The morning light didn’t make things any better at the Perreira house.
Mr. Joshua and Mrs. Rosa hadn’t slept a wink. They had spent the hours moving through the rooms in a heavy silence. The panic from the evening before had cooled, but it hadn't disappeared, it had simply hardened into a cold, desperate plan.
“We’re not running this time, dear,” Mr. Joshua stated.
He was standing by the kitchen sink, staring at a patch of peeling paint on the wall as if it were a map of their failures. “If we try to run now, we’ll just be bait. Predators love a chase, Rosa. And now that they have actually found us, running is entirely useless. It only indicates we have something to hide.”
Mrs. Rosa nodded slowly, her fingers trembling slightly as she held a cup of coffee she had no intention of drin
