He swung one leg over the seat. The leather was familiar beneath him, shaped over the years to the way he rode. His left hand closed around the grip and his boot found the starter. He remembered the first time Walter had allowed him to bring the engine to life, when he was a teenager trembling with excitement and his father stood just beyond the front wheel, ready to catch a mistake before it hurt either of them.
"Remember," Walter had said that day, "you don't beat a machine into working. You find out what it needs."
Garrett had repeated that sentence to other riders and forgotten that it applied to people too. Now he sat on his father's motorcycle and felt the gaze of sixty people waiting. He wanted to be angry with Owen, but the boy was not touching him, challenging him, or mocking him. He was only standing beside a dented toolbox and waiting for the result.
"If she doesn't fire, you know what happens," Garrett said.
Owen nodded. "I know what we agreed."
Garrett pressed the starter. The engine turned once, gave a dry mechanical gasp, and fell quiet. A groan went through the lot. Vince opened his mouth, preparing to say something cruel, but Eleanor raised one hand sharply without looking toward him. Something about the gesture stopped him.
Owen had expected the first attempt might be weak. The cylinders had been flooded repeatedly, and the engine had sat for days while people tried methods that changed its condition without necessarily helping it. He did not pretend to know with certainty that the second attempt would work. He watched instead, following the sound and checking that the first rotation had been cleaner than the ones he heard before entering the lot.
"Again," he said.
Garrett looked at him. A strange and private part of his mind recognized the same instruction Thomas Fletcher had once given Owen, though the men had never met. Another try was not shameful; it was simply the next honest test. Garrett drew a breath and pressed the starter once more.
One cylinder caught. The second followed a heartbeat later. Black Fury shuddered, gathered itself, and came alive with a thunderous note that struck the concrete walls and returned in a rolling wave. Garrett's head jerked up. Owen heard the two cylinders settle into a steady mechanical rhythm, clean enough to make his chest tighten with relief.
The engine did not sputter or falter. It idled with the deep uneven music of a carefully tuned old twin, each pulse distinct within the roar. Garrett eased the throttle open and felt the response come immediately, without the drowning hesitation that had haunted the last miles before the breakdown. He did it again, softly at first, then with confidence that grew from the machine rather than from the crowd.