The specific quality of Zane's expression when he heard that was the look of a man who had just been offered a gilded cage and was frantically trying to calculate the exact weight of the chains. It was the expression of someone being offered a way out that was technically generous, but at a cost that would strip him of every ounce of his remaining dignity.
He didn't even have time to scream.
Rex didn't wait for the argument to form, for the pride to flare, or for the vengeance to manifest. With a flick of his wrist and a subtle, terrifying ripple in the local atmospheric pressure, he applied the Sleep Manipulation.
He didn't use the violent, jarring version that crushed the mind; he used the surgical, gentle version at the specific depth that induced unconsciousness with the absolute completeness of a shutter closing on a camera lens.
