In Chap­ter 105 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Patch enters the Mer­chants Nation­al under a grim, steel sky, obliv­i­ous to the addi­tion­al guard lurk­ing by the side door. As Patch pulls his gun, he fails to notice the guard respond­ing in kind. The scene unfolds rapid­ly as the teller hur­ried­ly fills an enve­lope with cash, cast­ing a ner­vous glance over Patch’s shoul­der while hand­ing him the mon­ey.

Just then, a shot echoes, sound­ing like a mere fire­crack­er, accom­pa­nied by the shat­ter­ing of the glass divider. Chaos erupts as screams fill the air, caus­ing Patch to drop to the floor amidst the pan­de­mo­ni­um. As he crawls across the car­pet, alarms blare and sprin­klers acti­vate, dous­ing the ter­ri­fy­ing atmos­phere. He finds refuge behind a desk, tak­ing a moment to breathe deeply as the tur­moil unfolds around him.

Mean­while, the guard, vis­i­bly shak­en, advances with his weapon drawn, and Patch cal­cu­lates the situation—knowing the stan­dard Mod­el 36 revolver holds six bul­lets and real­iz­ing he has heard only five shots fired. When a sixth shot ric­o­chets and lodges into the desk behind him, Patch rec­og­nizes the urgency and makes a break for the exit.

Until that point, every­thing had felt like a game to him—a twist­ed form of wealth redis­tri­b­u­tion aimed at a wor­thy cause. He ulti­mate­ly sends the stolen mon­ey off to the For­ev­er Unit­ed char­i­ty, the bills still damp when he seals the enve­lope. This act of seem­ing­ly benev­o­lent theft is now over­shad­owed by the real­i­ty and dan­ger of his choic­es, as Patch grap­ples with the seri­ous impli­ca­tions of his actions against the back­drop of vio­lence and chaos.