Stavanger Bay move along, move along

It wasn’t just the nausea that kept her tongue still behind the lock of her teeth. Treepie could think of no riposte to such a horrible assertion. It was hard to believe she’d loved Sobeille once, or thought she had.

She knew the accusation was true, in a sense. In the eyes of those children, she’d certainly abandoned them, and to such a terrible fate. Did it matter that she hadn’t done it deliberately? That she’d been harmed badly trying to stand up for them? Had they died, thinking she didn’t care?

Her lip wobbled, two seconds before a second wave of vomit expelled itself from her mouth. She retched onto the wet sand at her feet, then coughed and spat before wiping at her mouth. When she raised her eyes back to Sobeille, one was a smear of red where a blood vessel had burst.

I never would’ve left them with you willingly, she rebuffed in a hoarse voice, before deciding on a more accurate word, or knowingly.