[Her fury and frustration is as blinding as that ache in her chest. Here he is, again, another man who'd stake every life in his reach rather than let a girl win even the smallest victory. Another man whose stubborn cruelty is rewarded by strength, who'll waste everything just to prove his stupid point. She's not even sure what his point is, save that he thinks he's better than her and he'd rather die than hint otherwise.]
[And are 'ee so much better, then? she demands of herself. What's any of this to 'ee, but proof of something you could prove another way?]
[It's my life. It's my fucking life, stuck in this cage with a madman, and if he thinks I'm easy beaten, then what does that spell for me?]
[And if this goes on? If you choke each other out, if neither of you gives way, what does that leave when you come to? The voice of her thoughts, for a moment, sounds almost like her father. When there's no choice, Sue, hesitation's ever a fault.]
[There's no choice. And if she's alive, as it seems she is, and if she's like to stay that way, she has to at least try to do it with her ribs intact. Even if it means trusting in the word of a man whose promise seems less than spit in the wind. The alternative, it seems, is that neither of them back down an inch, and that isn't looking all that much better.]
[Gritting her teeth, and with a sick and sinking certainty that it will do absolutely nothing to help her, she whips her arm loose from around his neck.]
no subject
[And are 'ee so much better, then? she demands of herself. What's any of this to 'ee, but proof of something you could prove another way?]
[It's my life. It's my fucking life, stuck in this cage with a madman, and if he thinks I'm easy beaten, then what does that spell for me?]
[And if this goes on? If you choke each other out, if neither of you gives way, what does that leave when you come to? The voice of her thoughts, for a moment, sounds almost like her father. When there's no choice, Sue, hesitation's ever a fault.]
[There's no choice. And if she's alive, as it seems she is, and if she's like to stay that way, she has to at least try to do it with her ribs intact. Even if it means trusting in the word of a man whose promise seems less than spit in the wind. The alternative, it seems, is that neither of them back down an inch, and that isn't looking all that much better.]
[Gritting her teeth, and with a sick and sinking certainty that it will do absolutely nothing to help her, she whips her arm loose from around his neck.]