Chapter 5 - The Stigmatized Truth
At the sound of Thomas’s words, the boy in the gray hoodie slowly lifted his head. His eyes were wide, wet with unshed tears, but it was the architecture of his face that silenced everyone in the vicinity.
Around his left eye, a massive, ugly purple-and-red swelling stretched across his cheekbone and temple. The skin was bruised deep and dark, a raw testament to a violence that didn't belong to a child. It was a face that had intercepted a fist meant to shatter someone else's world. He looked up at the elegant woman standing over them, offering no defense, only the silent, devastating evidence of what it truly meant to protect someone when no one else would.
