Chapter 61:
Julie's Point of View
I stepped out of the room, feeling my body stagger under a weight invisible to the eye; that small bag nestled in my pocket was pressing against my thigh as if it weighed tons of lead.
Every time I moved, I felt a sting in my chest, as if my conscience had become a dagger plunging into my heart with every beat, silently screaming deep within me:
"Don't do it, Julie... go back."
I walked behind Robert's towering figure in that long hallway; the silence between us was so thick that I could hear the creak of my shoes on the marble floor and the chattering of my teeth,
which I tried in vain to suppress. We reached a steel door; Robert's fingers moved mechanically over the keypad to enter the password,
and the lock recoiled with a dry, metallic sound.
We rode a secret elevator in which I felt my being descend and rise in a desolate void,
