He wanted her to wonder if they had been frightened, whether they were still in pain, or whether she had unknowingly crossed a line she should never have crossed.
Instead...
Every sentence eventually returned to the same place.
Her reputation.
Her career.
Her freedom.
Her future.
Not once did she speak as a teacher worried about her students.
She spoke only as a woman terrified of losing everything she had built.
Standing before the cold iron bars, Marcos felt something inside him shift so quietly that he almost failed to recognize it.
It wasn't certainty.
It wasn't disbelief.
It wasn't acceptance.
It was doubt.
Small enough that he could still pretend it wasn't there.
Quiet enough that he could still silence it.
Yet deep inside, he already understood one frightening truth.
Once doubt found its way into a person's heart...
It rarely remained small for very long.
