Leo looked at the lighter, then at the bandage on Sully's shoulder. "You came back," he whispered.
"I told you I remembered your name," Sully answered. "And I meant it."
The ambulance pulled away in the late-afternoon light. In the rear window, Leo watched the long wall of motorcycles grow smaller, their engines still silent while riders answered questions and compared recordings. The ruined station receded behind them, no longer the only shelter in a desert that seemed large enough to swallow a person. He pressed the lighter into his palm and let himself believe, cautiously, that he might not have to sleep there again.
At the hospital in Kingman, the first thing they gave Leo was not medicine but a plastic cup of water and a chair that did not require him to stay alert. He sat in a quiet examination room while a nurse took his vital signs and asked the same questions twice, once for the chart and once because she wanted to hear whether his answers changed. He told her the truth about the ribs and the fall against the pump, expecting somebody to suggest that both injuries were his fault. Instead she listened, documented what she observed, and told him that he had done the right thing by coming in.
Leo almost laughed at the word right. Nothing about the last month had felt right, not the hunger or the station or the fear that lived in his chest even when Hank was a hundred miles away. He asked whether the hospital would call the foster home, and the nurse explained that the people responsible for his care would be notified through child protection channels, not through a private conversation with Hank. The distinction mattered enough that Leo repeated it quietly to himself.
His ribs were healing poorly but not in immediate danger, and the newer bruises required further observation rather than dramatic intervention. He was dehydrated and exhausted, with the kind of fatigue that made even straightforward questions difficult. The physician wanted him to rest somewhere safe, return for follow-up care, and have a reliable adult help him recover. Leo listened to the list and wondered what it would feel like to have a reliable adult who remained reliable after the first difficult day.
Sully waited outside the examination area in a plastic chair made for a man half his size. His shoulder had been treated at a workshop clinic before the ride, but a nurse insisted on looking at it again after hearing how he had traveled. He submitted to the examination with the stubborn patience of someone who disliked being cared for, then returned to the hallway and folded his hands across his broad stomach. When Leo came out, the biker did not ask what the doctors had found until the boy volunteered the answer.
"They're keeping me overnight," Leo said. "They want to talk to somebody from the state."
"Good," Sully replied. "They should."
Leo stared at him. "You aren't going to leave?"