her blues from the bottom steps to her brothers, sobered at the mention. A terrible night for the entire Hanlon family. “The Incident on Skyline Drive,” the news outlets called it. Paul had nearly lost his life, barely aware in the moment; drugged up with a gun at his head. If it wasn’t for Olivia, and her decision to fly in like a bat out of hell and slam her Mercedes into their grandfather’s giant brick of a body, he very well might have.

“I’m sorry I put you two in that position,” said Paul, pushing a hand through his long, dark locks. “I was pretty fucked up there for a while.”

“That’s not on you, bro,” said Hayes from the middle step, clapping a hand to Big Brother’s knee. “The whole thing brought everything to light. We’re gonna be better for it.”

A strange sentence, considering their backdrop. The three chose to chew on the notion for a moment.

“Do we think she did this?” asked Hayes, glancing over-shoulder to the burned mess.

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” said Olivia, tucking her hands into the sleeves of her green sweatshirt. “I saw shit like this all the time in real estate. A looot of insurance money to be had if you do it right.”

The brothers lifted an eyebrow in unison, and Olivia rolled her eyes.

“I don’t mean I know how to do it!”

The three shared a chuckle. Hayes leaned forward and flicked her in the ear. She slapped his hand and flipped him the bird.

“No,” said Paul, dark eyes falling toward the sunset. “I was here while the house burned. So was she. And I asked her the same thing.”

Hayes and Olivia perked up, turned toward their older brother on the third step.

“What did she say?” asked Hayes.

Paul snickered and sneered. “She said, ‘I would never take this away from you.’”

He shook the scorn from his face, and shifted to one of reassurance to this siblings.

“And I believe her.”

A pregnant pause. The horizon started to shimmer with color in defiance of the night's approach.

“So what then?” asked Olivia. “Electrical? Did Mom leave a fucking candle burning?”

Paul shook his head.

“Dad,” he said, grimly.

“No fucking way,” Hayes shot. “He built this house, man. Put down every floorboard, every piece of drywall.”

“Exactly,” Paul agreed.

“Then why? Why the fuck would he even think about doing something like that?”

Big Brother exhaled slowly, draping his long arms over his knees.

“The divorce has been bad while you two have been traveling,” he said. “I don't know the details, but I think she might have been threatening to take the house.””

“Could she do that?” Hayes queried incredulously. “Where the hell would that be written?”

‘In the fine, fine print, Baby Bro,” stated ‘Liv.

Paul shrugged. “Lawyers, man. Dad always went crossed-eyed reading contracts, and you both know how shady Mom can be. I wouldn’t be surprised if she snuck a clause in back in the day.”

Hayes felt his lips curl behind his mustache, a dark glower cascading over his face to match the darkening sky. Of course. Of course she would. Even after everything; all the fake attempts to reconnect with her children. The lies she told about their grandfather. All the lies, for so many years. Why now, would he expect anything different?

Paul kept an eye on his younger brother, the brother who had just wanted to live this strange life on the road with him at his side. And he had fucked it up, getting buried up to his neck in crypto schemes, chasing the k-hole on a nightly basis. From getting his stomach pumped, to being held at gunpoint by their estranged grandfather, Toby Castellanos; and so, so supremely high as a kite that he couldn’t do a thing.

And now, over a year sober, he still didn’t deserve to be by the side of “Home Run Hayes.”

But he couldn’t let him get distracted. Not now.

Watching Little Brother’s fingers clench, Paul reached a hand to his shoulder, taking grip of his attention.

“Hayes.”

Little Brother calmed, if not for a moment, and found Paul’s understanding eyes from the third step.

“It’s alright, man. This doesn’t have to be our problem anymore.”

Hayes blinked, unable to process the gravity of that statement just yet. Paul took a breath, and craned his neck to the sky, spotting the first stars flicker to life; the sun long gone behind the mountains.

“Did you guys see the northern lights last year?” he asked.

In unison, Hayes and Olivia turned their gaze to the sky, smiles spreading wide.

“Fuck yeah we did,” Olivia answered. On a picnic blanket by the Willamette and everything.”

“Just like we used to with Dad,” Hayes added.

“Good,” said Paul, a broad grin growing behind his beard.

“I was really hoping you did.”

I kicked off not just the Almasy Tournament, but the entire ReVival era against Cecilia Ryan in 2022. In the first round of the Almasy. 

And I fed Dan Ryan's daughter a very well deserved piece of humble pie.

It was a quick statement. That Hayes Hanlon, the EVENT HORIZON, was here. And possibly a serious player.

And then round 2 came along, and Julian Bathory stopped me dead in my tracks.

If I'm honest, I don't think I ever recovred from that. Not really.

It was all worked up in my head, Kenny. That I would make it DEEP into that first tournament. That a young rookie, fulfilling his dreams, would square up against Brandon fucking Youngblood, and steal his place in the Finals. And show the whole. God. Damn. WORLD. That I was absolutely LEGIT.

But it didn't work out that way, and it's been itching at me ever since. Through both Universal Titles, the Five Star, and the Intense, this tournament has chapped my ass for over three years.

And here we are again.

Hayes stood patiently in the dark of Skyline Drive, the headlights of his rental car providing enough light. Olivia had just finished talking with Paul, giving him a long hug before climbing into the passenger’s side

Paul offered a small want to his sister before approaching his brother, giving him a playful punch to the shoulder.

“You need to steer clear of oxygen tanks, man,” he chuckled.

Hayes was delayed with his own amused snort. He had barely thought about the second night of UltraViolence. The news about his childhood home burning had shifted his and Olivia's focus upon returning to the States, so the frustration of taking a loss to Snow and Colton had been set on the back burner. But there it was, flooding back. Hitting Snow with the Epoch, only for Colton to suplex him into that god damn air tank.

Nate, Golden-Spoon up his Ass, Colton.

“So you've been watching?” Hayes finally asked, a tinge of relief in his tone.

“Never missed a beat,” Paul confirmed. “Been a tough year, huh?”

“Yeah, man,” Little Brother admitted. “Couldn't get it going.”

“The fuck do you mean, man? You pinned Jason god-damn Snow for the Intense Title, didn't you?”

“Yeah, but–” Hayes shifted foot to foot. “I couldn't keep it, man. Same old story.”

“Bro, you know as well as I do how hard it is to keep a belt in that place. You watched it yourself since you were eight years old.”

Hayes hated that. He hated when anyone reminded him that retaining a belt was difficult in PRIME. He was supposed to be different after “The Hanlon Year”, right?

No. He wasn't.

But hearing it from Paul helped, even a little.

Hayes shook his head, still defiant in the wake of his losses. He moved to speak, but Big Brother placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You gotta let it go, man,” he said.

“Let what go?” asked Little Brother.

“All of it. The last year in PRIME. Mom. Dad. The house.”

“I…I fucking can't man. It lives rent free up here,” Hayes admitted, pointing a finger to his skill. “All the time.”

“Look,” said Paul, insistently, grabbing Hayes by both shoulders. “This is a very important moment. You get to keep doing this. Everything we dreamed of! And now, you get to finally, finally, do it for yourself.”

Hayes knew he was right, but didn't know how to respond. He stood quiet, shoulders in the hands of his older brother, unsure of what would come next

“Remember how this all started?” Paul insisted. “With the Almasy? You were born to win the thing!”

“Bro, I haven't got past the third round, man.”

“Sure. But this time? You get to start without any distractions.”

Hayes blinked, and Paul insisted.

“You get to forget about the last year. About titles you won and didn't keep. About Mom and Dad's bullshit.”

Paul shifted his chin, lifting it toward the silhouette of their scorched childhood home.

“You get to forget about that–”

And in the dark, Paul parked those insistent dark eyes on his brother's.

“--and move on without it.”

Little Brother did his best to believe it.

He shifted, and flicked his tongue, trying to find the words.

“You could come with us,” said Hayes, nodding toward Olivia in the car.

“Nah,” Paul breathed. “I couldn't do that. You two? It's special. ‘Liv has some real purpose, alongside what you always knew was yours. I would just fuck it all up.”

“Dude, that's not true–”

“It IS true!” Paul exclaimed.”

He released his grip, and breathed slowly through his nose, and calmly.

“I've got a good thing going,” he said. “I'm clean, and I've been clean for a good while. Getting back on the road? Being at all those after parties? Hayes…”

Paul trailed off, and looked away for a moment.

“--I wouldn't make it, man. I really wouldn't.”

Hayes breathed in, heavily through his nose. He didn't want to hear those words, regardless of their truth. He'd always dreamed Paul would join him on the road again. To live out this crazy, unhinged dream.

He hated the idea that it might not happen at all.

“I'll take care of all this,” said Paul, gesturing toward their home. “And you? You go win this fucking tournament. The Almasy is where it all started, right?”

In the dark, backlit by headlights, Little Brother offered a slow nod.

“Right. Now go finish it.”

Hayes wrapped his strong arms around Paul's gangly frame immediately, and the two shared a powerful embrace against the headlights.

It's been a rough year for me, Kenny. Regardless of a short grab at the Intense Title.

But we're both lucky, that this tournament has come back around. And how lucky for us both, that we get to see each other again.

They all see you as a joke, you know? Ivan. Alexei. Rose. 

I don't. I felt the same way when I beat Bobby Dean back in 2022. You don't have to be the scapegoat, or the comedic relief. I've seen you move, dude. You could be special.

But unfortunately for you, we get to see each other again. This time in Round One. And I have big plans that I can't let you interrupt.

Starting now, everything starts fresh. I get the chance to start it all. Fresh.

And this time?

I'm going to finish it.