CHAPTER 1: The Boy Who Stayed Standing

The bank lobby had gone quiet in a way no public place ever should.
Customers lay on the marble floor between velvet ropes and lobby chairs. A teller kept both hands flat on the counter. The glass front doors faced the bright city street, but no one inside dared look toward them for too long.
Everyone was down.
Except Noah.
He stood in the middle of the lobby in a blue zip-up jacket and khaki pants, small enough that the security rope reached his shoulder. His blonde hair was messy from his mother’s hand trying to pull him close.
Sarah knelt beside him, gripping his arm with white fingers.
“Noah, please get down,” she said.
Her voice broke, but not loudly. She was trying not to make the men in black masks angry.
Noah did not move.
One masked intruder stood near the teller counter. The other stepped closer across the polished floor, slow enough to make every breath in the room feel counted.
Noah looked up at him with wet eyes.
The ceiling lights reflected on the marble around his sneakers. For one strange second, the whole bank seemed to be looking at the smallest person in the room.
He was terrified.
But he stayed standing.