ksmith | more wordage

Moments passed. Jani edged away from the door, returned to her crate, and sat. The silence pressed in from all directions, weighty as air before a storm, waiting for her to dispel it, lighten it, counter it with words. Yet she waited, constructing lies from pieces of fact, then discarding them one after the other, because Niall knew one bit and Feyó another and John another still and they'd discuss the disparities in front of her and toss the whole mess aside and make her start again, and again, and again, for as long as it took them to resolve all the conflicts and fill all the holes. For as long as it took for them to drain her of everything except the truth.