Edward's Point Of View
The air in the room didn't just still; it curdled, thick and suffocating, pressing against my lungs like a physical weight. The grandfather clock seemed to miss a beat, its rhythmic tick-tock swallowed by the sudden, predatory silence that followed Lydia's suggestion.
I felt a cold bead of sweat track a slow, itchy path down my spine, settling right between my shoulder blades where it pooled and spread. My shirt collar suddenly felt too tight, constricting around my throat like a noose.
My mother tilted her head, studying us like a hawk eyeing field mice scurrying across an open meadow. Her eyes narrowed until they became just two glinting slits of jet, hard and unforgiving.
"Who," she asked, her voice dropping into a register that made my skin crawl, each word precise as a scalpel cutting through flesh, "is that?"
