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And someone had made the decision to end him in an instant.
Was that justice? Or just survival dressed up in Sunday clothes?
My hands were still shaking. I curled them into fists beneath the blanket, tried to ground myself with scripture, with breath.
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:21.
But what if the good … had to bleed, too?
It was all too much. I couldn’t make sense of it.
I glanced up toward the rooftops across the street, eyes scanning the dark edges of brick and metal and gutter. I didn’t see anyone. Just shadows. But I felt him.
He’d been there. Somewhere above. Somewhere steady.
Somehow, that made me tremble worse than the storm had.
I stepped out through the gate, drawn by instinct more than anything else. The street was chaos—flashing blue lights, wet pavement reflecting the madness, deputies darting between ambulances with radios and clipboards and hard, worried eyes.
And then I saw him.
Leaning against a matte-black pickup parked a blockdown, calm as if he were waiting on someone to bring him a cup of coffee.
He didn’t wear a badge.
Didn’t wear a uniform.
Just a black T-shirt stretched over arms like iron and jeans that clung to legs like he was built to run straight through a wall. His hair was rain-damp, his jaw shadowed with scruff, and he watched the scene with a face carved from stone.
He looked exactly how I’d imagined him.
And nothing like I’d prepared for.
I don’t remember walking toward him.
One minute I was frozen in place, and the next I was crossing the street, the blanket still hanging from my shoulders like a cape I didn’t deserve.
He watched me come.
Didn’t smile.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t move.
“Are you ...” I stopped in front of him, my voice softer than I intended. “Was it you?”
His eyes flicked over me, slow and unreadable. Deep, brown, and steady in a way that made me feel like he was looking through me, not at me.
“You were watching?” I asked, heart pounding. “From a roof, I think. Right before ...”
He didn’t answer. Not with words. But he didn’t have to.
He just nodded once. A small, simple tilt of his head.
Yes.
I took a step back, but my body didn’t cooperate. My legs were too weak and my heart too loud. “You saved us.”