"Oh I've seen this--" Elizabeth pulls away from Gai enough to look him in the eye. "What do you think I did when Booker first killed a dozen people while I dodged the bullets? I ran like hell. Away from him.

"...and then a few hours later I was opening tears that killed people. And a few months later I was hunting someone down, actively. Because he deserved it."

She breaks her gaze and looks down at Gai's chest. "It isn't whether or not I feel it's right to use on those people. But I couldn't say why in front of everyone.

"My power... it started to manifest when I was a child. And the older I got, the more powerful I became. I would be able to open a tear one day, and the next day it would be almost impossible. It grew, exponentially. I saw the charts. And I realized that whenever they realized I was stronger, they would increase the force of the siphon. The machine that kept my powers contained."

She hides her face in his chest again. "And then they knew they couldn't contain it anymore. And they shoved that, that cable into me...!" She can almost feel it happening again. The restraints, the antiseptic, the first pressure and--

"They were desperate, Gai! They had to control the force I possessed and they scraped together a way to do it out of sheer fear that I would kill them all the next chance I had."

Her tone is straying into something Gai hasn't heard before: quiet and angry, the sort of tone that someone used when they had been pushed too far and hurt too much. There's no doubt in her voice, she would have done it. She had done it.

"They'll do the same. They'll do anything to contain what the Iron Eye has built."