CHAPTER 80

"So… how can I help you, ma'am?" Miguel asked politely, sensing the power she held without knowing why she was here, so he decided against a short, rude response. The lady looked at him with an almost… sympathetic look on her face.

"We need to talk." She told him. "Can we talk inside?"

Miguel's mind immediately thought back to a few minutes earlier when he was smashing alcohol bottles against his trailer wall, and he remembered what this woman did for a living, so he hesitated.

"I, um… my trailer's kind of a mess. It's probably not up to having guests standard." Miguel murmured. The lady laughed.

"Come on, don't be silly. I'm sure it's fine." She said. Miguel sighed, knowing that she wouldn't let up, and he reluctantly nodded.

"Okay, fine. Come in." Miguel said, leading her into the house. As they walked in, Miguel heard the lady gasp quietly as she took in the catastrophic state of his RV. Shard of glass, half-smashed bottles of liquor everywhere, it was a sight. They walked over to the couch and sat down, the lady's face more alarmed now. "So what's up?'

"Like I said Miguel, I work for Child Services here in the state of California. I would like to talk to you about your recent emancipation from your family." She stated. Immediately, Miguel's face darkened at the mention of his recent split from his biological family, but he forced himself to remain calm.

"Yeah, I don't know what to say to you really. Both of us would rather be apart than together as a family. Nothing much more to say than that."

The lady nodded.

"I know. That's not what I'm here for. Given that both you and your mother signed the papers and she put the papers through all legal channels, that emancipation is completely official and finalised. No, your mom…"

"Biological mother, not mom." Miguel corrected her, scowling. She sighed and nodded, sensing Miguel's deep anger.

"Your biological mother… is not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about you, Miguel."

"Me?" Miguel murmured.

"Yes, you, Miguel. Your future." Ms. Walker told him. Miguel shrugged.

"What's there to talk about? I'm no longer a part of my old family. I'm an adult. I can do whatever I want, when I want, no?" Miguel stated. The lady shook her head.

"See that's just it, Miguel. You're not legally an adult yet. You're 17 years old, turning 18 in November. You're still legally a minor, a minor without a legal guardian right now."

"So what do I do?" Miguel asked, genuinely curious now. When signing the emancipation papers, he had been in such a huff that he hadn't cared to read the fine print, so he had no clue what was going to happen to him.

"Well, Miguel, there are two things that can happen…" Ms. Walker said. "The first is that you find a legal guardian who can take care of you."

Miguel's mind whirred, trying to come up with someone he knew well enough to ask to be his legal guardian. If he had been asked this a few months ago, it would've been easy for him to find someone. If not Carmen, then maybe Johnny, George's parents, or someone like that. Now, he had nobody. Absolutely nobody. So no legal guardian.

"What's the other option?" He asked nervously.

"The other option is you enter the foster care system. Live with a foster family or a group home somewhere in California until you're 18."

Miguel scoffed.

"No way. I'm not doing that." He remarked. Living in a group home in the middle of Nowheresville, California, away from everyone and everything he knew… that sounded like hell. The lady shook his head.

"Well unless you find another legal guardian, until you turn 18, you don't have much of a choice. It's you find a legal guardian, or it's foster care…"

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Find a legal guardian, or it's foster care…

The words echoed through Miguel's mind as he lay down on his couch for the night. His mind was still spinning long after the Child Services woman left. He had been exposed to yet another brand new nightmare in his life that he had no clue how to solve. Finding a guardian was out of the question as he had literally nobody to ask, and there was no way in hell he was going into the foster care system. So that left him with one other option… run. Stay one step ahead of the system for all of the months until his 18th birthday. Live on the streets, or from couch to couch and just bounce around, evading the authorities. Miguel absolutely loathed the idea, but right now, he felt like a trapped rat with no other options.

Soon, sleep overcame Miguel and just before he closed his eyes, he saw on his table the framed photo of him and Emily. For about the millionth time, seeing it sparked deep thought within him. I can't do this, he thought to himself. His promise that he made to Emily to stay by her throughout her whole recovery rang through his head and he realised there was no way he was going to break it. So Miguel was completely out of ideas, and an absolute mess, as he was pulled into the merciful embrace of sleep…

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"Get up!"

Miguel's eyes snapped open upon hearing the sharp voice. He realised instantly that he was in his trailer, so the fact that he heard another voice there immediately alarmed him. Miguel's head whipped around, searching for the voice. As his eyes locked on the other man in his trailer, his heart stopped. Standing over the stove cooking was none other than Terry Silver…

As Miguel snapped to full consciousness in alarm, he immediately almost retched. The kitchen smelt absolutely horrendous, like it was filled to the brim with rotten meat.

"The hell are you doing here?" Miguel growled, shooting to his feet. Silver, looking completely relaxed, merely chuckled.

"Don't you remember? I'm your foster parent." He grinned sadistically. "I made breakfast. Get it while it's hot."

Miguel glared daggers at Silver, who had just poured the contents of the pot into a bowl, and then brought it over to his foster son.

"Get it while it's hot." Silver said, tossing him a spoon. Miguel didn't move. He just scowled at the man, who smirked wickedly at him. "Well, go on. You need to eat. And I fixed it for you myself. It's good."

Miguel looked down at the food and slowly, with trembling hands, he took a bite of the undercooked meat. The blood squirted in his mouth as he bit down, but he nearly broke his tooth when he bit down on something HARD. Miguel groaned in pain and slowly took the hard object out of his mouth and looked at it. His heart dropped to his knees. In his right hand, he was holding a gold charm necklace, and it was one he was extremely familiar with. At the end of the thin chain was a small charm with 5 short characters: Emily…

Miguel threw up at that point, and as he stared back into the pot, he began to see things. There were hairs in the meat dish Silver had cooked up - not dark ones like his and Silver's, but long, flowy, light golden ones like Emily's. NO! No way! Suddenly, the rotten flesh smell in the kitchen got a whole lot stronger, and it seemed to be coming from the fridge.

"Don't worry, boy!" Silver giggled as he watched Miguel throwing up. "I got plenty for leftovers in the fridge!"

Miguel stumbled to his feet and practically sprinted into the kitchen, and over to the fridge. He swung it open and there, lying before him, was Emily's dead corpse. Upon staring at Emily's decimated, decomposed body, Miguel felt something wash over him that he had never had before. A deadly calm, like the sea right before a thundering storm. His heartbeat slowed to practically a halt. His ears tuned out Silver's cackling laughter, so all he could hear was his own slow heartbeat. At that moment, a pistol materialized out of thin air into Miguel's hand. And as if he had done it a thousand times before, Miguel's finger curled around the trigger, and he spun around, bringing the gun to point right at Silver. He was done. He had had enough. It was time to end the life of the piece of shit once and for all. Silver, however, was unfazed by the gun pointed at his head.

"Go on. Do it. Pull the trigger. I dare you." Silver snarled, a large smile still on his face. "You don't have the balls."

However, that was where Silver was wrong. With a steady hand, Miguel pulled the trigger…

BANG!

Miguel's eyes snapped open and he nearly rolled off his tiny couch as he jolted awake. As he quickly blinked sleep out of his eyes, he realised that Silver was not in his trailer, there was no gun. All of that had merely been a bad nightmare. And for a moment, Miguel felt a massive relief. He was safe. Emily was safe. But then, inevitably, the reality of his situation hit him like a ton of bricks, and the colossal weight of worry returned to sit on his chest. The various possibilities of his future ran through his mind, spinning his brain. Foster care? Legal guardian? On the run from the authorities?

Needless to say, as Miguel entered Emily's house that day, his head was an absolute mess so he was extremely distracted. However, he forced himself to push those thoughts aside, if only temporarily, as he knew that what he was doing with Emily was the most important part of his entire life. Much more than where he would be sleeping in the near future…