I’d been at it for nearly six hours. The garage lights buzzed overhead, their fluorescent glare filtering through the narrow gap between the concrete floor and the car's undercarriage. I’d forgotten to move my work light to the floor after using it under the hood a little while ago, and I didn’t feel like pushing out from beneath the damn car again. So now, I was working in shadows. Didn’t matter though. I could have ten 100-watt bulbs under here and still be blind as a fucking bat.
Driver and bits were scattered within arm's reach, some still slick with oil from my previous attempts. A brand new, now dented filter sat next to my socket wrench. The radio was on the fritz, leaving me with nothing but the sound of my own breathing and that goddamn drip.
Drip.
Drip.
That motherfucking drip.
"Come on, you stubborn piece of shit," I muttered, reaching up once more to tighten the oil pan bolt that I'd already replaced twice. The wrench slipped in my oil-slick fingers. I jolted to catchit, scraping my knuckles against a sharp edge of the chassis. Blood welled immediately, mixing with the dark oil already staining my skin.
The pain barely registered. Today was a patchwork of discomforts I'd been ignoring—hunger, thirst, the burning in my eyes from lack of sleep, the ache in my lower back from lying on the rock-hard surface beneath me.
Why was the solution alluding me? I'd rebuilt classic cars from nothing but rusted frames; usually, this was the kind of repair I could do blindfolded. Yet a mundane oil leak had defeated me for an entire day.
I tried again. The oil pan gasket was brand new, but I double-checked the seal before re-tightening each bolt carefully, being sure not to overtorque. I’d had the performance car for about six months, and it was nearly complete. Even had a buyer lined up. He was supposed to come in two days to pay. But not if I couldn’t stop the persistent, escaping oil.
It was therapy for me: getting a lost cause, methodically bringing it back to life, and then selling it to fund the next project. Shit was cheaper than an actual therapist, and bonus, I didn’t have to talk about bullshit feelings.
I swiped away oil again, trying to clear a patch that would tell me if I’d succeeded in the repair. I watched, holding my breath. For a moment, the dripping stopped. The semi-clean spot stayed momentarily clear of oil and the cardboard beneath the car gained no new stains. Victory seemed possible.
Then, like the delay was designed to give me false hope for the purpose of crushing my damn emotions completely, the drip resumed. The clean spot slicked with dark amber. A brand-new Rorschach image began forming on the cardboard beneath the Porsche.
Something inside me snapped.
My tenuous control dissolved. Heat rushed through my veins, turning my vision red at the edges. My large hands, always surprisingly precise and careful, curled into brutal fists. I didn’t want to damage this car. I’d spent so much time fixing it. But I was…
So… fucking… angry.
Lifting my hands, I grabbed whatever my fingers could reach—a hose, a fitting, the edge of the oil pan itself—and yanked with all my strength.
A guttural growl tore from my throat, primal and unrecognizable. The sound echoed in the concrete space, bouncing back to me like the voice of a stranger. I pulled harder, feeling something give way beneath my grip.
Metal groaned. Not from the components I was manhandling, but from above me. The car shifted.
The floor jacks supporting the car wobbled. One tilted precariously, the metal stand no longer perfectly perpendicular to the floor. In my rage, I'd shifted the car's balance.
Instinct kicked in before conscious thought. I shoved the creeper hard, propelling myself out from under the vehicle just as the first jack collapsed. The car lurched, dropping several inches on one side. The second jack followed a split second later.
The crash was deafening in the enclosed space—nearly 3,000 pounds of car slamming onto concrete, exactly where I'd been lying moments before. Tools scattered, some crushed beneath the fallen vehicle. The cardboard with its oil stain disappeared, hidden beneath the vehicle.
I sat on the floor where the creeper had carried me, breathing hard, staring at the shadowy space beneath the low sports car. The exact space where my body would have been crushed into unrecognizable pulp if I'd been a second slower.
My hands trembled as the adrenaline surged through me. Sweat broke out across my forehead, my back, my palms. Myheart hammered against my ribs with such force I could hear it in my ears, drowning out everything else.
I should feel relief. I should be shaking with the narrowness of my escape, grateful for the reflexes that had saved me.
Instead, a strange thought slithered into my mind:What if I hadn't moved?
The thought wasn't as shocking as it should have been, like it had been waiting just below the surface of my consciousness, biding its time until my defenses were down.
Would it have been so bad? A quick end. No more of this restlessness that had plagued me for weeks. No more feeling like something essential was missing, something just beyond my reach.
I swiped an oily hand down my face, smearing a new layer of grime across my skin.What the hell was wrong with me? When had these thoughts started creeping in?I loved my life—the pack, the brotherhood of DemonX, the rush of creating and building with my hands. Why would I ever think about dying?
I stood up abruptly, the creeper rolling away from me. I picked up the first thing I saw—a socket wrench—and hurled it out through the open carriage door. Next was my impact drill. One of the fucking jacks, even though it was my fault the damn thing failed. In a rage, I grabbed a steering wheel from a work bench and tossed that too. Then I stalked toward the pricey ass car, ready to beat it to a pulp.
Unfortunately, my foot found the dinged-up oil filter before I could take out my anger on the vehicle. I stumbled, fought to keep my footing, and still ended up flat on my ass.
