For a moment, she did not respond.
The words settled into the space between us, the kind of statement that should have ended things.
But suddenly... a sudden energy started flowing through the air.
It was subtle at first.
I looked at her, and then noticed something...
A tremor in her hand.
A tightening in her shoulders.
Her breathing changed, not in rhythm, but in depth, each inhale drawing in more than the last, each exhale carrying something heavier with it.
Her fingers curled slowly.
"…No."
The word came out hoarse, if it had been forced through something resisting it.
Her head tilted downward, her white hair falling across her face, shadowing her eyes from view. For a second, it looked like she might stop there, as the refusal would end as nothing more than that.
It didn't.
"No…"
Her voice steadied slighly, losing the hesitation that had been there a moment before.
"I did not lose."
The air changed.
CRACK!
