“What wrench?”
“He had it when he opened the backpack.”
“I didn’t see.”
“Brass handle. Bird stamped near the jaw.”
Grant stopped speaking.
When he answered, his voice had changed.
“Yeah.”
“That proves nothing.”
“It proves enough for me.”
Eli’s heart hammered.
The brass wrench.
His mother had carried it everywhere.
She had used it even when a normal steel wrench would have worked better.
When Eli was six, he asked why.
She had rubbed the little bird engraved into the handle with her thumb.
Because some tools remind us who we were before we forgot.
He had never understood.
Now two strangers apparently did.
Eli stepped backward.
The floor creaked.
Silence exploded from the garage.
Jonah opened the door.
Eli stood there barefoot, wearing the oversized charity shirt.
His face burned.
“You called social services.”
Jonah did not lie.
Eli ran for his backpack.
Jonah caught up before he reached it.
“Eli.”
“You said I had forty-eight hours!”
“You do.”
“You called them!”
“Because you’re thirteen.”
“I’m not going back.”
“Back where?”
Eli grabbed the backpack.
Jonah held neither him nor the bag.
“Eli, where were you staying?”
“Places.”
“What places?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“You don’t know me!”
Jonah flinched as if the words had struck somewhere unexpected.
“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t.”
Eli pulled on his shoes.
Grant stood in the doorway.
“You leave now, the deal’s over.”
Jonah snapped toward him.
“Grant.”
But Eli stopped.
Grant looked at him.
“You wanted forty-eight hours. You got forty-eight hours. Running at hour eight means you chose the answer yourself.”
“That’s enough,” Jonah said.
Grant ignored him.
“You think that bike’s hard? Fine. It’s hard. Life’s harder. You going to run every time somebody does something you don’t like?”
Eli’s eyes filled with angry tears.
He hated Grant immediately.
Because some part of him knew the man was right.
“I don’t run.”
Grant glanced at the backpack.
“Looks like running.”
Eli dropped it.
Hard.
“Fine.”
Then he looked at Jonah.
“But nobody sends me anywhere until the forty-eight hours are over.”
Jonah hesitated.
“I can promise nobody drags you anywhere tonight.”
“Tomorrow?”
“We talk to the caseworker.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s the truth I can give you.”
Then he walked back to the couch.
Grant began to leave.
Eli called after him.
“Forty hours.”
Grant stopped.
Eli lay down and pulled the blanket up.
“You said forty-four earlier. Six hours passed.”
Grant looked at the boy.
For the first time, there was almost approval in his expression.
“Forty.”
The caseworker arrived at nine the next morning.
Her name was Denise Alvarez.
Eli disliked her immediately because she carried a folder.
Folders meant adults had reduced your life to paper.
Denise was in her thirties, with calm eyes and the frustrating habit of waiting until Eli actually answered questions instead of filling silence herself.
They sat at a folding table in the club room.
“When did your mother pass away?”
Eli stared at the tabletop.
“Seven months ago.”
“Where have you been since then?”
“My aunt.”
“Name?”
“Caroline Mercer.”
Denise wrote.
“And now?”
“She moved.”
“With you?”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Jonah, standing near the wall, looked furious.
Not at Eli.
At the air.
Denise asked gently, “Did she tell you she was leaving?”
“She left a note.”
“What did it say?”
“That she couldn’t do it anymore.”
Grant swore quietly from the doorway.
Denise gave him a warning glance.
She continued.
“How long have you been alone?”
Eli did not answer.
“How long, Eli?”
“Eighteen days.”
Jonah closed his eyes.
Even Grant looked away.
Denise placed her pen down.
“Have you been attending school?”
“Eating regularly?”
His stomach chose that moment to growl.
Ray, somewhere in the garage, muttered, “Kid lies worse than I do.”
Despite himself, Eli smiled.
Denise saw it.
“So these men fed you?”
“Too much.”
She looked at Jonah.
“I need to speak with you privately.”
Eli stood.
“Eli—”
“You said forty-eight hours.”
Denise blinked.
Jonah explained.
Her expression became increasingly incredulous.
“You told a homeless thirteen-year-old he could potentially stay if he repaired a motorcycle?”
“When you say it that way, it sounds bad.”
“There is no way to say it that makes it sound good.”
“It kept him from disappearing.”
Denise looked at Eli.
Then at the backpack.
Then toward the garage.
She exhaled.
She leaned toward Eli.
“You have a little over one day left on whatever deeply questionable arrangement these men made with you. I’m not removing you this minute because you are safe here, and because I’m going to spend today locating your aunt and reviewing emergency placement options.”