Page 103 of Beneath the Stain

“Till I’m done!” Mackey shouted, turning around. He tripped, went down on his ass, bounced up again, and screamed it again. “Till I’m done!I’m not done! I need to get this shit out, Trav. I need to run till it’s gone! ’Cause I don’t want it in me anymore!” He turned again, hopping because he’d probably rolled his ankle, and Trav grabbed his arm, ducking when Mackey whirled around swinging.

“You wanna spar, Mackey?” Trav baited, dancing backward. “You wanna spar? Then let’s spar! Here on the goddamned road. We’re ten miles out, you know that? You wanna fucking run back? I mean, I can do it. But that’s about a fucking marathon right there—your legs aren’t like rubber bands yet? Because maybe you wanna stop trying to run and stop trying to fight and maybe tell me what in the fuck happened!”

Mackey paused for a minute, struggled, his face twisting until he looked like he was going to cry.

He turned and rushed the guardrail instead.

Trav wasn’t sure if he planned to go over, tumble down the canyon through the brush until he rolled off an outcropping and died, or if he planned to do what he did anyway, as Trav grabbed him around the middle just when he slammed against the corrugated tin.

He screamed.

Loud, primal, something Trav would expect from a microphone, screaming, rending his throat, the echoes of his pain ripping down the scrub-covered hills, bouncing along the suburban valley below.

Again and again, until Trav shouted too. “Stop, Mackey, stop! Stop, dammit, breathe, baby, breathe!”

Mackey’s next scream broke, his next scream crushed, disintegrated into dust at his feet, and Trav held on tight as Mackey gulped in air and let out a rubble of sobs.

“Breathe, baby, breathe,” Trav murmured. “Breathe.”

“God, Trav,” Mackey mumbled, and he turned in Trav’s arms, crying helplessly.

Trav held him, thinking only,Thank God. Thank God. He’ll take me and not the drugs. Me and not the horrible fall. Thank God.

MACKEYCALMEDeventually, pulled away and wiped his face on his shoulder, then laughed weakly.

“Jesus,” he muttered. “My legs hurt. And we gotta walk back.”

Trav held on to his shoulder, leaned forward, and kissed his sweaty forehead. “Nope. I’m earning my keep today. I brought my cell phone.” He pulled it out and asked for their driver to meet them as they walked back. “We’ll be the ones looking like ass and smelling worse. Bring towels and a fuckton of water and chocolate milk,” he ordered, very aware of Mackey cracking up in front of him.

“What?” he asked innocently.

Mackey shook his head. His running hat was soaked through, and tendrils of hair snaked out from under it, plastered to his cheek. Trav risked everything and pushed some of that back behind Mackey’s ears. Mackey looked away, out into the hazy valley, and sighed.

“Someday,” he said ruminatively, “you’re going to get tired of bailing my ass out, you know that, right?”

“Hasn’t happened yet,” Trav answered promptly. “You going to tell me what just happened? I was in the middle of a conference with Heath and fucking Japan—it would be great if I could lie to them convincingly about a burglar, you know?”

Mackey smiled faintly. “Would you? Lie about a burglar?”

Trav hated lying. They both knew it. “If it would keep you from another run like this one, yeah.”

A brief nod. Mackey sighed. “Let’s start back,” he said, voice only a little wrecked from all that screaming. Well, Trav had seen the concert footage—the primal scream was Mackey’s bread and butter.

They turned around and started the long trudge back. Silently Mackey opened the water bottle and took out half in a gulp. Then he handed it to Trav, who did the same thing. Trav crumpled the bottle and held it, and they walked on.

“Thanks for following me,” Mackey said after about two hundred yards. “That was nice.”

“I was worried.”

“Well, that was probably wise.”

Trav sighed but didn’t press. Mackey just might surprise him and talk on his own.

Three hundred yards. Four. A train of cars came by, going fast enough to make walking on the scant shoulder a little scary.

“Fuckers gonna kill us,” Mackey mumbled. They kept walking until they came to another turnout, where they both walked to the guardrail and made themselves comfortable, waiting for the car.

“Tony was a friend,” Mackey said, and Trav was grateful, but not surprised. He’d hoped that Mackey had started healing. Maybe Mackey had healed enough to talk.