Page 54 of Forsaken

“I almost didn’t,” Mav said as he settled his hands on my hips. “My friend Travis and I made plans to get out together. We’d been saving every penny we could make from selling scrap metal. This guy on the reservation paid us a couple bucks a week to collect as much as we could and then he’d drive it to the city and sell it for cash. Between us, Travis and I saved up a couple hundred bucks – enough for bus tickets to the city where we figured we’d get jobs, find an apartment.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“I came home one night after I’d been out looking for one of my uncles who’d wandered off drunk. I used to sleep on this porch behind the house – it was old and falling down, but no one wanted to share it with me so it was all mine. Anyway, I found this envelope under my pillow. There was a hundred dollars in it and a note from Travis telling me he was sorry.”

Mav dashed at his eyes as his voice became husky. “Travis was gay too, but he had it worse than me ‘cause his family used to beat him up all the time. But they’d also fucked with his head a lot and he was scared to leave them. When I saw that note, I knew…” Mav sucked in a breath before continuing. “I ran to his house…it was almost a mile away. I found him in the tent he used to sleep in behind the house. He’d shot himself with his father’s hunting rifle.”

I shook my head as I struggled to find the right words. But there just weren’t any so I leaned forward and kissed his temple. “I’m so sorry.”

Mav nodded against me. “I left that night. I wasn’t sure I could do it without him – I was so fucking scared – but I was more scared for what would happen if I didn’t go.”

“Where’d you end up?”

“I hitched a ride with this trucker going East for a while, but had to bail when he insisted I blow him as payment for the ride. I decided it would be safer to take the bus after that. I ended up in Minneapolis and stayed there for a couple years working odd jobs. I lived on the streets when I had to, but sometimes I had enough money to get an apartment or a motel room for an extended period of time. Then I want to Chicago, Indianapolis…I basically just kept heading East whenever I got the urge to keep moving. But things changed for me in Philadelphia.”

“How so?”

“I got a job working for this guy who fixed up Harleys,” Mav said. “That’s where I met my girl,” he added with a light chuckle that made my insides light up with warmth.

“Your girl?” I asked with a smile.

“A custom Harley Davidson Night Train,” he said. “My boss let me work nights and weekends to pay for it and after that I used every extra penny I made to fix her up.”

“How long did you work there?”

“Until I was about 24 or so. I liked working on bikes, but it wasn’t what I’d been dreaming of doing my whole life.”

I smiled. “I just realized I don’t even know how old you are.”

“I’m 32.”

I gasped in mock horror. “You’re an old man.”

Mav laughed and slapped me on the ass. I was glad to see some of the anguish had left his face. “So what was it that you wanted to do?”

Mav became serious as he said, “I wanted to be a cop.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Joined the force when I was 26. A year later it was over.”

“What happened?” I asked in surprise.

“Found out the cop I was assigned to work with was taking bribes. Did my duty and reported him. I actually thought my fellow cops would back me up,” he added with a harsh laugh.

“They didn’t?”

“No, not since most of them were on the take too,” Mav murmured. “My little report ended up taking down almost a dozen veteran cops. And let’s just say it didn’t make me any new friends, but I did manage to get a lot of enemies out of the deal.”

I froze at that. “Did they come after you?”

“Since most of them were looking at life in prison with some of the same guys a lot of them had put there, yeah, they came after me. In a big way. Because without my testimony…”

Even though Mav was right in front of me, I was still unreasonably terrified for him. “What happened?” I managed to ask.

“Mace.”

“What?”

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