Chapter 19 The Ruins Of Silence

• Switzerland was colder than I remembered.
• But not because of the snow or the December wind. It was the silence that accompanied us like a shadow. A silence so thick it hurt the ears, as if words had frozen between us and could no longer move.
• Dante and I didn’t speak during the flight. Nor in the helicopter ride, where the hum of the rotors was the only thing filling the space between us. He stared out the window, his face hardened by something that wasn’t just worry. It was older. Deeper. I couldn’t stop watching his hands, rigid on his knees, as if holding something invisible breaking inside him.