He kept scanning.
Judging.
Calculating.
Then his head snapped toward Benjamin.
And in two strides, he was there.
“Shut your mouth, boy.”
The shove came fast.
A sharp, brutal strike of his palm against Benjamin’s chest.
Benjamin staggered back, breath knocked loose, heels scraping against the stone path. Gasps erupted. Someone dropped a glass—it shattered, delicate and final.
Rebecca’s bouquet trembled violently in her hands.
“Ben!” she cried, stepping forward—
But an officer blocked her path.
Not violently. Not yet.
But enough.
Enough to say: stay where you are.
Benjamin steadied himself.
He didn’t swing back.
Didn’t shout.
Didn’t give them what they wanted.
But his jaw tightened.
And his eyes—
His eyes changed.
“You think putting on a suit makes you people?” Brooks sneered.
The insult hung in the air, heavy and suffocating.
Then Brooks turned—fast—and grabbed an elderly man by the collar.
Pastor David Oliver.
Sixty-seven years carved into his bones. A lifetime of marching, preaching, surviving.
He didn’t resist.
But his body hit the marble wall with a dull, sickening thud.
“Face the wall, Grandpa,” Brooks spat. “You’ve probably got warrants anyway.”
Rebecca let out a broken sound.
Half sob. Half disbelief.
Children buried their faces into their parents’ sides. Mothers pulled them closer. Men clenched their fists but didn’t move.
Because they knew.
They all knew.
One wrong move and this wouldn’t stop at humiliation.
It would become something else.
Something worse.
Brooks began to pace.
Slow. Predatory.
Circling the crowd like he was hunting.
“Which one of you is dealing?” he demanded. “Don’t lie. I can smell the ghetto on all of you.”
The words weren’t shouted now.
