One moment, Daniel was thinking about the voicemail he’d received less than an hour earlier—his mother found unconscious at home, doctors urging him to come immediately, phrases like critical and time-sensitive cutting through the message—and the next, he was on the ground, heat seeping through his palms, footsteps moving around him as if he were nothing more than an inconvenience on the sidewalk.
People slowed.
People glanced.
People kept walking.
Some assumed he was drunk.
Others decided he was just another overworked executive who’d finally pushed too hard.
No one stopped.
No one—except a little girl in a yellow sundress who had been twirling nearby, trying unsuccessfully to catch butterflies drifting just out of reach.
Her name was Emma Reed.
She was eight years old, with scraped knees, sun-brushed curls, and the kind of instinct adults often lose once they learn to overthink.
She heard the sound of a body hitting pavement and turned, her laughter cutting off instantly. The man on the ground looked wrong—too still, too pale against the concrete, breathing shallow but there.
Emma didn’t scream.
She didn’t run.