"I don't want to go with you," Leo said. His voice shook, but he forced himself to finish. "I want to tell a caseworker what happened. I want them to check on Miguel and Tessa and Ben."
Hank's expression changed at the mention of the other children. He shifted the bat from one hand to the other and looked toward Higgins. The deputy glanced at the road, then back at Leo, as if deciding whether he needed to intervene.
"Enough," Higgins said. "Get him in the truck." Leo recoiled.
"You can't just hand me over without asking what happened." Higgins caught his arm again and forced him down onto the station apron, where the sun had already warmed the concrete. Leo held one hand against his ribs and struggled to keep his breathing steady. Above him, Hank muttered that the boy had always been trouble.
When Leo tried to stand, Hank gripped his collar and pushed him against the rusted pump. The old steel rang hollowly behind his shoulder. "You think you can embarrass me?" Hank demanded. "You think anybody's going to believe a runaway over the man who's been feeding him?" Leo stared at the ground and heard an echo of Patrick's voice telling him that something didn't become true because a louder man repeated it.
Hank began searching the pockets of Leo's jacket. He found a packet of stale crackers, a bent screwdriver, and the silver Zippo. The lighter caught the sunlight, and Hank turned it over with open satisfaction. "Well, look what the little thief picked up," he said.
Leo took a step forward before he could stop himself. "That's mine. Give it back."
Hank held the lighter higher. "You steal it off one of those bikers that come through here?" Leo shook his head. "The man gave it to me after I helped him."
Hank laughed. "A Hells Angel gave you a keepsake? That's the story you're going with?" He slipped the lighter into his pocket and told Leo to get into the back of the pickup.
Leo's hand went toward the empty place in his jacket. The lighter was not worth as much as the truck or the money Hank believed he had lost, but it carried something Leo could not bear to surrender. It represented one hour when a grown man had respected his work, listened to his judgment, and treated his words as though they mattered. When Hank shoved him again, Leo fell to one knee and felt all three weeks of exhaustion catch up with him. He looked at the highway and wished, with a desperation almost painful, that Sully had returned a day earlier.
Higgins was looking in the same direction. At first Leo thought the deputy had heard another car, but then he noticed the vibration beneath his palms. A faint sound traveled through the roadbed, too low to identify, and rose steadily until the abandoned station's loose sheet metal began to tremble. Hank stopped talking. The sound grew so broad and insistent that it no longer seemed to come from a single engine.