Falcon stepped out of the restaurant without a backward glance, the door closing behind him with a quiet finality that seemed to cut him off completely from the warmth inside. The night air greeted him, cool, damp, carrying that ever-present scent of fish that clung stubbornly to the town like an identity it refused to shed.
He walked in silence, hands in his pockets, his pace steady and controlled, until faint laughter drifted toward him from the side of the road.
A group of boys stood gathered under a flickering streetlight, smoke curling lazily into the night sky as they joked among themselves. Dante stood among them, slightly off to the side, a cigarette between his fingers as he tried, and failed, to look as confident as the others.
Falcon's eyes passed over them once, uninterested.
He kept walking.
From his pocket, he pulled out his lighter.
Click.
The small flame flickered to life, dancing briefly before he shut it again.
