Alice stared at me like she was standing at the edge of a cliff.
Fear moved visibly across her face in quiet waves: hesitation, panic, calculation. I watched each emotion surface and disappear beneath the next. She wanted to speak; I could see that much clearly.
But another part of her fought just as hard to remain silent. Interesting. Most people cracked quickly under pressure. Alice didn't exactly resist pressure; she visibly drowned in it. Yet somehow, she still held onto certain things with desperate stubbornness.
I remained silent, leaning against the edge of my desk, my arms crossed loosely over my chest. The surveillance footage remained frozen on the laptop screen beside her. She kept glancing at it, at herself, at the envelope, at me, as if she couldn't decide which danger frig
