Chapter 3
OLIVIA
Five Years Later
“Alto, I told you to stop buying this crap!”
The canister hit his desk with a metallic slam, rattling the scattered invoices and a half-empty coffee mug. The impact echoed through the small office and out into the garage.
Alto jerked so hard his chair rolled back a few inches.
His wings burst free in a flash of iridescent color, stretching wide enough to brush the car-themed calendar hanging behind him. Burgundy hair shot straight up as he lifted a few inches off the ground on instinct alone. Papers fluttered in the displaced air.
“Oli!” He shoved his glasses up his nose with his middle finger, hovering just high enough to glare down at me. “I told you to stop doing that!”
I pressed my lips together, but the corner betrayed me. The stern line cracked, and a laugh slipped out before I could stop it.
“Sorry, Al.” I wiped my eyes as I watched him flutter about in the air. “… but also not sorry.”
I dragged the canister closer to him with two fingers. A smear of thick, murky oil clung to the rim.
“That sludge is garbage. I don’t care how much you save on your margins.”
His pale gray eyes, ringed faintly in gold, shifted from the oil to me. Even hovering in suspenders and ink-stained cuffs, there was something sharp behind his gaze. Inhuman. My spine straightened on reflex, boots planted a little firmer against the floor.
Predator.
Prey.
The reminder flickered between us in the silence.
His wings folded in tight and vanished. His boots hit the ground with a dull thud. He rubbed at his chin, staring at the canister as if it had personally insulted him.
“Come on, Oli. You could sell fangs to a vampire.” He waited for me to grin at the joke.
I didn’t.
Just as I opened my mouth to snap back with something snarky, a loud bang and crash came from the garage.
Both of us closed our eyes at the same time, waiting for the inevitable.
“I’m fine!” Yendor’s voice wobbled through the open door between the office and garage.
I inhaled slowly before opening my eyes and raising a brow at Alto.
“If he broke my torque wrench, I’m ending his bloodline.”
Alto scrubbed a hand down his face, exhaustion setting in. “I just might let you. Damn fool of a grandson.”
Out in the garage, something metal clattered again. A muttered curse followed.
When Alto told me he was bringing family in, I’d pictured relief. An extra set of hands. Fewer late nights. Maybe him actually taking Tera, his sweet-as-pie mate, out somewhere that didn’t smell of gasoline and burned rubber.
Instead, Yendor tripped over air and stripped bolts beyond saving. We had to keep him in the office at first, but he said he really wanted to work on cars and needed hands-on experience.
“Write it off,” I said, throwing my chin at the can on the desk, crossing my arms. “That’s what you get for letting him order last time.”
Alto threw his hands up. “I was trying to give him responsibility!” His voice bounced off the office walls as desperation creeped in. “I thought he’d ask you. He knows you’re one of my best mechanics, even if you are—”
The word hung there unsaid, and his eyes lowered.
He didn’t finish it.
He didn’t need to.
Human.
His unspoken words echoed in my mind, reminding me, once again, that no side really wanted me. No one wanted the six-year-old human girl who was found in a dark alley of the supe district, clutching her cold, dead mother's hand.
I didn’t remember who found me, as all of those memories of that day and before were gone, but I remembered the bright white lights blinding me and cold plastic chairs. The frowning faces of those that passed by me as I sat in the lobby waiting for child services.
The hum of a vending machine in a human police station. My feet dangling because I was too small for them to touch the floor.
I remembered the newspaper headlines with my face blown up too large. Cameras flashing. Politicians shaking hands and speaking about how I was proof that supes were too dangerous to interact with. They tried to use me, parading me around to serve their campaign vendettas.
After the election, my story no longer needed for votes, I was deemed no longer useful and tossed aside. At first, it was foster care, then an orphanage, and when no one wanted me, I knew why. I could see it in their eyes.
Every adult I met gave me the same look, suspicion, accusation, and distrust swirling in their gaze.
I could hear their hushed questions when they thought I wasn't paying attention. Why wasn’t she killed that night?
How did a little “human” girl remain completely unharmed through the night in the supe district alone? What did her dead mother do?
Once I hit fourteen, I couldn't take it anymore. I ran away and ended up right where I started—the streets. That was until I crossed into the wrong neighborhood.
Alto found me weeks later, soaked through and shivering in the threshold of his back door, rain pooling around my boots as I used the scrap of cover to hide from the elements. He didn’t ask questions. Just hauled me inside, wrapped a towel around my shoulders, and set a bowl of soup in my hands.
Later, he put a wrench in them.
Back in the present, Alto’s shoulders slumped.
“Sorry, kid. I hate putting you in a box like that.” He stared down at the oil canister as if it were responsible for the entire structure of the world.
Outside the office, an engine turned over roughly before dying again. A tired curse word came from the back garage. Fucking Yendor. I knew I was going to have to fix whatever he’d just touched. Add it to the list.
I gently bumped Alto’s shoulder with mine, giving him a wobbly smile.
“Are you kidding me?” I said, knowing my lips were stretched a little too wide. “Thats how the world works… but at least I got you, huh? In the background and behind doors works just fine.”
In the supe district, humans who didn't know their place or lacked a strong protector didn't last long.
Vampires needed our blood, and the Fae measured our vitality for food.
Demons collected souls to help keep Hellfire alive.
Werewolves connected back to their animals when they enjoyed the hunt of weaker prey.
The most human-like supes were the mages, but when you could control fire, air, earth, water and spirit, you would always be more like them than us.
“I’m good back there,” I added, jerking my thumb toward the garage. “You deal with the clients. I’ll deal with the engines.”
Out front, Alto talked to the supes who handed him stacks of cash to tune their cars. They left satisfied, never knowing about the human grease monkey behind the closed bay doors.
Alto studied me for a moment longer, then nodded slowly. All the tension in the office thinned.
Just as we took a breath, a loud clank came from the garage, followed by Yendor’s panicked, “I’m fine!”
Alto groaned, shaking his head as it hung in front of him. Rolling my shoulders, I headed for the door, ready to fix whatever Yendor had fucked up.
Pushing it open, the smell of oil, metal, and magic from enchanted parts waiting to be installed filled my lungs. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was steady, safe… and kept me breathing.
Alto didn’t just hand me a towel and a meal that day he took in an orphan; he gave me a way to live.
I remember my eyes flicking toward him every few seconds over the bowl of soup in my hands, his puzzled look vexing me.
When I was halfway done with the soup, a fairy woman with swirled purple and pink hair dragged in a cot.
Alto got up and cleared out a space in the back of the garage while the woman, Tara, his mate, tried to talk to me about what happened to my family.
I’d been alone for so long that it was no big deal to tell her they were all gone.
Her eyes welled up, even as she tried to give me a kind smile.
She demanded that I stay here, and when I tried to refuse, she balked at me, telling me I didn't have a choice.
Alto agreed, and that first night, I fell asleep to the smell of rubber and motor oil.
The hum of enchanted parts charging on the shelves above surrounded me, and the warmth was strong and cozy.
By morning, Alto had pressed a wrench into my palm and told me he was hiring me on as an apprentice.
I was surrounded by machines with sigils etched into their manifolds. Fuel lines threaded with faintly glowing script. Engines that hummed even when the keys weren’t in the ignition. It was all fascinating, the way the machines worked with the magic.
He taught me about magic and its limitations, as well as how to build a car from the ground up. It wasn't long before I was the one handling the jobs on my own.
When a car came back with uneven pull at high speed, I crawled beneath it and traced the issue to a misaligned rune plate. When a client wanted more speed without sacrificing corner control, I sketched out a different wing angle and sourced lighter enchanted alloys.
That was when Alto started to handle the front.
He leaned against the counter, wings tucked out of sight, charming clients with easy smiles while I stayed beyond the bay doors. Supes would occasionally ask about the mechanic, trying to peer past him, but Alto was the king of schmoozing clients.
Eventually, they handed over stacks of cash without ever seeing me since the Austin racing scene kept us busy.
On weekends, trailers lined industrial backroads. Engines screamed down private stretches of highway. Custom builds rolled into our shop with demands scrawled across napkins—faster, lighter, deadlier.
All of them were chasing the number one spot, and I secretly wanted to be the mechanic that made that happen.
“Olivvvvviaaaa!”
The pounding on the back door rattled a wrench off the wall.
“You ready?!”
Used to my best friend’s brash attitude, Alto’s mouth twitched before he could stop it.