Celia's voice came out before she could stop it.
"'What the hell are you talking about?'"
Not loud. The specific, controlled loud of someone who has been holding something in and has reached the exact end of the capacity to hold it. The words hit the air of the shelter like something thrown.
Nara didn't flinch.
That was the thing about Nara. She never flinched. She absorbed the directed energy of other people's reactions with the composed, waiting quality of someone who had already planned for this.
"'Celia—'"
"'No,'" Celia said. She was sitting up fully now, her hands at her sides, her voice doing the thing it did when she was trying to be rational and her body was running seventeen degrees hotter than rational required. "'No, you don't get to just — what are you saying, exactly? Are you hearing yourself?'"
"'I'm saying—'"
