Chapter 41.
The morning in Lower Falls arrived with a deceptive, silver-toned peace. A thick blanket of fog rolled off the nearby river, clinging to the eaves of the Smith house and muffling the sound of the world waking up. Inside, the air was brittle, smelling of over-steeped coffee and the heavy, electric silence that follows a night of hidden warfare. Briar had fled the house an hour earlier. She hadn't even stayed for breakfast, her departure a frantic blur of flour-dusted aprons and avoided eye contact. She’d claimed the bakery needed an early start for the Gala’s specialty orders, but the truth was written in the frantic pulse at the base of her throat. She couldn't sit at that table again- not with the memory of Victor’s hand sliding up her skirt while her mother smiled and her brother joke
- Writer
