Her silence was worse than yelling.
The confession that Silver's turmoil was about Carroway had landed between them like a live grenade with its pin pulled, and now they both seemed to be waiting for the inevitable explosion. The medieval stones of their tower room seemed to absorb the tension and amplify it, creating an atmosphere thick enough to cut with one of Eli's hockey skates.
But instead of the immediate eruption of protective fury that Silver had expected—the kind of theatrical outburst that would have been completely in character for her normally dramatic roommate—Americus simply stared at her with an expression that cycled through disbelief, horror, and something that looked uncomfortably like genuine fear.
