"You lot don't know anything about tough." The voice came clear through the noise. "I've seen tougher shit than any of you have imagined."
A wall of protest came back at her from four or five men at once, that particular kind of shouting people only do at somebody they've already decided they like—loud, overlapping, almost affectionate in its aggression.
The hallway ran under a low red light that made everything in it look like something else. Skin the colour of old brick. Eyes too dark. The air was warmer here, thicker, carrying the continuous low roar of the factory floor ahead of us and the sharp edge of machine oil that had never quite left the walls.
I think we're properly trapped now.
Venna's thought arrived while we walked, clean and private, and she was right, and I didn't have a way to tell her so.
