[@knight125][@Caits]

Kijani stared at Anthonyy while he spoke, silent, and almost completely motionless. Once he was done, she continued to look at him. Finally, she spoke, her voice initially so quiet that it was barely audible. "So... tell me, then. Which part of my suffering was the [i]necessary[/i] part?" Yes, she had heard it, and she was in no mood for semantics. At least her voice seemed to be gaining strength. "Was it when you drugged me? Left me powerless, but conscious, so I could feel every minute of fear? Or when I was chained up in the truck, spending every second kicking myself for being dumb enough to think someone was on my side? Oh, wait, maybe it was when I got restrained to a table and told that my own mother wanted to abort me, that I was a mistake from the moment of my conception?" She was shaking now. 

"Unfortunately, the sleeping tablets failed to wipe out my mind. I'm not an idiot, Anthony. I can still see you weighing, calculating every word before you speak it. Even if you do care about me, somewhere in your mind, your words aren't real." She chuckled, even her voice trembling now. "The only time you've been anything approaching honest was when you first came in. You had your mask on tight, but I was looking at your eyes. You looked like you wanted nothing more than to scream at me, to shake me and ask me what the hell I thought I was doing." Her head dropped. She would have been crying again, but there wasn't anything left.

"You didn't do that, though. Every word out of your mouth has been grade-A, Luthor approved, gold plated [i]bullshit[/i]." She stared him dead in the face. "I grew up the same as you. I know how to lie with the beauty of an opera. I know how to sound SO honest that people will eat the stories from my lips like candy. You're doing that to me now, and you're expecting me to swallow it whole? You're telling me that I'm important while you speak to me in the same voice that you used poisoning me?" She let that statement hang, and then lifted her chin, the faintest spark of her dead pride in her eyes.

"Tell me the truth. Tell me the fucking TRUTH, or I never want to see you cast a fucking shadow near me again. You've got one chance, or I'm done with you." She had nothing left to lose. Cutting Anthony out would be as easy as burning paper.