[It should have meant something that she was sympathizing, that she was trying to connect. But his eyes narrow to mean slits, locked on hers as he rises slowly from his chair and moves around the table’s edge one deliberate step at a time to stand before her, barely a foot separating them. His body’s taut and primed for attack, his breathing shallow and sharp with the vehemence of a tirade on the very verge of erupting. But his voice is low, raw, and deathly calm. Hundreds of answers, hundreds of screaming voices in his mind clamour to be heard, and all but one are silenced.]

A prisoner in an inescapable dungeon can always aspire for more, scraping and clawing his way at stone walls until his fingers bleed and are worn down to the bone. [He says, tautly.] But try as he might, in that cell he shall rot for the rest of his days. [His eyelids lower, his gaze glassy and unfeeling and fixed on her still. But staring through her, as if she were a pane of glass.] I had a choice.

To live, unafraid, no longer at the mercy of man or beast... [His Adam's apple joggles slightly.] Or to die, would I be so fortunate. For there are fates far worse than death itself. Fates that would make even a gruesome death the sweetest kindness.

[There’s a twitch of at the corner of his mouth, lips pinched.]

Such… [A snarl, barely controlled, issues through gritted teeth.] were my choices. I made mine.