The Weight of Silence

Leona looked at Dante.

She wanted to argue. Her mouth had already assembled its sentences, arguments queued and ready to be launched.

But it was her own body that betrayed her.

Her head had felt heavy since that morning. Her vision occasionally swam when she rose too quickly. Even the hands she had balled into fists were trembling—not from anger, but from the remnants of the drug still working thr