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“She’s in the parts storeroom.”
“Are you sure?” Olive asked.
“Yeah. She walked in there half an hour ago.”
“Isn’t the garage closed for lunch?” Olive asked.
I was sick of being asked fucking questions all of the time. I rocked back in my chair and watched a car pull into the parking lot. “Yeah, we’re closed for an hour, Olive.”
“When are you going to come back to the clubhouse? Sloane and Dove wanted to watch a movie, and we wanted to see if Faye wanted to watch with us.”
“You can ask her when we come back to the clubhouse.” I watched a woman get out of the backseat of the car, but then the car drove off. We didn’t have any customers scheduled to pick up their cars, so I didn’t know who would be dropped off right now.
“When is that?” Olive asked.
“When I finish up what I’m doing.” I stood and moved to the window of my office.
“What are you doing?”
“God damn, Olive. We’ll be in the clubhouse in five minutes, okay?” I ended the call and tossed the phone on my desk.
I could see why Faye wanted some time to herself if Olive was on her ass all of the time like she was on mine.
The woman who had gotten out of the car turned to look at the garage.
Poppy.
What in the hell was she doing here? She had dropped off her car this morning, saying the weird orca whale sound was back, and asked if we could look at it.
I didn’t know how that could be since Dice put a whole new rear end in her car, but I told her we could get to it tomorrow. I thought for sure she was going to need a ride while we had her car, but she said a friend could drive her if it was only going to take a day to fix it.
Maybe she was confused and thought we were going to look at her car today?
I walked out the front door, leaving Faye in the parts storeroom, and called to Poppy. “You need something, Poppy?”
She shielded her eyes from the sun. “You guys are closed?” she asked.
I nodded. “Every day for lunch.”
“That’s good.”
I tipped my head to the side. “Did you need something?”
She winced and looked at the garage bays. “Where is my car?”
“Dice drove it into bay two.”
Her eyes snapped to mine. “I messed up, Yarder,” she called.
“What are you talking about?” I demanded.
She shook her head. “Things were piling up on me, and my rent was coming due, and I didn’t have the money.”
I didn’t understand why she was standing in the parking lot telling me this. I knew money was more than tight for Poppy, and I had done everything I could to make it easy for her to pay back the garage. “You need money?” I asked.
“I did, but they offered to pay me if I just drove my car here. Like enough money to where I would never have to worry about money for the rest of my life.”
I tipped my head to the car. “What are you talking about?”
“I did it this morning, but then I got scared, and now I’m here, but it’s too late.”
My mind frantically tried to keep up with what Poppy was saying. “Who paid you to bring your car here?” I asked.
She motioned for me to come closer. “This guy. I had never seen him before, but he said all I had to do was get my car in the garage and the money would be in my account within the hour. The money is there, but I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this,” she screamed.
I looked back at the garage. What the fuck was she talking about?
“They did something to my car, Yarder,” she cried. “I needed the money, and I didn’t know what to do. But I don’t want whatever they did to happen anymore. I needed the money,” she cried. Tears streaked down her cheeks, and she ran towards the garage. “Just give me my car back, and–.”
Her words died in her throat when the garage exploded, and the force of the explosion threw us backward.
Time seemed to slow, I slammed into an empty car waiting to be worked on, while Poppy flew into a motorcycle also waiting to be worked on.
Debris flew into the air, and flames bellowed out where the roof of the garage had been. The four bays of the garage were gone. Leveled to the ground. The wall of my office closest to the first garage bay was gone, and my chair had been blasted a few feet away from me.
My vision blurred, and I clumsily swiped my eyes.
“Yarder!” someone yelled.
The world tilted, and I struggled to get on my feet. I fell forward and slammed down on all fours. Blood pooled in my mouth, and I spat it onto the ground. “Poppy,” I whispered. Blood dripped down my face and blurred my vision. I fell to the side and looked at the garage.
I struggled to see and saw three figures running toward me.
The shitstorm had arrived.
Get ready for My Hero coming March 29th, 2024!