I take a sip of the whiskey and pass it to Bella, who does the same. We've been doing this for the last hour or so while watching a show on TV, but my mind isn’t on the show. We're seated on her bed, and the reason we're drinking here is because her parents have a strict no-drinking rule in their house. It doesn’t matter that we’re both old enough to drink—Bella is twenty-two and I turned twenty-four a couple of months ago. So, Bella stole the bottle from their cellar and brought it to the room. The silence between us is heavy, laden with all the unspoken fears and uncertainties of the past day. Dell said Agent Morales had extended my deadline to midnight, but the clock keeps ticking, and I still haven’t changed my mind about my decision. We keep sharing the bottle of whiskey, taking turns
