Stavanger Bay caught between heart and hemorrhage

Papa speaks and Qilaq sucks in a breath. Sorting the thoughts running through her mind doesn’t give her any progress but she knows she can’t find what she needs. Heavy and lost, she releases the gasp of air as if she were giving up. Nothing wants to work and she knows she doesn’t want to continue. The tightness in her chest and the way her throat constricts leaves her struggling to put words to the way she feels, to try and find the answers she needs to answer the questions.
 
What happened?
 
She doesn’t answer for a long time, focusing on the flow of her breathing and perhaps, for a moment, she forgot.
 
“I dunno,” she finally says with slurred and lazy words. “I don’t know,” she enunciates this time. Qilaq then brings her gaze upward, twisting so she can see his face. “Where did he go?”