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Chapter_86
Joseph yelped in surprise as the soft plastic pellet shot toward him. He instinctively ducked, barely avoiding the small projectile, his face turning from amusement to indignation in an instant. “Hey! You can’t just shoot like that!” he protested, but his words were tinged with a newfound respect for Alexander, who remained nonchalant, his smile never fading.
Alexander lowered the toy gun, still aiming it casually. “I thought you were supposed to teach me. I just wanted to try it out,” he said, his voice light, yet there was a subtle sharpness to his tone that Joseph couldn’t ignore.
Joseph, slightly flustered, hesitated for a moment before his youthful confidence returned. “Fine, I’ll show you again,” he said, snatching the toy back from Alexander’s hands. This time, he carefully demonstrated how to properly aim and fire, all the while Alexander watched intently, his demeanor still one of warmth but with an underlying tension that didn’t quite fit the scene of playful teaching.
As the conversation continued, the atmosphere in the room lightened for a brief moment, but the strain lingering from the earlier conflict between Quinn and the rest of the family remained palpable. While the others engaged in their banter, Quinn sat off to the side, her thoughts a million miles away from the table. Her mind wandered back to the tension-filled moments with Alexander and the deep sense of isolation that gnawed at her.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that Alexander, though ever so kind, was leading her on a path that was both tempting and dangerous. His gestures of care, his smiles, his attention—they were all calculated, offering just enough to keep her intrigued, yet always out of reach. Was this his way of controlling her? Of drawing her closer, only to push her away when she was on the verge of understanding him?
Her gaze briefly met Alexander’s across the room. His eyes softened for a second before he returned his attention to Joseph, clearly pleased by the child’s growing enthusiasm. But Quinn couldn’t help but feel like a bystander in a play she didn’t want to be a part of anymore. What was her place in this family? Was she just another piece of the puzzle they were all trying to fit together for their own gain?
Freya, too, had noticed the change in Quinn’s demeanor. Despite her earlier attempts to maintain an air of composure, she couldn’t ignore the way Quinn had withdrawn. There was something more beneath her quiet exterior, something that Freya recognized but couldn’t yet understand. It only made Freya more uneasy, knowing that Quinn had become entangled in the web of family dynamics that no one ever seemed to truly navigate with honesty.
Walter, watching Freya’s subtle glance at Quinn, seemed to sense the tension as well. He met her eyes briefly, giving her a look that was hard to read. Was he aware of the inner turmoil Quinn was experiencing? Or was he too busy with his own internal conflicts to notice? Freya didn’t know, but she had a feeling that the answer wasn’t as simple as it seemed.
Dinner continued in a strained silence, each person caught in their own thoughts, each unaware of the silent storm brewing within Quinn. The family, so adept at playing their parts, failed to see the cracks in the foundation they had built—cracks that, once exposed, might tear everything apart.
As the evening wore on, the façade of normalcy continued, but Quinn felt herself sinking deeper into the murky waters of uncertainty. The moon remained distant, and all she could do was watch, powerless, as the tide began to rise.
