The silence that followed the exposure of the true traitor was heavy, sharp, and smelling faintly of ozone and panicked sweat. For a split second, nobody in the central security room moved. Ethan sat slumped in his chair, his eyes wide and completely hollow as he stared at the glowing green cursor on his screen, while Jupiter slowly lowered his hand, his clinical gaze never leaving the boy's trembling shoulders.
"Type it," I commanded again, my voice cutting through the thick quiet like a blade sliding over stone.
Ethan's fingers hovered over the plastic keyboard. They shook so violently that the keys lightly clicked against one another, making a frantic, erratic noise that grated on my nerves. Under the combined, predatory weight of Marcus's glare and my own presence, he finally forced his hands down. He began to type the encrypted message that would seal Gillian and Boris's fate.
