The hand slipped out from Quinn's grasp, and she squeezed her eye shut, pushing out the last few errant tears. When she opened it again she found that Roaki still wasn't looking at her. Her voice was shuddering, stammering, barely able to string words together, and Quinn felt a sudden sharp pain tug at her heart. She was crying, she couldn't talk right. Something horrible had been done to her, and now she was somewhere she didn't seem to understand. A long, slow sigh. 

They really were alike, weren't they?

"[color=ec008c]Wh…why? Why didn’t you j-just…kill me?[/color]"

Another jolt of pain through her chest. Roaki...

Quinn was beginning to realize that it wasn't some kind of act she'd put on, it wasn't a grave misunderstanding that the two had, nothing like that. As horrible as it was, it was sinking in that Roaki [i]genuinely[/i] didn't understand why Quinn hadn't pulled that final trigger and ended her life. Why she was still alive. Though she didn't struggle to remember the searing pains that had ripped through her during the duel, there was no satisfaction in this. It hurt her, seeing the girl so beaten down, brought so low. 

After a few seconds passed, she retracted her arms through the bars again, wrapping them around herself. She stared at Roaki, tiny teardrops still beaded on her eyelashes. "[color=ffe63d]Because...[/color]" It hadn't even occurred to her that there would be a question about this from anybody, let alone Roaki. She raced to find a way to explain it, rifling through the disorganized catalogue of thoughts that was crammed together inside her head. A second passed. Two seconds. Three. Finally, she took a long, deep breath.

"[color=ffe63d]...Why would I?[/color]" 

The bars flickered with memory, turning for just the barest moment into the surface of a black-blue lake, with two imperfect moons reflecting and reflected in each others' lights. She held up her hand to the lake and the memory dissolved, leaving her pressing her hand against the freezing cold metal bars again. "[color=ffe63d]You and me, we're [i]hurt,[/i] Roaki. Someone did horrible things to us, and now we're [i]damaged[/i].[/color]" 

She dropped her hand, looking solemnly at the wreck of a child on the other side of the divide. "[color=ffe63d]Killing you would've been wrong. And I only hurt you because I had no other choice.[/color]" She looked down at her knees, resting on the freezing floor, and her voice lowered to just barely above a whisper. "[color=ffe63d]I'm sorry.[/color]"