The first thing they noticed
wasnt the lad.
It was the muck.
Oil under his fingernails.
Grease-streaked jeans.
A boy clearly out of place here.
Because this garage was the height of British orderliness.
Glass panels. Stainless steel. Priceless vehicles lined up like obedient soldiers.
All immaculate.
Except for one.
A jet-black supercar.
Lifeless.
Completely kaput.
Everyone had tried to sort it,
Everyone had failed.
Until
he came along.
Whos that then?
No clue
Hes at Olivers car.
Immediate panic.
Nigel stormed down the stairs.
Oi! STOP!
Silence.
Everyone seized up on the spotexcept the boy.
He finished what he was fiddling with,
Straightened up,
And only then
looked round.
Utterly unbothered.
Completely steady.
A smirk twitching at the edges of his mouth.
As if he hadn’t fixed the car,
just completed a task already meant for him.
Nigel stopped, three feet from the lad,
Red-faced.
Fit to burst.
Terrified.
Nobody touched the Montague Spectre S9 without express permission.
Not mechanics,
Not engineers,
Not even the VIP experts whod jetted in from Birmingham.
This wasnt just a pricey motor
It was family.
Strictly off limits.
And now some council estate kid was smearing oil all over it.
Nigel jabbed a finger his way.
Do you realise what youve just laid hands on?
The boy gazed back at him, cool as you like.
Then glanced at the sleeping supercar,
Its gloss shining like a ravens wing beneath the fluorescent lights.
And for a split second
his face changed.
Almost fond.
My dad built this engine wrong, he said, cool as you please.
Silence.
Every head snapped round in the garage.
Nigel let out a laugha sharp, chilly, dangerous sort of laugh.
You think you know more than Oliver Montague?
The boy said nothing.
Just reached in through the driver’s window
and pressed the ignition button.
Everyone braced for dead air.
For humiliation.
For disappointment.
But instead
The engine erupted to life.
Raw.
Perfect.
The roar battered the garage walls like a summer thunderstorm.
A few spanners clattered to the floor.
Half the blokes jumped a mile.
Nigel froze.
Because the sound was different now.
Pure.
Balanced.
Alive.
The impossible car that had been little more than a fancy paperweight for the better part of a year
was running.
Flawlessly.
The boy stepped away, slow and calm.
His hands still filthy,
Eyes steady.
No gloating.
Just as if it had been obvious from the start.
Nigel stared at the diagnostics on the dash.
Every red lightgone.
Every warning messagewiped.
He managed, thinly,
How did you manage that?
The boy gave a hint of a shrug.
Theres a secret bypass under the secondary inlet valve.
One of the senior lads muttered,
Theres no such thing.
The boy looked at him gravely.
There is, actually.
He gestured at the engine.
You never found itonly three people ever knew it was there.
Nigel felt a cold chill creep down his neck,
Because that was true.
Only three had ever known.
Oliver Montague.
Nigel Montague.
And Olivers son.
The same son presumed dead in the factory fire thirteen years before.
Nigel took a proper look at the boys face now.
Really looked.
The eyes.
The jaw.
The particular tilt of his head as he listened to the engine.
His insides turned to ice.
No
The boy wiped his hands very slowly on a battered old tea towel.
Then reached into his ragged jacket pocket.
And pulled out a silver keyring.
Nigel stopped breathing.
Swinging from it
was the original Montague prototype key.
The one Oliver had given his son the week before the fire.
He croaked,
Where did you get that?
The boys eyes never left his.
My mum kept it.
Nigel blinked, stumbling backwards.
Because Olivers wife had vanished the same night as the fire.
Declared dead.
Bodies never found.
The boy stepped to the cars gleaming flank,
Ran his fingers gently over the glossy black paint.
Then murmured the words that made the air go still:
She said if the car ever stopped working
He stared hard at Nigel.
it meant youd finally run out of ways to bury the truth.
For a moment,
Utter, absolute hush.
Then
From the glass-walled office above
a shaky voice rang out:
Edward?
Every head snapped up.
And therebehind the glass
pale as paper,
was Oliver Montague.
Alive.
Eyes shining with tears as he gazed down at the boy.
Because standing there in the oily light, next to the purring car
was the face of the son hed buried long ago.
Hey love, you wont believe what happened last week. The sun was finally out
It isnt the leather strap that hurts the most. It is the sentence that
It was not the leash that cut the boy the deepest, but the words
The sunshine was finally out of its temperamental mood, so Ellie decided it was