She’d glimpsed his tattoos in the hospital but had been panicked and distracted; now she studied them with more care—intricate swirls of snakes and dragons, the fractal patterns disappearing into themselves the closer she looked. Tattoos were a rite of passage in certain gangs, and she recognized their use as a tribal messaging system. Modern patches differed greatly from their ancestors; no longer skin deep, they extended into the body, tagged with isotopes to date their creation, and were impossible to remove. She imagined Xavi getting them, face unmoving as he drank tequila amidst an admiring crowd.