It was the slow, returning quality of consciousness finding its footing—the way a woman comes back to herself after the ground stops moving and realizes she is still standing in the rubble of her own life.
The tears on her cheeks were still wet. Her nipple still ached with the deep, throbbing quality of tissue that had been fed on. Her belly was still round and present and his and—
'And he had done this to her.'
"You can't—" Her voice came out fractured and thin, the first attempt at words from a throat that had been used for other things all night. She swallowed. Tried again. "You 'can't' do this to a person."
He was still looking at her.
The attending, patient quality of a man who had heard the sentence beginning and already knew its shape.
