"Even mechanics?" I repeated, tensing up.

"Glenn's joking," Frank tried to reassure me. "What he means is that locals here love making up tall tales. Anyone who achieves even a little something suddenly gets wrapped in legends."

"And if this 'achiever' happens to be an outsider? Lights out. They'll be branded a 'stranger' forever," the kid nodded in agreement.

"I thought locals would have enough problems of their own," I replied, processing this information.

"They've grown tired of their routine troubles," Frank chuckled. "So they crave fresh 'meat' for gossip."

"Same old story everywhere," the kid muttered. "Let's go. We've settled the repair terms."

"We'll be nearby, in the trailer," Selena told the mechanics. "Let us know when it's ready."

"Three days, not sooner," Glenn repeated.

"Which means at least five," I grumbled, resigning myself to Glenn being quite the storyteller.

As we drove away from the station, Selena remarked, "Glenn's not a bad guy, really."

"I don't like him," Oscar said bluntly. "Did you notice how he's always hiding his shameless eyes behind those sunglasses?"

"It's just really sunny right now," Selena tried defending him.

"Yeah, right," the kid stared out the window. "Lies as easily as he breathes."

For three days, we stayed in Selena's trailer. As an exception, we drove to nearby grocery stores for supplies, and I finally managed to wash up in a questionable roadside motel. Still, even these conditions felt like a blessing at this point. I couldn't recall exactly how far we were from Oscar's place, but judging by the landscape, it was quite a distance. Naturally, I spent every minute cursing Kurt, mentally picturing strangling him with the shoelace that bound Selena's stack of letters.

"Relax," Selena chattered nonstop, steering toward the repair shop while sharing cheese puffs with Oscar.

I had no appetite. All I wanted was to find out if the bike was ready.

"Who stockpiles weapons on a ranch in bulk?"

Oscar and Selena had been arguing the whole way about the credibility of rumors concerning the farmer named Vance.

"Farmers!" Oscar retorted heatedly.

"And who else?" Selena teased, amused by the kid's agitation.

"Dunno… Farmers' mothers!"

"Probably their wives too?" she giggled, refusing to let up.

Their pointless bickering was cut short when I noticed something ahead—or rather, the lack of it.

"Where's the repair shop?" I interrupted.

"Are we even in the right place?" Oscar asked, glancing at Selena.

She slammed on the brakes. The three of us lurched forward before rebounding back into our seats.

I jumped out of the trailer and hurried toward the empty lot while Oscar checked if his nose was still intact.

The breeze carried scraps of colorful tinsel and candy wrappers across the empty lot, while the scent of popcorn and cotton candy lingered in the air.

An old Jeep drove past me, and an elderly man leaned out the window.

"The circus left, but you stayed behind?" he joked.

"What circus?" I asked.

"The traveling kind," the man replied, pointing two fingers at the barren field. "They put on quite a show here—ran for almost a month. The last three days? Absolute spectacle."

"And those illusionists!" An elderly woman popped her head out from the back window, giving me a friendly smile. "Unforgettable!"

"What did they look like, these illusionists?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Father and son. Tall, long-haired gentlemen."

"I even won a pair of glasses from them!" the man announced proudly, holding them up.

Glenn's sunglasses gleamed mockingly in the sunlight, their gilded frames flashing—and in them, I caught my own reflection.