The voice was high-pitched, clear.
It sliced through the tension like someone had just popped a balloon in a silent church.
Ashton's head snapped around.
The kid couldn't have been more than seven.
She wore a daffodil-yellow dress speckled with tiny white blossoms and had pigtails so neatly braided they looked vacuum-sealed.
She looked right back at him, completely unbothered by the fact that every single adult was now gaping at her.
A woman bolted to her side and slapped a hand gently over the girl's mouth.
"Don't talk nonsense, Freya," the woman hissed, frantic. "You don't know anything."
She forced a shaky smile in Ashton's direction. "She's just a kid. She doesn't understand—"
"Let her finish," Ashton said.
The woman's lips kept twitching like she wanted
