Not “sir.”
“Silas Vane, lower the weapon.”
Linda slid down the pantry door until she was sitting on the floor, knees drawn up, both hands pressed to her mouth.
The woman who had laughed for the camera was gone.
The woman left behind looked older than she had ten minutes before.
Silas raised his chin.
That last foolish instinct rose in him.
The need to perform strength even when strength had become surrender.
“You don’t know who I am,” he shouted toward the door.
I almost smiled.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was finished.
The one thing men like Silas fear most is not punishment.
It is being accurately seen.
The command came again from outside, sharper this time.
“Lower the weapon now.”
Silas’s eyes cut to me.
There was rage there.
Confusion.
A plea he would never call a plea.
He wanted me to make it stop.
