Chapter 4 - THE DESPERATION OF THE KINGPanic is a corrosive thing. It eats away at logic, leaving only naked, screaming survival instinct behind.
For the next twenty minutes, Alexander lost all semblance of his usual cold, calculated composure. He moved his pieces haphazardly, sacrificing rooks, trading pawns, desperately trying to plug the bleeding holes in his defense.
Every time he looked up, Ethan’s calm, dark eyes were waiting for him.
The boy didn't smile. He didn't gloat. He played with the heavy, quiet sorrow of someone who had watched his father break his back for minimum wage and his grandfather cough blood into a handkerchief while working twenty-hour shifts.
On move fifty-two, Alexander knocked his own king over by accident as he tried to retreat from a double check.
The polished white marble piece rolled off the cardboard board and hit the concrete with a sharp, echoing crack.
Silence descended over Washington Square Park so profound that you could hear the distant siren on Fifth Avenue.
Alexander stared at his fallen king as if he were looking at his own ghost.
"Checkmate," Ethan said.
The word wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It hung in the air like a falling guillotine.
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Catherine Vale slowly lowered her tablet. A slow, deeply satisfying smile touched the corners of her mouth.
Mrs. Washington let out a loud, joyous sob, clapping her swollen hands together. "That’s my boy! That’s the Washington Square champion!"
