The courtroom did not move.
Not a single sound broke the silence that followed Benson's words. It was as though the entire room had been suspended inside something heavier than air—something that pressed against the chest and refused to release it.
"We will now return to the night she was born."
Those words did not echo. They sank. Deep.
Vivian felt it first in her chest—a slow tightening that had nothing to do with fear alone, but something deeper, something unfamiliar. It felt like standing at the edge of a memory she had never lived, yet her body reacted as though it recognized it before her mind could understand it.
Across the room, Sebastian remained still. His expression had shifted subtly, not in confusion but in recognition, as though a door he had always known existed was finally being opened.
Dorian, however, shifted violently in his seat. The restraints held him down, but not enough to hide the fracture already forming in his control.
