The room went quiet after I finished explaining what I had felt in the forest.
Not the kind of quiet that settled.
The kind that pressed in—heavy, watchful—like the air itself had thickened and something unseen had stepped into the room with us and decided to stay.
I didn’t like it.
I didn’t like the way everyone was looking at me either—measured, careful, like I had suddenly become the center of something none of them fully understood yet.
My chest tightened.
Anita shifted beneath my skin, restless.
We shouldn’t be here.
I swallowed the thought down, but it didn’t leave.
Julian leaned back slightly in his chair, fingers loosely steepled as he stared at the table.
Thinking.
Of course he was thinking.
Everyone in this room thought too much. Calculated too much. Waited too long.
