"Can you speak?" I ask.
She doesn't respond. She just stares at me with those wide green eyes, her chest rising and falling fast now and I can see she’s shaking, small tremors rolling through her shoulders, her arms, her legs.
She looks fully alert now.
"Who are you?"
Still nothing.
Her eyes dart everywhere but my face, toward the door, the floor, the ceiling, anywhere she doesn’t have to meet me head-on.
Fear is one thing. Defiance is another.
I lean forward and grab a fistful of her hair. She gasps, a strangled sound that barely makes it past her cracked lips, and I yank her head back, forcing her to look up at me.
The light hits her face and she blinks rapidly, her eyes watering from the brightness.
"The mark on your arm," I say, my voice low and deadly. "How did you get it?"
Her mouth opens but no words come out. Just ragged, gasping breaths. She's hyperventilating, her whole body trembling under my grip.
"Answer me."
She shakes her head, barely, tears spilling down her cheeks.
The sound of her crying hits against something inside me. Something I don't want to acknowledge.
"Stop fucking crying and answer me," I snap. The words rip out of me as I yank her hair harder.
She doesn't. She just cries harder, her shoulders shaking.
I let go of her hair with more force than necessary and her head drops forward, chin hitting her chest, and the crying doesn't stop.
I step back, rubbing my forehead.
Women crying.
It makes my skin crawl. Not because I don't care. Because I do. Too much. Years of protecting Keira, of learning to read every shift in her mood, every tremor in her voice, every tear she tried to hide, wired me to respond to this.
To want to fix it, to want to protect, but I can't afford that right now.
This woman isn't Keira. She's not innocent. She's marked. She's connected. And I need answers more than I need her to stop crying.
I pull the chair from the corner of the room, the metal legs scraping against the floor, and drop into it directly across from her. The sound makes her flinch again.
I stare at her for a moment and she refuses to look up.
"You need to talk," I say, leaning forward. "Tell me how you ended up here."
She lifts her head slightly, just enough for me to see her face. Tears track through the dirt on her cheeks. Her eyes are bloodshot, swollen, barely able to focus.
"Talk," I say again. "Or you don't leave this room." I pause. "Final warning."
For a long moment, she just stares at me. Her lips part, then close. Her throat works like she's trying to swallow something down.
Then, in a voice so hoarse I barely understand her, she speaks.
"Probably because I know who killed your father."
