The garage never stopped moving.
Engines running.
Metal clanking.
Voices overlapping.
Until something breaks the pattern.
The boy stood in the doorway.
Thin.
Still.
Watching.
No one paid attention at first.
They rarely did.
Just another kid.
Wrong place.
Wrong time.
“Hey,” someone called.
“You lost?”
The boy shook his head.
“No, sir.”
That made one of them look again.
Wade.
They called him Brick.
He stepped out from under a truck.
Wiped his hands.
Walked over.
“Then what do you need?” he asked.
The boy hesitated.
Just a second.
Then said it.
“Can I work here?”
A couple of men laughed.
“Kid, you’re in the wrong place.”
“You even know what this is?”
The boy didn’t react.
Didn’t argue.
He just stepped closer.
Slow.
Careful.
Like he’d already decided something.
“I can clean,” he said.
“I won’t get in the way.”
Brick watched him.
Not the words.
The details.
The way he stood.
The way he breathed.
The way he avoided eye contact—
but not completely.
“Let me see your hands,” Brick said.
The boy froze.
Just for a moment.
Then—
he did it.
Placed them on the workbench.
Flat.
Still.
That’s when the room changed.
Marks.
Not dirt.
Not grease.
Something else.
Too precise.
Too repeated.
“…who did that to you?” someone asked.
No answer.
The boy pulled his hands back slightly.
Too late.
Everyone had seen.
Brick’s voice dropped.
“Kid… who’s waiting for you outside?”
The boy looked at him.
Then—
past him.
Toward the open garage door.
Sunlight spilling in.
Bright.
Quiet.
And something in his face changed.
Fear.
Real fear.
“He’s early,” he whispered.
The room went still.
“Who?” Brick asked.
The boy didn’t answer.
Didn’t need to.
Because at that exact moment—
a shadow moved across the concrete floor.
From outside.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Someone stepping in—
without saying a word.
Who is waiting for him… and why is he afraid to go back? Stay tuned for Part 3.
