Chapter Two

Shaking her head, Jennifer Reigns stared at the phone in her hand, as if she wanted to shoot it. She had been calling Roman's and Marc's cell phone numbers for the last hour or so, leaving message after message. They turned them off for the movie, I'll bet, and they haven't turned them back on. She knew they had missed the eight o'clock showing, and had to wait for the 10:30, which hadn't made her very happy, but now it was after two o'clock in the morning. They should have been home by now.

"They better be safe," she said, loud enough so her husband, who was in the living room watching TV could hear. "They had better not have gotten hurt. Because I want to be the one that kills them."

Iosefa Reigns, better known as Sefa, let out a snorting laugh, then turned off the TV and came into the kitchen. He too, was worried about his sons, but he was trying to stay calm. Jen was the worrier of the family, a job she did well. "I'm sure they're fine," he said, trying to comfort her. "The movie probably didn't get out until twelve thirty or so."

"Yes, and it takes about a half an hour to get home," Jen pointed out, "Let's say that they loaded it up with previews and they didn't get out until one o'clock. They still should have been home-" she looked over at the clock "at least forty five minutes ago, if not an hour."

"Eh, the SUV doesn't exactly do neck breaking speeds anymore," Sefa reminded her. "And Marc drives like a little old lady in the dark. If they aren't home in ten minutes, I'll take the car and try to trace the route they would have gone. The fact that you can't get them on their phones is a good sign."

Jen's eyebrows arched and she looked at him. "A good sign?" she repeated.

"Yeah," Sefa said. "A good sign. If they had gotten in trouble, like the car breaking down, they would have turned on their phones to call Triple A. You not being able to reach them says to me that they're fine."

"Or, someone could have taken their phones away," Jen muttered as she went to the coffee maker and started making a pot. "Lance should have a cell phone, he would have remembered to turn it on." She tried not to slam the coffee canister after she had put some ground coffee in the basket with the reusable mesh filter. She whirled around and looked at her husband, who was over at the refrigerator, taking out a container of half and half. "Maybe we should call Aaron? Have him and the others look out for them?"

"I don't think that's-" Sefa began then stopped as lights shone into the window. Someone had just turned into the driveway. "They're home," he said. "I know the sound of the engine, it's them."

"Thank God!" Jen said, heading for the door. She was in the mud porch, when she saw Lance jumping out of the front passenger's seat, which he was legally not allowed to be in, which did nothing to calm her down. But Lance ran towards her, a bright smile on his face as she walked out of the mudroom and onto the side porch.

"Marc hit someone with the car, that's why we're late!" he sounded cheerful as if getting hit by an SUV was no big deal. "We brought him with us because he won't let us take him to the hospital. His ankle is messed up."

"I did not hit him!" Marc nearly roared as he got out of the driver's side. "He just ran out into the road and I slammed on the brakes. He leaped, I think to make sure he didn't get hit him, but he ended up falling down into the ditch."

"It's a good thing Marc drives with one foot on the brake, like a scared old lady, or Casper would be toast," Lance said cheerfully. "The ghost would be toast, that's pretty good!"

Jen looked over at the SUV, watching as Roman, who hadn't said anything so far, got out of the car, walked around to the passenger side and brought out a young man, who, she had to give Lance credit, was very, very pale. And only dressed in a pair of sweat pants, not even wearing shoes. Roman had his arm around him, helping him hobble over. The boy was so skinny, Jen was sure Roman could have just scooped him up and carried him and it would have been easier, but she sensed Roman was doing that to let the boy have some dignity. If there was one thing Jen had learned raising three sons, it was that starting at an early age, they didn't like to look weak. She held open the door into the mudroom so Roman could bring the boy inside. Sefa was still in the kitchen, holding that door open. "What in the world-"

Sefa's youngest son interrupted. "He's Casper, or at least that's what I'm calling him, cause he's so white. He's probably has a massive vitamin D deficiency. Marc hit-" he shot a look towards his older brother who was staring at him. "Marc almost hit him with the car. We stopped to make sure he was okay, but he was in a ditch. His ankle is wrecked. Sprained, probably, but maybe even broken!"

As Roman and their guest walked into the mud room, Jen noticed there was a little more than just his ankle that was wrong. The kid had a good case of road rash on his arms and part of his chest. And his back had a lot of scars. An awful lot of scars, most of them faded down so they weren't as noticeable, but they weren't invisible either. Those aren't fresh. I'd bet the house that when he was younger, this kid was beaten a lot. Those don't look like scars you'd get from an accident. They look like the scars you get when someone whips you and whips you hard. She didn't voice her opinions though, because it was obvious their young guest was as skittish as a newborn colt. She could tell by looking into his eyes that if his ankle wasn't a mess, he'd have already bolted.

Roman helped the kid into one of the kitchen chairs and looked over at his father. "I wanted to call an ambulance, but he wouldn't let me. I couldn't just leave him in a ditch with a bad ankle." His eyes were pleading for him to understand. "But that's why we're so late."

"Of course you couldn't just leave him," Sefa said, trying to sound as if having his sons bring home a boy they'd almost hit with the SUV was a perfectly normal thing to do. "Your mother can fix him up."

Jen was already coming into the kitchen, kneeling down in front of the chair that the boy was sitting in. She looked up at him, trying to look reassuring. "This will hurt," she admitted. "But I have to see if your ankle is broken, or just badly sprained. I'm sorry, but I will try to be as quick as possible." What she did not say, but thought was, and if it is broken, we are taking you to a hospital.


The boy looked down at her, blue eyes both nervous and intense. He hesitated only briefly, then nodded, giving her silent permission to carry out her examination. She began to touch around the ankle, which was swelling up nicely. It hurt, just as she said it would, but the boy refused to yelp, refused to say or do anything that would tell her how much it hurt. Nobody liked a yelping, crybaby. He'd learned that pretty fast living with his father, although part of him suspected he'd already learned it or been well on his way before his father took him.

"So, what's your name?" Sefa asked, trying to distract the boy from the examination of his ankle. "I know my youngest has been calling you Casper, but I doubt that's your real name."

"Oh, Dad, that reminds me, we asked him," Lance said brightly, "and he said his name was Bret Hart."

Sefa couldn't help but laugh, but he did his best to choke it off quickly. "You picked the wrong people to pull that one off," he said.

"I c-could be," The boy, his voice trembling said, "There are other people named Bret in this world, he's n-not the only one. And there are people who have the last name Hart. I c-could be Bret Hart."

"Well, yes," Sefa acquiesced then fixed his gaze on the boy. "But you're not, are you?"

The kid hesitated, then shook his head and barely whispered, "No."

"Okay, then what is your name?" Sefa asked.

"I-I don't know," the boy blurted out. And he wasn't really lying. Yes, he'd been Timmy most of his life, but Timmy wasn't a real name, it was just a name his father gave him. He'd been someone else before, he could remember screaming it at his father, when he first went to live with him, and getting hit a whole lot of times, hit badly for that.

"That's not your name anymore!" his father had screamed as he whipped his back. The boy was handcuffed to a pipe in the basement and couldn't move away, all he could do was twist a little bit, as his feet tried to find purchase on the floor, but he could only reach it with the tips of his toes. "Your name is Timmy, and if I ever hear you use the name-"

The boy tried to remember what his father had said his name used to be, he really tried, but it just wouldn't come to him. He'd carved it into a wall in a closet he once used to have to sit in if he was bad, just so he would remember it, but his father had seen it and beat him until he blacked out. And when the boy just decided to accept that Timmy was his name, his father tested him by sometimes calling him by his old name. And every time the boy had responded to it, he had been punished. Beatings first, then hours in the closet, a different closet than the one he'd carved his name into, they'd moved since then. And his father had kicked out the wall where the name was carved, turning it into dust. If he wasn't forced into the closet, he was chained up in the basement. They moved around a lot, but his father always did his best to make sure they rented houses that were off the main drag, not deserted, but not where the houses were almost on top of each other. If he could, he tried to make sure there was a basement, or at least a semi-finished basements that could be transformed into a little boy's room. But his father always made sure there was one section where he could be chained. The boy knew it was wrong of him to forget his own name, but he had. He had forced himself to forget his name.

"I-I" he began and to his horror, he felt tears starting to prickle in his eyes and it wasn't because of the pain being caused to him as the woman examined his ankle. "I can't remember."

Sefa barely looked phased. "Okay then, you're going to be luckier than some kids, because for now you can pick a name. Give us something we can call you." He shrugged as if picking a new name was no big deal, then added, "just try not to pick a wrestler's name."

"Especially not, Undertaker," Roman said, which made everyone but the woman and him laugh. And while he didn't laugh, even the boy knew it was kind-of funny.

"Uhm," The boy said, stalling for time and wishing he had thought more carefully as he had planned his escape. What type of idiot would forget something that important. Him, that's who. He was that stupid.

"It doesn't seem to be broken," the woman said, which made him really happy for a lot of reasons, one being that her announcing it gave him more time to think. "But it is pretty badly sprained. We're going to put it in some ice."

While the woman had been checking his ankle, the one kid, the one closest to his age, Roman, had fetched a plastic tub, filled it with ice. The oldest one of the kids, Marc, had left the room and came back with a bag that was sort-of like his duffle bag back at the motel. The woman opened it and pulled out a weird sort-of zippered sock. "I don't want to get your foot too cold. This will help prevent ice burn. And it's water proof." And it did hurt when she put it on him, it hurt a lot, but he didn't cry out. He bit his lip and dealt with it. And then when the sock was on, she put his foot in the pan of ice. For a few seconds, he felt nothing, then his foot started feeling cold and he almost wanted to pull it out. Sensing it, the woman put her hand on his knee. "I know it takes some getting used to, but give it a few moments and you'll see, it will numb the pain." She stood up. "In the meanwhile, I'll make breakfast." She looked towards the clock and shook her head ruefully. "I guess we run today on coffee and fumes," she remarked, looking at her husband.

"Great!" Lance said, going for the coffee pot. "I've always wanted to try coffee."

"You're not included in this plan," his father told him, his voice not angry, but carrying a tone about it that said he would clearly not tolerate any argument about this. "You are going to have some breakfast and go to bed. You can sleep as late as you want."

"Aw, no fair," Lance muttered. "I never get to have any fun."

Roman snorted, while getting himself a cup of coffee and going to the refrigerator. "You're the baby of the family, you're spoiled rotten." He pulled out a container of half and half and poured a liberal amount in his cup.

"Am not!"

"Are too."

"I'm the oldest and I say you're both spoiled," Marc said, helping himself to coffee as well.

"Oh yeah, tell me about how rough you had it as a kid, Marc," their father said, holding up his thumb and forefinger and rubbing them together. "And while you do, I'll play My Heart Bleeds For You on the world's smallest violin."

The boy found this whole exchange interesting. Was this how normal families acted? Making fun of each other? But doing it in a way that made it seem fair. Not like when he was with his father, when he had to carefully check his mental temperature every time he talked to him, knowing that if he said the wrong thing at the wrong time, punishment would be swift and painful. But part of him was also thinking, knowing sooner or later the conversation was going to get back to what name he wanted to go by.

He had not watched much TV in his life. His father was very careful about what he let him watch. Wrestling was okay, in fact his father highly approved of wrestling. But they couldn't watch it while it was actually playing on TV, his father would tape it and they would watch it later, his father fast forwarding through the commercials. His father would also find wrestling tapes at stores and flea markets and stuff and bring them home, and he could watch those as much as he wanted, if he'd been a good boy, so his father didn't take away the TV/VCR combination, that for some reason, couldn't get any TV channels. There were other movies he was allowed to watch too. And of course, there were special movies he could watch, the ones his father loved to watch, but the boy never wanted to do that.

He thought about one movie his father had let him watch, not too long ago. One of the characters… his name was cool enough. "Jon Moxen," he blurted out.

"Varsity Blues," Roman commented. "Good movie."

Great, the boy thought. I can't do anything right. "Uh," he stammered.

"Hold on," the man said, raising his hand. "We can work with that. Jon is an easy enough and good enough name to use. We'll just alter the last name a bit..."

The room was silent as everyone thought about this. Then, Lance looked up. "Moxie," he said. "You know, because it takes a lot of Moxie to run out in front of a car, even if it is being driven by someone who drives like a snail in the dark."

"Will you stop criticizing my driving?" Marc sighed as he spoke.

"Maybe if the turtles that walk along the side of the road weren't walking faster than you drive in the dark," Roman said, grinning. Lance giggled and the two boys did a high-five.

"That's enough," the man said, his voice carrying a warning tone. He turned back to the boy. "Moxie isn't quite right either. How about Moxley?"

The boy thought for a moment. Jon Moxley. It was as good a name as any, and Moxley sounded kinda cool. He'd heard the expression "Moxie" before, Sam used it a few times, once even about him. "The kid has moxie, I give him that." And the boy had known having moxie was a good thing. Having moxie meant you were tough and you had balls. Things which Sam and his father did not appreciate, but he was still glad he had it. But Moxley just sounded better, it rolled off the ears sounding like a regular name, but still carried traces of that toughness. Maybe people would start calling him Mox like they had the kid in the movie. That would be pretty cool. "I-I like it," he stammered, looking at the man.

"Then Jon Moxley it is," the man held out his hand. The boy hesitated and took it, not wanting to touch him, but feeling this was required of him, and let the man shake it. "It's nice to meet you, Jon Moxley."

Since the man actually seemed to be fine with the name, the boy decided he'd see if he could push it a bit. "You can call me Mox," he suggested, trying to sound casual. When the man's eyebrows raised he hastily added, "if you want, you don't have to. You can just call me Jon."

"I'll call you Mox if that's what you want," The man said. "It will do until we find out your real name. And you can call me Sefa. And the woman over there making breakfast? You can call her Jen."

There was something familiar about the man, the newly christened Mox had noticed, but he couldn't put his finger on it and was too shy to ask. But, at least his foot had gone from being shocked by the ice, to numb, and that was a lot better. He gathered up his courage and asked, "Can I have some coffee, too?" He often drank coffee, his father hadn't cared, but he knew he couldn't have gotten up and got some and even if he could, that might be considered rude.

"Absolutely not," Jen said. She was cracking eggs into a bowl to make scrambled eggs. "How about a nice glass of milk, instead? Because after you eat breakfast, I'm going to bandage that ankle and you're going to bed."

"I-I can't stay here!" Mox protested. "I mean, I appreciate what you've done and all, but won't I be able to walk when you bandage it?" There was bacon cooking now, in a big cast iron pan, and the smell of it made Mox's stomach growl. "I mean, I'll stay for breakfast, if you want, but I don't want to sleep here, I don't want to be a bother."

"You're not going to be able to walk very far, even with crutches, which we've got plenty of around here, so we'll set you up with a pair." Sefa said.

"We'll be happy to drive you home, if you have a home," Jen ventured as she pulled a gallon of milk out of the refrigerator and filled a glass and brought it to him. "Do you have a home, Jon?"

"No," Mox said. He knew it was stupid to try to lie. If he said he had a home, they would have wanted to take him there, or call there.

"What about your parents?" That was Sefa.

"Uh, they're dead," Mox said. Well, it wasn't exactly a lie. He could barely remember his mother and she could be dead. And as far as he was concerned, his father was dead. Although, the dead could be awful lively and he was terrified his father would track him here, and that would be very, very bad. Not just for himself, but for these nice people whose only crime was not leaving him by the side of the road. Subconsciously, he reached up and rubbed at a tiny scar in the back of his head.

"So, you're a foster kid or something?" Roman asked.

"Did you run away from your foster home because they were jerks?" Lance asked, looking wide eyed, as if this might be interesting. "Kids are always running away from foster homes in books and in movies, because their foster parents are really mean. Like Harry Potter. I mean, he didn't run away, and he wasn't a foster kid, he lived with his aunt and uncle, but they made him sleep in a closet and were really mean to him. And he probably would have run away if he hadn't found out he was a Wizard and got to go to Hogwarts."

"I'm not a foster kid," Mox said, wondering what exactly, a foster kid, and who this Harry Potter was, and what in the world was a 'Hogwarts? "I-I take care of myself."

Sefa's brow raised again. "You do?" He looked him up and down. "You do a pretty shitty job of it, I have to say."

"Sefa, language!" Jen scolded, returning to the stove to finish making breakfast.

"It-it's all right," Mox said, "I-I'm not bothered by swearing." His father had sworn all the time, as did his friends. And, if he was being honest with himself, so did he. I'm going to have to watch that shit, he thought as he took a sip of the milk, then struggled not to gulp it all down.

"Well, that's nice of you not to be bothered, Jon, but I really don't want him swearing around his sons." She shot Sefa a look as she walked back to the stove. She looked over at Lance and Roman. "Rather than just stand there, why don't you set the table?"

As the boys set to work getting dishes and silverware out of the cabinets and drawers, Sefa turned his attention back to him. "So, if you're on your own, you must have an apartment, right? Or at least a room in a rooming house."

He shook his head, trying to come up with an explanation. "Uh, I'm between places right now," he said. "My last apartment, uh, the um, building burned down." He looked down, refusing to look Sefa in the eyes. "So, uh, I've been looking for a new one."

"Well, isn't that perfect then," Sefa said. "Because we just happen to have an extra bed, and you just happen to need a place to stay while you're healing. How about your job, Mox? Anyone we should be calling to tell you're not going to be working for a bit? Or, can you do your job sitting or lying down?"

Mox gulped. It was scary enough that these people were insisting he stay here, which could put them in danger, but now they were asking about his job. Do they know? He wondered, Is there something about me that lets strangers know what I've done? Or have they seen me? Shit! Is this a set up? His hands clenched into fists and his fingernails dug into the palms of his hands. He wanted to run, but his foot was in a bucket of ice water, and there were way too many people in here, if he tried to go for the door, they'd stop him, easily.

"Sefa, stop it!" Jen protested. "Jon has enough problems, he doesn't need you giving him a hard time!" she turned to him. "Look, I don't know what you've been through, but I can guess it was a lot. I'm not expecting you to spill your life story, at least not now. You are going to stay here at least until your ankle heals or we find out where and who you belong with."

"I don't belong anywhere," he protested before he could stop himself. "I don't belong to anyone, either."

"Well, you do now," Jen said, her voice firm. "You belong here, at least for now. We'll figure everything else out as necessary. And, as I said, you don't have to tell us your life story. But, we do expect you to answer questions as honestly as you can. If you don't know an answer, that's fine. But don't lie."

Mox wanted to get up, wanted to say he wouldn't follow that rule, and walk out the door, but the bacon smelled so good, as did the eggs that were now cooking in the bacon fat. And he could smell bread being toasted and his stomach was making those gurgling noises. He hadn't eaten since the day before yesterday, and he was so hungry. He wasn't going anywhere with this ankle, and he was exhausted. Face it, he told himself. You're beat. But he wasn't going to give up completely. "I want the right to refuse to answer, if I think it will endanger me or anyone around here."

Now, both Sefa and Jen looked at each other, and he knew even though they weren't talking, they were somehow communicating. It was Sefa who broke the silence and his voice was firm. "For now, we accept that," he said. "But we reserve the right to negotiate later."

Mox tried not to sigh, but he nodded. "Okay. But for now, I want that right."


"So," Sefa asked as he brought the dishes to the sink. "What happens next?"

"I honestly don't know," Jen admitted. They had the kitchen to themselves. Roman had helped Jon to his room, where he had a spare bed, now that Marcus was living in the house that used to be used by Sefa's former tag team partner, until he retired. Jon had protested, saying he could sleep in the mud room, but he hadn't protested all that much. With a full belly, his ankle wrapped, the cuts and scrapes he had gotten also cleaned and bandaged, and a couple of Ibuprofen, it was obvious the kid desperately needed to get some sleep. When Roman came down a few minutes later, he reported Mox had fallen to sleep almost the moment his head hit the pillow. He'd offered to skip practice and help with the business, but Sefa had sent him off, knowing how much Roman loved football, even practices.

Marc had gone out to work, getting the latest batch of campers off and going. Sefa knew he should be out there, too, but figured this qualified as extenuating circumstances. He had a few others who worked for him, former wrestlers who were unable to wrestle anymore for various reasons, or at least not able to keep up with the grueling schedule the WWF put its stars through. Sometimes they had a big name, when a wrestler was out on an injury that would allow them to teach, even if they couldn't get into the ring and actually show people how it was done. When football season was over, Roman helped and he and his brothers would show, while an instructor explained the move. Lance helped too, sometimes, which Sefa really loved. There was nothing better than hearing some wannabe wrestler, whine about how a move was too hard, then having his nine year old son come out and show them exactly how it was done. Although, he had to be careful with that. After what his youngest son had been through, Jen wanted the kid as far away from wrestling, from anything that might hurt him. The problem was that Lance was a young boy and he was healthy now, and like all healthy young boys he wanted to run and play. And as one might expect from a child of his, Lance wanted to be a wrestler. He might change his mind later, but then again, he might not. Wrestling was in his blood.

"I want to take him to the clinic when he wakes up," Sefa said. "You're usually right, but still, I'd feel better if he got some X-rays, just to be sure."

Jen nodded, but didn't look overly confident. "How? He doesn't have insurance, I'm sure."

"I'll take him to Proctor, he's our family doctor. I know hi well enough to see him and explain the situation as briefly as possible. We can work it out. Worst come to worst, I'll pay cash for the whole thing. He'll cut me a break, probably not report it, thus, our insurance won't go up, and everything is taken care of."

"What if he needs a script?" Jen pointed out, as she hung the skillet in its proper place. "They will probably want to give him something a little stronger than the store brand of Ibuprofen. I'd say Naproxen, possibly something even stronger."

"Maybe they'll have samples," Sefa said, shrugging. "Proctor and the staff? They're friends, Jen, they won't report us. Especially when I explain that he's clearly a kid who is in need of care that he's not been getting at home."

"He's been abused," Jen said. "Did you see all the scars on his back?

"Yeah." Sefa shook his head, looking and feeling exhausted. "And, Lance was right about him being pale. He's more than pale he looks like-" He paused to think of how to put it.

"Like he's been living in the dark most of his life," Jen suggested.

"Yeah," Sefa said, nodding as well. "Like a basement or something. We're going to have to douse that kid in sunscreen just to let him go outside for a minute or he's going to burn to a crisp."

Jen sighed. "So, what are we going to do, Sefa? He's not going anywhere on his own, not with that ankle, and we've got the room for him to stay here, but I don't want to be accused of harboring a runaway or a kidnapped child."

"I agree," Sefa said. "And if I had someone willing to throw away their money, I'd bet them that the kid has been living with someone other than his legal guardian. So, the first step is to try to find out if someone, his true parent or guardian is looking for him."

"How do we do that?" Jen bit her lower lip looking worried. "If we go to the police, won't they want to take him off somewhere? Put him in a temporary foster home?"

"That's likely," Sefa admitted. "I don't know a lot about how these things work, but I do know that we're pretty good friends with the Sheriff, and Aaron knows we're good parents to our boys, so I think if I ask him to find out what he can without actually, you know, saying he's living here, he'll be willing to go for that. He knows we aren't going to abuse the kid."

"But what if no one is looking for him?" Jen asked, "Or what if it takes a long time to find whoever is?"

"Then we see if we can be his foster family," Sefa said, rising to his feet. "I think I'll go and take a picture of the kid with that digital camera we gave Lance, and go down to the sheriff's office. Let's get this ball rolling."

"Do you think you can get a good enough picture Jon while he's asleep? The flash might wake him, or he might be sleeping on his stomach."

"Well, I'll find that out, soon enough," Sefa said, heading towards the stairs.


Less than an hour later, Sefa was in the same SUV the boys had borrowed the night before, heading into town to talk to Aaron with three decent pictures of "Jon Moxley" No one would say they were flattering, in one of them he was on his back, his mouth gaping open, a trail of goo running out the side. But, Sefa figured they were good enough for getting an ID on the kid, and with any luck, Mox wouldn't see them.

While he'd been taking the pictures, he gave himself a little time to assess the new arrival. In some ways, the boy looked closer to Lance's age than Roman's, but the kid was tall. Not as tall as Roman, but Sefa had a pretty good idea that improper nutrition and lack of sunlight, hell just lack of an ordinary life had likely stunted his growth. He probably should have been about Roman's height. Sefa had the feeling that were Mox to stay with them for awhile, he'd soon enough go through a growth spurt. He was way too thin, which also made him look even younger.

One arm was raised up on his pillow and Sefa thought at first he had no underarm hair, which could make him younger than he thought, then he looked a little more carefully and saw a hint of stubble. The kid was shaving his underarms. Sefa knew that wasn't a totally ridiculous thing, most wrestlers shaved every single hair off their body, except for their heads and some even did their heads as well. It wasn't mandatory, but when you ended up spending half your day with your head in someone's armpit or them in yours, it was nice not to have to deal with getting crinkly hairs up your nose. And, it gave a sleek, body builder look that wrestling seemed to be all about now. Swimmers also were known to shave themselves clean, to cut down on resistance in the water. Some guys shaved now, just because there were a lot of women who liked not having to deal with excess hair. But Sefa had the uncomfortable feeling none of those were the reasons why Jon was clean shaven. He had a feeling it was to make him appear younger than his age. If he were a girl, he'd have bet money his hair would have been in pigtails.


The Reigns lived on the outskirts of a small town, while still in Madison County. Like most small towns, the Sheriff's office was also the police station. They had five squad cars, two fairly new, but the other three took turns going in and out of the shop, so they usually ran on four. Aaron drove a Ford Bronco and he did most of his Sheriff business in that. Everyone in the town and the outskirts knew that silver Bronco and knew exactly who it belonged to.

Aaron was about Sefa's age, and was a little worried when Sefa opened up the wrestling training center, Samoan Pride Wrestling Academy, named after the last tag team Sefa had belonged to, before he left the WWF. Aaron had worried that it would attract a bit of a bad crowd. Especially when Sefa said he would be having real overnight camping, meaning people who wanted to wrestle could come and stay on the property and undergo intensive training for 2-4 week sessions. Sefa was sure that Aaron had visions of these young men, some of them possibly even on steroids, all coming to town, taking over the Dusty Horse, the only bar in town and just in general, causing havoc. Sefa had assured him that the campers would not be doing that. He also assured Aaron that everyone would be tested for steroids when they started training under him. And while he couldn't control what what the students did when they weren't being trained, especially the ones who would be taking lessons in the evenings and weekends, rather than actually staying at the camp, he would make sure that everyone signed a consent form saying that if they were caught showing "Behavior unfitting to the reputation of the school," they would be kicked out, they would not have any part of their fees refunded and they would never be allowed to attend the school again. There were a few times in the beginning when Sefa had to enforce this rule, but it didn't take long for the word to go around that the rules at Samoan Pride Wrestling Academy were strictly enforced and Nathan Reigns had no problem throwing anyone out for rule violation and keeping your money. He rarely had to worry about it, since.

Sefa pulled up to the front of the station, parking in one of the slanted spaces, two away from the handicapped spot. It was early Saturday morning, there weren't too many people out and about. Sefa just hoped Aaron was working. I should have called first, he thought as he got out of the car. I hope I haven't just spun my wheels. He walked over and looked along the side of the building and was relieved to see the silver Bronco in its usual reserved spot.

He walked into the station, made the usual small talk with Pat, who usually worked the front desk, said hello to a few other officers, then asked if he could talk to Aaron.

"Sure, Mr. Reigns," Pat said, "He's doing paperwork and will probably be thrilled to be interrupted."

"Sefa," Sefa corrected him. Patrick had been one of Marc's crowd back when they both were in high school and still had trouble thinking of Sefa as anyone but Marc's dad, and thus should only be called "Mr. Reigns." "And, thanks."

"Sorry Mr- I mean Sefa," Pat turned bright red and quickly looked away to some papers on the front desk, frowning at them as if they required his attention right that second. He did though, remember to press the button that would let Sefa past the lobby.

Sefa walked into the main area of the police station and headed to the only office in the place and tapped on the door. The front of the office was made of glass, supposedly bullet and shatter proof, but you could see through it just fine. Aaron was at his desk, pen between his teeth, a pile of paper in one hand, another on the desk that he was staring at in a combination of bewilderment and anger. He looked up when Sefa tapped and with the hand that was holding the stack of papers, waved him in.

"Thank god you're here," Aaron said, as he removed the pen from his mouth and dropped the papers in his hand on the pile on the desk, making it even messier. He grabbed the whole pile and put it to the side in a haphazard mess. "Have a seat, Sefa, is everything okay? Lance still doing well?"

Sefa smiled. They always ask about Lance, first, he though as he sat down in one of the two old wooden chairs with upholstery that was so threadbare that it was hard to tell the original color. "Lance is great, you'd never know he'd been sick. Marc, Roman, and Jen are fine, the students are all fine too."

"Well then, what brings you down here?" Aaron asked. "Not that I'm not glad for the interruption. The damned regulations in this state are ridiculous. Every damned bullet has to be accounted for, every time the gun is fired. Going to the range to practice is bad enough, but the other night, Wydell shot a deer. He had no choice, a car hit the poor thing and he was going to die anyway, but since he fired his revolver while on duty, it all has to be accounted for, in triplicate. Doing paper work is not why I ran for sheriff." Having aired his grievances about his job to Sefa, at least the Reader's Digest version, he shook his head and smiled. "So, what can I help you with today, Sefa?"

"Lance, Roman and Marc found a stray boy last night." Sefa said, trying to get right to the point.

Aaron shook his head. "Sarah is right, my hearing is going. I would have sworn you said boy. You said dog, right?"

"Your hearing is just fine," Sefa assured him. "I did say boy."

"A stray boy?" Aaron looked perplexed. "Suppose you tell me the whole story, starting at the beginning."

"Well, my boys went to see Jurassic Park three last night," Sefa began.

"I hear it isn't as good as the first two, but hey, it's got dinosaurs," Aaron interrupted. "Who doesn't want to see dinosaurs?"

Sefa gave a snort of laughter before continuing. "Anyway, they were supposed to go to the first evening showing, but, well, things happened and they ended up going to the second showing instead. As they were heading home, all three of my boys say that this other boy almost ran into the car. Just ran out onto the road. Marc slammed on the brakes and didn't hit the kid, but the kid was afraid he was going to get hit, so he took a dive to get away and ended up rolling in the ditch. He's got a sprained ankle and some serious road rash, but that seems to be the worst of it."

"Marc?" Aaron looked bewildered. "Marc almost hit a kid? The way that boy drives at night, I'm amazed the kid didn't have a chance to stroll across the road and stop half way to have a sandwich."

"Well, I'm glad it was Marc and not Mr. Lead-foot who's still driving on a permit. I've got one kid who drives like he learned on a tractor, and the other like he's trying to qualify for NASCAR." Now it was Sefa's turn to shake his head. "Makes me wonder what type of driver Lance is going to be."

"Probably fast, if he knows it's 100% safe to do so. If he's not sure, he'll drive at the speed limit or what the road conditions tell him to do." Aaron grinned. "And he'll probably come in here to tell me what areas the speed limit is too low or too high and have the evidence to back it up. And he'll be right too. That kid is brilliant." He leaned back in his seat, "But, enough about that, tell me more about the 'stray boy.'"

"Well, the boys wanted to call an ambulance. The kid refused to let them. They wanted to take him to the hospital, the kid refused. Of course they weren't going to leave an injured kid in the road, so they brought him home so Jen could take a look."

"Okay, and what happened then?"

Sefa told Aaron the full story, how the kid had tried to tell his sons his name was Bret Hart at first, and how even when Lance nicknamed him Casper, the boy still refused to give out the name he'd been called by. How he had said he couldn't remember "his real name." He explained about the scars and the extreme paleness and how the kid had said he would be honest with them, but wanted to reserve the right to refuse to answer a question if he felt it would endanger himself or anyone else.

"Since I wasn't going to let Lance continue to call him Casper, we let him pick his own name. He came up first with Jon Moxen like the-"

"-Guy in Varsity Blues," Aaron finished for him, nodding. "Good movie. So, you're calling him Jon?"

"Yeah, but we changed up the last name a bit," Sefa said. "We're calling him Jon Moxley. He wants to be called 'Mox,' and I'm willing to follow that."

"Are you coming here to have him taken in by the state?" Aaron asked. "Because I could make a few calls and get someone to-"

"God no!" It was Sefa's turn to interrupt. "That's exactly what I don't want to happen. Aaron, you know we got the room, we don't mind the kid staying with us, until something better can be figured out, but I'm pretty sure the kid was living with someone for a very long time, someone who didn't have legal custody of him."

"You think he was kidnapped?"

Sefa nodded. "Either that, or, I hate to say it, whoever was supposed to be taking care of him, sold him off. I hope to god it isn't the last one. But the kid's been abused, and he's skittish. I think turning him over to Social Services will kill him. I know he doesn't fully trust us, but he's got no choice until his ankle heals. Maybe by then he'll trust us. But if someone is looking for him..." his voice trailed off.

"You want to know if he's been reported missing," Aaron filled in. "And you want all of this done, well, under the radar, so-to-speak, so the state won't come in and take the kid."

"That's about the size of it," Sefa said. "I mean, if they can't match him up, Jen and I would probably like to foster him. But I don't know if they'll take him away until we're approved."

"You say you think the kid might be around Roman's age?" Aaron asked. When Sefa nodded, he continued, "If he's sixteen, his opinion on the matter will be taken into consideration. I mean, some foster kids are weaned out of the system when they're seventeen, so I think the state is going to be willing to just let him stay with you and Jen, if,that's what all of you want. Have you thought about it, carefully?"

"The kid need a home," Sefa said. "Marc lives at the other house at the camp, so there is an extra bed in Roman's room. Seems like fate to me."

"Yeah, well, I get it, you and Jen both have hearts of gold and you see a kid like that and you want to help, but abused kids come with a bag of problems. And, if he was kidnapped and kept locked up, as you think he was, uhm, you realized that chances are he was..." Aaron's voice trailed off.

"-sexually abused?" Sefa finished for him. "Yeah, that's what I figure. I've been trying not to think about it, but you're right. Why keep a kid hidden away from the world? That isn't a case of someone who always wanting a child, kidnapping a toddler to raise as their own. Or, a non-custodial parent taking the kid away from the custodial parent. You keep a kid hidden because you don't want him out in the world, talking. You keep him because you're using him as some type of exotic toy, and you don't want anyone to know."

"Yeah," Aaron said, shaking his head. "It's a messed up world for sure. And if that is the story with this kid, then nothing is his fault, but that doesn't mean he isn't… well, tainted is the best word I can think of. Did Sarah ever tell you that she used to work in that children's home in Miami?"

"No," Sefa said. "Then again, she's closer to Jen than she is to me, she might have told her." Sarah was Aaron's wife.

"Well, it was a sort of half way place for foster kids. It wasn't quite Juvenile hall, but it wasn't a regular foster home. The place was like a boarding school, except that it ran all year, no summer off. Kids went there because there were no homes to place them in, mostly because of behavioral problems. The place was pretty much a way station to get the kids old enough that they could be release from the system and then the state could wash their hands of them, until they managed to get themselves arrested, which most did. Anyway, Sarah's official title was 'house mother' but her actual job was more of a guard than mother, although she tried to do both for these kids. She told me that the kids who had been sexually abused, often tried to sexually abuse the younger kids. Or just have sex with anyone and everyone. She told me the first week she was there, she was offered more oral sex from kids than she thought possible and a lot of the kids went to great length to describe what they would do to her if she would let them."

"Really?" Sefa asked, genuinely surprised. "I would think that was the last thing they'd want to do. That they'd be grateful to be away from that."

"Some were," Aaron admitted. "Some went the other way and freaked out if you touched them. But, a lot more than you might think, became promiscuous instead. It's not that hard to believe when you realize that a lot of these kids were taught that sex equals love. Sick and twisted love, yes, but child predators groom their victims carefully. And, their victims aren't unable to feel things, good and bad. We all have our triggers and buttons. Touch someone here, and they will feel pleasure, child predators know that, too. And, most of these kids aren't stupid. They have an instinctual feeling what is happening is wrong, but sometimes it feels pretty good. And, in some cases, it even gives them power, possibly the only power they ever have. 'You want me to do this to you? Well, then, I want a new Ipod.' They learn that sex means attention, power, whatever. And, they learn at an early age to think that sex is about all they are good for. Sex might be the only time anyone shows them any affection at all." Aaron paused to look at Sefa steadily. "I am not trying to tell you not to take the kid in, at least until his ankle is healed, but… well, Lance is a really cute kid. And he's smart, and trusting and some people just gravitate to him. I just- I just, well, want you to be careful."

Sefa tried not to gag as his mind processed the information. "Well, I didn't sense that he's a predator, all I got from him was frightened kid, but it's not like he's been staying with us for awhile. I'll have a talk with him at some point, see what I can find out, get a sense of what direction he flies and make it clear if he even thinks of messing with any of my boys, or any of the campers, he'll be in big trouble."

"Okay," Aaron said. "And I will see what I can find out, but I can't do it with the vague information you've given me."

"I do have some pictures," Sefa said, as he pulled the digital camera from his pocket. "They're on there, I admit, I have no clue how to get them off the camera, I was hoping you'd know, because I don't want Lance to see them on there."

"I'm as backwards as you, when it comes to this digital stuff. Don't let the computer on my desk fool you, all I know is how to turn it on and access a few data bases. He picked up the phone on his desk and punched a number. "Pat, get in here, we need your help."

Patrick, as it turned out, was very familiar with both computers and digital cameras. He took Lance's camera away and brought it back a few minutes later. "I took off the pictures of the boy." he said. "So, Lance won't know they were on there. Erased them right off the drive. All his other pictures are there." He looked over at Aaron, "I saved digital copies of them on my computer, but here are print outs." He handed his boss a folder that contained the three pictures of Mox, printed in color on photo quality paper.

Aaron accepted the folder. "Did you want print copies too, Sefa?"

Sefa shook his head. "No, that's the last thing I want. I'm hoping Mox never has to see those."

Aaron opened up the folder and looked at the first picture, Mox sleeping on his back, one arm curved over his head, mouth open, the fine line of drool shining from his mouth, across his cheek and to his ear. "Yeah, I can see why. That would be pretty embarrassing." He closed the folder and looked at Sefa, "These are okay, but I really wish we had one with his eyes open."

"They're blue," Sefa said. "Or at least they seemed blue in the kitchen."

"Yeah, I'll make a note of that, but sometimes it's hard to ID a person when their eyes are shut," Aaron explained. "I know scientists say that eyes are just eyes and not some magical doorway to the soul, but there is something about eyes. People notice them. So, yeah, I'll do what I can with these, but why don't you see if you can't get a shot of him when he's awake."

"I'll try," Sefa said, rising from his seat. "Worst come to worst, I'll try to get a candid shot or two, if Lance will let me use his camera."

"You can take them with a camera with film," Aaron reminded him. "The drugstore still does send real film out to be developed."

"Yeah, but this is so much easier." Sefa grinned and put his hand out as Aaron rose and shook it. "See what you can find out, okay? If the kid was kidnapped, his real family might be out there thinking he's dead."

"Yeah," Aaron said. "And I will keep you informed of any information I find out. Try to get that picture for me as soon as you can, in the meantime, I'll see what I can do with this. Oh, and if you can, see if the kid will let himself come down here and be printed."

"Why?" Sefa sat down again.

"Because there is a database for missing children fingerprints," Aaron said. "After Adam Walsh and all, schools started sending kids home with ID kits, and one of the things in the kit was a finger printing kit. Their was a little ink pad and a place to put all the finger prints in their own little boxes, you know, left thumb, left index finger, so on and so forth. They also gave a wipe or two so the kids wouldn't get ink all over the house." Aaron paused, looking at Sefa, his brows furrowed. "Your kids should have had gotten them, we hand them out here, too. I mean, it might have been when Lance was out of school, being sick, but Roman and Marc should have."

Sefa thought and remembered something, he had been on the road a lot back then, he probably missed Marc's ID kit, but he did remember Roman talking about something that could have been that. And Roman and Jen had sat down after dinner and filled out a questionnaire. "Did it come with a bunch of questions like favorite colors, favorite foods, left handed or right handed, so on and so forth? Almost seemed like a dating application. 'My son loves long walks on the beach and football,' sort of thing?"

Aaron nodded. "That's it. The more information we can get about a child who goes missing, the better. Parents were asked to make note every day of what their kid wore and to take frequent pictures. And the kids filled out the "Things I like" forms too. While it may seem that knowing a kid's favorite ice cream is Rocky Road is not important, you never know what can happen. An officer could be at the ice cream parlor and notice a kid that seems sort of familiar, eating Rocky Road ice cream and that could lead to getting that kid home to his custodial parent."

"Jen always handled that stuff," Sefa admitted. "Like coming up with the safe-word in case a stranger ever tried to say he was sent by us. Not that we worried about that. The kids all know our friends and the people who worked for the academy and those are the only people we'd have sent."

"Kids often get abducted from people who know them," Aaron pointed out. "And having a safe-word never hurts. I just hope Jen didn't use Unicorn. You'd be amazed at how many parents use Unicorn. Especially parents of girls."

"Jen knew better than that," Sefa said. "Well, I won't keep you any longer, Aaron. You seemed to be having so much fun with that paperwork, I wouldn't want to keep you away from it." He once again rose from his seat.

Aaron rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Yeah, the fun never stops."

End Chapter Two


Author's Notes: Okay, if you haven't figured out who the mystery guy is... you should know by now.

Thank you to everyone who followed, favored, read, and especially those who took the time to review. You don't know how much that means to me. It's awesome. I half expected to put this up and to hear... nothing. Wrestling fanfiction isn't want it was when I was here before.

I need to explain things and again, if you're not into Stephen King type notes at the end, where he tells you a little bit about how the magic happens (at least in his books, I'm not sure if I have magic. Writing is hard for me) feel free to skip over this.

Lance is purely the creation of me for role playing, and my husband helped play him too, to flesh him out. He came about by accident. There really is a Lance Anoa'i and someone mistakenly told me he was Roman's younger brother. And I kinda liked that idea, Roman having a little brother. When that turned out to be not true (They are related, but they're cousins) I still decided that for my purposes, it didn't matter, I could give Roman a younger brother named Lance. I don't write fanfiction about real people, I write it about characters. So, in my world, Roman Reigns has a brother named Lance. But the personality of Lance is completely mine and my husband's creation. As time goes on, you're going to find out he's also a large and absolutely perfect example of those times when life imitates art, but we're not there, yet.

Marc... well, you might say he's slightly based on Matt (Rosie) Joe Anoa'i's brother. Sort of but not really. About the only thing I took was that there is a significant difference in age between the two of them. Marc does not seem to be cursed with the weight issues that Rosie suffered from, that eventually took his life at such a young age.

And, I am sure at this point, by the stranger's chosen name, you've all figured out who he is... if you hadn't already.

Before I close this out, I again want to thank everyone who took the time to read, review, favor, follow, etc, it means the world to me. I wasn't sure what was going to happen if I came back and started writing.