A suffocating silence fell over the ruined house like a burial shroud. Every pair of eyes in the room locked onto Jason's figure standing in the destroyed entrance.
The shock of his sudden appearance rendered everyone momentarily speechless, frozen in tableau like actors who'd forgotten their lines. Jason should have been at the Municipal Office—evacuating with the other survivors, coordinating defenses, doing literally anything except standing here in their doorway wearing that wrong, terribly wrong expression on his familiar face.
Christopher was the first to recover from the initial shock, his natural optimism and friendly nature overriding the instinctive warning bells that were starting to ring in the back of his mind. A relieved smile spread across his face as he took an automatic step forward, lowering his bloodied crowbar slightly in a gesture of welcome.
