Chapter 10
The first gray light of dawn bled through the thin polyester curtains of room twelve, outlining the dust motes dancing in the stale air. Jax sat upright in the straight-backed metal chair beside the bed, having spent the entire night awake with his arms crossed over his leather vest, watching the steady rise and fall of Sarah’s chest. Leo had curled up on the small armchair near the window, wrapped in an extra motel blanket, fast asleep with his thumb tucked slightly against his cheek.
Sarah was breathing easier now, the fever having broken around three in the morning, leaving her looking even more translucent and frail, like porcelain held together by glue. She turned her head slowly on the pillow as Jax shifted in his seat, the joints of the metal chair groaning softly.
“You didn't sleep,” she noted, her voice little more than a dry rasp.
“Never was much of a sleeper,” Jax replied, his voice deep and steady. He stood up, stretching his stiff legs and rolling his broad shoulders to work out the knots from the night. “The lawyer’s office opens at nine. Henderson, right? On Main Street.”
Sarah nodded slowly. “Third floor. Room 304. The papers are in the manila folder on the desk. All notarized. All you have to do is sign.”
Jax walked over to the window and peered out through a crack in the curtains. The interstate was already waking up, long-haul semi-trucks rumbling past in the damp morning mist, kicking up spray from the overnight rain. The world was moving on, indifferent to the quiet drama unfolding inside the walls of room twelve.
“And after that?” Jax asked without turning around.
“After that, you take him,” Sarah said, her voice carrying a quiet, devastating finality. “You take him out of here, Jax. You put him on that bike, and you don't look back. Don't let him stay for the end. Kids shouldn't watch people rot away. I want his last memory of me to be the day I packed him a peanut butter sandwich and told him to go find his father.”
Jax clenched his jaw until his teeth ached. He turned back to look at her, seeing the absolute, unyielding courage in her hollow eyes. It was a strength he recognized—the same stubborn defiance that had kept her alive through fifteen years of raising a child alone on the margins of society.
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“I’ll take care of him, Sarah,” Jax said, the words heavy and deliberate, forged in the quiet darkness of the motel room. “He’ll eat three square meals a day. He’ll learn how to strip an engine down to the block. And nobody’s ever gonna put him in a system.”
Sarah closed her eyes, a single tear escaping from beneath her lashes and cutting a clean path down her pale cheek. She didn't say thank you. There were some debts too large for words to settle. She simply nodded, a slow, downward motion of her head that sealed the pact between them just as surely as any legal document waiting on a lawyer’s desk three miles away.
