Not motorcycles.
Not inheritance.
Him.
“I found your aunt.”
Eli’s face went hard.
“Arizona.”
“She left without me.”
“Does she want me?”
Denise hesitated.
That hesitation answered everything.
“Okay.”
Jonah stepped forward.
“I said okay.”
He walked into the garage.
Mercy waited beneath the light.
The engine still had not started.
Twenty hours remained.
He picked up the brass wrench.
“I’m finishing the deal.”
Jonah followed.
“You own the garage.”
“I don’t care.”
“Kid—”
Eli spun around.
Jonah stared.
“So I get forty-eight hours.”
“But the deal doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It matters to me!”
Eli’s voice shook.
“I didn’t come here because I wanted a building.”
Everyone listened.
“I came here because I wanted somebody to say I could stay.”
No one spoke.
Eli looked at Mercy.
“So I’m fixing the bike.”
Then, quieter:
“And after that, if you don’t want me, just tell me.”
Grant turned away sharply.
Jonah looked as if someone had taken the air from his chest.
They worked through the night.
Not because Eli asked them.
Because one by one, the Iron Lanterns refused to go home.
Ray brought pizza.
Another member fetched coffee.
Grant sat beside Eli, no longer watching from across the room.
Together they traced the custom ignition system.
The hidden switch had two positions.
One allowed normal current.
The other interrupted the circuit.
But even switched correctly, Mercy refused to start.
At midnight, fourteen hours remained.
At two, twelve.
At four, ten.
Eli’s eyes burned.
Grant set coffee near him.
“You’re thirteen.”
“So I’m not giving you coffee.”
Eli sniffed the cup.
“Hot chocolate?”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
Eli drank.
It was terrible.
He finished every drop.
At five seventeen, he found the real problem.
Not electrical.
Fuel.
A tiny internal passage inside the carburetor body had become blocked by hardened residue so deep that ordinary cleaning had missed it.
Eli removed the carburetor.
“Already rebuilt twice.”
“Who rebuilt it?”
“Ray.”
From the other side of the garage:
“I heard that.”
Eli smiled.
“Ray missed a passage.”
“I heard that too.”
Under magnification, they found it.
A channel smaller than a sewing needle.
Grant exhaled.
“You were right.”
“About what?”
“Six mechanics missed something.”
Ray shouted, “Technically seven if you count Grant.”
Grant shouted back, “Nobody counts me.”
For the first time since his mother died, Eli laughed until his stomach hurt.
It surprised him so much that he stopped.
The room went quiet.
Not awkwardly.
Tenderly.
Jonah smiled.
“There he is.”
“The kid.”
Eli did not know why that made his eyes burn.
He returned to work.
At seven forty-three, Mercy was reassembled.
Five hours remained.
They rolled the motorcycle outside.
Morning light spread across the parking lot.
The whole club gathered.
Denise stood near the doorway.
Eli held the brass wrench.
He inserted it into the hidden switch housing.
Turned.
Jonah straddled Mercy.
“Ready?”
Eli’s heart stopped.
On the third turn, Mercy coughed.
Then thundered alive.
The sound exploded across the lot.
Deep.
Uneven for half a second.
Then strong.
Beautiful.
Alive.
Everyone shouted.
Ray punched the air.
Someone grabbed Eli from behind and lifted him clear off the ground.
Eli yelled.
“Put me down!”
They did.
Eventually.
Jonah sat on Mercy with tears openly running down his face.
Grant covered his mouth.
Eli stood frozen.
He had expected triumph.
What he felt was grief.
His mother should have heard this.
His grandfather should have heard it.
Daniel should have been there.
All the people who had disappeared from that machine’s history were suddenly present in the sound.
Eli walked toward Mercy.
Jonah shut off the engine.
Silence returned.
Eli touched the tank near the tiny etched bird.
“Mom would’ve liked that.”
Grant stood beside him.
“She would’ve complained about the idle.”
Eli laughed through tears.
“Definitely.”
Jonah climbed off.
He looked at Eli.
“You fixed it.”
Eli wiped his face with his sleeve.
“So you held up your end.”
The boy’s smile faded.