As she watched Besca and Dahlia walk and run off respectively, Quinn's heart grew leaden in her chest. She suddenly felt terrible, and the way her voice had sounded rewound against her brain. She sounded so...so like—

No. She couldn't think about that right now. She just couldn't. And at the thought, the storm in her head started to drain away. Her stiff grip on the door handle loosened, then released entirely. She closed her eye for a moment. She felt bad for talking that way to Dahlia, and she felt bad for pushing Besca. Both of those were true. But they also weren't really important in the moment. What was important was Roaki. And as she turned back to the cell, she could see that the girl was doing...

[i]Not well[/i] would have been a good way to describe her, if perhaps a bit of an understatement. She was so [i]fragile[/i] that it made Quinn's chest ache.

"[color=ec008c]I’m n-not…going. T-this is…where I…belong…[/color]"

Wrapping her hands carefully around the bars again, she opened her mouth to interrupt. [i][color=ffe63d]No, no, you don't belong here. Nobody belongs here, least of all you,[/color][/i] she wanted to say, and [i][color=ffe63d]please, I just want to help you[/color][/i] along with it. But before she could get a word in edgewise, Roaki viciously punched the metal bars, setting them a-rattling against Quinn's hands. She looked down, eye wide in alarm, as Roaki continued:

"[color=ec008c]S-should have k-killed me. Dead…a-anyway. Just l-leave me alone. Let me…die.[/color]" And then one final sentence to freeze the blood in Quinn's veins:

"[color=ec008c]D-don’t take…anything else…[/color]"

She froze and stiffened, eye widening more in horrified disbelief as another phrase, similar yet so different, played through her head. It was torn from more than a month ago now, but still just as vivid and horrible as the day she'd first screamed it, crying hysterically, in Doctor Follen's office:

[i][color=ffe63d]Don't send me back![/color][/i]

Tears came to her almost reflexively and she collapsed to a sitting position. Reaching out nearly without thinking, she threaded her arms through the narrow bars (it was a tight fit, but she managed to slip them far enough) and wrapped Roaki's hand in both of her own before she could pull it back. Her eye now was nothing but tender. A lump had formed in her throat immediately alongside her tears, and she needed to fight through it to speak. But fight through it she did.

"[color=ffe63d]Roaki—[i]god[/i]—Roaki,[/color]" she murmured softly, squeezing the small, pale, and [i]freezing[/i] hand tight, "[color=ffe63d]I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry, who [i]did[/i] this to you...?[/color]"