Chapter 3: Fifty Motorcycles Beside the Locked Fraternity Gate
The motorcycles filled the curb beyond the wrought-iron gate, fifty machines packed wheel to wheel in the freezing rain. Their engines did not shut off together. The sound broke apart gradually, one deep mechanical pulse after another falling silent until rain hammered chrome, leather seats, and matte-black fuel tanks. The riders remained beside their bikes. Some kept their helmets on. Others removed them and stared through the bars.
There was no mistaking what they saw.
I sat in the lowest part of the courtyard, where runoff crossed the cobblestones around my wheels. My shirt clung to my ribs. Water streamed from my hair and collected against the dead joystick housing beneath my right hand. Across the courtyard, the glass lobby doors framed Trent in firelight. The yellow rain cover was still lifted at his side. The brass key still hung from his finger.
A few fraternity members stepped away from the glass. One disappeared behind a leather sofa. Two others moved closer to Trent, then stopped when he glanced toward the gate. Nobody opened the doors. Nobody reached for the cover.
Garrett released the bars and turned toward the riders. He made two short gestures: one toward me, the other toward the lobby. Several riders shifted immediately along the fence, spreading far enough to see the courtyard from different angles. A woman near the end of the line took out her phone. She held it horizontally and began recording through the ironwork.
Garrett pointed from her lens to me, then to Trent’s hands.
She adjusted her position until all three objects were visible in one continuous view: the dead wheelchair in the rain, the bright yellow cover inside, and the key swinging against Trent’s pristine polo shirt. Another rider raised a phone from farther down the gate. Then a third did the same.
I understood Garrett’s choice. He was not going to let getting me inside erase how I had been left outside.
My fingers had stiffened around the edge of the console. I forced my thumb against the power switch again. Nothing lit. I tried the joystick, pushing it forward until the rubber collar bent beneath my hand. The chair did not move. The small motion sent a hard shiver through my shoulders, and my arm slipped from the control.
Garrett saw it. His attention snapped away from the lobby and settled on me.
He tested the gate at its center, first pulling, then pushing. The wet iron shook in its frame but stayed closed. He crouched to examine the lower edge and the gap between the two leaves. His hand followed the bars upward, checking for a release that could be reached from outside. There was none.
Behind the glass, Trent lowered the cover slightly. His other hand closed around the key instead of dangling it. The fraternity members nearest him shifted again, forming an uneven half circle that left him standing alone at the front. Their faces had lost the amusement I had seen earlier. One looked from the phones outside to the water running off my chair. Another stared at the cover as if noticing for the first time what it meant.
The rain made breathing feel like work. I bowed my head, but that put the black joystick console directly in view. Water trembled inside the seams around the buttons. I stopped touching it. If there was any chance of repairing the chair, forcing current through soaked electronics would only make things worse.
When I looked up, Garrett had taken off his gloves. He slid them through the gate to a rider, followed by the heavy jacket from his shoulders. For a moment, I thought he intended to pass it between the bars, but the distance from the gate to the center of the courtyard made that useless. He folded it once and placed it on the dry side of a motorcycle seat, keeping both hands free.
Then he looked toward the recording phones and waited until each was aimed steadily through the bars.
Only after that did he begin to climb.
His boot found the lowest crosspiece. His hands closed around two spear-tipped uprights, careful on the rain-slick iron. The gate shuddered under his weight. Several riders stepped forward without touching it, ready if he slipped. Inside the lobby, bodies pressed back toward the sofas, opening a clear line from Trent to the courtyard doors.
Trent did not move toward them. He kept the yellow cover tucked against his hip and the brass key locked inside his fist.
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Garrett pulled himself level with the top rail. Rain ran from his sleeves and dropped into the courtyard. He paused there, balanced between the public line of motorcycles behind him and the sunken stones where I remained exposed.
Then he lifted one leg over the gate.
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