Shady

"Haven't you?" Jerica spat back.

"You're setting up a false dichotomy," Jerica muttered with a deep sigh. "You dissociate during and feel guilty later. You can't dissociate forever, it catches up to you eventually."

"Oh, yes, it's very emotional to acknowledge reality, my bad." Jerica rolled her eyes, feeling herself shutting down. Fine. She'd been trying to make things more pleasant between them, but ...

"I mean..." That one was her own fault. She shrugged, uncomfortable, and looked down at the arrow, brushing her fingertips across the edge of the blade. "Making things better for ...

"Never said it was." Jerica shrugged. "Only seems fair for you to tell me, since I told you why Biryn atta--" she coughed. "Was pissed at me."

"Was anything out of the ordinary going on with your friend?" Jerica asked. "Why did they come over?"

Jerica didn't like this game. And she didn't like how nosy Eve was getting. So she abruptly asked instead, "What were you doing before you woke up here?"

"No!" Jerica snapped. "That's why he was pissed at me. 'Cause you can't go back and force me to torture someone to death if they're already dead."

"There is no option to do the right thing," Jerica breathed, pulling an arrow out of the quiver to give her hands something to fiddle with. She brushed the fletching ...

"No," Jerica snapped. She took a deep breath, realizing she was lashing out at Eve for no reason whatsoever. "I mean, yeah, I guess. Kind of. I don't know. I'm ...

"Because I..." Jerica hesitated, laying an arm over her own abdomen protectively as she tried to think of a way to explain this that didn't paint her as an absolute ...

"I mean, Biryn had--" Jerica cut herself off. There was no point in airing her dirty laundry. "I got into a fight with... well, it's not that out of the ...

Jerica thought for a moment. "I don't remember," she admitted at last. She was silent for a long moment as she tried to think through what the last thing she ...

"I do too," Jerica agreed. Finally, some common ground between them. "I've been thinking about it and I can't figure out who would want to do this to us. There ...

The silence between them was oppressive. But Jerica didn't know what to do to fix it, since she'd apparently offended Eve when she'd tried to offer to slow down for ...