Breathe, she says. Bella breathes. The air feels cool and stale as it slips inside her nose. It's so heavy that it sinks down her throat as if she'd swallowed river water. It fills her lungs and pushes her chest out while she holds it, and holds it, and holds it. See, Mynx? She's breathing. Her chest itches with the effort of compliance. She exhales sharply through her mouth with a soft hiss that ends with a dainty spit where a splash of blood drips against her tongue. 

Come, she says. Bella goes. Her boots drag noisily across the floor so that even in this muted hellscape it's enough to set her ears to irritable twitching. Her legs are [i]crawling[/i] up and down with insect feet and pincers nipping every last piece of her. Where they go, numbness follows. To watch her stumble and shuffle like this, Mynx might be forgiven for thinking Bella was too tired to pick her feet up anymore. 

Maybe that's why her smile turns so excited. Or maybe it's because Bella still comes when she's called. Like a good girl. And maybe that's why she misses it: the telltale swish-flick of Bella's tail she knows, better than anyone, always happens right before a lunge. 

No neck has ever felt so sweet to squeeze. The scales ripple in fear and surprise against her palms. The hot blood rushes underneath them, faster and harder and more erratic the longer she holds, which is exactly what it means to touch fear. The claws on her pinky and ring fingers dig between the gaps with a satisfying squelch so that her hands can wring tighter and pinch the traitorous gulps of air down to pathetic, desperate wheezes. She wrenches her hands back and forth, back and forth, to feel the muscles bend and crunch where [i]she[/i] wants them to for once.

"Shut up!" she half snarls and half screams, her voice cracking like [i]she's[/i] the one being strangled, "Liar! Traitor! Shut up! Shut! Up!!"

Bella surges with wild animal power and lifts Mynx's feet up off the floor. Her eyes burn with tears. She squeezes harder, to make the sound stop. To make the lying gurgles stop. To make the false gagging, the treason-death noises go away. Go away forever. She feels a trembling hand paw desperately at her arm, and she lunges forward again to slam Mynx into the wall. The crunch of the impact echoes through the room again and again as she repeats the motion over and over, cracking dials and shattering delicate instruments that line the place with Mynx's spine. 

Crunch. Can't trust her. Crunch. Won't trust her. Crunch. She'll turn into a monster. Crunch. She'll melt into a shadow and disappear again. Crunch. Don't let her. Crunch. Don't give her the chance. Crunch. Don't let her in anymore. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch!

She can feel the blood rushing in her own body. Her own heart squeezes in her chest so sharp and tight she feels death creeping through her insides with every second she stands there with her arms around her [s]friend's[/s] neck. The difference is that her chokes come out as ugly, heaving sobs. Her pain is the fire lacing the muscles in her arms.

A hand touches her. She will never know whose; it is not hers and cannot be Mynx's. She feels it touch her shoulder and turn her around. She gives no thought to it. The tangled nest of ideas inside her brain can't be unwoven into anything a person could recognize right now anyway. She feels the touch and the pull and she gives into it with animistic desperation. One final flex of her muscles, one final ripple of power. Mynx goes skidding across the ground away from her with a dizzying roll until her body finally comes to rest among a pile of broken fiber cables. 

There is nothing of Mynx left in that lump on the floor. A monster fights to breath again, with monster noises and monster power. But that's not true, is it? It's all Mynx, lying there in front of her. It's only Mynx. And she doesn't need to be able to speak to tell Bella how hurt she really is. All at once, her body betrays her. Her muscles give up and she slumps the ground without so much as kitten strength left for her to draw on. 

Her claws scrabble against the floor, reminding her of how broken she is as the blunted fingers slip and slide without leaving so much as a nick anywhere. She can't breathe; every bit of noxious air is only good for crying. She is a creature of tears and sobs and snot. And that makes her heart burn angrier than ever. 

"I warned... I! Get the fuck away from me! I! I!" Bella's voice breaks on almost every syllable. She tries to push herself back to kneeling, but slips and collapses back onto her chest with a fresh burst of pain, "Never wanna see your face again! Tell me it's fine, you cunt! Try it one more time! See what happens! Guh! AAAAAHHHH!"

Bella, with all her anger, can't will another word out of her throat. She screams with such terrible fury that passing Coherents double back and scramble all the faster for exit bays to get away from the ghosts that have been unleashed among their dying battlestation. Bella, with all her power, can't move anything but the tip of her tail. Bella, for all that she tried to make it otherwise, is at Mynx's mercy.

And that's why it hurts even more to see her stand up. And whether it's a question of can't or won't, does it even matter that she doesn't try to disguise herself when she runs out of the room?