Bruce's first impulse upon seeing Jeff fall, his body spasming in agony, was to help him. Not knowing how, though, he stayed where he was. The sensation of something vaguely familiar and black spoke from within his soul. The blade he'd lodged in the ground earlier quivered. 
He stared down his nose at Zelriane, the shadow of his own hair masking the expression on his face. A voice Bruce had long since forsaken mused in his mind.
[color=0072bc][i]'Perhaps he's the sort who might enjoy being fed his own entrails.'[/i][/color]
The corner of Bruce's mouth quirked upward briefly before he could suppress it. He kept his gaze steady on Zelriane, his expression not a glare, but reflective of a kind of hunger. The chains, still circling around him, shivered and jangled, though the flow of Ki remained strong and constant. There was, however, a new... edge to the music of it. 
[color=0072bc][b]"So, you do have a personality."[/b][/color] Bruce said, his tone calm, with no difference in his voice that would be apparent to anyone save maybe Jeff. He talked as though he weren't cataloguing every word Zelriane uttered for future reference and dissection. [color=0072bc][b]"Good to know."[/b][/color]

Bruce didn't miss the way Shaidra had slunk away, nor the evidence that she genuinely had her own intelligence, though some part of her psyche might qualify as broken. 
[color=0072bc][b]"Seems rude to give orders to the one who owns the roof over our heads."[/b][/color] Bruce said, just loud enough for her to hear. He didn't look at her when he made the idle comment, largely because the glimmer of blackness in his eyes demanded he keep them on Zelriane. [color=0072bc][b]"I am curious- and forgive me for my ignorance in the ways of science, Shaidra- but in searching for proof, experiments are the favored means of gaining results, correct? I just wish to know how many of those present are test subjects and who the administrator is."[/b][/color]

Bruce didn't expect to really persuade Shaidra to just let him and Jeff go. She was clearly smarter than Zelriane, though she took orders as though she weren't- she believed herself physically inferior. Allowing himself to bring his full attention back to the green-eyed sack of arrogance and molded excrement, the cries from within for retribution and unsightly punishment flared again.
[color=0072bc][b]"I find it amusing you think I can trust your stakes, particularly as you have not named what's in our interest for accepting. You only name terms for our loss, not our victory, or our survival, which I grant you is the most likely of the three."[/b][/color] Bruce said, keeping his voice loud enough to kill any possibility of either Order member hearing the follicles he'd dropped earlier gathering together.