FIA
Every pair of eyes shifted from me to the boy from the meadows. His expression remained neutral, but something in his stillness felt deliberate and calculated.
It was like he was a predator deciding whether its prey was worth the chase.
I waited for him to speak. To respond to my challenge with the same smooth rhetoric he'd been wielding all day. The silence stretched longer than it should have.
And my father took that as a sign to move first.
He took quick and purposeful footsteps that echoed across the polished floor. I turned to face him and saw his hand already raised. My body tensed on instinct, bracing for the impact I'd learned to expect from that particular angle and that particular expression on his face.
His palm however stopped inches from my cheek.
