So for a while, the area was quiet.
Or at least, it seemed that way.
Because if you looked a little closer—if you stepped past the tape, past the tables, past the assumption that nothing more could be done—you would have noticed something that didn’t belong there at all.
A boy.
He couldn’t have been more than twelve, maybe thirteen at most, kneeling on the cold concrete like it was the most natural place in the world for him to be. His clothes were worn in that way that doesn’t come from fashion but from use—faded denim, a shirt that had seen too many washes and not enough care. There were dark stains on the sleeves, grease marks that had been there long enough to become part of the fabric rather than something temporary.
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