Why Rook Knew the Signal
Three years earlier, Rook had sat in a community center in Colorado Springs with twenty other riders.
A woman named Marissa Hale stood at the front of the room with a whiteboard and a red marker.
She ran a nonprofit called Open Mile, teaching drivers, truckers, and riders how to recognize quiet indicators that someone on the road might need help.
She drew a red circle on her palm.
“This signal does not mean you confront anyone,” she told them. “It means you notice. You report. You stay close enough for help to arrive.”
Rook stared at the circle for a long time.
He had spent most of his life on highways. He knew how easily a person could drive past a car and never wonder who was inside.
That night, he had every rider in his group practice the signal.
Seventeen times.
Again and again.
Until they could recognize it at a glance.
Until they could draw it without thinking.
Until their hands and eyes simply remembered it.
Cole had laughed at first.
“Seventeen times?”
Rook had only said, “If one person ever needs it, seventeen won’t feel like enough.”
Now, on Route 70, Leah was standing beside him because he had not looked away.
