Chapter 25
Chapter 25: The Standstill Click. The sound of the lock was a period at the end of the world. Dream stood amidst the scattered paper snow, the echo of her own shout—Your grandfather lied!—reverberating in the sudden, absolute silence. Tom had frozen with his hand still on the doorknob on the other side. Through the thick wood, she could feel the arrested energy, the seismic pause her words had caused. The world didn’t just go quiet; it stopped. The frantic pulse of the city below, the hum of the penthouse systems, the very beat of her own heart—all suspended in a vacuum of terrible potential. She saw the shadow of his feet under the door. He wasn’t walking away. Slowly, with a silence more threatening than any crash, the lock disengaged. The knob turned. The door opened. He stood fra
- Writer
