Chapter 350

LUMINA The tension in the house was suffocating. Three hours. Three hours since Xenois and his strike team had left, and we'd heard nothing. No updates, no emergency calls, not even a brief text to confirm they'd reached the staging area. Just silence. I watched Lyn pace across the living room for what had to be the hundredth time, his movements jerky with barely suppressed anxiety. Each pass took him from the window to the door and back again, his hands alternating between running through his hair and clenching into fists at his sides. "Lyn," I said gently, "you're going to wear a hole in the floor." "I don't care about the floor," he snapped, then immediately looked apologetic. "Sorry. I'm just—three hours, Lumina. Three hours and nothing. We should have heard something by now. Even if it's just 'we're in position' or 'beginning approach.' This silence is killing me." I couldn't argue with that. The silence was killing all of us. The kids were scattered around the room, each dealing