"What is wrong with you!" Samantha's annoyance boiled over when Shaun slammed down her phone. The sound had echoed in the tense silence.
His eyes flashed with anger as he stepped closer. "I'm not going to let him manipulate this situation any longer, and I told you, I didn't want you communicating with him." Shaun held her shoulders. He's trying to come between us and destroy this family. I'm not going to allow it."
"I had to tell him the results of our test, Shaun. He would have backed off." She said urgently. In her mind, sharing the test result should have made Noah realize that now they had concrete evidence that would trump his own, which was probably tampered.
"Really? You think that was going to stop him? Listen to me, this is over and done with. If he starts up again, we're going to the police." And with that, Shaun walked off.
Samantha found herself the next day on work going through the motions. Her shift just didn't want to end and felt agonizingly long. She found it hard to focus on her job because her mind kept drifting back to everything that had happened.
During a brief break, she stared out the window, watching the world go by, feeling so detached from it all. When she got back to work, she answered calls and flipped through files automatically. Work should have been a distraction. Instead, it felt more like an additional strain. Samantha was relieved when her shift ended. She had to find a way to regain her footing, somehow.
The daycare had called and said Shaun had collected the kids, so she went straight home. When she entered the house, there was an absence of the usual sound of the kids. It was eerily silent. Maybe the kids were asleep. "Shaun." She called out, her voice echoing around as she closed the door behind her.
The living room was neat, and all the toys were in their containers. He wasn't in the kitchen, so she made her way upstairs to the kid's room. "Shaun." They were asleep, and she closed the door quietly, the sight of them brought a wave of calm over her. Moving further down the hall to her bedroom, Samantha pushed open their bedroom door and saw Shaun asleep in bed. He looked so peaceful and relaxed in the soft light filtering through the curtains.
"Don't wake him. He's asleep."
She screamed and jumped, staring at the direction the voice came from, fear coursing through her veins. Sitting in a chair by their desk was Noah. "What are you doing here?" She exclaimed and glanced back at Shaun, her hands held anxiously to her chest. "D-did you do something to Shaun?"
Noah stood and held up his hand in a placating gesture, his expression serious but calm. "He's fine, just sedated."
Samantha backed away, her heart pounding wildly in her chest as fear washed over her. "Oh God, Noah, what are you doing? Please don't hurt us." She begged, tears filling her eyes.
