When fate plays its hand (Miranda)

Chapter 0809

While Paul was huffing and puffing, trying to master rolling a snowball, Miranda was in the lab, deeply engrossed in logging data. Madison and Sebastian had already gone home, leaving her alone.

Initially, Miranda felt a little off without Madison’s constant chatter filling the space. But as soon as she stepped onto the workbench and immersed herself in her tasks, the feeling melted away.

Miranda had long since learned to embrace solitude. During those years Hansel confined her to the mansion, she’d grown accustomed to being alone–reading alone, studying alone, cooking alone, eating alone, and waiting alone.

In academia, one could work in collaboration or solitude. Miranda had understood this truth early on.

At noon, she finally stretched her neck; it was sore from hours bent over her work. She then went to the break room for lunch. The meal, prepared earlier that morning, only needed a quick reheat in the microwave.

As she ate, she scrolled through her phone and stumbled upon a social media post that Silas had shared an hour ago. The caption read, ‘‘I’m all snowballed out.”

The attached image showed three rows of snowballs, all perfectly uniform in size and neatly aligned in the snow. Three whole rows!

Miranda found it… rather impressive. She gave it a like and commented, “So cool, Dr. Quinton.”

Silas instantly replied, “I’m not the cool one here.” And he added a smiling emoji at the end.

unsatisfied with his earlier comment, he

Confused, Miranda replied, “What?”

he mean by that comment? She simply shrugged it off, finishing her lunch and taking a brief break before returning to her

getting shorter in winter, Miranda skipped her usual nap, thinking it would be easier to finish early and head home. Everything went smoothly, and by 4:00 pm, she

she noticed two kids outside the

snowman was surprisingly detailed–complete with a nose, eyes, a red scarf, and

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Chapter 0809

that Miranda couldn’t help but pause and watch

caught sight of

so focused, even more so than when she was conducting experiments in the

you like snow that much?” Paul’s voice broke her

face lighting up instantly. “Dr. Jefferson,

of data but also to finally learning how to roll snowballs. That was productive,

at the nearly finished snowman. “It’s so well done. These

turned and enthusiastically invited her

waved them off while laughing. “No, no, you guys keep playing. I’m