Alex let the silence hold for exactly one minute, and then a quiet, lightless tide washed outward from where he stood, passing through the crescent of seats like a wave moving through water, touching every person it reached and stealing their breath for a single suspended moment.
Eyes went blank, the noise of the previous minutes wiped from them as cleanly as if it had never been.
A few of them blinked, and in the blinking tried to reach back for what they had just been feeling, the grief, the panic, the roaring defiance- and found that their minds simply would not cooperate.
The emotions had been there. They knew that, but the access to them had been quietly closed, and what remained was clarity, sharp and uncomfortable.
They looked at him.
"I know how all of you feel," Alex said. His voice carried warmth for exactly one breath.
