The silence that followed Mike's accusation was suffocating, thick with the unspoken implications of her own panic. Maya felt exposed, not by a camera lens, but by her own subconscious betrayal.
Her mind had gone straight to the incriminating, the raw, and the undeniable because that was what she had truly given him in that cabin.
"I'm leaving for real this time," she snapped, though her voice lacked its previous conviction. It sounded brittle, like glass about to shatter.
She spun on her heel, her movements jerky and uncoordinated as she scrambled toward the door. "This is sick... and you're fucking sick!"
"I can't... I can't do this with you."
"Maya, wait." Mike's voice was a low command that seemed to vibrate through the very floorboards.
"Wait for what?" she whirled back around, her eyes blazing with a desperate, defensive fury. "Another one of your pathetic little games?"
"Another 'prank' where you watch me squirm like an insect under a microscope?"
