Hart Mansion – Evening
The ride back home was quiet. Too quiet.
Not the peaceful kind of quiet, but the kind that wrapped itself around the air like thick smoke, heavy, suffocating, and full of unsaid things that pressed down on the lungs and refused to leave.
Raya sat stiffly beside Juliana, staring out the tinted window as the car glided through the winding road leading back to the Hart estate. Streetlights slid across her reflection, slicing her face into fragments ~ hers and Seraphina's overlapping like two strangers trapped in one mirror.
Juliana didn't say a word. She just sat there, perfectly still, her fingers interlocked neatly over her lap, her face unreadable.
The hum of the engine and the steady blink of the turning signal were the only breaks in the quiet. Even those sounds felt too loud.
Silence was the only language spoken.
