“But maybe it would be nice of you to realize I’ve kind of been under someone else’s thumb or in someone else’s shadow or following someone else’s directions every step of the way. And when I did finally do things out of my own free will I was unpracticed and traumatized and—”

“And that excuses it?”

“No! Ye—no. But it would be nice if it could be taken into account,” she said, her voice dropping in volume. “It would be nice if for this, right here, instead of you getting angry and saying we won’t talk, maybe you meet me halfway. I don’t want to domineer the conversation, I don’t want to force you to have it, I want you to want to have it. An actual, even, fair conversation.”

“While a guard who could shoot me stands at your side—”

“He’s not—”

“—and you have me cornered, and you’ve—”

I choked on the words I was going to say.

“I don’t have you cornered.”

“You’ve used your power on me, and I have no idea what you did to me while I was defenseless.”

The tear that sprung from one of my eyes caught me off guard. It seemed to do the same for her.

“Th—”

“Again,” I said, more to myself.

It still shut her up.

She said something in the other language, stiff. The guard gave me and her a wary look, then hauled the door open. It slammed on shutting.

“Guard’s gone,” she said. “He doesn’t speak English, by the way. That’s why it was him, specifically.”

“Doesn’t make me feel better.”

“I can’t help you feeling cornered—”

“You can leave. Leave me alone. That’s all I’ve asked for.”

“About the third thing,” she said, stubbornly plowing ahead. “What I did. I can explain.”

“And I’m supposed to trust you?” I asked. My voice went out on ‘trust’, so I mouthed it more than said it.

“I’m hoping that after we talk you can. At least a little,” she said. “I only used my power the once. They hadn’t warned me you’d be paralyzed, my first thought was that it was a stroke, um—”

“You used your power on me, you cunt.”

The word seemed to catch her off guard, but not as much as I’d hoped.

“I checked you. I got a read of your system. Um. That includes the neural connections—”

I let go of my legs, burying face in my knees, that were pulled up to my chest, and covered my head.

“It includes emotions. Um. If it’s any reassurance—”

“Fuck you and your reassurance,” I said.