"Who hurt you?" Leo asked. He had not intended to say it aloud. Sully looked down at the bandage and then at the boy. "Men who decided something belonged to them because they wanted it," he replied. "Bad company I've been too slow to leave behind."
He explained only what Leo needed to understand. Earlier that afternoon, a confrontation on a lonely road had ended with his motorcycle forced off the pavement, his shoulder cut, and several people pursuing him for reasons that had more to do with old grievances than the boy could reasonably sort through. Sully was trying to get to his own people before the others found him. He did not ask Leo to take a side or help him fight; he looked embarrassed that an injured teenager had become involved at all.
"You shouldn't have stepped out," Sully said. "Not with someone like me on your doorstep."
"You needed help," Leo answered. The words came from the part of him that had once believed kindness was the natural way adults behaved. Sully considered the answer for a long moment, as though it described something he remembered but no longer trusted.
Eventually, the biker removed a tarnished silver Zippo from a pocket inside his vest. The lighter was heavy, the surface worn smooth at the edges, and a skull had been carved into the front by a hand with more patience than formal training. He turned it over once, studying the engraving, then offered it to Leo.
"This isn't club property," he said. "It was mine before I joined anything. A friend engraved it when I came back from a bad year and didn't know where to go next."
Leo did not reach for it immediately. "I don't have money on me," Sully continued. "Lost my saddlebags when I went down. But you deserve something for tonight."
"I didn't do it for money," Leo said. "I just wanted the bike to work."
"I know." Sully placed the lighter on the workbench rather than forcing it into the teenager's hand. "That's why it's yours."
Leo picked it up carefully. The engraved skull looked fierce, almost cartoonish under the weak light, but the metal was warm from Sully's hand. Nobody had given Leo something of value without attaching a condition to it since Daniel's death. He waited instinctively for the condition, for the task he would have to perform or the punishment that would follow if he failed.
None came. Sully told him to keep his water clean, stay out of the direct midday sun, and reach a town rather than remain alone in the station. He also wrote a name and telephone number on the back of an old service receipt Leo found in a drawer. The writing was large and impatient, and the name beside the number read MARA KLINE, PHOENIX SHOP.
"If you get into town, call her," Sully said. "Tell her Jack sent you. She'll know it's me."