Her stomach twisted and turned inside out. She only barely managed to set, with shaking hands, her tea on the coffee table. And then she folded those trembling fingers into each other and clenched them in her lap. Her expression had shuddered by degrees into stricken horror. She couldn't look at the man across from him. Her ears burned with the buzzing of his last words, the culmination of his explanation, and she struggled to find breath, to find anything she could say.
The longer the silence stretched, the worse it became. Where was Errol now? Had he suffered? Was this man here now for her? The horror by degrees fell into fury. The fury traveled from the center of her through her chest and stomach and arms until she was shaking with it.
"What have you done with him?" she finally asked, and her voice, though low, was terrible. "Where did you leave him?" Those clasped fingers were gripping each other so tightly that white radiated where her fingertips touched. She was unarmed, hopelessly outmatched, but she promised herself, she promised Errol that she wouldn't give up without a fight.