“You know, you really shouldn’t smoke.”
I said it without thinking, through the sleeve covering my mouth and nose. You put the cigarette out, and I would have thought no more of it, but I was stopped on my way to open the window by one of your hands manacled around my wrist.
“Do you think I need you to tell me that?”
I could only look down at my hand, where the wrist was obscured entirely.
“Tell you what…”
Your grip on my wrist was far too tight; it painfully compressed the bone until I looked up, at your blank and unreadable face. “Is it incapable of giving me sensible answers, when I ask it a question?”
“*No-“*
I would have elaborated, tried to explain myself; I was cut off, struck into speechlessness by a vicious slap against my cheek. I lost all comprehension, rendered insensible by the sudden shock and pain. I made no effort to stop myself sinking to the floor, one hand instinctively pressed into the hot and stinging pain in my face.
You were dreadfully composed, completely unaffected. “Then why didn’t it manage the first time?”