For a long moment after Razeal's quiet words left his mouth, the room fell into a suffocating silence. The air itself seemed to grow heavy, pressing down on everything inside the shop as if the world had momentarily stopped moving. The only sound that remained was the slow, rhythmic dripping of blood from Maria's neck wound onto the wooden floor beneath her. Each drop landed with a soft but distinct tap, spreading gradually across the grain of the wood like a dark stain that refused to be ignored. In the unnatural stillness of the room, even that faint sound seemed far louder than it should have been.
Sofia remained frozen where she knelt beside Maria's body. Her hands were still hovering near the torn wound in Maria's throat, suspended in the air as if her body had forgotten what it was supposed to do next. Her fingers trembled slightly, but they never moved forward or back. Her mind simply refused to accept what she had just heard.
Dead?
The word didn't belong in this situation.
