"Is the bad men coming?" Pepper asked innocently, and the atmosphere inside the bakery shifted so abruptly that it felt as though the room itself had inhaled and forgotten how to exhale.
Scorpion stopped midway through adjusting her coat, his large hands suspended awkwardly in the air as if movement itself had suddenly become difficult for him. Alex coughed into the silence, a small, dry sound that betrayed how violently the question had landed in his chest. Flour dust floated between them in the warm light, and the familiar scent of bread and sugar, which usually wrapped the space in comfort, now seemed thick and oppressive and Alex wanted to go outside and get fresh air.
Pepper stood at the wide front window with both palms pressed flat against the glass. Her posture was not that of a child distracted by the street. It was the stillness of someone observing, measuring and waiting for something. Her eyes were narrowed in a way that did not belong to her age.
