Chap­ter 69 of If These Wings Could Fly is steeped in an atmos­phere of ten­sion and fore­bod­ing, as the house is plunged into dark­ness, the pow­er abrupt­ly cut off. The action unfolds with Leighton and her sis­ters, Juniper and Camp­bell, stuck in a dim­ly lit room, over­whelmed by a sense of fear and urgency that sat­u­rates the air. Despite the still­ness, the pan­ic with­in Leighton’s chest is pal­pa­ble, grow­ing with each pass­ing moment as she lis­tens to muf­fled voic­es and heat­ed argu­ments drift­ing up from down­stairs. The con­ver­sa­tions below only height­en the sense of impend­ing dan­ger, sug­gest­ing that some­thing volatile and unpre­dictable is unfold­ing. The unknown nature of the sit­u­a­tion weighs heav­i­ly on her, trap­ping her in a cycle of wor­ry and uncer­tain­ty about what might hap­pen next. Every minute feels drawn out, as Leighton bat­tles the grow­ing anx­i­ety in her mind, torn between doing some­thing and wait­ing for the inevitable clash to unfold.

As the ten­sion in the air builds, Leighton quick­ly con­tem­plates call­ing for help, but the pres­ence of a gun becomes her imme­di­ate focus, push­ing oth­er thoughts aside. The sound of fire­works light­ing up the night sky pro­vides a fleet­ing dis­trac­tion, briefly draw­ing her atten­tion away from the esca­lat­ing fear inside the house. How­ev­er, the brief burst of light and noise from the fire­works does lit­tle to set­tle the grow­ing chaos with­in her. Her thoughts quick­ly shift to her moth­er, real­iz­ing that find­ing her might offer some sem­blance of safe­ty in the midst of the chaos. With every pass­ing sec­ond, the sense of urgency with­in Leighton inten­si­fies, and the idea of doing noth­ing feels increas­ing­ly unbear­able. She knows that inac­tion only exac­er­bates the pan­ic that already runs through her veins. Mean­while, Campbell’s des­per­ate plea for reas­sur­ance under­scores the real­i­ty of their dire sit­u­a­tion. The fear shared between the three of them is undeniable—they are all keen­ly aware of the dan­ger clos­ing in, and there is no time left to waste.

When Leighton approach­es the liv­ing room, she encoun­ters the chill­ing sight of her moth­er posi­tioned in front of the man hold­ing the gun. His con­fronta­tion­al tone and threat­en­ing pres­ence send a wave of fear through Leighton’s body, freez­ing her in place. The raw pow­er of the moment leaves her par­a­lyzed, with a ter­ri­fy­ing sense of help­less­ness set­tling in. The loom­ing threat of vio­lence feels all too real as she real­izes how dan­ger­ous their posi­tion is. As the inten­si­ty of the moment deep­ens, the creak of her bed­room door sends a shock of real­iza­tion through Leighton—her sis­ters are now in imme­di­ate dan­ger. The loom­ing threat of vio­lence has moved from the down­stairs to her imme­di­ate envi­ron­ment, and she must act quick­ly to pro­tect them. Her thoughts race, but every instinct seems to scream for her to take action, yet fear keeps her root­ed to the spot.

In the midst of this esca­lat­ing sit­u­a­tion, her moth­er steps for­ward with cal­cu­lat­ed calm­ness, posi­tion­ing her­self as a bar­ri­er between Leighton and the gun­man. The pro­tec­tive instinct her moth­er dis­plays offers a moment of clar­i­ty for Leighton, tem­porar­i­ly calm­ing her rac­ing heart­beat. The reas­sur­ance her moth­er offers through whis­pered instruc­tions to go upstairs brings a fleet­ing sense of hope, a chance for safe­ty that Leighton can­not ignore. Yet, despite her moth­er’s efforts to pro­tect them, Leighton is torn between fol­low­ing her mother’s direc­tive to move to safe­ty and her own over­whelm­ing need to stay close, to remain con­nect­ed in a moment when every­thing feels out of con­trol. The ten­sion between these com­pet­ing instincts—protection and the need for connection—creates an emo­tion­al con­flict that Leighton can­not eas­i­ly resolve. The chap­ter encap­su­lates a crescen­do of emo­tions, from fear to love, and the instinc­tive dri­ve to act in the face of an over­whelm­ing, life-threat­en­ing sit­u­a­tion. Leighton’s strug­gle in this chap­ter exem­pli­fies the com­plex­i­ty of human rela­tion­ships, espe­cial­ly when sur­vival is on the line, and pro­tec­tive love becomes the dri­ving force amid loom­ing cat­a­stro­phe.