He first saw her on Stalker Sphere footage. There had been a sudden spike of veil breaches in a certain area of San Campion, and he was reviewing footage from the past week, looking for what might have caused it. He thought it strange for a child that young to be out alone on the streets, but quickly moved on to more interesting oddities. It wasn't until he had seen her four or five times that he really noticed her, but even then, there wasn't all that much to notice. Six or seven years old, messy brown hair, shorts and a T-shirt, sneakers. But she was a constant for most of the veil breaches, so he went back and took a closer look at the shots she was in. Upon zooming in, he saw that, each and every time, she would start to play a little wooden recorder, and a minute or so later, a breach would appear a few streets away.

This was exactly the sort of clue he'd been looking for.

He spent the next three days watching the Stalker Spheres closely, trying to find the girl. He also went back and tried to figure out where she lived, but the Spheres never seemed to be in the right place at the right time. He was starting to get thoroughly frustrated when she finally showed up again, on the other side of the city. Doing a quick calculation, he found he could be there in exactly four minutes. He called a few of his followers together and left.

She hadn't moved in the time it had taken to reach her. Leaving the others a street over, he did a quick appraisal of the situation. She was young, but probably old enough that someone had drilled stranger-danger into her head. Kindness was definitely his best option.

"Hello," he said, as though he had just happened to walk past and see her. "What are you doing out here?"

She looked up, but didn't say anything. She just looked at him. He wouldn't have thought her eyes were anything to mention, just a muted shade of brown, but their intensity was incredible. Had he been anyone else, he would have been unnerved.

He crouched down to her height. "Are you alright?" he asked. "Where are your parents?"

She just looked at him.

"Can you speak?" Nothing. "Can you even hear me?"

Still no response, but before he could try again a shout rang out from the next street over. He stood up and turned to see what was happening when he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. By the time he had turned back around, she was at the end of the alley. But before he could make any move to run after her, she tripped. He saw her flail, almost catching herself, before she fell face first onto the concrete. She shrieked when she hit the ground, and he knew it wasn't from just the pain of a skinned knee.

He ran over, deciding that his followers could manage whatever was going on over there. As he knelt down next to the girl, he could immediately see what had caused her to shriek. Her right thumb was bending the wrong way in a place it wasn't supposed to bend at all. It was broken, that was obvious, and clearly causing her a lot of pain. Yet she still had the focus to move away when he came near.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said, and he was no longer acting. "I'm trying to help."

Just then one of his men ran around the corner, breathing heavily. "Sir, we've had a veil breach. The creature has been returned and the area cleared."

"Good," he said, not turning away from the girl. She had stopped trying to get away, but he figured the first chance she got she would bolt. "Where do you live?" he asked. She was crying quietly, but still wouldn't talk. He made a snap decision. She was school age, and it was a weekday. There was no reason for her not to be at school or at home unless she didn't have a home. "I'm taking you back with me." Her eyes got wide, but before she could get too frightened, he added, "I can get your thumb fixed."

This made her stop. For a six year old (he was fairly sure she was only six), stranger-danger was easily superseded by the pain of a broken thumb. She thought for a moment, then slowly nodded. She refused his help to get up, but quietly walked next to him back down the alley.

The doctor was waiting when they got to the base. It would be a simple matter of re-setting the bone and then wrapping it with a miniature splint, but the little girl was starting to panic as the doctor held her thumb.

It was instinctive. He didn't even realize he was doing it until it was done.

He held her hand while the doctor set her thumb.