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“What do you need?”

The question almost breaks me.

Not what do I have to do?

Not when are you forgiving me?

What do you need?

I look toward the funeral home where Raven waits for one final ride, then toward the School of the Dead, then back at Bitter.

“I need you not to ask me for an answer yet.”

His throat moves.

“Okay.”

No bargaining.

No disappointment disguised as humor.

Just okay.

For the first time since I walked into that coffin workshop and watched him destroy everything I thought I knew, hope does not feel like something dangerous.

It feels small and cautious.

Mine.

I can live with that.

For now.

Chapter Sixteen

Bitter

Raven gets his final ride at sundown.

For once, nobody makes a joke about coffins.

That might be the strangest thing I have witnessed in days, and I watched Boogie try to explain probable cause to a rooster.

The whole Grave Prowlers property changes as daylight starts bleeding out behind the trees. Festival music shuts down. Vendors lower their voices. Kids carrying plastic femurs get pulled closer to their parents. Even the drunk tourists seem to understand there are times when death is entertainment and times when it is not.

This is not.

Raven’s Harley waits polished beneath the funeral home lights, black paint shining like still water. Behind it, his rider’s coffin is secured for the procession, Grave Prowlers insignia catching the last orange edge of the sun.

His widow asked for this final ride through town before a private burial tomorrow morning. Tonight belongs to the club and everybody who loved him. Tomorrow, his family will lay him to rest.

He looks right.

That matters.

Sweet made sure of it.

I saw Raven before Mercy and the girls started working on him. Death had changed him the way it changes everybody, taking familiar pieces and making them strange.