Chapter 2: The Mechanic Yard
The heavy screen door of the diner slammed shut behind me with a loud, protesting twang that echoed off the asphalt of the parking lot. Through the streaked plate-glass window, I could see Martha standing over the counter, her hands planted flat on the formica as she leaned down to interrogate Jax, her lips moving in sharp, clipped syllables. But I didn't wait to see how the big man answered her. My scuffed sneakers hit the sun-baked gravel, kicking up small clouds of white dust as I bolted around the side of the building.
I knew where the bikers parked. Everyone in town knew about the sprawling, corrugated-metal salvage yard just past the interstate bridge, a place locals called Miller’s Retrofit where Harleys were hauled in on flatbeds and dragged out roaring.
The air grew heavy with the sharp, chemical tang of burning rubber, spent engine oil, and raw gasoline long before I reached the chain-link gate. A rusted sign hung crookedly from the top wire, reading AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, but the heavy padlock hung open from a rusted latch, swinging gently in the hot afternoon breeze. I slipped through the gap, keeping low behind a stack of discarded truck tires and rusted fenders that climbed as high as a house roof.
The yard was a maze of skeletal frames, chrome bumpers stacked like firewood, and grease-stained tarps snapping in the wind. In the center clearing, three massive motorcycles sat idling, their low, guttural exhaust notes vibrating right through the soles of my shoes and rattling the fillings in my teeth.
"I told you to stay put, kid," a voice growled from the shadows of an open-bay garage.
I jumped, my heart hammering against my ribs. Jax stepped out from beneath a hydraulic lift, wiping his grease-blackened hands on a heavy rag. He wasn't wearing his leather vest anymore; he wore just a dark grey t-shirt that stretched tightly across his chest and shoulders, the intricate black ink of a coiled serpent wrapping around his thick right forearm. His dark hair was tied back in a loose knot at the nape of his neck, though several damp strands clung to his forehead. He looked larger out here, away from the hum of the diner—more dangerous, like a wild animal cornered in its own territory.
"I didn't come to cause trouble," I said, forcing my voice to stay level, though my hands were trembling inside the deep pockets of my old jacket.
Jax tossed the rag onto a steel workbench cluttered with wrenches and spark plugs. He took two slow steps toward me, his boots crunching loudly on the gravel. "You dropped a bomb in Martha's lap back there, and now you’re standing in the middle of a working shop with half a dozen guys who don't take kindly to strangers poking around their bikes. You've got a lot of nerve, Leo. Is that what your mom taught you? To chase after men who left before you drew your first breath?"
"She didn't teach me," I shot back, the sudden spark of anger cutting through my fear. "She's sick, okay? She's been coughing for six months, and she doesn't have insurance, and she keeps staring at that stupid picture when she thinks I'm asleep. She never said a bad word about you. Not once. But she doesn't have anyone else, and neither do I."
Jax stopped dead. The hard, defensive squint in his dark eyes faltered for a fraction of a second, replaced by something dark and unreadable. He looked down at my scuffed sneakers, then up at my face, searching my hazel eyes as if looking for the ghost of someone he had tried very hard to bury twenty years ago.
"Sarah's sick?" he asked, his voice dropping an octave, losing its rough edge and turning into something heavy and hollow.
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"Yeah," I whispered, the defiance draining out of me just as fast as it had come. "She's real sick. And I found your name on the back of that photograph, written in her handwriting from back when you lived over by the river. So I took the bus. What was I supposed to do, just pretend I didn't see it?"
Jax didn't answer right away. He turned his head away, staring out past the stack of tires toward the distant ribbon of the interstate where semi-trucks roared by in a blur of motion. A muscle ticked sharply along his jawline. The silence between us stretched out, thick and suffocating, broken only by the rhythmic drip-drip of oil hitting a metal pan somewhere deep in the shadows of the garage.
