President 6

"Why are you curious about the president, Riley?"

Alice's golden eyes narrowed, the warm light in them dimming into a darker, more intense hue.

Her voice, usually light and teasing, took on a colder edge that sent a chill through me.

Her words came out colder than I expected.

What's going on?

The sudden shift in Alice's demeanor caught me off guard.

Was asking about President Dorothy a sensitive topic for her?

The way she was staring at me, it didn't feel like this was just a simple matter of curiosity. Something deeper was at play, and I wasn't sure what it was.

Did something happen between her and the president that I didn't know about?

This wasn't part of the scenario as I knew it—at least not in the usual timeline. But in this messed-up version of events, anything could happen.

Even so, the tension between us right now felt strangely personal, almost like her question was a subtle threat.