Blackfeather Woods champagne, cocaine, gasoline

The poppies were beginning to ease out of his system, and when he looked at Averna now, he had forgotten all about her. She asked him again if he was alright, calling him Bird, and he nodded slowly. His mouth opened and he mimed the word, Bird?—maybe he was asking after the nickname, or the little songbird he had just seen, but likely it was the image of the hawk transforming that had him so unnerved. It seemed so real, so familiar.