It was about something far quieter—and far more important.
But no one at that gas station knew any of that.
It was a Thursday night, a little after 10 p.m., when Cole pulled into a half-lit gas station on the edge of the highway. The kind of place people stopped at when they were too tired to care where they were, where the lights buzzed faintly overhead and the air smelled like gasoline soaked into concrete over decades. He killed the engine, and for a moment, the sudden silence pressed in around him, broken only by the distant hum of passing trucks.
He swung off the bike, stretched his shoulders slightly, and stepped toward the pump.
His hands were still painted.