The sheer force behind his hand could have torn away the pulse of life. Whatever throbbing of light still kept him alive, it was threatened and lingering dangerously close to the edge that would separate the dead from the living. To deliver a final squeeze, to tighten his fingers one last time and let the body fall with a thud at his feet, was a decision that Jor-El could make. The woman’s voice, softer than any man’s and frightened, (yes, in his fury even, he could hear what was behind it) made no impact on him until Lex’s withering (the sort that came from a man fighting for his life) somehow drove the interruption over to him. The voice of the woman who had come in through the door…
Saying nothing to her, not turning his neck to see her face, Jor-El was suddenly finished with this game (this hurtful thing that he had thrust upon the human), and in his last reminder, his last painful infliction, he lowered Lex to the ground, looked deeply into his blackening vision, and bashed his head against the floor only once. Once was all that it took.
He said nothing, his face was transformed into a blank slate and Jor-El took to his feet, turned his body, beheld the woman. He recognized her, the hair, the dark eyes, the face that was hauntingly similar to her great aunt’s, to Louise McCallum's, who he had loved before Lara.
His speed took him to the door faster than she could see, and he stopped to stare at her, a calm look that lacked the cruelty he had shown to Lex.
“I have my reasons. You wouldn’t understand them.” He was gone before he could hear any reply that she could have given to him.