He was sixty-three, with a bald head, a long white-gray goatee, and a black leather vest decorated with patches collected over thirty years. He had been Hammer's closest friend since they were young men, and he served as the Iron Ravens' treasurer and vice president.
Rook was watching Lucy.
His expression was strangely rigid.
Hammer felt a familiar uneasiness.
Then the little girl returned to the table.
She picked up a second paper square.
“Another?”
Hammer nodded.
“Any color you want.”
She selected blue.
He began folding.
For nearly three hours, Lucy came and went from the small table. Sometimes she sat with her aunt. Sometimes she watched from several feet away. She talked very little, but whenever Hammer completed another crane, she examined it carefully and placed it beside the others.
He never asked her to explain the mud.
Never demanded that she apologize.
And never treated her fear as entertainment.
At one point, a hospital security officer approached Mara quietly and asked whether she wanted the bikers to leave.
Mara looked toward Lucy.
The girl was sitting peacefully for the first time that afternoon, watching Hammer turn a piece of paper into a bird.
She shook her head.
“Not yet.”
Near the end of the visit, Hammer's old watchband caught against the edge of the table.
The leather strap snapped.
His watch slipped down his wrist.
He caught it before it fell.
But the movement exposed a small tattoo hidden beneath the band.
A black raven.
Unlike the enormous birds covering his forearm, this one was tiny and simple, its wings spread unevenly around a narrow white gap in the ink.
Lucy saw it.
She froze.
Hammer noticed immediately.
“Lucy?”
Her eyes widened.
She stepped backward.
Then looked past him.
Toward the men standing near the motorcycles.
Her gaze fixed on Rook's wrist.
The older biker had rolled back his sleeve to check the time.
A small raven tattoo appeared beneath his watch.
The same shape.
The same broken-looking wing.
Lucy's breathing became frantic.
She pointed.
“That one.”
Mara turned.
“What, sweetheart?”
Lucy raised her trembling hand.
“That bird.”
Rook looked down at his wrist.
For one brief instant, his face changed.
Then he pulled his sleeve down.
Lucy made a frightened sound.
Her eyes moved from his tattoo to his face.
Then she whispered a name that had appeared in her nightmares for four months.
“Rook.”
Every biker in the courtyard went silent.
Hammer slowly stood.
The small white chair scraped against the pavement.