Chapter 2 - The Kinetic Shift
"Just let me explain," the man whispered.
His voice was a thin, fragile thread in the stifling room.
The mother did not look at him.
Her eyes were fixed straight ahead, locked onto the blurred figures at the dining table.
Her chest rose and fell in sharp, jagged intervals.
The cream silk of her blouse strained against her rigid posture.
Her hands were buried in her daughter's matted, dirt-crusted hair.
Her knuckles were completely white.
"It wasn't supposed to happen this way," the man stammered, his outstretched fingers twitching.
The mother’s jaw locked.
A single vein began to pulse frantically against the thin, pale skin of her temple.
She released her daughter's hair.
Her right shoulder dropped back, drawing kinetic energy from the floor up through her spine.
Her arm whipped forward in a devastating arc.
The sound of flesh striking flesh cracked through the dining room.
It sounded like a dry branch snapping under a heavy boot.
Her palm collided violently with his left cheek.
The impact snapped his head to the side, sending his wire-rimmed glasses flying into the shadows.
He fell backward, his hands instinctively flying to his face.
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He caught himself on his elbows, the starch of his cuffs scraping against the floorboards.
A collective gasp sucked the remaining oxygen out of the room.
